George Lucas Displeased at Unlicensed Lightsaber Laser

Last month, I posted at Neatorama about a company selling hand held lasers that looked a lot like a lightsaber. Wicked Lasers insisted that any resemblance between its product and that of the Star Wars weapon was purely coincidental:

Steve Liu, CEO of Wicked Lasers, said his 7-year-old company has been selling similar lasers for years and has never compared the product to the Jedi weapon wielded by Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and others in the “Star Wars” franchise.

“Most people feel it’s kind of ridiculous …,” he said. “We would never use any comparison like that to ‘Star Wars’ or a lightsaber or anything like that.”

Naturally, this aroused the anger of George Lucas:

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.

“It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright … ,” said the letter, dated last month and provided to CNN by Wicked Lasers.

What do you think? Is it really modeled after a lightsaber?

Link via Geekosystem | Image: Wicked Lasers