Well, all that work and I may end up abandoning Photoshop all together for Adobe After Effects. My main concern right now is that even if I 'create the glow' on the still images, if I'm simply replicating the same image on every still, I could end up with a none flickering core....which isn't a good thing. I want it to have life, just a controlled area of life.

One thing that may keep me from After Effects is the terrible green 'cloud' that follows the saber in the fudged effect LFL did. Unless I can some how get rid of that, I may have to do each frame with a mask over that are, and then add the saber effect.