George Lucas Gets Crazier With Cease and Desist Letter Against Wicked Lasers

If you thought Jar Jar Binks was the craziest George Lucas could get, hang on to your midichlorians. He’s topped it with a cease and desist letter sent to Wicked Lasers Inc. for having the audacity to sell the most powerful laser available to consumers, with a hilt that he thinks looks like a Star Wars lightsaber. If you look at the product itself, the resemblance is not even close to a light saber. The company, Wicked Lasers, has been selling similar products for over seven years without any legal repercussions, nor any intention of copying the Star Wars franchise. The specific charge is that the hilt of the Pro Arctic laser, manufactured to function as a powerful laser, resembles too much the hilt of the light sabers used in the Star Wars franchise. Here are a couple of pictures of the hilts of the “weapons” in question – you decide for yourself, but our vote swings towards “Jar Jar Crazy”. To view even more licensed Star Wars lightsaber hilts, none of which come close to resembling the Pro Arctic Spyder III Wicked Laser, check this assortment at Thinkgeek. Perhaps the most amusing refutation of the Wicked Laser’s intentions to be anything like something from the Star Wars franchise comes directly from the company’s press release on the topic:

“While press or customers may have coined the nickname Lightsaber when talking about the product, Steve Liu, CEO of Wicked Lasers, has never compared this or any of his products to the Jedi weapon wielded by Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader — not to mention the other obvious differences between the two products (e.g. PAS3 is 1 watt peak output power while Lightsaber is1 billion watts peak output power; PAS3 has non adjustable infinite length beam while Lightsaber has adjustable finite length blade; PAS3 is real while the Lightsaber is imaginary, and so forth).” -Company Press Release

Support for Wicked Lasers is being shown in overwhelming numbers through over one thousand user comments on CNN’s take on the story at CNN.com. Wicked Laser has responded to initial reports of the dangerous nature of the product by adding a safety lens which reduces the power of the laser by 80% unless removed, and a lock which keeps the laser from being accidentally turned on. Correction: While Wicked Lasers does manufacture laser pointers, the model in question is not a laser pointer, but rather a personal portable laser. The error has been corrected.