Hey guys...just quickly before I start, I would like to apologize to those who have been waiting for this review (including Master Yoda, as I promised a C-3P0 style review :D ) as I've now had this saber for a couple of weeks but haven't been able to type this review out promptly like I usually do due to personal health issues. I've had to type it out in parts, rather than all in one hit like usual and therefore it has taken me a couple of weeks to do so :( You may have also noticed that I haven't been around too much online lately, and it is for that very reason too. I don't mean this statement to take anything at all away from this review, but rather explain why it has taken me a while to do, as well as why it may read a little strange due to the timeline. I typed some parts out before, and just as I received the saber. The rest was after I had taken some pictures and a video, and had some time with the saber. Anyways, let's get this started...you're gonna love this one guys ;)Every so often, a saber, or an upgrade to a saber never seen before comes along that completely shakes the foundations of the lightsaber community. Collective "oohs" and "aahs" are heard for miles. This, my friends, is one of those times. Let me just say that having these pictures that Yoda sent me was seriously the hardest thing not to just post these up straight away before I got the saber...but I wanted this to be one huge epic reveal when I had chance to review the saber system. I'm glad that I waited to do it all at once like this, but it really was hard. These pictures have to be seen, and they have to be talked about by this great community.
......you know what, lets do this one a bit different to normal. Here are the first images I saw of this saber, the pictures Yoda sent me. Ready or not!!! BAM!
...everyone okay?! ...you need some time to recover, you say? Okay, go pick yourselves and your computer chair up off the floor as I bet you all fell off it, and lets get things started!
I'm sure you all had many things running through your head when looking through those pictures. A lot of you probably had the same jaw dropping look on your face as I did when I first saw them. Well, as you can tell from those pictures, you're in for quite a ride with this saber review!
This thread is not only going to act as my review thread, but also an open discussion on Master Yoda's Prototype Negotiator design, so please...lets all hear what you think of Yoda's latest work!
The FX-Sabers Negotiator by Master Yoda. Many of you have heard of it, and a very select lucky few of you actually own one. The Yoda Negotiator is an extremely rare piece, there aren't too many of them in existence at all. These don't just "pop up" too often at all, and they are mighty hard to obtain. I know that first hand, as I've been trying to get one myself for a very long time now...
The Negotiator, for those that aren't aware, is Master Yoda's creation of a replica Obi-Wan saber. It doesn't just stop there though. Throughout the course of Yoda building these, he has evolved his concept into many upgraded versions, finally creating what we have right here today. The first select few Negotiator hilts by Yoda were "closed hilts" with no crystal chamber. These had electronics, and were fully functional lightsabers.
Next up, Yoda unleashed his Negotiator with crystal chamber. Very, VERY few of these were released, and the majority of them were actually the original, numbered hilts that were sent in for conversion to include the chamber.
Yoda then upgraded the chamber to his "extended chamber detail" version. I'm certain that Scorpion and MACE WINDU are the only two people that own the extended chamber detail Negotiator's with the A.O.T.CF5 chassis. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been told that and it seems to be the case as far as I know.
The next step in the evolution of the Negotiator brings us to right now. This saber I'm showcasing today. Yoda has had this saber in the works for literally the past couple of YEARS. A lot of that time was allowing time for the technology to be released to create some of the features we have today. This is the upgraded A.O.T.CF6 chassis, the first Negotiator to ever receive this upgrade. It is also, as the thread title says, the FX-Sabers Negotiator FoC prototype!
There are many new features in this saber, as well as some familiar Yoda additions. I am still incredibly shocked that I'm seeing a Yoda Negotiator with FoC. I never thought it would be possible with the limited amount of room in this hilt. The hilt itself is nice and slim, which is how an Obi TPM/AOTC saber should be, so therefore it's even more amazing seeing the chamber fully loaded like it is.
Okay, so my story of acquiring a Yoda Negotiator is quite similar to me getting my Graflex IV from Yoda that I recently told in my review for that saber, with the major difference being that I had some luck on my side here as they are a LOT harder to come by than a Graflex system. Everything fell perfectly into place for me...in the end, and I'm honoured to be an owner of an FX-Sabers Negotiator. It's something I never thought would be possible.
