Tell me about Star Wars Light Sabres

[Caligula]

DS is obsessed with getting one. Plus one for DD, so they can play Padme and Anakin or Luke and Leia. So I thought, OK, Christmas.

Looked on the www, and it looks as if they're all about £25. Gulp, £50 for 2 chrimbo presents?

So my question is - I've heard there are cheaper ones (though I've never seen any evidence of that) but is there any difference between these top of the range light up ones and the cheapie ones? Will they both break on boxing day, or if I invest in a really expensive one, will that last longer?

Don't get either - they get swung around, poking siblings inthe face, breakables get swept off mantlepieces/shelves and the sabre will end up ontop of your highest shelf never to be brought down again. And DS2 only borrowed this one!

Lol - that was my gut reaction too

If you are gonna get one though, I'd go with the cheapy ones from the £1 type shops - at the end of the day they are big plasic sticks to bash each other with - I'd much rather them beat hell out of something that I spent £5 on than £25

DS has two. One was £20 from Toys R Us (DH's idea not mine). The other came with his Darth Vader costume which was £14 all in. Although having two is handy because it means DD can have one (although poor DD is cast as Yoda "cos she's small" - well actually fairly average but only 16 months) the cheapie one is forever coming apart and being brought to me for mending. There are also cheaper copies (space swords or something) in Toys R Us for about a fiver I think.

Beware though - after DS managed to demolish the entire contents of my parents mantlepiece I declared them to be outside toys or they can play with them in the downstairs toilet with the light off - to get the effect of the lighting up bit.

Yup, they're a nightmare from a whacking each other/breaking things round the house PofV

We have..er...five Two 'proper' ones which, amazingly, were reduced to a fiver in Tesco in some January sales (make the proper noises - fairly sturdy), one that came with a Darth Vader costume for ds2 (cheap and pretty rubbishy), and two from Aldi which are OK but don't look like the real deal (no good for discerning kids).

Have you tried ebay?

My kids (and dh!) love to go in the garden when it is nearly dark and play lightsabers - after a while all I can see out of the window are three lightsaber blades swishing through the darkness.

Trouble is, I've never seen any cheap ones in these stores - and it's not through want of trying. DS is so desperate to have one, and he uses other things (like chopsticks and cricket stumps) instead.

I figured if they're going to play with them, at least the ones that are actually designed to brandish around the place, might be safer.

But I must admit, the thought of spending a fiver on a couple of light-sabres, is a lot more attractive than spending fifty quid.

Argos have this one - "styles and colours may vary", very helpful - £7.99. But these don't light up.

Could DS have one that does light up, and DD not?

Oh dear, that link's gorn orff (I thought it was a funny one, was about 20 lines long). Anyway it came from the bottom of this kelkoo page.

We have the light-up ones, the proper ones. No idea how much they cost. They do make nice noises, they are cute. But the yoda one is broken, and the Darth Vader one sometimes stops working. So I'd say, not worth the money.

The thing we have that is worth the money (so far) is an eye-toy type game, with a light saber, so DS1 can practice his light saber moves. Very very cute, and he adores it. The light saber itself has no batteries and is very simple, so hard to break.

(DS2 saw him playing yesterday, and was practicing his jedi moves behind him, with a foam rocket. It was so cute.)

That sounds good NQC - what game is that? (Eye toy? What is this?)

eye toy

OMG it's a playstation thing.

Can't have that, I'm not allowed. Avoiding that for as long as I possibly can.

You can get this one on ebay at the Buy It Now snip of a price of £600

I'm helping you here - suddenly £25 each doesn't sound so bad does it ?

There are lots on ebay actually - just put lightsaber in.

Nono, Caligula, no Playstation in our house, either. It's a standalone Star Wars game. So, like a playstation, I guess, but a one-off. (Hence me saying it was an eye-toy like game.)

DH got it in NYC (I think?) and brought it back sans packaging to save space, so I can't get details too easily. Will have a dig after the school run. (No idea how much it cost.)

Ah, here it is . $50 US. Not cheap. But it's working pretty well. And although it says 8+, DS1, at 4, is getting a lot of enjoyment out of it.

I spent an hour on e-bay looking at light-sabres today.

I can't believe that people are happy to pay about £500 for them. Saddos.

NCQ, that is the perfect Christmas pressie for ds1 - now where can I get one in the UK?

Have a look here:

lightsabre

It's £24.99 but if you haven't used this company before just type in this code zg6833 and you will get £10.00 off + £3.50 off to cover delivery. I used it yesterday to buy a pair of trainers for DS1 - discount shows up when you go to choose the delivery date!

We got ours from Toy's R Us for around £5 and have had a good two or three years out of them before they finally died totally. The light went first, then the sound after a while (probably because they got left outside in the rain a few times, but they were still played with. I've only just chucked them as the actual sabre bits broke. Am sure you must still be able to get cheaper versions and I truly don't believe the 'real' ones are any better. They were definite outside toys from the start though things on my mantlepiece remain intact.

Just to add my twopenn'oth: I bought ds a £19.99 lightsaber a couple of years ago and it never worked properly, made a pathetic excuse for a lightsaber noise and certainly wasn't worth the money. I'd definitely go for a cheap one next time.

Marthamoo, you could order it from amazon.com? I didn't search hard, but didn't find it in the UK anywhere.

Hm, just had a bit of a search again, no luck. I'd go amazon or ebay US, whatever. I think you can get it a bit cheaper from ebay, I saw one at $50 with postage.

LOL at SoupDragon - that's always been my gut reaction, so thanks I'll continue to stick to my guns ... not literally of course - we don't have those either

argos sell the 'eye toy' type light sabre (item no 369/1863) £39.99

DS has also been hopping up and down for months in desperation for a light sabre - he's going to get one from Santa (auntie) for Christmas, but in the meantime he has great fun with the home-made ones we've done - three kitchen roll tubes covered in blue or green paper, sellotaped together with some silver foil at one end!

You're right, mumpy, here it is at Argos.

Thanks mumpy and NCQ - I've just reserved one from Argos. Better clear my mantelpiece on Christmas morning.