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George Lucas C&Ds 'Lightsaber Laser'
dward90 writes "George Lucas thinks that bulky, handheld lasers shouldn't be produced because they are his intellectual property. From CNN: 'George Lucas wants to force a laser company to stop making a new, high-powered product he says looks too much like the famous lightsaber from his classic sci-fi series.
Lucasfilm Ltd. has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hong Kong-based Wicked Lasers, threatening legal action if it doesn't change its Pro Arctic Laser series or stop selling it altogether.'"
Surely those things are like 50 years old now. Feels like it. Don't tell me - the problem is that Lucas is still alive.
I don't care about the legal implications of what the laser looks like, but I think it would be a lot cooler to have if it didn't look like a toy. I don't want someone getting a hold of it and thinking it is a light saber and shooting me with it. Dangerous tools should never be made to resemble toys, regardless of who owns the trademarks on the toys.
Wait... do you think that it's possible that he borked the prequels on purpose?
He would have been a gajilionaire off of Indiana Jones, anyway.
Technoli
I hope Lucas also got a patent on a process for establishing "prior art" through the use of a non-functional prop, imagination, and delusions of grandeur.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Indiana Jones was great (the first 3 anyway). If he'd made anything else decent then it would be recognised as such. Plenty of other writers/directors have made more than just one successful movie/series.
which is totally what she said
I seriously doubt 'George Lucas' had anything to do with this. It's possible he's not even aware of it. This was done by the Lucasfilm Ltd legal department. George doesn't exactly engage in day-to-day operations....he has 'people' for that.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
If he succeeds, then REAL scifi authors could have a field day. No more helicopters, hovercraft, or zillions of other inventions they wrote about without getting their permission first...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
It wasn't that long ago that the lasers from this very same company were featured on the slashdot front page. While the company doesn't make any Star Wars references themselves, the slashdot write-up certainly did.
Here's the Slashdot article "Set Free Your Inner Jedi (Or Pyro)". It was posted June 14 - less than a month ago today. I'm surprised the intrepid Slashdot editors didn't remember running it while writing up this summary.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It used to be that Science Fiction authors and movie makers used to -like- the fact that their predictions came true because it showed that they made good predictions... Imagine how much H.G. Wells would be thrilled if someone made a working time machine based on his book, something tells me that he wouldn't send a C&D letter because they "stole" his idea, instead he'd be happy that he could be the inspiration for such a great idea.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
He is a terrible writer and made the prequels on his own, and not inside of a studio. Not a soul could question him to revise or improve upon what he was doing.
And while 1 was awful, 2 really wasn't terrible, and I'd contend that 3 is actually on par with A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
it's more like lawyers realize they can sound busy and make extra money by thinking that you have to sue anything remotely similar.
Wait, I'm confused. Is that supposed to be criticism or praise?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Because he said ... *gasp!* penis! Such base, immoral language should not be allowed in a public forum! Soon people might throw around other medical terms like 'testicles' and 'mammaries' or even ... dare I say it ... 'vagina'! It's a slippery slope that leads to people eating babies.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
It seem pretty obvious to me that we cannot allow art copyright apply to scientific discoveries.
No one is going to buy one simply because the handle looks similar (and it is a laser). And it is a handle, it is no wonder that it is similar looking to other handles.
Quite a lot of possible future technology has been dreamed up by fiction writers.
For example Star Trek could sue cell phone makers (the first ones even admit to being inspired by Star Trek).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I'd contend that 3 is actually on par with A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.
I have only one* word for you:
"N(OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)x10***"**
*3
**"DO NOT WANT!"
***This filter is being all fascist and denying my quote.
Most of the time anyone's pitching something "light saber" like in their marketing materials [...] I can see why Lucas is trying to get the association away from his name.
Maybe if Wicked had actually done that, you might have a point. But seeing as they don't make any mention of Star Wars, Lucas, Lightsabers, or anything even remotely connected to them in any way, this is just Lucas being a dick.
When I was ten, I read fairy stories in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
-C. S. Lewis
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
and yet, despite that, is still the greatest movie ever made.
Just generally looking like a light saber isn't enough to invoke copyright. For a patent or trademark claim that might be enough, but TFA specifically mentioned copyright.
For copyright to apply, it would have to look strikingly similar to a specific lightsaber design published by Lucas. If it does (I don't know), then Lucas is in his right.
you used the term "good lawyer" that's like saying "honest politician" or "military intelligence." You shouldn't use phrases with words that directly contradict themselves.
That's a big stretch for copyright.
Copyright doesn't cover functional parts of objects. A D-battery sized cylinder with a light source at one end predates anything Lucas has done. The exterior detail doesn't match any Lucas product. Lucas doesn't have a design patent, and if he did, it would have expired years ago. Lucas would lose this in court.
The Wicked Lasers device is probably just a prototype, though. They admit they're getting those Nichia NDB7352 1 watt laser diodes by disassembling video projectors. If the product was in production, they'd be buying them in bulk from Nichia.
That's EXACTLY what Stephen King did with "The Dark Tower." Humiliated every beloved character, one by one, set it in a world that bore ZERO resemblance to Mid-World, stuck his own dumb ass in it and wrote a note saying "Sorry it sucks, that's what you get for hassling me about it. Don't call. Love, Steve."
Dunno if I'd even give him credit for basically inventing the lightsaber, though. It's been one of those ideas that has floated around for at least one millennium, in one form or another.
E.g., King Arthur's sword Excalibur is said in various legends to be so bright that you can't (or can only with difficulty) look at it, and in at least one it consists or is covered in two jets of bright flame coming from the two chimaera heads on the hilt. It also can slice right through steel.
