Your favorite Star Wars fans will love these gifts
Soon, we’ll all get to spend 192 minutes watching battle scenes a galaxy far, far away. But for most of us, that ultra-long Star Wars: The Last Jedi run time still won’t satisfy our need for all things Star Wars.
SEE ALSO: Daisy Ridley surprises John Boyega with epic video message request
So, bring on the gifts. A Star Wars-themed Christmas, Chanukah or Kwanza present is as close as most of us will get to Luke, Rey, BB-8 and Kylo and Finn.
What follows is a list of our favorite gadgets and tech gear in the Star Wars universe. Some are brand new this year and a few are set to become perennial favorites.
Engage the hyperdrive.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Porg Plush Electronic Toy
Image: lance ulanoff
No one knows exactly what role the Porgs play in Part II of the final Star Wars Skywalker Saga trilogy, but we do know that one somehow ends up as Chewbacca’s co-pilot on the Millennium Falcon (RIP Han). In other words, Porgs are important. They’re also adorable.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Porg Plush Electronic Toy is as soft and huggable as you might expect a Porg to be. However, this $49 (often on sale for $27.99) toy is also animated. The battery-operated toy flaps its flightless wings and toddles forward. There’s a power switch on the bottom and a hidden button in its belly. You can press the belly to initiate a response or Porg-ish action, or you can just leave it alone, and it will randomly move and make sounds.
Granted, if these are truly the sounds a Porg makes, we might just stuff all of them in a box. But if you can overlook the strange utterances, and just stare into those big, limpid eyes, you’ll probably fall in love with this Porg Plush Electronic toy.
Sphero’s BB-9E App-Enabled Droid
Image: lance ulanoff/mashable
If Porgs are the oh-so-cute highlight of what looks to be a pretty dark The Last Jedi, BB-8 was the orange and white heart of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The ball-bot was so inspired, that we just assumed we’d eventually see a legion of similarly inclined astromechs, all focused on the downfall of the First Order. We were so wrong.
BB-9E is the like BB-8’s angry brother. The black and gray robot arrives on the big screen with The Last Jedi and we are fairly certain it’s a Dark Side robot. Naturally, there’s a Dark Side robot toy to go along with it.
Sphero’s BB-9E App-Enabled Droid ($149.99) is a near-perfect replica of the still images of BB-9E we’ve seen thus far. Like the popular Sphero BB-8 before it, the rechargeable BB-9E is a remote-controlled robot that you drive with your Android or iPhone. It also has a magnetically affixed head, though the BB-9E's topper has a more sinister, edgy look. It even has an evil, red eye.
The free Sphero Star Wars app includes AR games that you can play with the droid and March of the Resistance music from the Force Awakens to accompany all the droid’s dastardly doings.
The bot ships with a charging base and a training platform, which is also useful for all those AR runs around the Millennium Falcon.
Sphero R2-D2 App-Enabled Droid
Image: lili sams/mashable
There’s BB-8, BB-9E, and then there’s the OG, R2-D2. Decades before BB-8 melted hearts on the big screen, there was C-3PO’s trusted sidekick. R2-D2 never spoke a word (it’s language is all beeps, bloops ands tweets), but it always had more emotional range than most actors.
Image: lance ulanoff/mashable
Naturally, there are 40-years-worth of toys representing for R2-D2, but perhaps none got it right like this year’s Sphero R2-D2 App-Enabled Droid. The 7-inch, rechargeable, $179 robot nails the look, but it's what it can do with that third leg that sets it apart. This may be the first R2 toy to effectively retract and extend its third leg just as R2-D2 does in the movies. It’s a level of Star Wars Universe verisimilitude we’ve been dreaming of. It can also turn its head and make a lot of classic R2 noises, even with out the free Sphero app.
Force Band
Image: Sphero
People may call Star Wars science fiction, but it’s not. There’s very little in the Star Wars saga that syncs up with the realities of physics, math, or space. It’s a fantasy, which is why there’s this magical thing called “The Force.”
As Obi-Wan explained to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: A New Hope, “It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”
It’s also a pretty cool telekinetic power that let Luke and Rey summon lightsabers into their hands and that allowed Yoda to lift a 5-ton X-Wing out of a swamp.
