Luke's ANH Saber with no fins???

[Jedifyfe]

Am I the only one who doesn't know this? I was thumbing through the "Making of Star Wars" book and saw a B/W still shot of Lukes saber without the top "fins". I have never seen or heard of a discussion or seen a screen accurate saber of this one. Here are some screen caps. See what I mean?...

 

[Ti-el_terall]

Its the "stunt" saber used in ANH. I know someone made one on here for there halloween costume with just a sink tube, thats where I first learned about it.

 

[Jedifyfe]

Thanks Ti-el, I knew it was the stunt saber that had the "spinning" reflective rod inside it, like Obi-Wan's.Does anyone know much about it? What it was made from? And how these stunt sabers turned the reflective rod. I would think it would be very cool to have a stunt saber with that type of working motor and spinning rod.

 

[Jedi Loreen]

Thanks Ti-el, I knew it was the stunt saber that had the "spinning" reflective rod inside it, like Obi-Wan's.Does anyone know much about it? What it was made from? And how these stunt sabers turned the reflective rod. I would think it would be very cool to have a stunt saber with that type of working motor and spinning rod.

Not sure what they were made of, I would guess acrylic or something similar, but I believe the "rods" were triangular in shape, and broke easily. They had reflective material on them of course. I think George was hoping that by shining lights on the spinning blades, he wouldn't need any other special effects for the blades.

We know it didn't work satisfactorily, because the blades were later rotoscoped. Though you can still sort of see the spinning blade in some of the scenes where Ben is fighting with Vader, especially when you see the tip pointing toward the camera.

If you see some of the behind the scenes shots, you can see the thick cables going up Mark's and Alec's sleeves to the powerpacks for the motors.

Check out the first blooper here, you can hear the spinning blade in Mark's saber.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KoQQ8JaMRVs

Those missing "fins" are the ears that you squeezed to release the bulb from the flash gun.

I want to know how Luke knew how to turn on the saber, which he'd never seen before. :lol

 

[Serafino]

Word from lonepigeon is that the blades were square and made of wood. It was a fabulous 'floor effect' and made the final effect look better than anything since, IMO.

Luke had an uh, 'intuitive' grasp of things, seems like that was even part of the story wasn't it....