The holidays are officially here! Thanksgiving is this Thursday, and Christmas will be here in no time given how times seems to always fly faster at the end of the year. This means it’s time to start your Christmas decorating, starting with your tree! While many might have specific themes for their Christmas trees, the ultimate Star Wars fan will most likely theirs dressed in ornaments from the epic sci-fi series. For those who are die-hard collectors, casual fans or emerging enthusiasts, here are some cool Star Wars ornaments that will light up your tree and collection. Bring the force to your holiday festivities with these stellar ornaments (all from Hallmark’s special Star Wars collection) that can only be decried as festive and out of this world!

 16. 2005 Star Wars #9 Princess Leia

Princess Leia in her slave costume is super hot when she wore it in Return of the Jedi and this ornament perfectly embodies that sexy slave costume, but has a certain edge thanks to the spear she’s carrying. This ornament will spice up your tree!

15. 2011 Star Wars Bossk

The special Edition Bossk is a new ornament for 2011, so make sure you add it to your collection before they run out or become way too expensive on Amazon or eBay.

14. 1999 Star Wars Queen Amidala

No tree will be complete without a Queen Amidala ornament. She captured Star Wars fans’ hearts in Episode One and should be a vital piece for serious collectors.

13. 1997 Star Wars C-3PO and R2-D2

Take it back old school with this 1997-issued set of two ornaments that depict everybody’s favorite droids!

12. 2011 Star Wars Showdown at the Cantina

There’s always a showdown when Han Solo is involved and this ornament captures the hero at his best…with a gun in his hand.

11. 2011 Star Wars #15 Jedi Master Yoda

No one can deny how badass Yoda is as a Jedi and this newest ornament will definitely be a keepsake piece.

10. 1999 Star Wars Chewbacca

No collection would be complete without Chewbacca, and this limited-edition ornament is the perfect piece to bring the force during the holiday season!

9. 2009 Star Wars: A Deadly Duel

Relive the memory where Obi-Wan Kenobie and Anakin Skywalker batter dark forces with this action-packed ornament.

8. 2011 Star Wars LEGO Darth Vader

This piece is great for both Star Wars fans and Star Wars LEGO collectors!

7. 2005 Star Wars Princess Leia

A classic look of Princess Leia’s complete with the ear buns and white dress is a no brainer for any collector to have on their Christmas tree.

6. 2011 Stars Wars Slave 1

This ornament talks, making for an even better and interactive piece for your 2011 ornament collection

5. 2002 Star Wars #6 Darth Vader

To many, Darth Vader is the ultimate villain, which means a vital collector’s ornament for the very die-hard fans out there, looking to spruce their Christmas trees and their overall Star Wars collection

4. 2010 Star Wars #14 Luke Skywalker

No tree should be without a Luke Skywalker and this collectible piece will fit right in!

3. 2010 Star Wars K-3PO and R-3PO Comic Con

These two guys were last year’s limited edition ornaments and feature a special Comic Con insignia making them even more valuable pieces for collectors.

2. 2011 Star Wars Dengar and IG-88 SDCC

These two guys were offered at this year’s Comic Con, making them pretty valuable pieces and selling for about $159 a pop. Pretty pricy for ornaments, but a pretty fair price for collectors.

1. 2011 Star Wars R2-Q5 and R2-A3 NYCC

These guys were released at this year’s New York Comic Con, which makes their price skyrocket. These two will set you back about $169 bucks, which might be steep for non-collectors. But to collectors, it’s chump change.

Star Wars was ahead of its time and, obviously, Mr. George Lucas is the ish! He imagined an awe inspiring sci-fi world that has become embedded in our memories forever. We all ooohed and aaaahed at all the high-tech gadgets throughout all of the films, wishing we could all play with lightsabers and have our own R2-D2s. Turns out, some of the Star Wars tech can be found in our universe today and some might come to fruition in the near future.

9. Battle Droids

Battle Droids were quite useful throughout the Star Wars movies. They were plentiful, took orders and spared human lives in battle. The military has taken some cues from Star Wars and are now creating their own battle droids. Named the “BigDogs,” these remotely-controlled robots will be fighting the wars of the future. The robotic war monsters feature an array of big guns, the ability to climb and walk any terrain and features loads more of functions developed for warfare. It also features an extensive and complicated computer brain with animal-like legs, a laser-guided senors and state-of-the-art shock-systems and articulating legs and feet. It normally runs on gasoline but plans in the future are for it to be able to deploy solar shields and powerup using the sun should its gas supply run low.

