Carbon-Freeze Vader Saber...an MPP. The Definitive ESB

[Justin WFCOMICS]

</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>Corellianexports wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>Hmm...I think I bought that very postcard while I was at Universal Citywalk just a few weeks back.

I'll have to check it out.

I can post it if I've got it.</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>Cool, it'll have a good shot of the endcap from the freezing chamber scene.

Hope you can post it.

Justin =)

 

[E.D.C. Studios]

</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>Quote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>The Luke ANH Lightsaber also has wires coming out of it......look at the ANH storybook when he is with Ben and you can clearly see the wires coming out from his sleve.
Jim S.
</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>

Holy Shizzzznat!!!

Jim your right, the sabers for ANH originally were rigged with a spinning blade for the saber blade effect, but it was dropped when it did not photograph well. The ESB vader saber may very well be the STUNT blade version from ANH.

Now this is a solid lead

BTW Shadowknight the part you circled are the holes on the MPP

 

[Shadowknight]

</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>E.D.C. Studios wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>BTW Shadowknight the part you circled are the holes on the MPP</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>

Yeah, but shouldn't the recess that those holes sit in be going the other way? Instead of shooting towards the emitter (King Sol) should there be two separate recesses wrapping around the tube (MPP)?

EDIT: I know that the MPP recesses don't wrap all the way around the tube and that there are more than two.

IMy statement means that they are two side be side, not just two.

And the one shooting towards the midle seems more oval to me.

 

[jvasilatos]

</SPAN><TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>Oohyeah KL wrote:<HR></TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS=$row_color>- there doesn't seem to be a 'horizontal' (or 'vertical' depending which way you look) vent port, whereas most (though not all) King Sols have one, like yours, and like mine.</TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE><SPAN CLASS=$row_color>

I have a King Sol without the extra vertical port, which seems to make it match to the Carbon Freeze Chamber pic.

Sorry it's a little dark-

JV

 

[Oohyeah KL]

I'd like to believe it's a KS too (since I'm still keeping one. but here is why I think not: (and this adds to my list of reasons why it looks more like an MPP)

- no signs whatsover of the button plate. You can't just have a button and metal button housing there without the plate (the plate is what the screw goes into and has the KS emblem).
If the plate was there, you should be able to see the edge, and also, the shroud would not be able to come down right next to the screw.

- No sign of the actual plastic button (granted, it could have been removed), nor the KS smily sun.

- If you look at the CF 'button', notice how the button housing seems to be in 2 halves? like a semi-circle on the left and semi-circle on the right, but not a complete circle.
There's no reason why it would appear so, unless, of course, they were 2 separate bits of curved wires.

- What is that black bit immediately above the supposed 'button housing', where the smily sun should be? Looks more like part of the MPP port hole.

- Lastly, this is hard to judge, but if you compare very carefully, if it were really a KS, the KS button housing would be lower than that in comparison with the port hole that is next to it at the 6 o'clock position. Look at this pic:

[attachmentid=455]

Now compare how low the button housing goes, with the CF pic. The CF pic 'button' is too high up and should be lower if it were really an KS.

To sum up, if those aren't wires, then maybe it's something else, but certainly not a KS button, IMO.
Apart from this what-looks-rounded-like-a-button thingy, there's no other marks to make it look like a KS, but with all the markings of an MPP.

 

[Shadowknight]

Actually, it would bother me if it was an MPP. The more things that are pointed out and commented on in this thread, the more proof there is one way or the other.

 

[yoda201]

I have a bigger pic of boba and vader if someone wants to put it up lmk. Also it is not really clear but it appears to have a thicker endcap than a sol

I think this may be the MPP Chris or wait let me link to it http://photos.lycos.com/PhotoCShare/Photo.asp?CG=vhb07hb4evp4n7de6pjdr71d18&PID=1789508 if you click on it is gets really big.

 

[Draco]

Can you give us a close-up of the vertical port?

 

[yoda201]

Ry27 is responsible for this pic-but it looks like an mpp cap to me as opposed to the smaller sol type Chris

 

[Oohyeah KL]

Interesting pic. (wow, that took a looong time to d/load!

)

(Someone please crop it and post on the thread... I would but I'm at work...)

To be fair, I think it's hard to tell for sure it's an MPP end-cap, though it looks more like an MPP endcap than a KS endcap.
I doubt this pic will convince the 'KS-clan'

that it's not a KS...

Those supposed 'wires' also look a bit strange. Either it's something else, or there's lots of wires there! Also didn't expect wires to reflect so much light.
But as I said before, I'm still convinced it isn't a KS. The only question in my mind is whether those are wires like Paul suggested, or something else.

 

[gavidoc]

Wow,

You guys have been busy.

My take on it...After I created my sabre way back when out of a King Sol, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a king sol that was used, thus one of the reasons I sold it.

At the time I didn't know there were so many others who felt the way I did so I kept quite about it.

To me, it does look like a MPP but the area of the wires is what always confused me.

Could possibly be wires, but they'd have to be some thick wires I'd say. The CF pictures are pretty dark and I would't think a dark wire would show up so clearly in the pictures.

In regards to the wires in the ANH sabre, yes there are wires running out of the bottom of the Skywalker sabre in Ben's house. That wire as EDC pointed out ran the motor inside the tube and ran down Luke's arm to a pack attached to his back.

