Well, I've added another lightsaber to my collection - this time, a 2002 Anakin Skywalker Attack Of The Clones, the first Force FX lightsaber produced by Master Replicas. I'd been thinking about it for a while, since it was seeing this lightsaber when over at a friend's house a year or so ago that first introduced me to the FX line, and I'd always had a vague hankering for one ever since. I'd been keeping my eye out on eBay for a while, and last week finally found a saber in what appeared to be excellent condition, with the original packaging and documentation, and at a good starting price. In the end, I was able to get it for 67 pounds (around 117 US dollars, at time of writing), not including delivery. Anyway, enough rambling - on with the review.
It seems best to begin by looking at the hilt. The very first thing that you will notice about the Anakin AOTC hilt is that it is noticeably longer than that of any other FX lightsaber, with a length somewhere between a fifth and a sixth greater than the Anakin ROTS, for example. It is also quite heavy, though this owes as much to the materials used in the construction of the hilt as it does to the first-generation internals. Speaking of construction, this is one area where this hilt does stand out - solid metal is used throughout, with the exception of the central plastic band and the black rubber bands on the handle. The emitter shroud is thick and sturdy, and throughout the saber all metal areas have a shiny, chrome-like finish. There is also attention to detail throughout, with the fake LEDs at the side of the hilt and the power indicator strip all preserved, and the overall impression the hilt gives is one of accurate and faithful reproduction of the original, leaving aside its far larger dimensions. It is also interesting to note that the various knobs and dials which are present on most lightsabers are actually capable of being twisted and rotated on the Anakin AOTC, whereas on most sabers they are immovable and only present for decoration. Of course, these 'controls' do not actually do anything, but it is a nice touch that they can actually be manipulated nonetheless.
There are one or two peculiarities and weaker areas in the hilt design, however. The power indicator strip feels very creaky, and has a tendency to loosen and move when the saber is being swung, if one's fingers are resting on it. This happens, however, because the power indicator in the Anakin AOTC is in fact a moving part by design. It is a cover that swings aside to reveal the captive screw that must be loosened to access the battery compartment - more on this later. There is also at first glance a D-ring style belt connector on the emitter shroud, as there is in the Vader ANH - however, this is not a moving part, and is purely present for decorative purposes. The real belt connector is of the circular style used in the Mace AOTC and Anakin ROTS, and is present at the very base of the handle. This is odd, given the attention to detail noted earlier that allows dials and knobs that have no function to be rotated and twisted, but the one part that might actually be useful - an easy-to-use belt connector - does not actually move and so cannot be used. Perhaps at the time MR were worried that a D-ring belt connector might snap off due to metal fatigue with repeated use, and so they settled on what they felt was a safer design.
Now, to discuss the actual behaviour of the saber. This is a very mixed area, with some high points and some low. On the plus side, the swinging detection of this saber is superb - I have yet to have it fail to detect a swing of the blade, unless I am moving it very quickly indeed in a series of rapid motions. For the most part, a swing of the blade will always result in the playback of the swinging sound effect. Notice that I say 'the swinging sound', and not 'one of the swinging sounds' - this brings us to one of the downsides. The Anakin AOTC has only one sound effect for a blade swing. Every single swing sounds the same, and so the experience of using this saber can quickly come to feel quite repetitive and artificial. So whilst the motion detection is excellent, and indeed is arguably better than that of some later sabers, there is only ever one sound effect used for a blade swing, or series of swings.
Looking at collision detection next - again, I have found this to be a mixed area. On the plus side, there are four different collision sounds. On the down side, these sounds are always played in the same order every time, and are not chosen randomly as in other FX sabers. Also, I have found it very difficult to set off the collision detection, with a far greater amount of force being required for the Anakin AOTC than for any of my other sabers. This is doubly frustrating, since the one area of the saber that does use multiple sound effects is also the hardest to access. However, at least it does have the ability. As for the idle hum, power-up and power-down sound effects - these are of a very high quality, and whilst the idle hum is a repeating sound clip, there is no noticeable stutter or gap between the cycles, as there is in the 2003 Luke ROTJ or Mace AOTC. The volume of the saber as a whole is also very good, and is more or less comparable with the 2003 Luke ROTJ, if not slightly louder.
There is one thing that I feel I should mention about the saber's behaviour, for the sake of completeness. The instruction leaflet that comes with the saber states that if the saber is switched off, and then quickly switched on again, it will take eight seconds before the sound playback will begin to function. Other reviewers on these forums have also backed this up, saying that there is a noticeable delay if their saber is powered off, then immediately powered back on, before sound begins to work. However, in the case of my particular saber, I cannot replicate this behaviour. No matter what I try, when I switch the saber on all sound playback is immediately available, from the idle hum and swinging sound, through to the collision sounds. I have tried my best to duplicate this behaviour, but I cannot. Perhaps I have some kind of later or revised edition of this saber that did not suffer from this deficiency, despite the fact the documentation enclosed claims that it should. I mention this here however because other reviewers have stated that their sabers have done this, and so anyone considering this saber needs to be aware that there is a possibility that it might act in this way - although you may be lucky like me, although quite why I seem to be lucky I do not know. The only delayed aspect of the operation of my saber I have found is a gap of about half a second between switching the saber on and the blade lighting and the idle hum commencing - this brief delay seems consistent under all circumstances.
