I got hold of a couple of Hasbro Star Wars toys for my Star Wars theme party.

It takes 3AA bateries, to power the lights and sounds. The blade lights up green or red depending if you have the 'Sith spikes' extened or not, which are spring loaded and triggered by a button on the hilt.

As the lightsaber is powered up or down it makes a various humming sounds like in the movies. It also makes lightsaber 'clashing' sounds when you hit it on something, which would be great if you had two of them for lightsaber battles. The lightsaber blade is not spring loaded unfortunately, but will extend with gravity if you point it downwards, or if you wave it through the air. If course you have to push the blade back in by hand too, which is sometimes a little tricky.

The whole thing is quite chunky, so it's more of a toy than a prop, but fine for less serious things like fancy dress, or of course for a child.

The next Star Wars toy I came across was given to me by a friend, these are also around £25 in the shops. This is the Hasbro Star Wars Revenge Of The Sith Energy Beam Blaster.

This blaster doesn't have any batteries, so no fancy movie sound effects. Instead it shoots an 'Energy Beam' when the trigger is pressed, which is basically silly string. It's provided with two canisters of silly string, which by all accounts don't last that long. I've seen refill canisters available for as little as £!.49 on line.

I'll probably be using this blaster for my Stormtrooper prop at the party, so no shotting silly string around the house for me.