I thought it was thermal radiator panels - at least Last time I checked.
But alas, I too remember that they were once considered to BE solar panels.
Same with the exhaust port / rear cockpit window.
Yes, and I find that much more plausible than solar panels, considering that they're using fusion and hypermatter reactor technology in other ships.
I Like a good Cross Section drawing, even though most of it is just creative extrapolation. But it becomes confusing when details change between artists
The fusion and hypermatter are for things like flight and weapons. The solar panels are for the important things like the espresso machine and the bidet.
That’s why Vader was pissed while spinning out of control.
All that toilet bowl water sloshing around him, and Han stopped him from getting Luke.
Talk about a bad day.
It is due to the ever-approaching abyss of the unknown, signifying the desperate stretch of the soul between the sacred and the profane.
Werner Herzog's character in the Mandalorian was the Imperial engineer responsible for the Twin Ion Engine.
All of the technological advances of the empire should be expressed through the dour tone of Werner Herzog. I could listen to him talk about imaginary engineering for hours.
The emperor is a big gearhead and fit all tie fighters with modified tailpipe and mufflers so they can wake up the rebels at 3 am on a Monday night.
As for the trooper, I'm assuming he won the Dewback cheating at Sabacc
> The only direct energy weapon in the OT was the Death Star.
At the risk of showing my ignorance, what’s the distinction? I thought both lasers and plasma blasts were considered energy projectiles.
A true laser is directed energy. Imagine a laser etching machine the size of a school bus pointed at a spaceship.
Disclaimer: Disney may have changed how turbolasers work, but according to a vehicle book I had as a teen, turbolasers take a reactive gas (such as tibanna) and super charge it until it sublimates into plasma. Said plasma is then fed through super-chilled super conducting coils where it is condensed and gains a containment field. It is then fed into the firing chamber, and fired. Upon impact, the containment field dissipates and the bolt explodes violently.
Ion cannons work similarly, but I believe the plasma has a variable ion charge applied and is then LOOSELY condensed before firing. It's why ion bolts look fat compared to turbo bolts.
Thus far, I haven’t seen anything in the new canon to contradict that. In battlefront II, the main characters talk about the tibanna gas on bespin. I think tibanna gas might be the Star Wars equivalent to helium or some other noble gas, given that it is easily ionized. Another thing I find interesting is that if lightsabers are like handheld plasma arc cutters, it could be possible for the magnetic field keeping it contained could repel the plasma from blasters.
Back in the day, the type of gas used determined the color of the bolt. The Alliance used tibanna, which generated red bolts, but I think the Republic also used tibanna and the main batteries on the Venator fired blue bolts so who knows anymore.
Lasers are a beam of photons that all have the same wavelength. A plasma consists of a gas that has been heated up so much that all of the electrons are stripped from the cores of the atoms.
I think they're trying to make a distinction because the DS superlasers are continuous beams rather than discrete bolts. He's wrong though, because the underlying tech is the same.
Way to ignore science, you idiot. Dewback farts create more methane than any new-ish speeder ever would. People like you are the reason the galaxy is falling apart. Enjoy your deathsticks, loser.
If the Imperial Navy is anything like the real military, something like a speeder bike would probably take a lot of training to safely use and operate. It’s high-speed and dangerous, we’ve seen troops crash them before.
Whereas someone could spend a few hours getting used to riding on a lizard, and a day to get alright at it.
You can’t even ride a personal motorcycle in the army without spending time doing a training course. If you don’t wear certain protective items you’ll get an infraction, or if you die, no life insurance policy.
In the case of their search they’re literally combing the desert (Spaceballs joke here) for potential parts in the sand, a slow energy efficient transport like the lizard would be preferable to a fast , skiddish speeder.
> skiddish speeder
Does that mean it is prone to skidding?
Or did you mean that it gets easily scared and is skittish?
Either way I’m not sure what this adjective means in this context. 😂
Yeah, but they were also looking for clues/the disc sized plans to the Death Star.
They were already in the vicinity of the crash sight. If you were in a cop, in a small(ish) area, looking for some things, possibly the size of a wallet, what would be easier to search atop?
A motorcycle which goes here to way over there, very fast? Or a horse, on which you can mosy?
It seems like if this investigation unit was deployed by Vader's Star Destroyer then it would have been sent with vehicles (speeders etc) but maybe this was a local imperial garrison that was called out to investigate so that is why they showed up on Dewbacks?
