light sabers vs beam sabers
Being a fan of both Star Wars and Gundam, I find myself wondering who came up with the idea of a laser powered saber, was it a hollywood sci-fi innovation or was it originally from a Japanese manga or anime? Clearly from the date of their release, the first Star Wars movie a ‘new hope’ back in 1977 would predate the original gundam series which was released in 1979. However an older giant robot genre anime called Voltes V sported an equally giant sized sword which springs out from its chest. although the image of the sword is drawn similar to that of a traditional sword, they do call the weapon the laser sword. Incidentally George Lucas also called the lightsaber a laser sword during the early stages of star wars production.
but if we were to count the Voltes’ laser sword similar to that of a beam saber, then we should probably count Frodo’s Sting and Gandalf’s Glamdring from Tolkien’s the the Lord of the Rings as a light saber as well. ^^ however should we consider a light saber in the strictest sense with a blade made out of energy, then the earliest reference would probably be from Issac Asimov’s Lucky Starr series. (not to be confused with the the Japanese manga Lucky Star). released back in the early 1950’s Issac Asimov describes a sword named the force-blade, a weapon with a short stainless steel shaft that could project a force field that could cut through anything.Â
speaking of lasers, I’m going to have laser eye surgery tomorrow, hopefully everything goes well. ^^
