Skip to main content

Lightsaber battles nixed by Lucasfilm lawyers

You don’t mess with Jedi, or their lawyers. A group that hosted free and increasingly popular lightsaber battles in the U.S. and Canada got skewered by Lucasfilm attorneys protecting the film franchise’s brand, as reported on Siliconbeat, the Mercury News tech blog. The end result? Cat fights in space, with swords.

For eight years, New York and Toronto-based event company Newmindspace has been hosting lightsaber battles. Earlier this year, Newmindspace was contacted by Lucasfilm lawyers who were not at all happy that an unlicensed company (i.e., no economic benefit for Lucasfilm) was using what the mouthpieces considered protected intellectual property. Hmmm, sense it makes.

Recommended Videos

You can’t start using terms like Jedi, Yoda, Sith, the Force, or even lightsaber without a license. Chances are the growing attendance at the lightsaber battles caused a deep enough disturbance in the Force to awaken a trusted sentinel. In December nearly 10,000 people showed up to battle with the shiny Jedi weapons, with 2000 attendees in San Francisco. Apparently an officially licensed Jedi discovered that mind tricks weren’t enough to stop the battles and called in reinforcements.

Related Offer: For the Star Wars fanatic, see here for official gear and accessories

Newmindspace did try for middle ground, calling the events “The Light Battle Tour” and the weapons “light swords,” but those didn’t fly, either. The message came through more clear than a hologram that Lucasfilm really meant it: No infringement — not even anything close.

Quick to respond to the attorneys’ request, Newmindspace changed the event and weapon names again (faster than 12 parsecs perhaps?). It now hosts Cat Tours in Space in multiple cities, with cats fighting with catblades. So stock up on cat whiskers, redub your weapons feline fighting tools, and get ready for a cat fight. May the means for peace and unity be with you.

Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown Contributing Editor   As a Contributing Editor to the Auto teams at Digital Trends and TheManual.com, Bruce…
From Prequelists to Reylos, these are the 9 definitive types of Star Wars fans
Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars fans don't get along. The fandom has been called toxic and divided, and many times, it's lived up to that stereotype.

But I, for one, count the diversity of the fanbase as a positive. It's what's led to the wide range of stories, genres, and media types over the years, each generating its own small base of fans. More broadly, these fanbases are created based on your generation and what part of the series you gravitated to first for whatever reason. I hope you'll be able to find yourself among at least one of these waves of Star Wars fans and start to see that there's enough room at the table for us all.
The Original Trilogy Boomers

Read more
The 10 best lightsaber duels in Star Wars, ranked
Luke Skywalker lunges towards Darth Vader during their lightsaber fight on Cloud City.

Star Wars has contributed countless indelible moments and images to our popular culture, but if there’s one artifact that is most intrinsic to the Galaxy Far, Far Away, it’s the fantastical weapon of the Jedi Knights, the lightsaber. From the very first time audiences saw Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader cross glowing, humming swords aboard the Death Star in 1977, we’ve been absolutely obsessed, and storytellers across multiple media and nearly half a century have been only too happy to indulge our craving for increasingly elaborate lightsaber duels.
Lightsaber fights come in all shapes and sizes, from emotional one-on-one bouts in live-action to wild animated free-for-alls, and selecting our 10 favorites from the franchise to date was no easy task. There are a lot of metrics by which to judge — the excitement of the action itself, how it’s shot, the story behind it, the use of environment, even the music to which it’s set — but the cream of the crop are those duels that either dominate one category or harmoniously balance each one. Will your favorites make the list? You’ll find we’re full of surprises …

10. The Ronin vs. the Bandit Leader (The Duel - Visions, season 1, episode 1)

Read more
Like Ahsoka? Watch these 7 Star Wars Rebels episodes
Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano aboard her shuttle in "Ahsoka."

The next chapter of the Star Wars: Rebels saga has come with the premiere of the Disney+ series, Ahsoka. Set years after the disappearance of Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn, the show follows Ahsoka Tano when she seeks them both out as she tries to prevent another war with the remnants of the Galactic Empire.

Since this is a sequel series, some audiences may have some catching up to do. But if they like Ahsoka so far, they should check out these seven episodes of Star Wars: Rebels.
The Siege of Lothal (Parts 1 and 2)

Read more