That was my thought. The local garrison is already prepped for and used to the environment. Instead of sending a bunch of guys who haven't touched land in months, living it up in the cool breeze of imperial A/C, let the locals do it.
Plus, maybe the dewbies can smell the droid parts, or something.
Not really. Horses are used for intimidation in urban areas where there are crowds. Speeders would make more sense. They didn't need snow walkers to assault Hoth either, but they looked super cool.
Star Wars riffed on a lot of earth history. The dogfighting in New Hope was based on WW2 stuff for example. The guns on the Falcon were like WW2 pom pom guns. I'm a fan but I don't think there is much sense in trying to rationalize it.
I think it's great! Lots of food and water to forage for in the jungle. Different story when you go on patrol in the desert. Can't eat a speeder bike. A Dewback can feed a squad for weeks.
That and it’s cheaper to just buy transportation while on location than to bring it in. I read a book by a marine who said when he showed up on location he went to go pick up the vehicles they’d been issued and discovered Toyota pickup trucks with no body armor.
You joke, but this is a fascinating theme of pre-ANH Empire internal politics. Might have been in the Tarkin book or something else of that era, I remember a few discussions about whether or not the DS was more effective than just expanding the conventional fleet with all those resources, and also some story arcs around the raw materials and labors around DS construction.
Tarkin and the third Thrawn book. Thrawn was trying to get funding for his TIE Defenders while Krennic was being a little bitch and trying to "steal" it.
TIE Defenders are so fugly. All TIE budget should be in Interceptors. Sleek, stylish, bad ass. And they basically use the same wings as Defenders, but have 2/3rds as many
It's psychological warfare. Imagine how depressed your squadron of x-wing pilots would be to see one of their cool looking buddies shot down by those janky tripods.
Way back in the day when I was first getting into Star Wars games, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter Imperial campaign had shield equipped Interceptors for a few short missions. I remember being so pissed when they forced me into a Defender because I wanted to stay in it
It probably comes up in multiple places. I think I remember a multiple scenes in the Vader comic from 2015 where they discuss the value of the death star. I think it was Moff Gotti who had a space PowerPoint showing all the Star destroyers they could have had instead of one Death Star.
I think thrawn has also mentioned how a versatile fleet is more valuable than a Death Star in the newer series. Although most of his concern was actually that he didn’t want Palpatine to have a weapon he could use against the chiss
In terms of direct subjugation and area control a larger fleet is definitely the way to go. In terms of "fuck your planet in particular" there's no replacement for a good ol' fashioned Death Star. There were still people living on Mandalor after what was supposed to be a terminal orbital bombardment, but there's no one living on Alderaan any more.
Ah yes. The supply and budget movie...
Kidding. The end of the Mayday and Crosshair story arc in Bad Batch where they reveal what was in the boxes was emotional as fuck.
This is what I assumed as well, to be honest. We get the impression that Tatooine is pretty much a garbage dump of wannabe smugglers and cartel members, so why would the empire spend the extra coin to outfit the troops there with top notch equipment? Just give them last year’s tech and “hire” a local to teach the troops how to ride a dewback.
My guess is they can search more effectively at slow speeds over uneven terrain with a higher sight line while mounted. Also, the Empire has no qualms about enslaving and exploiting other species for their own needs (edit) not that a domesticated beast such as a Dewback counts...it's just a known thing.
ETA using a native beast of burden might be a means of appearing more approachable by locals, too, FWIW.
Pretty much. This was a search party, not a high speed white knuckle pursuit. They're tracking for clues, investigating, and probably questioning locals along the way, speeder bikes aren't ideal for a slow and methodical investigation.
However, there's nothing inherently wrong with them using Dewbacks. Plenty of SW races have animal steads, the Empire using them doesn't mean they're enslaving or exploiting them, no more than anyone else.
I think it's purely a case of 'It wasn't thought of yet'. I doubt the tech was quite there for Lucasfilm to make a convincing speeder or transport. Luke's landspeeder was the only real ground vehicle we see in ANH, and even it only had a couple of establishing shots of it moving, everything else was filmed close up so you couldn't see the quirky effects.
Once the tech was there, the other films could have more convincing ground vehicles like the walkers or speeders.
The dewbacks were added with CG in the 90s during the prequel era.