In a similar fashion to when I joined FX-Sabers and started noticing Yoda's Graflex's, I also came across the Negotiator in my researching and browsing of the forum. Being located just underneath the Graflex section of the forum, I started to check these sabers out and read up on them. The first thing I noticed was that there were definitely a lot less of these Negotiator's around than the Graflex's. I didn't realize at the time just how little there were, but there weren't many at all. As I explained earlier, they seemed to be build with different features - the majority of them not having crystal chambers. The other thing I noticed was that a lot of these sabers were from quite a number of years ago, with no recent hilts being up on the forum. That's because there weren't any.
The more I asked around, the more I found out about them. They weren't a product that was offered by Master Yoda anymore (and to my understanding they weren't "offered" as a line of products to begin with, more so just a few were built and auctioned off). The select few that had crystal chambers were amazing, such complex builds with a nice swivel reveal feature for the chamber. I could only look on in amazement at these wonderful looking sabers.
The Obi TPM/AOTC saber is a hugely popular design, at least throughout FX-Sabers. Many people love the pommel and overall design of the saber, and I'm one of those people. I am one of the lucky few owners of Wat Tambor's Orbital Machining Obi TPM 100% screen accurate fully function sabers from the run. This was the first Obi TPM/AOTC saber hilt I had ever owned, so as you can imagine it was quite the treat to see this in person as my first of that design. Scorpion has provided us with a fantastic comparison photo gallery of his Yoda Negotiator and his OM Obi TPM, so I won't be going into great detail of comparing the two, however I couldn't help myself of taking some shots of them both on display together :D they look absolutely magical together.
I had been trying to score myself a Yoda Negotiator saber quite a while before I even got on the Orbital Machining run. When I signed up for the run, my plan was to have that as my Obi TPM saber, and try and get the Negotiator as an AOTC version. This was when I started to realize that it wasn't going to be easy if I was going to be lucky enough to acquire one. I decided on the only option that I thought was going to land me a Negotiator - first get an empty hilt and take it from there. I enquired with Parks about getting one machined, and I have to admit that I expected him to say no, as he doesn't really offer them with the 1" blade holder anymore. Luckily for me though, he agreed to build me one.
This process took 8-9 months. Literally a week before the hilt was finished, for some reason that I can't really explain, I decided to sell the hilt and for Parks to ship it to the new owner rather than me when it was finished. I had no real finish date set, aside from the 12 weeks I was originally quoted. It had been a very long wait, and now I was back to square one :P
I started regretting selling the empty hilt, as I found myself continuously getting that "Negotiator itch" and the "want" level was rising to dangerous levels :D I started looking around for an empty, but of course I once again was reminded just how rare these are. So I then went to the man himself, Yoda. Now Yoda and I had been discussing a Negotiator for well over a year, I did bug him quite a bit about it. There just weren't any options available over this time period though, as there were no hilts about. When Yoda finished up with my latest Graflex system, I once again asked about a Negotiator.
So as I've explained, these are incredibly rare sabers. As luck would have it, Yoda was actually in the middle of working on an upgrade for his Negotiator from his
personal collection. That to me again shows that there are no new ones being made, but rather one of the few hilts in existence being upgraded. This was my chance. I thought about how badly I'd wanted one, and how rare they were. This chance may not come along again, and certainly not with one from Yoda's personal collection! So with no messing around, and having all this in mind, I made Master Yoda an offer for the Negotiator system. He accepted :)
I couldn't believe it, I had scored myself a Yoda Negotiator! When I first saw the pics I was speechless. Yoda said that it was an upgrade, but he never mentioned that it was going to be something so unbelievably epic like this new prototype design! I was now at the stage of just staring at the pictures Yoda sent me for long periods of time - just like I did with my Graflex. I think it's safe to say that I found myself looking through these a lot more though, just in amazement at the entire build. The detail in that chamber is just incredible.
As usual, when I have a saber that's being shipped I'm both excited and nervous. I always worry that it could get held up in customs, or worse yet, opened and tampered with by customs. This was one of those times that customs decided to hold onto it. For a very long time in fact :( as it was around the Christmas and New Year time period, customs actually held onto it and wouldn't send me payment details to release it for over two weeks! Definitely worth the wait for sure, but frustrating none the less.
Finally getting the package in my hands is so exciting, as I can't wait to see the saber system inside.