Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

Lightsabers Recalled 67

Posted by CmdrTaco from the I'm-keeping-mine dept.
SEWilco writes "Gee, imagine that. Lightsabers can really burn people. Um.. oh, yeah, there's a toy recall now on some models. " I have a Qui-Gonn and a Darth Maul saber that I ain't given back.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Lightsabers Recalled More

Lightsabers Recalled

Comments Filter:

  • That was a joke, son......

  • Wow! I'll be able to install something in my lightsaber. I get closer to being a Jedi every day.

    Hmm, do they have Debian packages, or should I just grab the tarball?

    Maybe when I'm ready I can make my own. I want a yellow blade. Or a white one. Enough green, blue, and red crap. Additive colors just don't do it these days.

    I can't resist:
    Use the source, Luke.

    --
    QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
  • Actually, battery overheating leads to ALKALI burns, not acid burns. Potassium hydroxide is the wrong electrolyte at the wrong end of the pH scale. Nevertheless, alkali burns also are the path to the Dark Side.
    --
  • Well, if lightsabers could cut through anything, why did Luke's lightsaber bounce off Vader's armor?
  • I'd grab the tarball and compile. The older (Vader/Luke) lightsabers use libc5. The new ones (Quigon/Maul) are glibc based. They have completely incompatible screw types, among other things. Since it's only the new ones that need the upgrade, I guess it's proof that the old ones are better. Slackware all the way, baby.

    -Chris
  • I found this out earlier today as i went to the local toy store. They had already taken them off the shelves. I had just gotten paid. I had been eyeing them both all week. Its just not fair. *tear up*

  • If you read the article, you'll see that you just have to call up Hasbro and they'll send you a kit to fix them.

  • You know (Score:1)

    by / ( 33804 )
    This'll only make the things more valuable to collectors. Most of 'em never take the things out of the package anyway, much less waste any of the precious fuel in the "original batteries -- oooooh!".
  • The only thing more annoying that people posting stupid comments before reading the story is having the story posted by someone who didn't read all of the story in the first place...
  • Reading the article it's clear you don't have to "give it back"... You can just order the free repair kit and do it yourself. Good way to keep collectors from worrying, anyway.

    Looking at the market for SWE1 toys, though, I suspect that collectors will never have to worry about their items becoming rare.

  • Wow! I'll be able to install something in my lightsaber. I get closer to being a Jedi every day.

    Maybe when I'm ready I can make my own. I want a yellow blade. Or a white one. Enough green, blue, and red crap. Additive colors just don't do it these days.

    -Chris
  • And, of course, they suffer from the same problem as all futuristic sword-type weapons, in that you become incredibly vulnerable to anyone with a gun. Without the ability to use the force to deflect bullets you're pretty much dead...
  • They don't come with batteries, unfortunately. And they can suck the batteries you DO get dry real fast if you live anywhere near friends with lightsabers. Until they break.

    Anyone have a Luke saber blade to sell? :)

    -Chris

  • Recall notices (Score:3)

    by John Campbell ( 559 ) on Saturday June 26, 1999 @06:20AM (#1831549) Homepage
    Am I the only one who thought that, "Customers should stop using these lightsabers immediately," was funny?

    "Your lightsaber use you should not. Defective, your lightsaber is, mmm?

    "Use leads to spring dislodging. Spring dislodging leads to battery overheating. Battery overheating leads to acid burns. Acid burns are the path to the Dark Side..."

  • Yea Rob! We had good fights at LE I'm not givin mine back either!
  • Well, my kids like the acrylic tube illuminated with a gas laser, but a real light saber can't be built with our current technologies. Others already gave physics and engineering reasons.

    If we ever achieve something like a force field then a lightsaber or Niven's "variable sword" become more possible. But then there will be a lot of other gadgets too...

    Anyone know the physics behind the teleportation experiments? Is only a photon state being teleported, or could the "strong force" be teleported without an atom?