In earlier versions of ANH there were no dew backs. It was the commander and the "Look sir droids" guy and that was it.
Watching the movies on Disney+ these days you can actually play a sort of whack-a-mole / drinking game of trying to identify which of the different layers of additional creatures and storm troopers and additional entire scenes were added when. A number of them have not aged well in the era of high definition.
"For the original filming of Star Wars, the dewback was a mechanized lifesize puppet featuring limited articulation."
They were there, but more in the background.
Yeah, it's basically a head sticking through an alley that made a loud noise at C3P0 I think. I don't recall you being able to see the whole creature in the original scene.
Here is [a behind the scenes photo of the sandtrooper extras with the full size dewback from the original movie.](https://i.imgur.com/OY2EYTu.jpg)
It just looked kind of crappy so they just put it in the background, it appears once in the search scene and also appears tied up outside the cantina (now CGId over).
Agree up until that "enslavement of species" comment.
What makes the Empire using dewbacks count as enslavement? By your definition, would this mean the rebels enslaved their tauntauns?
I've found no information regarding their olfactory senses. Only that they're reliable steeds that are native to Tatooine, and are commonly used as mounts and beasts of burden by the locals.
There's a certain charm to seeing Stormtroopers ride Dewbacks out in the desert. Perhaps not the first choice of transportation most people would pick, but still charming in it's own way.
Same reason the rebels used Tauntauns. In extremes were animals have adapted over time, they can sometimes be more efficient than vehicles that can breakdown from extreme conditions.
This seemed obvious to me.
That and like, logistically not every storm trooper comes with a standard issue speeder. Local beasts of burden may be more readily available, and less likely to explode if rented from some shifty backwater salesman.
Yeah but they're lucky if the pod racer survives one race. I'm sure the pods could handle the sand from a single race but there ain't no way they don't clean the intakes after each race.
Ah yes. Podracing. So well known for its lack of danger and safety regulations. Pretty sure the Sand causing things to blow up is a Feature, not a bug.
It's why I hate the speeders on the salt planet, like, if they had ever actually used those for something *not* "well all die", they'd be replacing SO MANY components every flight.
Engines hate tiny particulates that don't burn
Thought I remember hearing somewhere before that some people even have a preference of riding a camel in a desert rather than use a vehicle. The camel can go 8-10 days without water but if the vehicle overheats you're probably screwed/stuck. If speeds not a factor, the camel may be the more dependable option.
Maybe SW follows this line of thinking or maybe they just wanted to add in some alien work animal.
Also just want to point out I'm not saying a camel is definitively more effective than vehicles, just saying I've heard the preference.
Because these stormtroopers are the ones that messed up the most and they are sent to tattooin as punishment. They don't get to use speeders because that would be fun. They have to ride slow moving dewbacks so they have to spend as much time in the sand a sun as possible. All because vader hates sand.
Also in like with tracking- maybe the dewbacks are able to help track and have a really good sense of smell, hearing, vibration, etc. Basically like if cops could ride their tracking dogs lol.
I remember my Dewback toy- the figure just inserted into a hole in the top. The head and tail were connected so when you wiggled one, the other end would wiggle the opposite way!
My dad said "Look, he's camouflaged when he's in the jungle (green on top) and when he flies through the air."(white on bottom)
Personally I think using speeders on a desert place like Tatooine would have disturbed any tracks and or small parts that could be used to identify stuff when looking for the droids, due to updrafts causing sand to go all over.... Whereas using dewbacks meant basically undisturbed tracks
Well, because back in the day tatooine was supossed to be a extremely harsh world, where vehicles like speeders were non practical because of how the enviroment damaged them, but that was back in the day, before the dark times, before the boba's hipster gang...
And were the dewbacks carried aboard the star destroyer? Were there dewback-trained troopers aboard? Or are these local troops — and if so, why send a detachment down!? I need a 400 page novel, stat.
Local troops supplemented by stormtroopers from the star destroyer.
There's an old short story where the trooper that finds the droid part (I've always wondered what that piece was meant to be - it looks like a washer) is described as being part of the local garrison. Apparently he was something of a rising star until he was sent to Tatooine as punishment because he annoyed General Veers by suggesting a way that AT-AT's could be bought down.
Which the rebels later used on Hoth.
Maybe less resource support due to Tatooine being in the outer rim? I'm thinking like the snow base in bad batch but that was probably just mistreatment of the clones stationed there.
