Toy lightsaber's scoping blades.

[Landau]

Has anyone else noticed but me, that in the 90's, electornic sabers (Luke's and Vader's) scoping blades had 5 pieces to them, and that the recent ones from episodes 1-3 have only four pieces making the blades shorter in length?

[kivaanzion]

The Episode II and III sabers are definitely shorter that the original Hasbro sabers from the mid 90s.

However the Qui-Gon and (rare) Obi-Wan Ep I sabers did have 4 sections, but were just as long the ones from the 90's.

One thing I found with the Ep I sabers is that the plastic blades are opaque rather than being transparent. This provides a much more even distribution of light giving it a more movie-like appearance.

The Hasbro sabers, Ep II sabers, newest Ep III and re-issued sabers all have the transparent blades which end up having very bright lines where the blade sections connect, and dim to dark areas along the length of the blade sections themselves. This makes for a very uneven look to the lit blade and is really annoying considering that they are getting better and better with the shape of the hilts, and internal electronics.

The shorter blade itself might be to prevent accidents from occurring more often. Kids might not knock down the living-room lamp, or smack the tv with a shorter blade.