Now we come to the most unique aspect of this lightsaber - the blade. To recap, this was the very first FX saber produced by Master Replicas, and so it uses their original electroluminescent (EL) blade, rather than the later LED design. This means that when the saber is turned on the entire blade lights at once as a single unit - a behaviour also seen in the 2003 Luke ROTJ, which used an EL blade as well. However, when switched off, this saber exhibits a unique behaviour. The blade gradually fades out over the space of about a second or so, from full brightness to darkness, and this fade-out occurs in synchronisation with the power-down sound effect. It is curious to note that this feature is not seen in the 2003 Luke ROTJ, which simply turns off all at once - this could be due to a limitation in the obviously different electronics between the two lightsabers, or perhaps it was a design decision for purely cosmetic reasons. Regardless, this fade-out makes the Anakin AOTC stand out as the only lightsaber in the entire lineup with this particular power-down behaviour.
The colour of the blade is a light, almost sky-blue colour. It is worth pointing out that the colour of the Anakin AOTC FX is very different indeed from the Anakin ROTS, since some people seem to have been surprised to hear of this difference. The Anakin ROTS has a deeper, cobalt/royal blue colour, whereas the Anakin AOTC is more of a cyan/sky blue. On a personal note, I actually prefer the colour of the Anakin AOTC, and feel it is a more accurate representation of the on-screen colour of Anakin's lightsaber - I always felt that the colour of the Anakin ROTS was a bit too deep and harsh, and relied on its brightness and intensity to give a good impression rather than on the accuracy of its shading. That said, it should be noted that the Anakin AOTC is far less bright than the Anakin ROTS - by around half, I would estimate. This is a limitation of the EL blade, since LED blades are fundamentally brighter. However, on the up side there is no dull spot in the middle of the Anakin AOTC blade, and there are no divisions visible between individual sections of the blade. This is because an EL blade functions as one single unit, and does not consist of two strings of stand-alone lights joined together, as the Anakin ROTS and other LED-based sabers do. So largely I suppose it comes down to personal preference, in terms of which of the two blades one prefers in an Anakin saber. The AOTC is a lighter shade and is of a consistent colour and intensity throughout, but is also far less bright and does not have accurate power-up and power-down effects.
Finally, it is necessary to discuss an undeniably negative feature of the Anakin AOTC - the battery compartment. This is of a completely different design from that in all other sabers. Basically, the hilt consists of two parts, and it is necessary to remove the lower half of the hilt to access the internal battery compartment, which is inside the upper section. This is done by lifting and rotating the power indicator strip, which exposes a captive Phillips-head screw. This screw must then be loosened, and the lower section of the hilt manually unscrewed counter-clockwise until it can be removed. This exposes the battery compartment, which it must be said in and of itself is a fairly good design, with batteries being individually housed and very securely seated. When the batteries are installed, it is necessary to screw the lower half manually in again, until a groove that runs down the side of both sections is lined up. When it is, the captive screw can then be tightened, and the power indicator snapped back in to place.
Now if that sounds like an ordeal, that's because it is. In defence of this design, I suppose it can be said that this is a task that should only have to be done very rarely, and it is not so much difficult as it is merely annoying. But still, it is definitely a deterrent to installing a fresh set of batteries. I can well imagine that someone might put off the replacement of batteries in their lightsaber because of this design, and who knows - perhaps someone out there left their batteries in too long because of it, and later found that that they had leaked since the purchase of the saber and initial battery installation at that time, and destroyed the saber's internals as a result. This is one area of FX saber design that has definitely improved over the years, and for that alone we should be thankful.
So, how to summarise the Anakin AOTC ? Bearing in mind that it was the very first Master Replicas Force FX lightsaber, it is quite a remarkable achievement. It is a prop replica that looks and functions like a real lightsaber, as far as most people are concerned. Its hilt is over-sized and heavy without a doubt, but it does faithfully replicate the style and features of the on-screen lightsaber that Anakin uses in Attack Of The Clones. The blade is a light sky-blue colour, and is quite close to the on-screen appearance of Anakin's blade - though that is largely a matter of personal opinion and preference, admittedly. The behaviour of the lightsaber is mostly accurate, and it must be remembered that this was the very first product of its type - merely having a motion-sensitive, accurate swinging sound effect at all was probably impressive enough for most buyers in 2002, and few would have complained about the fact that there was only one such sound. And lastly, if you look at the saber from the point of view of a collectable replica that was intended to spend most of its time on display (even if it hasn't quite worked out that way in practice, shall we say), the battery compartment design is also forgivable.
Given all that, how would I rate this saber, then ? I would say that it is still a worthwhile purchase - at the right price, of course. Technologically, it has long since been surpassed by more or less every other Force FX lightsaber subsequently produced, but it is still perfectly good for the purpose it was designed for. The blade is of a unique colour, and behaves like no other in the series due to its fade-out power-down effect. Its hilt has some unique features, specifically its high-quality metal construction and finish, and the fact that its faux 'controls' can be rotated. So it is by no means a bad or poor saber - it only looks this way when its performance is compared to the very latest products in the series. In short, if you have the opportunity to pick it up at a good price, by all means do so. It is still a very enjoyable lightsaber to own and wield, and gives an insight into just how much the design and technology of the Force FX lightsaber has improved in four years - and just how much that Master Replicas got right first time.
Full size:
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j248/drysdalk/ANAKIN-AOTC-1.jpgFull size:
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j248/drysdalk/ANAKIN-AOTC-2.jpg