In honor of Star Wars Month, I volunteered to painstakingly watch all six Star Wars movies and compile a list of gadget-like devices I spot in each one. I can promise you I will miss a few and I won’t know what some of them are supposed to be called, but I’ll be damned if I don’t watch all six episodes of one of the greatest film franchises of all time in the name of “work.”
And so we dance.
09:10 – Comlink
Originally spotted in Qui-Gon’s hand during Episode I, we now see Obi-Wan with the same Nextel-style device. This suggests a family plan though, sadly, Qui-Gon isn’t around to share minutes with Obi-Wan any more.
16:44 – Grappling Hook
Always handy if you ever find yourself free-falling inside an elevator shaft while trying to save a chancellor. Also works great for fetching a remote control on the loveseat while you’re sitting across the room on the big couch.
29:42 – Bionic Hand
Probably should have caught this at the end of the last movie, but here’s a much better look at Anakin’s cool replacement hand. I wish they’d go into more detail about this hand. If I were to design my ideal bionic hand, each finger would do something different; one for warming up coffee, one that’s a screwdriver, one that’s a laser pointer, and I’d just build my phone right into the pinky and thumb as the mouthpiece and earpiece, respectively.
33:22 – 3D Holographic Map
I bet kids in the Star Wars era think these things are boring like how we think globes are boring. That’s sad. I’d at least look at this thing for a good 15 minutes before going, “Hmm. I don’t know where any of these places are.”
35:28 – 3D Holographic Chair
We’re looking at the next big thing in conferencing technology. “Cut down on unnecessary travel with GoToMeeting.com—GoToMeeting.com, may the Force be with you even when you can’t be with the rest of the Jedi council.”
58:33 – 3D Holographic War Table
There seems to be some sort of fascination with 3D and holography so far, but this holographic war table with real-time troop movements is pretty cool. Like the war table in the last movie, I hope they use this to play RISK when there’s not an intergalactic war going on.
59:24 – Palpatine’s Computer Monitor
I need one of these. Maybe three. These should really be found in all mid to upper management offices at Verizon headquarters as well. It’s a perfect mix of DROID styling and Verizon’s red color scheme.
01:17:22 – Handheld Holographic Communicator
It’s like FaceTime except it works over both 3G and Wi-Fi and the call never drops when you hold it the wrong way.
01:38:43 – Security/RADAR Screen
You’d think with all the holography going on, there’d be security screens a bit more high-tech than the outline of a spaceship inside a triangle but, hey, Pac-Man was just a big circle that ate dots and that did pretty well.
1:50:34 – Wrist-worn Speaker Phone
Jimmy Smits, ladies and gentlemen. Shooting the breeze with Yoda, Dick Tracy-style, on his fashionable wrist phone.
2:01:46 – Darth Vader’s Suit
Oh man, what doesn’t this thing have? It’s a fully contained life sustaining suit that probably has some sort of data connection for downloading movies and music directly to the helmet. Something tells me it might just allow Vader to continue on with his nefarious ways for quite some time.
That’s it. Stay tuned for Episodes IV through VI rolling out all this month.
More on Techland:
Spot the Gadgets in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Spot the Gadgets in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones