Hasbro’s Star Wars Darth Vader Force FX Lightsaber Collectable with removable blade

UPDATE 27 December 2012: Several people have been coming to this page searching for instructions on how to install the batteries in this lightsaber so I’ve decided to update this entry with some extra photos I took of the manual. The four images are new with the last two images retaining their original size so the instruction manual text is still readable. Enjoy!

You don’t know the power of the dark side of the Force until you’ve held the Star Wars Darth Vader Force FX Lightsaber in your hands. When I was young I used to get a broomstick handle and swing it around as if I was wielding a lightsaber, (good times…) but it’s not until now that I’ve ever owned anything that replicates the look and feel of what we’ve seen on-screen for decades now.

I’m not a lightsaber collector, and I know there are those out there who are who know the inner workings and differences between the Hasbro and Master Replica lines and such… I really just bought this because it’s something cool to own. The review will be from the point of view of those who just want to enjoy a little piece of Star Wars so I’ll probably be a lot more forgiving of the product than the die-hard collector’s out there would allow.

The first thing to note is that while this is one hell of a good-looking piece, it isn’t an exact replica of the movie props. To make room for all of the electronics and for the polycarbonate blade itself, the hilt is a bit bigger than what it should be. But hey, I’m not complaining, it’s a great piece of work for the price and it does a good job of bringing you into the moment when you first ignite the blade…

However, before any of that happens, you need to take it out of its box and fit it with three AAA batteries, a process that feels like you’re actually building your own lightsaber, at least the final stages of it…

The box itself is nice, though really, once you take out the prize, you’ll end up shoving it somewhere where you’ll never see it ever again unless you’re moving house or something. Inside the box comes the lightsaber itself, the cap for the emitter for when you remove the blade, a belt clip so you can get pimpin’ with the hilt hanging from your belt, a stand which has a little housing inside to store these extra pieces and the two stand pieces that hold the lightsaber in place which ever way you want on the stand. Oh, and a manual showing you how to put in the batteries and remove the blade, etc.

Holding the lightsaber in my hand for the first time, I noticed just how heavy it actually is. It definitely doesn’t feel cheap with the main part of the hilt made of aluminium with some plastic elements such as the emitter, the band in the middle and a bit of what looks to be chromed plastic on there too. The grip is made of rubber and the internals are all made of plastic, housing all that electronic goodness.

At the bottom of the hilt is the speaker which creates that trademark lightsaber hum once you turn it on by the activation switch located in the mid-section of the hilt. When activated the lightsaber will spark to life with the ignition sound you expect to hear and starts humming away. The speaker is actually quite loud though the sounds it emits are a bit hit and miss. The activation and deactivation sounds sound great and the hum is all there, though the hit and miss part comes from the motion activated sounds. The clash sounds and the lightsaber movement sounds don’t always activate when you want them to when you move the blade or tap it against a surface. I’m sure in years to come another version will probably come out with improvements, but really what we get now isn’t really much to complain about. A little bonus that becomes known only after you remove the blade is a little short-circuit sound you’ll hear when you try to turn on the lightsaber without the blade attached… very cool.

The star of the show, of course, is the polycarbonate blade itself which houses a collection of 64 red LED lights so that when you activate and deactivate the lightsaber, the LEDs will light up sequentially to create the proper effect. When viewing the lightsaber normally and from a distance it’s a solid bright red colour, though at closer inspection you can make out dark spots between the LED lights This is all normal and is part of the construction so there’s nothing to worry about there. Another thing to mention is that the end of the blade is just a clear dome. While the blade is pretty strong, I still wouldn’t go around trying to hit stuff with it, not unless you’re rolling in money and can buy like 50 of these to bust up at your whim.

Oh, and the coolest part of having this lightsaber is lighting it up in the dark, especially when it’s pitch black and then suddenly the lightsaber sparks to life and the room is filled with an ominous red glow… makes you feel pretty badass.

The length of the blade is 85cm (yes, I’m Australian so I use the metric system, deal with it…) from the tip to the hilt and the hilt itself is about 27cm long from emitter to butt. I don’t have a scale handy so I don’t really know how much this weighs, but as I said before, it has a fair amount of heft to it. If you want to go swinging this around and doing your Star Wars kid routine, I suggest using both hands unless you’ve got the cybernetic limbs necessary to wield it with just one.

All-in-all, this is a really nice collectable one that’s definitely going to be mounted under the framed photomosaic picture of Darth Vader I have on the wall… and maybe I’ll take it off of its stand and swing it around for a bit and pretend I’m Darth Vader… you know, for research purposes… yeah… just like I’ve been doing all day so I can write this review.

Lightsaber rating: Impressive… most impressive.

Oh, and one more thing, a little piece of advice for when you’re not planning on using the lightsaber and just want to store it on its stand or where ever, I suggest you take out the batteries… otherwise you’ll forget you put them in there and then after a few months you’ll open up your lightsaber (or other device that uses batteries) to find a crusty mess left by the battery acid leaking out.

…and I promise I’ll get better at working a camera so I can take much better pictures than the one I took for this review…