I’m not sure that even Tony Stark could create a “real” lightsaber. Canonically, the Star Wars weapon is a tightly looped string of plasma contained by intense magnetic fields (and maybe a bit of the force). We can contain plasma within magnetic fields sure, but not with the kind of engineering mastery that would allow all that tech to fit into a lightsaber’s hilt.

But we do have a pretty good handle on fire, and the many ways to manipulate it. If you do it right, you can make your very own firesaber, and it’s as close to a lightsaber as we’re going to get (for now).

The firesaber above, created by Sufficiently Advanced, is one part Star Wars and three parts engineering. It uses a replica lightsaber for the hilt (complete with sound effects), a heating coil for the ignition, and a fuel mix of methanol and acetone injected into a pressure vessel that uses butane for the propellant. The end result? A beam of light coming out of a lightsaber hilt that can burn stuff.

What makes it really look like a civilized weapon is the fact that the stream of fuel is used up a few feet away from the hilt. It looks like the blade actually ends in a straight line, rather than curve downward into the dirt. And when they add boric acid to the mix, the firesaber gets a greenish glow ala Return of the Jedi. What better weapon to destroy a picture of Jar Jar?

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IMAGES: Sufficiently Advanced