8. Heads Up Display

At the end of Star Wars, Luke doesn’t want to use the heads-up display (HUD) that’s in his X-Wing fighter. Turns out modern fighter jets use these displays to help navigate and attack, but it’s also now being incorporated into cars. BMW and GM actually have these head-up displays in their cars. The one that the BMW 7-Series has allows you to see your speed and navigation, which emanate off of the nose of the car. Pretty soon, all cars will incorporate this technology. GM is actually working on a full HUD for the windshield that will show speed, navigation and more! Who would have thought, right?!

7. Holograms

When Princess Leia sends a holographic e-mail to Obi Wan-Kenobi, we all wished we could send messages in such a high-tech way. Well a professor at the University of Arizona actually created the first real holographic message. It worked using 16 cameras to create the source material, then two lasers were used to transmit the message onto a piece of plastic to create an “interference fringe pattern” (one for dark tones and one for light) that appears to hover in space.

6. Bionic Hands

When Luke Skywalker loses his hand when battling Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, a medical bot outfits him a new bionic hand that moves as if it were real. This Star Wars tech is now a reality, thanks to new technology from Touch Bionics , the company behind the i-LIMB Pulse bionic hand. It works by reading myoelectric signals that are tiny electric pulses in your arm and then sends tom to the hand, movin it accordingly. The coolest part about it is that this bionic hand works with any computer and Bluetooh signals, allowing users the ability to tweak the algorithms for sensitivity and control five fingers independently for grabbing objects.

5. Magnetic Levitation

The Galactic Empire used an armored hover train to transport prisoners and cargo acres the spice-mine, asteroid-shaped planet Kessel. It ran along was was a magnetic levitation track. Seems like this sort of tech is catching up with us as China has started construction on what it hopes will be the world’s first commercial train that uses magnetic levitation. The new train is supposed to reach speeds of up to 250 mph between Shanghai’s new financial district and its new airport. But this is probably just the beginning of transportation of the future using magnetic levitation!

4. Robots

C-3PO and R2-D2 were the coolest robots on the Star Wars block and everybody wanted their own droid after watching the Star Wars movies Thanks to new technology, we now have robots similar to the robotic duo in the movie. Honda created the ASIMO humanoid robot that can recognize faces, sounds, moving objects and more. There’s also a care-providing robot FRIEND that’s a semi-autonomous robot that can help people in had strokes, are paralyzed or suffer from muscle disease.

3. 3D Chess

In the OG film, there was a scene where Chewbacca and C-3P0 played a friendly game of 3D Chess. Of course we all thought that was cool, but it’s actually become a reality. In 2010, Sony created a PlayStaion game called EyePet that allowed players to interact with animated characters. Sort of like an “augmented reality game,” the cool system consisted of a video camera that captured players and then showed it on a live feed on any HDTV, allowing players to play within the game and its animated characters.

2. Hovercraft

The Star Wars LandSpeeder Hovercraft was a cool way to get around, sort of like a flying car that just hovers over land. Well, turns out that this idea has actually become a reality thanks to Moller International who created a red flyingcar they call the M200G. the machine can hover 10 feet off the ground and cruises at a speed of 50 mph. Because the M200G is classified as a recreation device and not an aircraft, it is not subject to FAA regulations and anybody can operate one. But the price is quite insane, starting at  $90,000-$125,000.

1. Lightsabers

The fact that you could kill someone or cut them in half by the use of a simple light still boggles us. Lucas’ lightsaber weapon has to be one of the coolest weapons in all of movie history. Sure, there’s an abundance of plastic and pretty movie-quality replicas, the real thing seemed as if it would never become a reality. Physicists and scientists say such a weapon can never be created because light can never stay frozen in space since it has a tendency to scatter. However, laser weapons are being researched for military purposes. There’s a flying lightsaber called the Airborne Laser that’s a 747 that has been modified to emit a continuous beam of light. There are also several companies working on portable laser weapons for the U.S. Army like the PEP (pulsed energy projectile) that may replace the stun gun soon. It’s more like a plasma pistol, but technology is getting damn close to an actual lightsaber.

What a great gift idea for kids who have Star Wars fans as parents.  Featuring four of some of the most iconic Star Wars characters, each one (with the exception of R2D2) makes a associated noise upon being squeezed.

Chewbacca makes his famous wookie holler, Darth does his heavy breathing thing, and Yoda rattles off some incoherent babble.  No clue as to why R2D2 has nothing to say.  Maybe that’s why he/it is cheaper.  The other three go for $25 and R2D2 goes for $20.

[via Toyology]

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