Toys that bring The Force into the real world should be at the top of your holiday gift-giving list. Sphero’s Force Band, may be the perfect gadget gift, especially if your purchase any one of their App-enabled droids. The $74.99 wearable gadget lets you control the movement of any of their ball-droids with hand and arm gestures.
Propel Star Wars T-65 battle drone
Image: lance ulanoff/mashable
It's unlikely any of use will ever get the chance to step inside a the Millennium Falcon or a Tie-Fighter, but we can pilot tiny facsimiles of Star War's coolest spacecraft thanks to Propel.
The company built a collection of miniature Star Wars drones that, aside from the propellers sticking out of their bottoms, look just like the ships that flew in many of the Star Wars franchise movies and shows.
The $149.99 Propel T-65 X-Wing comes with a remote control that, if you attach headphones, will play the Star Wars theme as well as mission audio. You can fly one of these drones on their own, or get more than one and let them use their built in laser lights to battle. They can be a little tough to control, so start your training by using the free app's AR-based flight-training school. You'll or, ahem, your Star Wars gift recipient, will be flying like a Skywalker in no time.
BB-8 Lego Kit
There are so many excellent Star Wars Lego kits, but a pair of them stood out for us this year. The first is BB-8’s first Lego kit incarnation ($79.99).
Even though it’s far from a smooth ball, Lego’s are blocky bricks after all, it does an excellent job of recreating our favorite droid. I’m especially impressed that the finished BB-8 Lego is not a frozen model. Instead, the head can move about the top of the bot, controlled by a dial you build into the model. It even has a little Lego arm that extends out of its body, just as BB-8 did in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
If you have a lot of cash to burn and your gift recipient has a ton of free time on their hands, you might consider the latest Millennium Falcon Lego kit.
Image: lego
The $800 kit has an insane 7,541 bricks. You wonder if the real space ship even has that many parts. That is, if you can find it. It's been sold out in most places.
Lenovo Star Wars: Jedi Challenge
Ever since the first Star Wars, toy and gadget companies have tried to put Star Wars fans inside the action. Technology in the 1970s, 80s and 90s was limited and so were the experiences. The new millennium, however, is the age of augmented reality. Now, if you're willing to wear just a little bit of awkward-looking equipment, you can fight the Dark Side that’s right in front of you.
That’s the concept and execution of Lenovo’s Star Wars Jedi Challenge. The $200 headset and specially designed lightsaber let you battle in real time with Kylo Ren. The custom augmented-reality headgear merges your real world with the one imagined in the Star Wars Saga. In addition to the battle, you can play a bunch of AR-infused mini-games, including alien chess, also known as Dejarik.
Plox Death Star Speaker
Not everyone wants to play with Star Wars toys. Some people just like looks of all the cool space ships and gear from the movies. Tops on my list is the imposing Death Star. Never has a giant orb been so sinister and yet, so cool.
The desktop-sized, floating Plox Death Star Speaker ($178.99), lets you admire the Death Star without concern that it will ever turn on you and annihilate your world.
The gray orb floats above its base thanks to magnets. It’s also a 5 Watt, 360-degree Bluetooth speaker that will let you listen to all the great music the Empire forbids.
Star Wars Littlebits Droid Inventor Kit
Image: littlebits
Star Wars is some good, clean, fun but it’s also pretty good at driving developing minds to learn. The STEM-friendly Star Wars Littlebits Droid Inventor Kit, is the perfect robot-building activity for Star Wars-obsessed youth.
For $99.99, it lets children ages 8-to12 (and adults, too) custom-build Star Wars droids with the Littlebits modules and a plastic robot shell. Most, though, will want to use the parts to build R2-D2, which looks amazing: 1) Because it’s see-through, 2) Because it can move and make sounds, and 3) Because it can respond to gestures. So not only do you learn about robot building and technology, you get to feel a little bit like a Force-enabled Jedi.
R2-D2 Toaster
Image: Box Lunch
Not every great Star Wars gadget is stuffed full of technology. Some, in fact, are full of crumbs.
This R2-D2 Toaster from Box Lunch ($34.90) is the just about the best thing since sliced bread, especially since it can toast two pieces of bread with the image of our believed R2-D2 right on them.
The crust is strong with this one.
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