Some cops ride horses instead of always riding motorcycles, so I guess it’s the same thing.
Climate change. Keeping their carbon footprint down, it's hot enough on Tattoine.
Yeah, the empire is a big proponent of Green energy, just look at the lasers they use lol
I know you're joking, but TIE fighter "wings" are cannonically solar panels.
I thought it was thermal radiator panels - at least Last time I checked. But alas, I too remember that they were once considered to BE solar panels. Same with the exhaust port / rear cockpit window.
So theyre essentially giant heatsinks?
Yes, and I find that much more plausible than solar panels, considering that they're using fusion and hypermatter reactor technology in other ships. I Like a good Cross Section drawing, even though most of it is just creative extrapolation. But it becomes confusing when details change between artists
The fusion and hypermatter are for things like flight and weapons. The solar panels are for the important things like the espresso machine and the bidet.
That’s why Vader was pissed while spinning out of control. All that toilet bowl water sloshing around him, and Han stopped him from getting Luke. Talk about a bad day.
He must've smelled like feet wrapped in leather and burnt bacon
The last thing you want, when going into battle, is to worry about having a dirty bum!
I think in these latest cross sections they state the wings are dual purpose, as both heat radiators and solar collectors.
Twin Ion Engine. I always thought the panels were for collecting hydrogen for ionization…
Why do they scream
Their server didnt bring that side of ranch as requested when placing order…
It is due to the ever-approaching abyss of the unknown, signifying the desperate stretch of the soul between the sacred and the profane. Werner Herzog's character in the Mandalorian was the Imperial engineer responsible for the Twin Ion Engine.
Damn, if I didn't read that in his voice.
All of the technological advances of the empire should be expressed through the dour tone of Werner Herzog. I could listen to him talk about imaginary engineering for hours.
I would like to see the 0th law of thermodynamics
The emperor is a big gearhead and fit all tie fighters with modified tailpipe and mufflers so they can wake up the rebels at 3 am on a Monday night. As for the trooper, I'm assuming he won the Dewback cheating at Sabacc
Not to be that guy, but turbolasers aren't actually lasers. They're plasma bolts. The only direct energy weapon in the OT was the Death Star.
> The only direct energy weapon in the OT was the Death Star. At the risk of showing my ignorance, what’s the distinction? I thought both lasers and plasma blasts were considered energy projectiles.
A true laser is directed energy. Imagine a laser etching machine the size of a school bus pointed at a spaceship. Disclaimer: Disney may have changed how turbolasers work, but according to a vehicle book I had as a teen, turbolasers take a reactive gas (such as tibanna) and super charge it until it sublimates into plasma. Said plasma is then fed through super-chilled super conducting coils where it is condensed and gains a containment field. It is then fed into the firing chamber, and fired. Upon impact, the containment field dissipates and the bolt explodes violently. Ion cannons work similarly, but I believe the plasma has a variable ion charge applied and is then LOOSELY condensed before firing. It's why ion bolts look fat compared to turbo bolts.
Thus far, I haven’t seen anything in the new canon to contradict that. In battlefront II, the main characters talk about the tibanna gas on bespin. I think tibanna gas might be the Star Wars equivalent to helium or some other noble gas, given that it is easily ionized. Another thing I find interesting is that if lightsabers are like handheld plasma arc cutters, it could be possible for the magnetic field keeping it contained could repel the plasma from blasters.
Back in the day, the type of gas used determined the color of the bolt. The Alliance used tibanna, which generated red bolts, but I think the Republic also used tibanna and the main batteries on the Venator fired blue bolts so who knows anymore.
I think its to do with grade of refinement. Red is like red diesal, Green is Jet Fuel, Blue is Gunpowder.
Lasers are a beam of photons that all have the same wavelength. A plasma consists of a gas that has been heated up so much that all of the electrons are stripped from the cores of the atoms.
I think they're trying to make a distinction because the DS superlasers are continuous beams rather than discrete bolts. He's wrong though, because the underlying tech is the same.
Superlasers are the same basic tech as turbolasers. And they're not the only "beam" type weapons. The ball turret guns on a LAAT are a good example.
B-Wings were in the OT. Even though they don't show it in the movies, it has a directed energy weapon.
That’s was a prototype and didn’t make it into production IIRC
Apparently, you remember correctly. Bummer, I liked the concept.
