Walt Disney Imagineering Lightsaber
Lightsaber
Introduction
Before talking about the Lightsaber, I want to explain how Walt Disney Imagineering Research and Development operated. Maybe half the things we worked on came from ideas from the rest of Imagineering. Many times, there was an idea for a new attraction that needed some new bit of technology. Sometimes it was just "is there a way to accomplish this idea?" The other half of the things being worked on were ideas from within R&D. No one asked for it. It was either they hadn't asked yet, maybe like the Lightsaber, but mostly, they were ideas dreamed up withing R&D. All this to say that we just decided one day to see if it was possible to design a Lightsaber that could rival the one in the movies. Yes, there are and were many made by fans and toy companies that had some similarities to the real thing, but no one had made anything close to the movie's special effects.
Let me also interject that there is so much secrecy around many Disney things, but then Disney decides to file a patent and give the whole idea away. There was always the discussion or patenting an idea versus hiding it as a trade secret. I think in this case, it was a mistake filing this patent in 2017. The good news is I can talk about it as I am not giving anything away. If you haven't read the patent, don't. I think it ruins the magic just like learning how a magician does a trick.
Early days
So we took it upon ourselves to start brainstorming ideas and trying different concepts to see what was possible. In this case we added to the team, people in the movie special effects business. Those people spend their days coming up with the craziest ideas in order to pull off some wonderful special effects for the movies. It only has to work "once" and can be really expensive but that is a great place to seed a final idea. So the seed of this design was helped by these wonderfully creative people. Between that seed and this patent might have been a year. One might picture a large team working everyday on an idea. Yes, that is done in many companies including Imagineering, and especially if there is a deadline looming. In this type of process, these people may be working on multiple ideas at the same time. So work time and calendar time are two different things. Also every part in this Lightsaber was custom made and sometimes that took weeks just to make one part. All to say ideas like this can span multiple years.
The Criteria
So in the old days of Imagineering when the ideas were not from a movie, the criteria for the size and function of an idea was mostly up to the person conceiving it. That person worked closely with the engineers to decide what was possible. That is the case for all projects including those from movies. BUT. When it is a Lightsaber from the Star Wars movies, everyone knows what it looks like and how big it is. The number one problem from day one of making the idea real was size. If somehow the one in the movies was just slightly longer or slightly bigger in diameter it would have been so much easier to design. So because of the constraint, every single stinking part did not exist in the size we needed and had to be custom made. Even the battery was a custom battery. OK I think there are off-the-shelf screws.
Of course, the time to extend and the time to retract had to closely match the movies. The diameter of the beam and so on. I remember having a meeting just about the color of the beam. A fun part of Imagineering is creating and reading a technical document, all serious, about these requirements like we are building a bridge. A document for something like this is hard to understand, so many mockups were done to show each requirement.
It's Now Real!
There was a point where we went from a crazy idea to, hey this is possible. We demoed it for the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser project team and soon after that it went from crazy idea no rush, to it is part of an attraction and must be completed by this date. When will the final design be completed? What does it cost? Is it easy to maintain? Who will build this?
Designing for Production
As typical in Imagineering, ideas for attractions down to ideas for a Lightsaber are sold without everything being done or even known. In that moment, whether it was Tower of Terror and how are we going to pull off a 13-story freefall elevator to how are we going to fit 10 pounds of stuff into a 5-pound Lightsaber case, now its time to get real very quickly. It's the Oh My God what have I signed up for moment!
So far though I haven't said it directly, one could imagine this being a mechanical engineering project. Yes much of this was mechanical. But there is actually an equal amount of electronic engineering from the lights, motor controls, and audio. Yes I said audio, the thing most people don't realize.
I will pause now to say that most of the videos demonstrating the Lightsaber made it seem fragile and that it might only extend once. Also I don't believe I have seen a video that demonstrated the audio capability. The best video would be anyone showing it at the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. So depending how the person holding it operated it, the sound was being created in real-time from the Lightsaber. So yet another discipline of engineer designing this Lightsaber. I retired in May of 2020 at the start of Covid having led the production part of this project. The final prototype was complete and working by then. Covid and the mass exodus of people at the announcement of Imagineering moving to Florida slowed many things down.
Production
I can't say much about the final production phase as I had left Imagineering, but the project was handed off to others to produce the final Lightsaber and have it ready for Opening day on March 1, 2022.
I Want One!
So first somewhere in the middle of this project I, along with a few others, exclaimed that I wanted one for home. Without getting in trouble here, sometimes one can recreate things and have a fun sample of an idea at home. As part of that casual conversation, we asked ourselves if Disney could make these for the public. People were paying $200 to make a Lightsaber at the Park, how much would someone pay for a REAL Lightsaber. That talk went nowhere and we never pursued that thought with the power that be. I was just thinking the other day if I took my time could I make all the parts little by little at home. Probably not. Just my opinion, if Disney were to give the full design to a (toy) company to produce in low quantities and made in America, and with normal profits, I could guess one of these Lightsabers would sell for $25,000. Anyone interested in buying one?
Next Steps
I have no idea what is next for these Lightsabers. A bunch of these Lightsabers exists somewhere sitting at Walt Disney World or in Imagineering. I hope they come up with somewhere else to use them as it was an awesome project. Maybe they have and I just haven't seen it yet.
Last Thoughts
I am searching the Internet for the best public video of this Lightsaber and I am reminded that unfortunately, the public face of most companies, including Disney, are the wonderful charismatic Imagineers but not the principal designers or engineers for the project being discussed. For the Lightsaber, I don't see any videos or interviews with Mike, Kyle, Byran, Jamie, or Lee in them. By the way I wanted to attach a link to the best video but have not found it yet.
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