Darth Vader Hasbro Force FX Lightsaber (with removable blade)

You mother is killed by sandpeople and the man you look up to turns out to be a Sith Lord? You friend and mentor cuts off all your remaining limbs and leaves you laying on a bed of hot coals to burn and now you want revenge? Well, after you get a nifty robotic upgrade, complete with asthmatic breathing, you are going to need a new lightsaber which says, “Hi, I am (insert name here), Dark Lord of the Sith, possibly your father, prepare to die,” (with or without Spanish accent, your choice). If you do not feel like making one of your own, you can always go to thinkgeek.com and get the new Vader Force FX Lightsaber with removable blade and spend your precious time making sure the emperor’s death star plans go well, maybe even cover that pesky exhaust port.

This Monday, I received the Darth Vader Force FX lightsaber with removable blade from thinkgeek.com, Hasbro’s answer to the many hobbyists out there making homemade sabers. One draw back to the original Force FX lightsabers were the blades being fixed. Meaning there really was, aside from some major disassembling, no way you could not hang it from your belt. Which is fine being these sabers are made to be collector’s items, but if you wanted to show off your saber, you would either have to make someone come to your home, take a picture or just carry it around. The removable blade is a good upgrade for con goers and sci-fi roleplayers alike.

One thing about the removable blade, which may be a bit of a downside, is to remove and or attach the blade you have to go through quite a process. There will always be a piece not attached, which means you have to be extremely careful not to lose it. There is angled emitter shroud, with a thumb screw you unscrew, then slide it off over the blade. Now, if you are taking it off, there will be a somewhat thin, round black piece which holds the blade in the socket, you will have to unscrew this as well, sliding it off the blade. One cool feature with this, is the piece holds the blade down, making sure the contacts are touching. If, they are not touching then when you turn it on, the only sound you get is a short Tesla Coil sounding short out. This adds a bit of realism, as obviously without the blade in, you get no saber. Once all is removed, you then place a cover piece and screw it in, and then the shroud goes back over.

If you are wondering what you are going to do with the extra piece, or the belt clip while displaying your saber, another simple but ingenious addition is in the stand itself. Aside from being able to decide whether to display your saber with or without the blade by simply turning the holders, it also has a compartment you can slide open in the back of the stand. There is more than enough room to store any pieces not currently attached to your saber or using, with enough space for anything else you may want to throw in there.

As I said earlier this is designed to be a licensed collectors item, meaning it is approved and endorsed by Lucasfilm ltd. The blade is made of polycarbonate, meaning you probably could do some very light dueling, but it is not suggested by Hasbro. Honestly, who can hold one of these and not want to do a little dueling? I personally wacked it around a bit, and found it quite durable. Though honestly, I did not feel comfortable hitting something as hard as I could, as I noticed with one swing the blade did bend a bit. The blade also has a string of leds which run up the length of the blade, giving it the slow up and down effect when turning it on and off. While a cool feature and quite accurate to the movies, this feature also is another reason to not get into to heavy dueling. If you whack the blade to hard, one of the leds can break meaning dark spots in the blade.

The sabers come with five sounds taken directly from the movies: power-up, idle hum, swing (with pitch change), clash and power-down. The hum is very sithy, deep, rumbly and really gives a menacing feeling as you are holding it. The swing and clash both sound good, but are limited in reaction time. Being a swordsman myself, I can swing a blade pretty quickly, and one thing I noticed is the rebound time between same sounds is slower than I can swing. So, not every hit gets the clash, and when for example doing the Lotus Blossom (Obi-Ani spin), it does not seem to keep up with every movement. It may be a bit nitpicky, but true nonetheless. One cool upgrade regarding the clash sound is the old FX sabers had only one whereas, this Vader one now has four.

The quality of the hilt is amazing. The chrome is shiny, and it has a good weight balance. They are not exact replicas of the movies, the hilts are made slightly larger to accommodate all the electronics inside, but they are beautiful nonetheless. The functionality of the design though, makes the Vader hilt a bit awkward to swing. I would say the Vader hilt is more of a fencing styled hilt or maybe Tai Chi, as opposed to Kendo. As I tried to do some swings, I noticed some pieces tended to push a bit into my hand. Again, these are intended to be display pieces, so I would not use it for intense dueling, and it only pushes in a bit so I would say this is a minor downside.

All in all, this is a very beautiful collector’s item, perfect for any Star Wars fan. One prediction I will make is this, with all the hobbyist out there gutting these for the soundboards inside, this is one collectible which will be worth quite a bit if kept complete. Much like comics made during war time, a complete saber may just end up being a rarity down the road, meaning these not only are collectibles, but heirloom investments as well.