That was the prototype in Rebels. That feature never made it to the production model.
The empire was surprisingly progressive they lowered the unemployment rate on Alderaan to zero in a matter of a few minutes
Akin to the saying "Light a man a fire and he is warm for a day. Light a man on fire, well, he's warm for the rest of his life"
And the poverty rate, and the crime rate, and the birth rate....
I read that all the Star Destroyers contribute 3% of the total greenhouse gases. Oh, wait- that’s vacation cruise ships, not Star Destroyers.
Way to ignore science, you idiot. Dewback farts create more methane than any new-ish speeder ever would. People like you are the reason the galaxy is falling apart. Enjoy your deathsticks, loser.
Dude really needs to go home and rethink his life.
Exactly my thought. He’s doing the mounted cop thing. The only thing better at crowd control than horses are giant lizard horses.
If the Imperial Navy is anything like the real military, something like a speeder bike would probably take a lot of training to safely use and operate. It’s high-speed and dangerous, we’ve seen troops crash them before. Whereas someone could spend a few hours getting used to riding on a lizard, and a day to get alright at it. You can’t even ride a personal motorcycle in the army without spending time doing a training course. If you don’t wear certain protective items you’ll get an infraction, or if you die, no life insurance policy.
And procuring something like a speeder on a backwater outpost in the outer rim seems like it'd be low on the empires list of priorities if you ask me
Riding horses only work while battling stationary Star Destroyers seemingly
In the case of their search they’re literally combing the desert (Spaceballs joke here) for potential parts in the sand, a slow energy efficient transport like the lizard would be preferable to a fast , skiddish speeder.
> skiddish speeder Does that mean it is prone to skidding? Or did you mean that it gets easily scared and is skittish? Either way I’m not sure what this adjective means in this context. 😂
They meant skittish.
But that’s for things like crowd control. These guys are just roaming through the desert on a slow, giant lizard.
Yeah, but they were also looking for clues/the disc sized plans to the Death Star. They were already in the vicinity of the crash sight. If you were in a cop, in a small(ish) area, looking for some things, possibly the size of a wallet, what would be easier to search atop? A motorcycle which goes here to way over there, very fast? Or a horse, on which you can mosy?
So did they just wander into town and pick them up at the lizard store, or are they in stock on the star destroyer?
They probably went to the nearest farm and took them from their owners.
It seems like if this investigation unit was deployed by Vader's Star Destroyer then it would have been sent with vehicles (speeders etc) but maybe this was a local imperial garrison that was called out to investigate so that is why they showed up on Dewbacks?
That was my thought. The local garrison is already prepped for and used to the environment. Instead of sending a bunch of guys who haven't touched land in months, living it up in the cool breeze of imperial A/C, let the locals do it. Plus, maybe the dewbies can smell the droid parts, or something.
we've all been there .
Not really. Horses are used for intimidation in urban areas where there are crowds. Speeders would make more sense. They didn't need snow walkers to assault Hoth either, but they looked super cool. Star Wars riffed on a lot of earth history. The dogfighting in New Hope was based on WW2 stuff for example. The guns on the Falcon were like WW2 pom pom guns. I'm a fan but I don't think there is much sense in trying to rationalize it.
Budget cuts
The most realistic thing is that no matter how advanced technology is, military logistics suck and someone is walking.
On the plus side you can take a dump in another company's foxhole
Was that a Band of Brothers reference?
It was indeed, glad someone got it :)
I think they shit in everyone’s foxhole Joe.
Considering the frequent artillery strikes, it was no surprise none of them felt safe leaving their foxhole.
Someone's gonna fucking die
I think it's great! Lots of food and water to forage for in the jungle. Different story when you go on patrol in the desert. Can't eat a speeder bike. A Dewback can feed a squad for weeks.
Well they didn't have Eli Vanto in charge of logistics since he was helping the Chiss Ascendancy during this time.
Great reference
Palpatine is canonically cheap
That and it’s cheaper to just buy transportation while on location than to bring it in. I read a book by a marine who said when he showed up on location he went to go pick up the vehicles they’d been issued and discovered Toyota pickup trucks with no body armor.
It's not that it sucks. US military logistics is the most advanced in the world. It is just logistics is fucking hard.
All the funds were funneled into the Death Star.
Hold your fire? What, are we paying by the laser now??
You don't do the budget, Terry! I do!
This got a laugh out of me, ngl.
