X

Interactive Star Wars ornaments mix and match to tell new stories

A TIE fighter, Death Star and X-wing starfighter from Hallmark light up and play sounds from Star Wars when you put them together.

Bonnie Burton
Journalist Bonnie Burton writes about movies, TV shows, comics, science and robots. She is the author of the books Live or Die: Survival Hacks, Wizarding World: Movie Magic Amazing Artifacts, The Star Wars Craft Book, Girls Against Girls, Draw Star Wars, Planets in Peril and more! E-mail Bonnie.
Bonnie Burton
2 min read

If you want to transport your holidays to a galaxy far, far away, here's a preview of the new Star Wars Hallmark Keepsake Storyteller Series of tree ornaments that light up and communicate with each other. 

Created by a team from Hallmark and Lucasfilm, each ornament combines Star Wars movie sound effects and dialog with light features to recreate moments from the film. When two or more ornaments are placed together they communicate with each other to create an interactive story. 

The Star Wars ornaments -- the Death Star, Darth Vader's TIE fighter and the X-wing starfighter -- are hand painted to include as much detail as possible. Keep an eye out for signs of battle damage and dirt on the X-wing. 

Tiny speakers, LED lights and various wireless tech elements have been engineered to fit inside each ornament. The lights are timed to match the ornament's sound files from the original Star Wars film. 

The sound effects and character dialog were edited to created hundreds of story combinations when the ornaments interact with each other. 

The first two Star Wars ornaments -- the Death Star and Darth Vader's TIE Fighter -- will retail for $40 (about £30 or AU$55) each. They'll be available exclusively at Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and online at Hallmark.com/starwars starting July 15. The X-wing ornament will be released at a later date.

The Millennium Falcon and an Imperial TIE fighter will be added to the collection next year, as revealed in Hallmark's webseries PopMinded

Culture: From film and television to social media and games, here's your place for the lighter side of tech.

Solving for XX: The industry seeks to overcome outdated ideas about "women in tech."