Sean Looi Says

The lovable, feisty, and heroic droid Interactive R2-D2 has been one of everyone's favorite characters from the Star Wars saga. The 15-inch Interactive R2-D2 Interactive Astromech Droid is packed with all the spunk and charm that made it famous. He demonstrates emotion, obeys your commands, plays games, and even has a retractable arm that holds a 12-ounce beverage!

If you would like to see R2D2 in action, as recorded by a fan/collector, click on the following links to download zipped files of the video recordings. There are three videos to download:
Video No. 1: http://www.ou-online.com/images/recreation/sw_r2d2_mov01.zip
Video No. 2: http://www.ou-online.com/images/recreation/sw_r2d2_mov02.zip
Video No. 3: http://www.ou-online.com/images/recreation/sw_r2d2_mov03.zip

Note: video 1 and video 2 are not working. Probably due to ou-online.com not hosting the files anymore.

The Luke Return of the Jedi FX Saber is available to order in Ultimate Toys. I'll be getting it for sure. It costs RM680 and will ship in November/December. It is a very limited item and will only be produced once. It is not even sold on the Masterreplicas.com website. You can find out more about it on the Ultimatetoys website.

Ultimatetoys owner, Kavin, mentioned that it is a slimmer version of the original (produced in 2002) and it takes 3AA batteries instead of 6. The blade is comprised of 64 leds compared to the previous EL. I am quite skeptical about the design because it isn't easy to slim down a lightsaber like Luke Skywalker's. Anyway, my fingers are crossed and I hope the new design comes true.

No photographs are available at the moment. But here is a sample of what it looks like. It is actually the blue lightsaber but with some tweaked camera settings. I think they look beautiful. Will post interesting stuff when I see it.

Since there are already many great reviews on these lightsabers, I won't be writing one of the Anakin ROTS and the Vader ESB. Instead, I will write about how each model differs from each other.

HILT
Both the Anakin ROTS and Vader ESB have very sturdy designs. They look very good and they feel solid as well. The Anakin ROTS does feel very much lighter compared to the Vader ESB. It's just too bad that the gold and chrome platings on the Anakin may come off in time. One won't have to worry about anything fading off from the Vader ESB. Both are almost the same size.

BLADE
Did you know that our eyes respond to blue better even though a lightmeter measures the same reading for both blue and red? Anakin's blue blade was able to light a dark room no problem! The start-up is a little blinding. And when I turn it off, I can still see some kinda 'light-shadow imprint-thing' (damn, what is it you call it)? Vader's red glow is surprisingly bright as well, but if you compare it to the blue blade, it will not seem so.

SOUND
Anakin: The sound is perfect. It is very loud and just a little scratchy. I'd like it to be louder still, especially the idle hum, and movement sounds. Clash effects are easy to set off without hitting it too hard. Startup, powerdown and motion synchronisation is good.

Vader: The idle rumbling hum is really menacing and suits the saber very well. Even though there is only one, the clash sound is a hissing-sizzling effect and is loud, I love it! However, it is difficult to set off the clash sound for my Vader ESb. I suppose it depends on the batch, there are others who don't have this problem. Powerup/down sounds are timed perfectly for both the lightsabers. The shutdown takes a little longer than Anakin's as it has this pre-shutdown sound effect.

The motion sounds of the Vader ESB are VERY SENSITIVE. There are situations that even if I hold the saber still and move it a little, i hear the swoosh (or some other effect) a few times without stopping. This is the ONLY thing that I'm not very happy about. But apparently, almost every Vader ESB owner has this issue. So I can accept that.

CONCLUSION
I'm happy I have both of these lightsabers. Ultimatetoys shopowner, Kavin, told me that production for Anakin ROTS, Vader ESB and Mace Windu AOTC will be stopping in 2005. These lightsabers are fun when you play with someone else (Masterreplicas do not recommend duelling with these collectibles).

I really hope that these lightsabers will last a long time. I'd like to display them once I have a place of my own (which will probably take 5-6 years from now). Even though they are expensive, I love them and I do not regret purchasing these two awesome lightsabers of Anakin Skywalker who turned to the dark side and became Darth Vader!

A friend of mine, Eric (http://www.friendster.com/user.php?uid=2625865), ordered a Mace Windu lightsaber sometime in June 2005. It's August 2005 now and it arrived. I just had to go over to his place to check it out. It's a BEAUTY. The hilt looks really good with the gold and is very comfortable to hold because of the soft rubber grips.

Mace Windu's lightsaber has a very unique design and it is the ONLY purple blade in the movies (how cool is that?!). The sounds are a little soft though but the clash effect is awesome. It takes 6AA batteries and is slightly larger compared to the actual prop. Do check out the photographs of this deep-dark-sexy-purple lightsaber!