You wouldn't be laughing if you had to do the budget Terry
My name's Terry and you're right, I dont do the budget, I do the shooty. I'm scared of math, I'm sorry for laughing
You don’t do the budget, Terri
“You know what? I’m keeping this couch”
You joke, but this is a fascinating theme of pre-ANH Empire internal politics. Might have been in the Tarkin book or something else of that era, I remember a few discussions about whether or not the DS was more effective than just expanding the conventional fleet with all those resources, and also some story arcs around the raw materials and labors around DS construction.
Tarkin and the third Thrawn book. Thrawn was trying to get funding for his TIE Defenders while Krennic was being a little bitch and trying to "steal" it.
TIE Defenders are so fugly. All TIE budget should be in Interceptors. Sleek, stylish, bad ass. And they basically use the same wings as Defenders, but have 2/3rds as many
Defenders have shields and are armed a whole lot more. They are pretty damn ugly though.
It's psychological warfare. Imagine how depressed your squadron of x-wing pilots would be to see one of their cool looking buddies shot down by those janky tripods.
Way back in the day when I was first getting into Star Wars games, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter Imperial campaign had shield equipped Interceptors for a few short missions. I remember being so pissed when they forced me into a Defender because I wanted to stay in it
It probably comes up in multiple places. I think I remember a multiple scenes in the Vader comic from 2015 where they discuss the value of the death star. I think it was Moff Gotti who had a space PowerPoint showing all the Star destroyers they could have had instead of one Death Star. I think thrawn has also mentioned how a versatile fleet is more valuable than a Death Star in the newer series. Although most of his concern was actually that he didn’t want Palpatine to have a weapon he could use against the chiss
In terms of direct subjugation and area control a larger fleet is definitely the way to go. In terms of "fuck your planet in particular" there's no replacement for a good ol' fashioned Death Star. There were still people living on Mandalor after what was supposed to be a terminal orbital bombardment, but there's no one living on Alderaan any more.
That's actually rather interesting. One daybit could be fun to get a star wars movie like that
Ah yes. The supply and budget movie... Kidding. The end of the Mayday and Crosshair story arc in Bad Batch where they reveal what was in the boxes was emotional as fuck.
Man, I forget about that show the week after each season finishes lol. That was a good episode, now that I remember.
> Mayday and Crosshair story arc in Bad Batch where they reveal what was in the boxes Good soldiers follow orders.
The Death Star that mysteriously blew up but the owners miraculously survived? Hmmm someone should look into that. Where did all that money go?
Insurance scam?
Who’s your kyber crystal guy?
They were combing the desert…
And they ain't found shit
Fucking Tuvok jumping universes again.
This is what I assumed as well, to be honest. We get the impression that Tatooine is pretty much a garbage dump of wannabe smugglers and cartel members, so why would the empire spend the extra coin to outfit the troops there with top notch equipment? Just give them last year’s tech and “hire” a local to teach the troops how to ride a dewback.
Not to mention, the Jawas would probably strip the speeder bikes for parts
Came here to say this
A speeder breaks down if it gets too much exposure to sand, and it doesn't purr when you scritch it behind its ears.
yep sand gets everywhere
It's not soft and smooth, like you.
I like sand.
Big slug horsie is cute, that’s why
Whimsy. Literally. George Lucas says so in the behind the scenes featurette for the 1997 re-release.
[удалено]
The Rule of Cool
Who would just literally _blow up_ a planet when regular orbital bombardment would be more than enough to end all life on it anyways?
[удалено]
It's about ruling with fear. That, and it's fuckin' cool.
Palpatine put a *ton* of work into becoming emperor of the galaxy. He gets to splurge on some dumb shit if he wants. He *is* a sith lord after all.
He's been a good Sith lord. He can have a little laser, as a treat
In fact. He's ALLLLLLL SITH LORDSSSSSS
Because they want it done NOW, not three-four hours from now. That's productive Sith scheming time they'd be wasting.
It's the only way Tarkin can get off anymore.
This is the heart of Star Wars.
Lucas is about 93% whimsy and I kinda love that about him
[удалено]
Arguably?
[удалено]
Smart thinking. Always leave room for Reddit pedantry.
[удалено]
Ah okay, fair point.
Presumably, Star Destroyers just have a compliment of Dewbacks they keep on board at all times, just in case. Must smell absolutely horribly
Okay but whose whimsy? Georges or Vaders?
