Alright, here goes my first review, and I was a bit wary about doing this without some good pictures of the saber, but I will eventually add them in later on when I can take some more snapshots. Anyway, I'm a guy more used to taking action, so let's just get down to it, all right?
Around the very end of November 05, I noticed that Master Replicas was selling Luke Skywalker's Force FX lightsaber, from the Empire Strikes Back movie. I had originally told myself before that I was only going to buy the Mace Windu saber, but after seeing "Limited Quantity Available" next to the order form, I decided to go for it. Besides that, I had been a fan of the overall lightsaber design ever since I first saw the movie all those years ago.
In early December, the package arrived and I opened it up. It was cold. :o Must be from being in the truck out in the cold for so long, but I opened it up and took a good look at the box. The box was nicely done, no errors on it (unlike one of two of the other FX sabers), and seemed to have protected it quite well during transit. When I finally took the lightsaber out of the box, I held it in wonder. The surface of the model just felt smoothly polished and nicely constructed.
So anyway, I took off those annoying little stickers on the hilt, put some batteries into it, and fired it up. BEHOLD! The best looking blue I've ever seen. I had heard some people saying it was off, but I found it beautiful. Anyway, now that the story section of this is finished, lemme go into a bit of detail about the lightsaber and its properties.
Color: As I stated before, I found the color on this one to be VERY nice. It matches the movie quite well, and no, it doesn't look white, or green in some shots like it does on the DVD releases of the Original Trilogy. :D However, you might actually notice a small blotch of darkness somewhere in the middle of the blade. This doesn't seem to be an issue at all, though, and of course, like all current generation Force FX lightsabers, it does power up and down like a real saber should.
Sound: Ah yes, the sound! Well, it makes sounds that a lightsaber should. The power-up and power-down effects are timed perfectly with the lights, and the model makes an idle hum constantly. I guess it's supposed to make a swing sound or two, but I don't really notice as much, but I'll get into that in a bit. The clash sounds are right on cue; if you hit it sternly enough against something, you'll hear some noises . It will cycle through a few of them which were recorded directly from the movies. Now, the only thing that some people might have an issue with here is the volume of the sound (this is what I was referring to earlier about not noticing the swing sounds as well as on some of the other lightsabers). It's a bit lower than the other models. Almost sounds a bit muffled, but you can still hear these things. I actually like it myself, because I can play with it a bit at night and not disturb sleeping people or make a huge racket. ;)
Hilt design and odds and ends: Now, if any of you are still awake after reading these walls of text, you deserve a medal! (I'll get some hilt shots up soon, promise!) To be quite honest here, the hilt seems a bit oversized compared to the Anakin Revenge of the Sith model, which is supposed to be the same lightsaber with a few differences. The oversizedness of it makes it a bit uncomfortable to swing around at first, as might the placement of the faux power box, but once you get used to it (or if you're good, like me ;D), you should be fine. When I say uncomfortable I don't really mean it's heavy or anything, because it's not. It just might seem a bit unwieldy if you've ever used the Anakin ROTS saber and were expecting the same model. Anyhow, the hilt actually looks exact besides the size issue, and feels more polished down. The 'band' that holds the power box and connects the saber together just looks like it holds things better than my Anakin ROTS and Vader ESB, but that might just be a 'me' issue here, not with everyone else. It's not as polished and shiny as the Anakin ROTS model...this one looks a bit more industrial and ancient....metallic, but not shiny metallic. Also, I feel I should mention that it has a D-ring belt clip, just like in the ESB movie. The D-ring actually folds up and down a little bit, and is stuck on the end cap, held on by some sort of clip type of thing (this really deserves a picture, I'll get on this soon). Don't know if it actually works like a D-ring would (ie: don't know how sturdy/strong it is), but it might look a little silly trying it anyway, since the blades aren't detachable on FX lightsabers. Anyhow, the battery pack is housed inside of the hilt. You can access it by just unscrewing the end cap with the D-ring on it. This model takes 6 AA batteries, and like all of them, has a few arrows so you can tell which way to re-install the filled pack of batteries. The power switch of this lightsaber is in a totally different place than the Anakin ROTS model, which might throw somebody off a bit. Instead of being on the side of the control box, it's right below the two metal clamp-like things that protrude out of the lightsaber on the front. Just slide it up and down to activate/de-activate the lightsaber. The other things on here that look like buttons are just decoration, but they do serve the purpose of making the lightsaber look true to the movie.
In closing of this first review of mine, I would like to say that I think this thing is rare again now. MR had "found" a stock of them in their warehouse and were selling them for a while, but they took it off the page again. I suppose you could find one still through a retailer or maybe through a trade or something like Ebay. Here's hoping that MR will re-release this again someday so I can grab myself a backup. If you're into Star Wars, do yourself a favor and grab this classic lightsaber while you can. ;)