Sidenote: Eric is planning to get the Darth Maul FX Saber in 2006.

I received the voice changer helmet today at the airport. It cost USD30 and the shipping cost another USD30 to be sent to Malaysia (I never expected it to be this much). I'm glad to finally get my hands on one because the helmet was completely sold out during the EP3 fever in May 2005. I’m going to write about it. If you call this a review, then I think you’re very kind. Hopefully it will help in your decision to buy it.

The plastic helmet is light (for me anyway) and flexible. It actually feels comfortable, but after some time, it’ll get a little stuffy; however, there are plenty of small ventilation holes to encourage air flow. There are plastic straps, these can be adjusted to give the best fit. Looking in, one of the things that stood out was the part that rested on your nose. It was rubberized. For me, this contributed the most to the comfort. The second interesting thing was the microphone. It was attached to the helmet via flexible and thick rubber ‘thing’. What surprised me was it did not feel flimsy at all and also there was no trace of external wiring connected to the console.

The front half of the helmet is connected to what I call the 'console' via two straps (they’re durable IMHO). The wire connecting the microphone to the console is imbedded in one of the straps. The vertical red button enables the voice changing mode (more on that later). The grey button on the far left is only for show and has no function. The middle two buttons starts Vader's breathing sound and also some popular phrases i.e. "You don't know the power of the dark side" and “Don’t make me destroy you.”

The one and only purpose I bought this is because of the voice changing. I had the mask on with the voice mode activated, but I didn’t know where to start! So I just blundered and said “Well? How is it?” (lame!) The first time I tried it, Vader’s voice was very soft. But after adjusting the microphone closer to the mouth, it was better. There is a noticeable half-second delay before your voice is being ‘Vader-ized’.

I wasn’t able to speak normally without my voice being distorted by the changer, so I had to adjust a little until it produced better results. This ‘adjustment’ is also necessary so that your voice won’t be louder than Vader’s. I made a video of myself using the mask and found that I could still hear my voice. Which means the speaker isn't very loud when it comes to the voice-changing function.

The console also functions as the speaker. It’s quite loud when playing the pre-loaded phrases and the breathing sound, I think it is loud enough to be heard from (approximately) 20ft in the house. Below the console is a switch that you can slide to numbers 0-3. “0” will disable voice mode, numbers 1 to 3 adjusts the pitch of the voice with 1 as the lowest and 3 as the highest. So adults would probably go for 3 and children with number 1.

With a little bit of practice, your voice will become Vader’s rather convincingly (repeat 10 times). It is big enough to fit adults without any problem and is also very comfortable. The console plays the preprogrammed phrases and breathing sounds clearly and loudly. This is an extremely fun toy to have. Don’t hesitate to get this one – give in to the DARK SIDE!

For Star Wars and Jedi fans out there, FX Sabers are a dream come true. Ever since we saw the Jedi ignite their lightsabers, we all have wanted one for ourselves. Now, there is no need to use your broom sticks and make imaginary sounds. Produced by Masterreplicas (http://www.masterreplicas.com), FX Sabers are the closest things you can get to a real lightsaber. We're talking about licensed collectibles people!

There is a website which is dedicated to these cool gadgets - http://fx-sabers.com. You can find all types of information there i.e. the history of the sabers, photograph galleries, duelling articles, reviews and message boards. The moderators are in close contact with agents from Masterreplicas. So the information there is accurate. There is also a new online shop which sells T-shirts and accessories. Do drop by.

In the year 2005, three models of FX sabers are produced- Darth Vader's (The Empire Strikes Back) , Anakin Skywalker's (Revenge of the Sith) and Mace Windu's (Attack of the Clones). The Vader ESB and Anakin ROTS sabers are the 3rd Generation sabers (2005). They only use 3 AA batteries, therefore the hilt size is more accurate. The Mace Windu AOTC saber is a 2nd Generation (2004) saber, it uses 6 batteries and the hilt is slightly larger than the actual prop.

I have purchased both the Anakin ROTS and Vader ESB FX sabers from Ultimate Toys (http://www.ultimatetoys.com.my). I will post up my photographs of them for your viewing pleasure and also to help those who are interested to make up their mind. I will also be posting links to some excellent reviews that I've read from fx-sabers.com. Here they are ...

Anakin ROTS review by Weylander
http://fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=268.0

Darth Vader ESV review by Weylander
http://fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=132.0

Mace Windu AOTC review by Temet Nosce
http://fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=414.0

I was using the Friendster blog some time ago. But a friend recommended using Blogspot, so here I am. I'm going to copy-paste some stuff from my Friendster blog...

Do drop in once in a while, post a comment or two (it makes blogging so much more interesting)...

Sincerely,
Sean (Malaysia)