Hey, you remember that awesome lightsaber Disney revealed that looked like the laser blade was actually igniting and extending? Like a parent to a small child reaching for a pair of sharp scissors, Disney has said, “Only Daddy touch.” Meaning the company is not going to offer them to the public, even if you’re going to the stupid-expensive Galactic Starcruiser Star Wars LARP hotel.
In fact, the only way you’ll ever be able to get your hands on one is to get hired as an actor at the Galaxy’s Edge section of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida — specifically as a Jedi — since they’ll be the only ones allowed to carry them, according to statements made by Scott Thornbridge, the Portfolio Creative Executive of Disney Imagineering, during an interview with Gamespot. This means at the lightsaber training experience available to guests of the Galactic Starcruiser, they’ll be holding traditional toy lightsabers with non-retracting blades.
Although Disney’s under no obligation to make the “real” lightsabers available to purchase, and it never technically announced that they would be, this still kind of sucks? Everyone lost their minds when they were revealed earlier this year, because every Star Wars fan has dreamed of wielding a working lightsaber from the moment they saw their first movie. To tease fans like that, without simultaneously notifying people that they’re not going to be purchasable, is genuinely kind of cruel. Maybe Disney didn’t know at the time it wasn’t going to be able to sell them, but the company is scuzzy enough that it’s entirely plausible that it intentionally misled people in order to drive people to book reservations for Galaxy’s Edge and rooms at the hotel (which currently has a four-month waitlist).
The real question is, why isn’t the eternally money-hungry Disney selling them? They can’t be dangerous, or the park’s actors wouldn’t be allowed to carry them around parkgoers. Maybe they’re prohibitively expensive to make, but there are almost certainly plenty of fans willing to pay upwards of $US1,000 (A$1,378) to be able to own a working lightsaber. Or maybe Disney is whipping consumers into a frenzy to drive demand when it eventually does make the lightsabers available for sale. I mean, I just can’t imagine the company leaving this enormous pile of money on the table.
Time will tell, but for now? Only Daddy touch.