I've never seen the wires in the scene when Luke get's his hand cut off but I'll look. THere is a good shot of it in hte MOM companion book. It was there that I first thought that the sabre could have been used for Vader's ROTJ sabre.

Another thing to consider is, isn't a King Sol shorter then an MPP? And if the shroud was sitting on the King Sol, doesn't it sit lower then the shroud on an MPP?

So, why doesn't someone do a comparison of where the sabre in the CF chamber shot is sitting (endcap end) in comparison to the first scene in ANH when Vader enters the Tanative IV and see if the sabres are resting in the same place or if one is sitting lower then the other?

My initial take on the last photo link posted is that it's an MPP and the grips aren't longer but the clamp is lower down on the tube. But that could be an optical illusion also.

 

[PropReplicator]

Actually the shroud would ride "higher" on the King Sol because the button plate doesn't let it come all the way down on the flash.

 

[Oohyeah KL]

PR, I think what John means is that it sits lower in an absolute sense, as measured from the end of the saber (because the KS is shorter).

I suppose it could be done, but since the length difference is not that great, and with image distortion and all, it'll be hard to prove.

BTW, John, if you look at the pic that Yoda201 linked to (the really large one), the grips look very long, much longer than the ANH, and I would say the Blastech grips are dead on.
I also believe the clamp is roughly in the same position as the ANH - judging by the distance between the clamp and the shroud (and between the clamp and the port holes).

 

[TK-10-10-321]

Okay... it took me about two days to unearth this thing in my office and I know this same photo has been displayed in this thread already, but I figured that a larger and higher quality version might be appreciated here.

I have an obscenely large print of the full-body Fett and Vader picture from the Carbon Freeze chamber - it was of interest to me back when I was working on my Fett costume because Fett's left gauntlet is popped open, his knees are on upside down and his pants are rolled up. I don't know that the blow-up of Vader's saber provides much more evidence for the argument at hand, but here it is anyway. == Sean

 

[yoda201]

that is an mpp cap. Chris

 

[paul n]

Is still say Johns grips are too long. The clamp is farther down the tube in ESB and there really isn't that much space between the clamp and the end of the grips in ANH (I think it's around 5/8" or so). If you make the clamp and grips meet about half way you get aproximately 3 7/8" which is what I got for the grip length when I scaled up the PoSW pic.

~Paul

 

[lonepigeon]

Awesome!
Yep, wires in an MPP. That B&W pics nails it.
I was trying to figure out an optical illusion that would produce something that looked like a button. I was close, thinking about the red in the vertical slot in the one pic and how the "button" looked red in the other.

On the endcap, we'll never see it. The Chronicles pic shows it, but it's not nearly large or sharp enough. Even from the original negative it will never enlarge that well.
The infamous storybook pic won't help either. I checked the cropping of the actual photo and it cuts off about 2/3 down the grip.

The grip fastener- I see no evidence of a slot for a screw. I think maybe a rivet with a washer. It doesn't look brass but it does look like a yellowish metal. What's the coating used on steel that gives it a yellowish tint? (It looks like that). The washer also looks like it has a small notch or gap (maybe a lock washer?- that would explain a seam). The notch or seam is on the side closest to the band. At first I thoguht this was a shadow, but it doesn't move even when the light source changes. For all I know it could be a dirt mark though.

I just checked the grips. Looking at the B&W pic- the top of the clamp is 1 7/8" from the bottom of the horizontal slots.
If you take the side view of the ANH saber and move the clamp down to that position, the bottom of the clamp almost touches the top of the grips! ANH and ESB have the same grip length!!

Now I want another MPP replica!

The wire coming out of Luke's sleeve. I don't really think that's a wire. It stops about 5 inches from his sleeve. Why would they cut it and leave it dangling? It looks more like a hair on the negative. That pic is a photo of a (Ralph McQuarrie hand airbrushed) photo hence the poor quality and that gives it lots of chances to get a hair on it.

 

[E.D.C. Studios]

No, I still think the grips are longer...put a grip on my MPP, adjusted the clamp, and there is too much room between the top of the clamp and the shroud then.

Here is something weird too, if you take the POSW pic, and scale it so it is the same length as an MPP 11.25" the band ends up being too long the diameter too think, and the grips are about 4.125" long.

There is definately something up with the tube length...

I wonder if there were variations in the length, kind of like the heiland research compared to the synchronar

 

[jvasilatos]

So based on an optical illusion that suggested a King Sol flash button that a B/W picture shows is not there, are we to now assume that the Empire Vader saber was an MPP with the only difference being longer grips (not even a circuit board on the clamp like the Skywalker Graflex?)

Unbelievable.

JV

 

[Oohyeah KL]

I'm with Chip on the grip length.
Once I get home (and have time) I'll do a side-by-side comparison of my MPP with that closeup pic Yoda201/TK posted. I'm 100% sure you'll see that the band is around the same area as the ANH, and that the grips are longer.

As for the PoSW pics, Ithought it was already concluded that the proportions got distorted slightly, so I think if we are to do any measuring and scaling, we should measure along the same axis.
eg, I would measure that Yoda201/TK enlarged pic saber at the sabers length, measure the grips, and then scale.

btw, chris/lonepigeon, what do you make of the endcap shown in that Yoda201/TK blownup pic?