Star Wars was a breakout success for many well-discussed reasons, but one powerful factor was how it easily lent itself to creative backyard play. Kids of all stripes swung imaginary lightsabers, fired imaginary blasters and, when The Phantom Menace came along, engaged in complex imaginary trade negotiations. Luckily, George Lucas had the foresight to license his creation to toy companies, so children could harass their parents to buy them officially branded gewgaws. (He also took a lower salary on the first film to retain the toy rights, the first of a number of shrewd moves that made him the most successful independent film-maker in history.) The suits at Disney (the parent company that currently owns everything Star Wars and keeps Lucas at a benevolent elder statesman’s distance) have been licking their chops not just about this December’s Episode VII – The Force Awakens, but also all the ancillary products kids will feel strangely hollow, unfulfilled and possibly unloved if they don’t get to own.
And while there have been weird Star Wars toys in the past, everything about this new regime seems buttoned-up for maximum desirability and profitability. To that end, and in keeping with the global nature of the brand, Star Wars has initiated #ForceFriday, a big bonanza in which stores will get new inventory of tie-in materials from a movie no one has seen. Leading to this Friday’s hullabaloo was a YouTube round-the-world event – which ends on Thursday night – where the new toys were unboxed live in 15 different cities over an 18-hour span. It only really takes 60 seconds to reveal a new trinket, so the live stream makes for a lot of vamping. I missed the kick-off in Sydney, in which Star Wars cross-pollinated a bit with Lego to present Bladebuilders. Riffing on the new scary looking red lightsaber with the cruciform-like base the Bladebuilders are a system where you can mix, match and bend lightsabers to create your own combinations. And while you may have detected a hint of snark in some of this report prior to this paragraph, the time has come to drop the facade of irony and admit that this does, indeed, look like quite a great deal of fun.
Later the simulcast went back over to homebase in Los Angeles, where we saw Poe Dameron’s X-Wing. If you haven’t been scrounging the internet for Star Wars news, then you don’t know that Poe Dameron is Oscar Isaac’s character in The Force Awakens, who is thought to be a Han Solo-ish rogue. The X-Wings are, of course, the scrappy space fighters that the good guys destroy Death Stars in. (Their wings form an X, hence the name). You may recall that in the original series there was a notch in the back just the right size for our pal R2-D2. Well, this toy comes complete not just with a small Poe Dameron action figure (which I guess you can repurpose for any Inside Llewyn Davis or A Most Violent Year games as well) but the cute li’l robot beach ball you may have seen in the trailers, named BB-8. Admittedly, I didn’t see those two moments of unboxing live, and that’s an issue I’ll have to deal with until my dying day. But I was at my laptop when the Star Wars YouTube Channel’s anchors, the peppy Anthony Carboni and Andi Gutierrez, went live to a studio in Tokyo.
They introduced a Japanese toy enthusiast, citing his YouTube follower count, and he (and another host) showed us three models. One was a large stormtrooper that said movie lines when you pushed a button, and next to him was a smaller version. 75102 - Poe's X-Wing Fighter™ revealed. $79.99, with Poe Dameron, mechanic and pilot minifigures and BB-8 figure. Also in the smaller size is the presumed villain of The Force Awakens, the masked, cloaked figure Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver. Yanking the cloth away from Kylo Ren’s head, one of the announcers noted that “we’ve never seen Kylo Ren without his cloak before.” “We’ve never seen Kylo Ren at all because the movie isn’t out yet!” I shouted back at my screen, forcing my wife to finally come by and ask what the heck I was watching. New #StarWars: #TheForceAwakens poster with Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma and General Hux. The global unboxing event (which sounds like something out of a Don DeLillo novel) was having an unintended effect on me.
I love Star Wars, I really do. But how is it that I’m already behind on it, when it isn’t out yet? I feel like this franchise, and its 21st-century way of promoting itself, is leaving me choking in the dust. There was Star Wars Celebration, there was San Diego Comic-Con and then Disney’s D23 event in Anaheim. If I just go to the movies on 18 December, am I even engaged with this thing at all? The next hour (11pm EST) brought another unboxing in Seoul. A noted Korean-American YouTube toy reviewer from New Hampshire by the name of Dollastic was flown all the way across the globe to stand in the middle of traffic and show off a Lego version of the Poe Dameron’s X-Wing that we’d already seen in non-Lego form. A young woman translated her English into Korean for the live crowd. Neither Dollastic nor the team from Tokyo ever mentioned what any of these items would actually cost. Just woke up, tuned into the #ForceFriday unboxing, and saw Rey and Phasma costumes available for kids!