  • Dont see why they would be.. the way they're explained in star wars books is severely improbable (and only that because saying impossible is never a good thing) and even if you managed to make one using pre-created plasma held in place with a very interestingly shaped magnetic field ('cause they dont form in that shape under any conitions i can think of) it'd still be an essentially useless weapon. The balance would be hideous, you couldnt look directly at the thing, and unless you found some magic way to make temperature falloff faster than physically possible, you couldnt hold it in your hand without said hand turning into charcoal.
    Dreamweaver
  • the concept of a lightsaber actually cutting through things is akin, in my mind, to the idea of a laser actually cutting through something. apparently, it is the intensity of the thing (or something of that nature) that allows it to sever objects and create various other forms of destruction. back to the laser thought, we have laser pointers, lasers in our CD players, etc, that don't cut through objects, and then you have industrial and medical lasers, that do. plus, if anyone ever reads "Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology" by Bill Smith, they'd know all about lightsabers....
  • Speaking of lightsabers - Yard sales are popular in my area. In some camera stuff I found some vintage equipment that is a _dead ringer_ for the real light sabers. Former antique camera strobe stuff. It is _really amazing_ . I do not have the ability to post pictures or else I would. They feel _really_ good to hold too.

    Not like that plastic hasbro crap. Nice aluminum. Yes, they even have cool switches on the side.

    Just one step away from totally real.

    Looking at the above link to the 'neon tube' lightsabers, they say that you can not use it real swordplay because it is glass.

    What good is a lightsaber if you can't use it for swordplay???

  • dude, that was damn funny... I want one now...
  • Sorry, your 'slivers+magnet' idea wouldn't work - metals lose their sensitivity to magnetic fields when they're heated up (iron wonks out at around 700-800C, I think), so even if you relied on air resistance to heat up the slivers instead of pre-heating them, they wouldn't be pulled back in by the magnet. Of course, you could always just forget about pulling them back - then you'd have a rather cool rail gun, which would be much more effective than any light saber.
  • "How can a lightsaber cut through anything, save another lightsaber?"

    Actually in episode 5 luke's blade glances off Vaders armor, and in 6, they dont cut thru the railings... hmmm perhaps light saber quality control has dropped off over the generations.
  • >Slackware all the way, baby.

    You said it, m'friend. Slackware rocks.

    And I'm also impressed about how you managed to twist a story about lightsabers into a distribution troll ;)
  • vader/luke are glibc2 and qui gonn/obi wan/maul are libc5... remember, it's a prequel.
  • If your local newspaper doesn't carry the controversial new comic strip The Boondocks [boondocks.net], check out the lightsaber series starting here [uexpress.com].

    I know just how the kid feels.

  • That's a bit nasty isn't it dude....

    They're not hurting anyone, well no one out of exploding battery range anyway.

    It could be worse, they could be buying *special* vibrating lightsabres from the "Tool Shed" on Oxford St, Darlinghurst.
  • Forget swords.. try this one on for size:
    Carefully wound 'strings' of the stuff (perhaps as many as a few hundred, considering how little space they would take up), each with a small sliver of superconductor at one end, the other end attached to an unpowered electromagnet in the base of a small tube (about the size of a can of mace for example) which was itself ringed in electromagnetic coils (powered) to keep the things centerd. Some guy comes running at you with his neato-keen sword, you hold up a hand, flip the button and his head/torso region turns into a pile of fillet on the ground as the hundreds of 'strings' are propelled out of the tube at high speed..
    Dreamweaver
  • Most books/movies with teleportation assume the actual body being moved is travelling.. in trek the person is broken down and their actual component molecules are sent along with a reconstruction pattern on a data stream.. kinda inefficient way of doing things, but hey. The current bleeding edge in that tech direction is some guys trying to recreate an electron by scanning it and sending the data over a cable to another location where... something is done to another electron to make it exactly emulate the firt. It's been a while since i read the article. The thing was that even if they ever got it to work on complex structures (they were planning to try a virus in a few years if the electron works out) the object being scanned is destroyed in the process.. so keeping around copies isnt an option
    Dreamweaver

  • More info at this URL: (Score:3)

    by Dast ( 10275 ) on Saturday June 26, 1999 @07:46AM (#1831569)
    Here. [synicon.com.au]
  • I just have to comment on how well your .sig works with the topic...

