Oh, yeah. It's all coming together. Recently, Disney revealed that it's been beavering away on a working lightsaber concept that will be everything every Star Wars fan has hoped for since A New Hope.
As this is literally Disney we're talking about, I'm imagining that we'll get a variety of sparkly laser swords to gander at when they're officially released. Any fan worth their Crait will know that each character's lightsaber has identifiable differences that imply certain things about their personality or destiny, as these weapons are symbolic extensions of those facets. Kyber crystals, which is what the blade itself is made from, are actually colourless until the Jedi youngling becomes attuned to the crystal and therefore transform into a certain colour. Blue lightsabers are found with people who are Jedi Guardians, and use physical capabilities to defend the light side of the Force.
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Green lightsabers indicate a Jedi Consular, or someone who is invested in uncovering the intricacies of the Force. Rey's yellow lightsaber shows that she is a Jedi Sentinel, meaning an individual who balances both the traits of the Guardian and the Consular in one motive. Anyway, I could go on and on, but you're here for the prospect of owning one of these bad boys for yourself. Well, I'll let you down gently - they won't be able to slice through steel or chop and cook through steaks. It's likely to be an extremely cool (and extremely expensive) collectible, though those at the Disney Parks press event were not allowed to show off photos or videos of the lightsaber prototype.
Be that as it may, the company did submit a patent for a lightsaber product three years ago. "A special effects device for providing an energy sword effect. The device includes two long plastic semi-cylinders, and these two blade body members are rolled perpendicular to their length, which creates compact cylinders of material of small volume that can be provided on a pair of spools in a hilt," reads the description. "To extend the blade, a motor provided in the hilt unrolls the blade body members from the spools. Each blade body member passes through a blade forming guideway that nests the semi-cylindrical blade body members together as they leave the hilt. To retract the blade, the process is reversed. The lighting of the blade is achieved with a flexible strip of light sources. The light source strip is attached to a blade end cap and positioned in the center of the two blade body members such that it is pulled up along with the blade body members during their extension."
Gives you the shivers, doesn't it? There's no word on when these will be on sale, but the fact that chairman Josh D'Amaro was confident enough to show the lightsaber off is a positive sign. Walt Disney Imagineering's portfolio creative executive Scott Trowbridge also stated that there were a "lot of questions" on whether the product was "real or CGI," and that photos may well be on the way soon. We'll keep you posted.
Featured Image Credit: Disney, Lucasfilm