Born from today’s technological innovations and a geek’s desire, the dgpower Star Wars Death Star levitating speaker got us once it started playing John Williams’ Imperial March. That and the fact that it floats in mid-air. Sure, floating speakers are not new but this particular one suits a purpose. Instead of striking fear into the hearts of the Rebel Alliance, this fully operational battle station brings about a sense of awe in our geeky hearts. That’s about as much shut-up-and-take-our-money as it can get for any Star Wars fan.For starters, even the box that holds the speaker is nothing short of majestic. Just staring at the Star Wars logo is enough to set our geek hearts aflutter. On top of that, the front image of the Death Star, illuminated and hovering in space, made it even more unbearable for us to hold off on the unboxing.Having seen earlier hands-on photos of how the Death Star speaker fits snugly in one hand, we were quite surprised at how huge the box was. Digging in, we found the basic equipment to get us started with our very own levitating Death Star.
The spherical speaker itself is a sight to behold and comes with a micro-USB cable, meant to plug the orb to a power source. Accompanying the speaker is the magnetic base emblazoned with the Galactic Empire insignia, and an adaptor to power the base. Two USB ports are also integrated with the base, so you get to charge both the speaker and your smartphone from a single power source.Setting up is generally a fuss free and simple affair. Press the power button located at the rear to power up the speaker and promptly pair it to any Bluetooth-enabled devices. No passwords are required either, and all we did was tap on a Bluetooth device listed as DS-809 (presumably, DS stands for Death Star) and it’s done.Right beside the power button is the light switch that lets you toggle between a quiet, stealthy Death Star or a glowing battle station. While the concave laser dish that obliterated Alderaan in a heartbeat does light up, we figure there could be a bit more thought to this, and top on that wish list would be detachable plastic pieces to emulate the laser, complete with green lights.
With the lights on and the speaker paired, it’s now simply a matter of placing the orb above the base and levitating it. This is actually pretty tricky and it’ll take all your Force abilities to get it right. We’ll be honest and admit, it took quite a few attempts to get this right. The trick is to set up the speaker, and light it up before you levitate it. Because once you get it floating, you don’t ever want to mess with the speaker, other than to nudge it slightly to rotate it.That said, practice makes perfect since it’s about finding the right holding technique and sweet spot. With the former, cupping the speaker with both hands and slowly lowering it to the base worked for us. To locate the sweet spot, however, requires a bit of patience and steady hands. But once you do, you’ll feel a slight lock rather than notice the orb be repelled away or attracted towards the base. If all else fails, power down the base and repeat again after five minutes, to reset the magnetic field.
Once we got the trick down, we’ve got ourselves one levitating Death Star, ready to be the topic of envy during house parties. Watch the full video here.Lest you forget, this floating battle station is a Bluetooth speaker. That means you can stream any music from your smartphone or tablet to it. Star Wars fans would be experiencing goosebumps the moment they hear any Star Wars soundtrack being played from the Death Star speaker. But on a more impartial note, the speaker does quite well in an enclosed space, able to fill a decently-sized HDB room with its audio. Bass and vocal clarity are considerably good, given the petite nature of the speaker. The latter is especially important since the speaker also acts as a handsfree device to take calls. It’s safe to say that your voice gets picked up quite clearly too since we didn’t have to repeat ourselves during calls.Drag the image below from left to right to see the light-up effect!Here we have it, a fully operational, lit up, levitating Death Star, playing the Imperial March.
#starwars #deathstar #imperialmarch #bluetooth #wireless #speaker #dgpower #levitate #levitating #magnetic #gadget #toy #geekculture #geekA video posted by Geek Culture (@geek_culture) on Jul 12, 2016 at 6:07am PDTNow imagine the Death Star speaker, floating in mid-air on your bedside table. Its internal lights are on, giving you a functional night light in the form of a fearsome battle station. You wake up in the morning, greeted by the Star Wars opening theme and feel like a million bucks, ready to take on the world or even the Empire.If you’re a Star Wars fan, or for that matter, an aficionado of cool gadgets, the dgpower Death Star levitating speaker needs to be part of your collection. Some might say its S$289.90 price is unusually steep but we figure that’s not a huge concern for self-respecting Star Wars fans out there.For our fellow geeks dying to get this, here’s a special offer. You can order the dgpower Death Star levitating speaker at a special price of S$239.90. The order includes FREE local shipping within Singapore.