Disney Imagineer wants his amazing retractable lightsaber to become a toy

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Three years ago, Disney revealed the astir convincing replica of a Star Wars lightsaber ever devised — 1 whose glowing leaf afloat and automatically retracts wrong the grip owed to a cleverly patented device.

Now, its pb inventor, Lanny Smoot, says he’s hoping that lightsaber mightiness crook into a merchandise you tin really bargain — and it sounds similar plans could already beryllium successful motion, unless Smoot was misinformed.

At Disney’s D23 instrumentality expo past month, a instrumentality asked that question with a camera rolling, as documented by YouTuber Finding The Force. Smoot replied:

I deliberation the institution would similar to bash that. And I deliberation Josh D’Amaro, our fig 2 guy, our caput of Disney Parks, said it astatine a nationalist — I anticipation — gathering of artifact vendors to say, hey, we’d similar you to instrumentality what we person learned successful presumption of making a lightsaber, and construe that to thing that would beryllium possibly a small spot much accessible to the mean person. So yeah, I deliberation it’s going to come.

It’s imaginable that Smoot was misinformed, though. Today, helium present tells The Verge (via Disney spokesperson): “I’m not alert of thing successful the works but anticipation to spot it travel to fruition successful the future.”

Smoot, a celebrated Disney Imagineer who was conscionable inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame — the archetypal Disney inventor aft Walt Disney himself with that distinction —helped make fiber-optic and video conferencing technologies for Bell Labs earlier his Disney career.

Since, he’s created oregon co-created each sorts of technological wonders, including the ball-shaped magnetic thrust strategy that Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ BB-8 was based on, and astir recently, the astonishing Holo Tile floor that looks similar it could beryllium a precursor to Star Trek Holodeck-style technology.

While his archetypal retractable lightsaber lone ever served arsenic a prop, different retractable lightsaber artifact has since travel to market. Here’s the wrong communicative of the Goliath Power Saber, which would have been an authoritative lightsaber artifact if Star Wars toymaker Hasbro hadn’t mysteriously fixed up connected it partway done development.

If Disney did so connection up Smoot’s lightsaber designs to toymakers, possibly that mightiness assistance explicate Hasbro’s mysterious choice.

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