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.
02:42 – Viper Probe Droid
If not for the Viper probe droid, the Rebel Alliance would still be safely plotting and planning some sort of plot-like rebellious plan on the ice world of Hoth. Instead (and lucky for us viewers), one of the Vipers alerted the Empire to the Rebels’ presence and all sorts of wonderful hell broke loose.
03:13 – TD1.4 Electrobinoculars
Oh, look who learned some of the actual names of stuff after you guys yelled at me for making everything up for the first four episodes. I owe it all to Wookieepedia, which lists these binoculars as belonging to the Galactic Empire. These ones must have fallen off a space truck and into Rebel hands.
03:24 – Wrist-worn Comlink
Geez, we’re not even five minutes in and it’s like Gadget Fest 2K10 already. Luke does his best Dick Tracy impression by contacting Carlos Spicy Weiner Han Solo on his handy wrist-mounted comlink.
10:30 – R2-D2’s Location Sensor
Try as he might, R2 just can’t locate Luke due to whiteout conditions. Even worse, his ability to pull in DirecTV totally fails, which forces everyone inside the Rebel base to “read” and “talk to each other” all night.
11:17 – Portable Scanner
Han uses an old school portable scanning device to locate Luke. Years later they’d laugh, saying, “Remember those old scanners that had the two huge antennas and you had to wear the thing around your neck?!” while updating Space Twitter on their cool handheld scanners.
17:15 – Kissing Siblings
Not a gadget at all but, man, is this going to be awkward later. Take it from someone who’s adopted; you really never know when you might be kissing your own sister. You really… never… know.
31:20 – Magnetic Harpoon Gun
Perfect for bringing down an AT-AT or as a makeshift hide-a-key for when you lock yourself out of that 35th-story Miami penthouse you bought as a little retirement present for a lifetime of fighting the Empire.
44:53 – Portable Droid Charger
What, no solar panels? Probably just as well since there doesn’t seem to be much sunlight on Dagobah anyway.
46:51 – Flashlight
Aw, we have these already. Luke calls it a lamp. We have those, too.
56:49 – Roamer-6 Breath Mask
Not quite as pocketable as the breathing apparatuses found in Episode I but far more believable–except for the whole “walking around inside a giant worm monster they thought was an asteroid” thing. But that’s unrelated.
01:17:33 – Lobot’s Borg Construct Aj^6
Sweet, sweet embedded computing, thy name is the Borg Construct Aj^6. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Implanted in Lobot’s head, the wearable computer keeps him constantly aware of what’s going on around Cloud City.
01:35:22 – Wrist Link
Lando uses his wrist link to secretly e-mail PDFs titled “Plan B” to Lobot, at which point Lobot must update Adobe Reader in order to read the files. It takes too long so Lando resends everything as .docx files, at which point Lobot tells Lando he only has Word ’97 and can open .doc files but not .docx files. Lando tells Lobot to download Word Viewer, which will let Lobot open .docx files but won’t let him alter or save them in any way.
1:55:50 – Luke’s Robotic Hand
Virtually indistinguishable from an actual human hand, and you can hide money and a spare key in the opening there. Though, again, the spare key isn’t all that important if you’ve got your magnetic harpoon gun with you.
That’s it. One more episode to go, coming up before the end of the 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
Spot the Gadgets in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith