Pew-pew's not included

Hey, remember that time someone spent two hundred and thirty one thousand dollars on Captain Kirk's phaser? You don't? Well, someone did. And it wasn't even the famous phaser pistol, it was the phaser rifle Captain Kirk used in one episode to to murder his best pal who was granted god-like powers by a space cloud and went all Dark Phoenix. Two-hundred and thirty one thousand. And did I mention that it's not even a real phaser?

Above: That time Captain Kirk battled an all-power being named Gary.

Pictured: Space pants.

Well hold on to your space-pants fans of irrational spending decisions, because last week at an auction in Las Vegas, because of course this kind of thing would happen in Las Vegas, some idiot-I mean, some collector-spent five-hundred and fifty thousand dollars of actual money on Han Solo's blaster. Specifically the prop used in The Return of the Jedi. And yes, that's thousand with an 't,' which, while not million with an 'm,' is still an obscene amount of money to spend on Han Solo's pretend laser gun. But here's the insane part: the obviously superior Luke Skywalker's lightsaber only went for four hundred and fifty million.

I mean, you have to make
the pew-pew noises yourself...

You heard me, lightsabers are, by any reasonable measure, better than blasters. Ok, so first let me be clear that I am a Trekkie first, and a Warsie (Star Wars fan? No? Ok, you do better...) second, so I have no targ (see?) in this hunt, but why would anyone drop a hundred thousand dollars more on Han Solo's gun? And just so we know what we're talking about here, this lightsaber was the one Mark Hamill used in New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. Like, it's a lightsaber. The lightsaber. It's objectively the cooler fictional sci-fi weapon. Sure, these are just props from a movie and not like, an actual blaster and lightsaber, but still...

$2.57 million? Holy shit, Uncle Owen
must have been rolling in it.

Anyway, the blaster and the lightsaber weren't the only props up for bid last week. An Ewok's axe went for eleven thousand dollars, and a Storm Trooper's blaster sold for ninety thousand, which by comparison sound almost reasonable...in that way that spending tens of thousands of dollars for a plastic laser gun is more reasonable that paying hundreds of thousands for one. Shockingly, this isn't the most preposterous splurge on a Star Wars prop, that would be last year's sale of R2-D2 for $2.75 million. Yes, this time with an 'm.' For a pretend robot.

You know someday, probably not too terribly long from now, perhaps when the revolution comes, whoever is buying this stuff is going find themselves asking 'why'? 'Why is my door being bashed down by an angry mob armed with pitchforks and torches?' 'What did I do to deserve this?' And I hope that on that day one of those peasants points to the multi-million dollar collection of movie props and replies 'seriously?'

Pictured: Health insurance for a year for like, a hundred and fifty two people,
two and a half average priced homes or about fourteen college educations.

(source: egregious wealth disparity)