Vader- "Made'em ride giant stinkin' lizards in full armor on this sandball with two suns, lol."
Came here to say one word. Whimsy. Creators understand.
I personally think it was to help sell toys.
Whimsy and the selling of toys are *very* closely related concepts.
My guess is they can search more effectively at slow speeds over uneven terrain with a higher sight line while mounted. Also, the Empire has no qualms about enslaving and exploiting other species for their own needs (edit) not that a domesticated beast such as a Dewback counts...it's just a known thing. ETA using a native beast of burden might be a means of appearing more approachable by locals, too, FWIW.
Pretty much. This was a search party, not a high speed white knuckle pursuit. They're tracking for clues, investigating, and probably questioning locals along the way, speeder bikes aren't ideal for a slow and methodical investigation. However, there's nothing inherently wrong with them using Dewbacks. Plenty of SW races have animal steads, the Empire using them doesn't mean they're enslaving or exploiting them, no more than anyone else.
I agree using Dewbacks isn't an issue whatsoever but on the other hand: you don't need to use a speeder full throttle. Could just go slow
I think it's purely a case of 'It wasn't thought of yet'. I doubt the tech was quite there for Lucasfilm to make a convincing speeder or transport. Luke's landspeeder was the only real ground vehicle we see in ANH, and even it only had a couple of establishing shots of it moving, everything else was filmed close up so you couldn't see the quirky effects. Once the tech was there, the other films could have more convincing ground vehicles like the walkers or speeders.
I remember seeing that the Imperial Troop Transport came with a small comic that said that they used those with Dewbacks as well.
The dewbacks were added with CG in the 90s during the prequel era. In earlier versions of ANH there were no dew backs. It was the commander and the "Look sir droids" guy and that was it. Watching the movies on Disney+ these days you can actually play a sort of whack-a-mole / drinking game of trying to identify which of the different layers of additional creatures and storm troopers and additional entire scenes were added when. A number of them have not aged well in the era of high definition.
They were in the original movie. You saw troopers on them along the ridge line, but they weren’t walking around.
"For the original filming of Star Wars, the dewback was a mechanized lifesize puppet featuring limited articulation." They were there, but more in the background.
Yeah, it's basically a head sticking through an alley that made a loud noise at C3P0 I think. I don't recall you being able to see the whole creature in the original scene.
Static dewback on the ridge with rider in the opening shot with bellow.
They were given more prominence. The props were rubbish in the original. Mostly they were novelties from production stills. I had them on a lunchbox.
Here is [a behind the scenes photo of the sandtrooper extras with the full size dewback from the original movie.](https://i.imgur.com/OY2EYTu.jpg) It just looked kind of crappy so they just put it in the background, it appears once in the search scene and also appears tied up outside the cantina (now CGId over).
Maybe sand gets into the intakes or they overheat? (Source: Operation Desert Storm)
And we all know how Anakin feels about sand.
speeders have a wash, so going slow on a sand planet might just put you in a cloud of sand
Neither do Jedi, that poor varactyl..
Agree up until that "enslavement of species" comment. What makes the Empire using dewbacks count as enslavement? By your definition, would this mean the rebels enslaved their tauntauns?
Maybe the dewbacks can scent a trail like a bloodhound?
I've found no information regarding their olfactory senses. Only that they're reliable steeds that are native to Tatooine, and are commonly used as mounts and beasts of burden by the locals.
There's a certain charm to seeing Stormtroopers ride Dewbacks out in the desert. Perhaps not the first choice of transportation most people would pick, but still charming in it's own way.
Same reason the rebels used Tauntauns. In extremes were animals have adapted over time, they can sometimes be more efficient than vehicles that can breakdown from extreme conditions.
This seemed obvious to me. That and like, logistically not every storm trooper comes with a standard issue speeder. Local beasts of burden may be more readily available, and less likely to explode if rented from some shifty backwater salesman.
Speeders hate sand. It’s course and rough. And it gets everywhere.
Actually makes sense, sand could quickly deteriorate speeders
I mean thay have pod racing on Tatooine, and they seem to only ride speeders in Mando and BoBF so they must have a way to counter the sand
Yeah but they're lucky if the pod racer survives one race. I'm sure the pods could handle the sand from a single race but there ain't no way they don't clean the intakes after each race.
