Disney Imagineer wants his amazing retractable lightsaber to become a toy

Three years ago, Disney revealed the most convincing replica of a Star Wars lightsaber ever devised, one whose glowing blade fully and automatically retracts inside the handle due to a cleverly patented device.

Now, its lead inventor, Lanny Smoot, says he’s hoping that lightsaber might turn into a product you can actually buy, and it sounds like plans could already be in motion, unless Smoot was misinformed.

At Disney’s D23 fan expo last month, a fan asked that question with a camera rolling, as documented by YouTuber Finding The Force. Smoot replied:

I think the company would like to do that. And I think Josh D’Amaro, our number two guy, our head of Disney Parks, said it at a public — I hope — meeting of toy vendors to say, hey, we’d like you to take what we have learned in terms of making a lightsaber, and translate that to something that would be maybe a little bit more accessible to the average person. So yeah, I think it’s going to come.

It’s possible that Smoot was misinformed, though. Today, he now tells The Verge (via Disney spokesperson), “I’m not aware of anything in the works but hope to see it come to fruition in the future.”

Smoot, a celebrated Disney Imagineer who was just inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame — the first Disney inventor after Walt Disney himself with that distinction —helped create fiber optic and video conferencing technologies for Bell Labs before his Disney career.

Since then, he’s created or co-created all sorts of technological wonders, including the ball-shaped magnetic drive system that Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ BB-8 was based on and, most recently, the amazing Holo Tile floor that looks like it could be a precursor to Star Trek Holodeck-style technology.

While his original retractable lightsaber only ever served as a prop, another retractable lightsaber toy has since come to market. Here’s the inside story of the Goliath Power Saber, which would have been an official lightsaber toy if Star Wars toymaker Hasbro hadn’t mysteriously given up on it partway through development.

If Disney did indeed offer up Smoot’s lightsaber designs to toymakers, perhaps that might help explain Hasbro’s mysterious choice.