  • Sorry if I'm not a big Star Wars an here, but I have some thoughts. Having never read the "tecnical" manuals that are out there I can only rely on what I have read, being William Gibson. Anyone ever read Johnny Mnemonic from burning crome? (screw Keanu Reeves and that stupid movie) If you have you'd remember the idea of the micro filament that could seemingly cut through anything. (I'm getting to lightsabers)
    Does any one know of the vaibility of such an idea? if so then the microfiliment in the story was obviously housed by something and something made of that material could theoretically be fassioned into a pole and have said micro filaments running the length of it side by side. Presto and sword that could cut through anything. That is if it works like the one in the book. I can't honestly say that Gibson did anything more than put preety words together when he thought up a microfilament, but if there is any base for reality in it... very sweet. Possiblly only viable for assasinations cause as someone else stated you can kill from very far away nowadays...

  • Hey, these are better (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.amazing1.com/plasma.htm
    They even have a cool mpg of a guy using one.
    Scroll down a bit and they make custom handle, even a Darth Maul one.
    Oh, and the also sell kits so you can make your own casings...
  • I recall in the backs of one of the Star Wars comics, they said something about the lightsaber's blade actually being an arc. It's a laser that shoots out of the handle, curves back on itself like a hairpin, and goes back into the handle. Yeesh. I think we'll be able to send Jodi Foster around the galaxy in a chair before we're able to make lightsabers.
  • Hmm.. I like blue -- haven't seen any blue light sabers yet (maybe I just haven't paid attention..) Maybe purple would be cool ;-)
  • I've had enough of these bold lightsabre colours, what about some lovely pastel shades??? A jedi's best friend is not the force, it's his interior decorator!
  • I realize that... but I doubt that everyone else will. Not everyone reads the articles that are linked, and I was simply informing people that they need not return them so they might actually fix them.
  • "Acid burns lead to *suffering*", shurely. :)
  • Bwahahha.. i found one.. kinda. It doesnt make sounds, but it came with the darth maul dress-up kit. Probibly a little shorter, too. But I have one, and thats all that matters.

    Though i did feel stupid for buying a complete haloween costume.. the sacrficies i make for toys..

  • *and* get moderated up for it, no less. :)

    -Chris
  • yeah, it did bounce right off his wrist......
    +++++

  • ... (Score:1)

    by dnxthx ( 22324 )
    Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball (TM).
  • Very cool site. Worth a look, to be sure. However, the discussions on the nature of the light sabre blade lend a lot of insight into jut how obscessed and frightening some of these people can get. This guy has obviously read ever piece of Star Wars-related literature ever published, and analyzed it extensively.
  • Certainly, guns are not useful at melee ranges. The trouble to the soldier/warrior armed only with a sword, regardless of type, is surviving to get that close.
  • _Fountains_of_Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke also had microfilaments. In that book they were very think carbon chains or tubes I believe. Today we'd call the tube form Bucky-Tubes [ox.ac.uk]. The ends could turn into some other structure that wouldn't cut through things. You could then have one end fastened to a handle, and then in the other end have a chunk of superconductor. A strong electromagnet in the handle would keep the bucky-tube tight. (the superconductor would be repelled by the electromagnet) Not a light-saber, but a pretty neat high-tech "blade" weapon. The blade would probably be close to invisible too...

    Come to think of it, such an idea might've been proposed in a Larry Niven story, though I can't remember what, or even if...
  • Perhaps the Larry Niven novel you're referring to is The Ringworld Engineers with the large night creating panels strung together with the unbreakable wires that can cut through...at least their ship.

    --Hunter Pankey
  • CMY lightsabers? I like it!
  • Hell, make it out of steel rebar and then..

    *WARNING*
    Disregard this post. Thank you.

    -US Government.
  • Speaker-To-Animals first used one in the Niven Novel "Ringworld".

Slashdot Top Deals

The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep.

Close