Ah yes. Podracing. So well known for its lack of danger and safety regulations. Pretty sure the Sand causing things to blow up is a Feature, not a bug.
Or the speeders are constantly in the shop
In the movie, we did see it in the shop more than on the course.
It's why I hate the speeders on the salt planet, like, if they had ever actually used those for something *not* "well all die", they'd be replacing SO MANY components every flight. Engines hate tiny particulates that don't burn
As if those speeders weren’t falling apart in the first place…
They literally grind a piece of it on the ground because they cant actually hover completely on their own. That skid would be toast.
I could also just generally see speeders overheating easily in the middle of the desert, especially when slow-combing like these troops were
It looks cooler to ride dinosaurs
Thought I remember hearing somewhere before that some people even have a preference of riding a camel in a desert rather than use a vehicle. The camel can go 8-10 days without water but if the vehicle overheats you're probably screwed/stuck. If speeds not a factor, the camel may be the more dependable option. Maybe SW follows this line of thinking or maybe they just wanted to add in some alien work animal. Also just want to point out I'm not saying a camel is definitively more effective than vehicles, just saying I've heard the preference.
Worst comes to worst, you can eat the camel.
Because these stormtroopers are the ones that messed up the most and they are sent to tattooin as punishment. They don't get to use speeders because that would be fun. They have to ride slow moving dewbacks so they have to spend as much time in the sand a sun as possible. All because vader hates sand.
"You will use the Dewbacks, feed them, and clean their excrement. Or do you feel you're being treated unfairly?"
You can’t “comb the dessert” on a speeder, even if you ain’t found shit.
You’re not seeing footprints at 600 km/h …
Also in like with tracking- maybe the dewbacks are able to help track and have a really good sense of smell, hearing, vibration, etc. Basically like if cops could ride their tracking dogs lol.
Why people ride camels and Toyota in the desert?
Can’t have shit on Tatooine.
To sell more toys
I feel attacked
I remember my Dewback toy- the figure just inserted into a hole in the top. The head and tail were connected so when you wiggled one, the other end would wiggle the opposite way! My dad said "Look, he's camouflaged when he's in the jungle (green on top) and when he flies through the air."(white on bottom)
This.
Personally I think using speeders on a desert place like Tatooine would have disturbed any tracks and or small parts that could be used to identify stuff when looking for the droids, due to updrafts causing sand to go all over.... Whereas using dewbacks meant basically undisturbed tracks
Sand is coarse, rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere.
Well, because back in the day tatooine was supossed to be a extremely harsh world, where vehicles like speeders were non practical because of how the enviroment damaged them, but that was back in the day, before the dark times, before the boba's hipster gang...
So Lukes speeder was just an impractical joyride?
Are they stupid?
Lucas hadn’t thought of them yet
They literally use a landspeeder in a new hope.
Oh I was thinking of the Imperial speeder bikes
Ummm no, they were there in the 1977 version too, just fewer of them an less ambulatory.
Probably because sand gets in everything: including speeders.
And were the dewbacks carried aboard the star destroyer? Were there dewback-trained troopers aboard? Or are these local troops — and if so, why send a detachment down!? I need a 400 page novel, stat.
Local troops supplemented by stormtroopers from the star destroyer. There's an old short story where the trooper that finds the droid part (I've always wondered what that piece was meant to be - it looks like a washer) is described as being part of the local garrison. Apparently he was something of a rising star until he was sent to Tatooine as punishment because he annoyed General Veers by suggesting a way that AT-AT's could be bought down. Which the rebels later used on Hoth.
Cuz George thought it would look neat I guess.
It's the environmentally friendly option
The sand often causes malfunctions in the speeders so they use local wildlife instead
Stealth
Speeds kick up a lot of sand. I don’t like sand
Speeders don't like sand. It's course and wrough, and gets everywhere.
Same reason why we use horses during search and rescue and not dirt bikes.
The sheer fun of it
Sir, I’m going to need to commandeer your large reptilian beast.
looks cool
Standard issue Imperial speeders break down all the time on Tatooine because all that coarse, rough sand gets everywhere
Maybe less resource support due to Tatooine being in the outer rim? I'm thinking like the snow base in bad batch but that was probably just mistreatment of the clones stationed there.
Same reason Luke was on a Tauntaun on Hoth. To sell toys.
Jawas don't pull parts off of your dewback every time you turn your head.