Scrap Metal Lightsaber!

A high"light" of the vacation! It's a very expensive thing to do, but my friend was not going away from the Star Wars experience without his own unique laser sword. Also known as a Lightsaber.

As part of the illusion to make this feel like you are "really" in Star Wars, lightsabers are relics of the Jedi Order and as such you cannot openly sell them without the First Order shutting you down. So the clever merchants are offering.... scrap metal... wink, wink... at Savi's Workshop.

We booked a reservation months ago, as crazy as this sounds for as expensive as this is, they might not be able to get you in without a reservation. Once you make your appointment, they hand you a "menu" of the "scrap metal" available. You can only pick from one group of parts, if you want more you'll have to do this again and again!

While browsing the menu, Kylo Ren and a few Stormtroopers showed up to see what was going on! Everybody hid the menus, the shopkeepers quickly put up decoy merchandise, Kylo Ren "questioned" people. It was a lot of fun. Nothing but scrap metal over here!

After they left and the coast was clear, we payed up and chose the Protection and Defense" group. Our waiting ticket says Group D.

Before we went in, we were given a brief tutorial on simple lightsaber construction. We all knew we were there to build lightsabers so this wasn't too much of a "spoiler" but I guess if we didn't have this prep, it would slow down the process later. It's okay if it's slow, we did pay a lot for this.

Everybody gets a spot to work. You can bring in a friend to take pictures and stuff, so you yourself can fully enjoy the show without the distraction of having to record it, like everybody does with everything these days.

There's a "show" where they tell you about the various styles and colors and stuff. They guy's tale is matched by music in the background, and it was very very cool. You really felt like you were IN the movie. You're not just buying a lightsaber, but the whole experience of building it, as well. Make sure to savor it.

The assembly process felt a little chaotic and rushed, and there was a little trouble with getting our metal pieces to fit together, but we figured it out. And we were sure to.. not.. be rushed. After the construction... I won't spoil how the whole thing went. Needless to say, it was cool. The "blade" is removable so you can carry it around like this is you want. My friend bought the extra belt clip and did wear this all day.

Right outside is Dok-Ondar's Den of Antiquities. He's kind of an eccentric gangster and collector, so he gets away with selling things like extra lightsaber crystals. There he is, he's an Ithorian. Or more commonly called a "hammerhead." I don't know if he finds that offensive, I wasn't brave enough to ask.

General Greivous mask and Maz Kanata statue replicas. This is where they sell the really cool "expensive" collectibles.

Sith artifacts for collecting, if you dare. You just don't know the POWER of the collectibles!

Here's a cute little critter in a tank over here. Wonder what's this guy's story? Be sure there's a story to be had over here.

Yes yes. Let the collectibles flow through you. You can dress like The Emperor, but you probably can't actually BE The Emperor.

Another creature in a tank. You can probably look up what this is, or I'm sure the shop keepers will be happy to tell you if you ask.

That dress over there has given us something. Hope. Okay that sounded lame, but it was the line from the movie.

Here's the Jedi Holocrons, which are like complicated information storage things only Jedi can use. Also you can see the extra lightsaber crystals. You can put them inside the lightsaber we just built, and change the color of the blade. But it seemed too complicated to take it apart and put back together to do that often, so we chose not to get any.

If you want Yoda's cane, here they are! My friend tried to use it as an actual cane, but he was quite a lot taller than Yoda so it looked very ridiculous.

This trinket was so priceless to the character in Star Wars: Rebels, that she risked her life to get it back. And the villain only stole it because he wanted to be a... meany. 

How many of those creatures do you recognize? The big smiley one is a Nexu.

 If you look up, there's a level you can't really go to, but it has TONS of cool stuff up there to see.

There's a golden bust up there of... Jar Jar Binks? What is THAT all about? Haha glad to see he has a small cameo appearance here, even if most fans would not mind his complete erasure from the galaxy.

Taxidermy Wampa up there! Fun fact: Mark Hamill did not know he was going to "dis-arm" the attacking wampa in the movie, when he filmed that scene he thought he was swiping the lightsaber to scare it away. Later when he saw the edit, he felt bad for the poor thing.

So. Much. Stuff. To look at. Whatever you thought was cool in the movie, is sure to be found tucked away in a corner here.

Make sure to touch this piece of Star Wars history in the entrance. This stone mural was hanging in The Emperor's office on Coruscant! How did this wind up on the edge of the galaxy?

I guess we didn't get a picture of this while on Batuu, so this is when we got back home. You get a collectible pin with the purchase of the lightsaber, so basically this little thing costs $200. I didn't mention that before? Yeah, the lightsaber experience is expensive. But worth it.

My friend got lots of pictures of this on Batuu, but not one with Minty? What does the safety manual say about turning this on near furniture? As you can see, my friend chose the violet crystal only seen in Master Mace Windu's lightsaber. Which is balanced between light and dark powers. Red and Blue make Purple! Though my friend is totally more of a "blue" force guy.