Hi Seth,
personally I would foremost give credit to George Lucas of Lucasfilm Ltd. . . . for without whom this galaxy far, far away and from a long time ago would not exist nor would the infamous lightsabers wielded by the jedi knights as written down in the Journal of the Whills ... also Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff from Parts of Star Wars website should be mentioned by name even before others and myself ... they laid down the ground work or building blocks from which others could rise to the occassion and share their discoveries with all of us.
Lucas-- OH I GUESS.. maybe I'm still a little bitter about the PT... but you're right of course.
I didn't know the names of the partsofsw guys, so without doubt I will now include them!
That said . . . I'm looking forward to many more revisions which will include even more information on lightsabers yet to be discovered and revealed. I for one know one other person residing in Rancho Obi-Wan, Petaluma California by the name of Steve Sansweet who would love a digital copy or perhaps even a real printed version to be reviewed and added to his famous collection
Chaïm
That would be awesome! Steve was the first guy to really get in there and dig, paving the way for Don Biess and JW Rinzler to add their contributions.
Is there any plan to do something for the prequel lightsabers?
Like I said-- probably not. There's no mystery about their construction. This book is for people looking to build an OT saber from sourcing parts. Since the PT sabers were designed and fabricated from scratch, you either buy a replica, a resin cast, or 3D print one.
They are also fairly well documented. In fact, one of the things that got this happening was my son's copy of the Official Lightsaber Guide from Lucasfilm. Most of the OT props covered are wrong. The Skywalker saber, Obi-Wan's saber, and Vader's saber are all represented by their ROTS versions. Luke's Jedi saber is technically right-- but of course it's the "hero" not the V2 or Yuma.... damn it, that book really pisses me off! ;P
I just don't love the PT sabers. The designs held by the stars (Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace, Yoda, Anakin) are cool-- but I really dislike the ROTS versions of the OT sabers, and beyond them, pretty much every other saber you see is the same basic design. The entire Jedi council (that isn't a main character) has a minor variation on the same design, and I always thought that was a major cop out.
Wow. This is so great.
Only question now is when are we doing a run for the physical version for our nightstands?? ha
Thank you!
A few people are asking about a print version. I'm inclined to say no-- mostly for three reasons:
1. The legality. Even though I never have plans to sell, a print version might indicate that I do. Even if it were to cover print costs, the fact that I can't source the legal owners of most of the images, that means I'd be opening myself up to trouble. I also don't know how Lucasfilm would feel about such a thing. I intentionally designed it at an odd size with no print bleed and let the page count fall in a way that it's not an easy print and run.
2. Ownership. The best way around the legal problems would be to have the material copyrighted, but I'm not comfortable with that given that all the work was done by other people. I just organized this all. The second I put it out as a book, I'm suddenly the voice/face/expert and I don't think that's fair to the countless people who contributed to this-- especially since none of this contributions were specifically FOR this. I'm just giving back to the community, I don't now, or ever, want to, or expect to, get any money for this.
3. It's organic. This isn't meant to be a permanent thing. I plan to update it regularly. I made this last week. In the last TWO DAYS we've made new discoveries about the V2. A print run would require minimums and I don't want to be stuck with a box full of outdated information! At some point, we'll see more of the V2. We'll find the t-track. Roy will stop being soooo lazy and draw blueprints for other sabers. If I keep it electronic, it's always easy to update and keep current.
Now, all that said... I did build it at a high enough resolution that it could be printed. If somebody wanted to take the PDF to a copy shop, pay to have some color prints made and trimmed out, they are more than welcome to.
Once we get through this beta I'll get the first official version done, and Roy has been kind enough to host it at wannawanag where anyone can download it and do what they like-- just like the lightsaber tree.
The only thing I don't want is for somebody to print it and sell it. That would be a dick move.