Other flaming swords or swords made of flame date as far back as Genesis (God placed one at the entrance to Eden after kicking those two buggers out), or one that shines like the sun is supposed to be wielded by Surtr (leader of the Muspelheim fire giants) in the battle of Ragnarok in Norse mythology. In fact Surtr's sword is arguably even more interesting as it isn't described as flaming or made of fire, but as a sword which shines brighter as the sun.
And while not exactly contemporary with the old Norse, there are paintings from _long_ before Lucas which represent Surtr wielding basically a lightsaber. E.g., "The Giant with the Flaming Sword" by John Charles Dollman from 1909.
Or there's the sword Tyrfing, again norse, forged by the dwarves to shine like the sun and cleave through steel or stone like through cloth. (The only catch was that it _had_ to kill someone each time it was drawn, if all else fails, even its wielder.)
And while not necessarily flaming, great heroes carrying awesome swords with supernatural abilities in battle is basically as old as we have a history. The Celts have the likes of Caladbolg which cleaves hills and leaves a rainbow arc when swung (weapon swing arc effects in computer games, anyown?;)), Caesar had the Crocea Mors, etc.
Really, I liked the original trilogy and all, and I'm not trying to minimize Lucas's role on the whole. But crediting lightsabers as his invention, is a bit like crediting Disney with inventing mermaids ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
After Lucas' infamous hissy fit with the DVD standards committee, he refused to release any of his movies on DVD for a very long time. I got pretty angry at him for that, but I found that there were plenty of other movies out there deserving of my attention. So I went years without watching the Star Wars movies. It turns out that watching those movies regularly altered my perception of those movies. By not watching them for years, the spell lifted and when I finally came back, I was able to (finally) give a more fair evaluation of the original trilogy, and I have to say it didn't age well. At all. Now when I look at it, all I can see is the amazingly bad dialog, occasionally atrocious acting (who puts a hack like Mark Hamil in the same scene with the great Alec Guinness?), and of course plot holes you could drive an imperial star destroyer through.
Lucas has always been a talentless hack. There was never a better time when he made better movies.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, the laser in question really does resemble the light saber. As much as it pains me to side with Lucas, it seems more than within his rights to argue copyright infringement.
Lucas' borrowing was still better than Quentin Tarantino's, though. At least it wasn't immediately transparent, where with Tarantino's films I generally just play "where did he copy this from" during the whole movie, then go rent the actual original films instead of paying a bit of attention to his.
Lemme guess, and then you got to Kill Bill and wondered where he copied Uma's yellow motorcycle suit from, and went to watch Game of Death allegedly starring Bruce Lee and realized you'd taken an unexpected and dramatic dive down the quality scale. "Did George Lucas direct this?!" you wondered. "How could anyone disgrace Bruce's memory like this!"
Or maybe that was just me. :)
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this has NOTHING to do with it being a laser. He claims the shape of the body was built to resemble a light saber handle.
A headline from tech blog Gizmodo called the device "a real life lightsaber." The Daily Tech blog called it "perhaps the first consumer laser weapon" and said it "comes in sleek packaging that looks, unsurprisingly like a lightsaber."
"These references make it clear that the public is being led to believe that the Pro Arctic Laser is an official lightsaber device and/or copied from our design," the Lucasfilm letter said.
He is quoted as saying he's upset at the fact other people are misrepresenting Wicked Lasers product. Not that it is actually representative of anything. His only issues seem to be with the fact people are lead to believe Wicked Lasers product is official, and even admits it is the other blogs doing.
It would be like me posting that you have blue skin, and the blue man group suing YOU for what I said.
A reasonable person maybe.
1. That was episode VI (6), not episode (IV) and her memory of her mother was described as "Images really. Feelings." Which (with little imagination and some empathy) could be attributed to a little girl's idealization of a mother she never knew blurred over time.
2. When in the series did anyone ever explain that Vader wore a suit because he was 'battle-scarred'? When did you see any jedi save possibly yoda actually levitate or indeed ever use the force to move against inertia? I don't think I need to mention how stupid the lava comment was.
3. The one thing we're told again and again about the force is that you can't just jump sides whenever you please. Once you turn to the dark side, you can't just go back (especially when, to get there, you murdered a bunch of children). He gave hints that he was dissatisfied with how the Senate was running things and intimated that he could do better. The second and third movies were all about his dissatisfaction with the Jedi order and his yearning to use his considerable power to force people to conform to his world view, held back only by his jedi training, but fostered by the soon to be emperor. Aside from all that, it was Obi Wan (who wasn't actually there when he turned) who told Luke he was seduced by the Dark Side which just makes that line hearsay.
I'm sure you have more and I'm sure they're just as well thought out and shallow as these. There is criticism that can be leveraged against the Star Wars saga as written by Lucas but frankly, you can do that to any movie or set of movies in hindsight.
You realize that this is not a real Norse myth, right? Right?
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Willow was directed by Ron Howard, not Lucas. Granted, he was a producer, but it still wasn't totally "his baby".
Lucas is at his best when he's NOT behind the camera calling all the shots. Raiders of the Lost Ark is probably testament Numero Uno to this. And while Empire and Return were great movies, I think we have to recognize that part of the reason that Star Wars was such a phenomenon is that it came along at exactly the right time and gave the country exactly what it needed... an old fashioned fairy tale of good guys vs. bad guys in the gray, dreary post-Vietnam world.
Had Star Wars been released in any other time, it probably wouldn't have become the legend that it did. Had Star Wars been released in 1955 or 1995 (with appropriate levels of special effects for the period), it probably would have been as awkward as releasing Easy Rider in 1985. So to some extent, Lucas has probably profited from a good deal of lucky timing. Is he talented? Clearly. Is he the wunderkind that everyone thought in 1977? I think the test of time says "No".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel