Hey Star Wars fans! Got a few million bucks lying around the house collecting dust? Feel like a little DIY action? Shade Station has done some research on exactly what it would take to make your own Darth Vader suit. It’s going to cost you, though. Putting this together would likely set you back about $18.3 million dollars according to their calculations. We’re not talking about a suit to stand in your foyer and freak out your guests, though: this would actually be a working suit for Anakin, post Episode III.
They’ve created a nifty infographic to explain exactly what each piece would likely costâyou provide the evil intentions yourself. To begin with, you’d have to shell out around $600,000 for the helmet’s augmented reality, which would give you night vision, navigational capability, and advanced targeting. (Very important if you’re an evil warlord.) Next up, you’d need some prosthetic limbs after your battle with Obi-Wan. (Leave this out if you haven’t actually battled a Jedi and save some cash.) Each prosthetic leg would cost about $70,000 and the left arm about $40,000. Maintenance for these limbs would be about $5.4 million over a lifetime. (No word about whether or not the age of Anakin at his death had anything to do with this calculation.)
Your base suit would need to be pressurized like that of a NASA astronaut and able to withstand space, which you can get that for a cool $12 million. Now, no Darth Vader suit would be complete without some spooky breathing noises. The site says that this indicates a heart and lung machine, which would cost about $45,000. Then there is that voice synthesizer, which would cost about a thousand. Or you could just hire James Earl Jones to foll0w you around. Did you see him on The Big Bang Theory? He’d probably do it on the cheap!
Check out the infographic below and tweet me/us @JennaBusch/@Nerdist to let us know if you’re considering a Jedi battle just so you can build yourself one of these things. For the record, we are not the droids you’re looking for.
Image: Shade Station, Disney
And since we’re talkin’ Star Wars, watch our rundown of Episode VIII: