Talk:Blaster (Star Wars)

Ambiguous
This article is ambiguous and is rather unclear about whether or not a blaster bolt is actually plasma or coherent light. At the beginning of the article it refers to blaster bolts as "light-based energy" and then later on as "an intense particle beam." It needs to be cleaned up, in my opinion. If anyone agrees I'd like it to be tagged for such. Then again, it is an article on sci-fi weaponry, so if that's how it is then so be it. Adam Martinez 03:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
 * When an element of sci-fi is too ambiguous to be clearly understood, it is not what wikipedia currently describes as hard science fiction. That is not to argue for Star Wars, but merely the blaster. The article at this point is still ambiguous as to whether blasters fire light-based energy" or "intense particle beam." If the blaster fires at less than the speed of light, then it is not light. So a question to ask is what is "light-based energy" if it is not electromagnetic radiation. --Trakon 04:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Clone Weaponry page
For the love of god, I CREATED A WHOLE NEW PAGE and someone reverts my work. DC-15 and DC-17 should point to Clone Weaponry. Please read before you revert. --65.101.108.247 02:28, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Merge?
I am propsing a merge to List of Star Wars weapons because much of the information, especially information on specific weapons, already appears on that page. (I'm currently working on reducing redundant or minor Star Wars articles.) – Mipadi 20:04, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I do think this article should be merged into that category, but Clone Weaponry should not. It is simply too long. I'm going to remove some of the clonetrooper weaponry stuff from there, and point to the main CW page. Tokakeke 21:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Most of the weapons in the Star Wars weapons category belong in the list, which we can eventually split into personal, ship-based, and so on. Deckiller 00:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * merge! (I would do it but I don't know how, and don't care to learn right now...)Civil Engineer III 20:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Do not merge. Blaster (Star Wars) is big enough to stand on its own. Anthony Appleyard 09:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Factually incorrect
"In the films, the E-11 prop was made from the British Sterling submachine gun, with a small optical scope and a radiator fins added to give a more futuristic look. Interestingly, the scope was attached facing the wrong direction. This was apparently done on purpose, as every example from the films is attached in this way."

Although it does look like you should be looking into the small peep hole in the front that is not the way this scope was designed. The M-38/M-42 machine gun scopes used on these are placed in the correct, optically usable, direction.

Actuator?
Why do blasters have an actuator? Isn't an actuator a device that converts energy into motion? It makes no sense for an energy weapon to have a mechanical mechanism... 71.48.153.8 (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

More sources.
There's more than one source on blasters. There's the Visual Dictionary by DK, which says blasters hyper-ionize Tibanna gas into charged plasma in an ignition chamber, and then electromagnetically accelerates it from the gun.

That explanation makes far more sense than the current one, why did you ignore it? Or did you just not know about it?71.48.154.114 (talk) 14:46, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Factual Inaccuracy
In a chapter of the book Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars, Michael Kaminski, writing about the influence of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa on the Star Wars films, said that Kurosawa's 'Ran influenced the exchange of blaster fire. Like in Ran, color-coding and an "onscreen sense of direction" of blaster fire are used to depict opposing forces.''' In the Star Wars original trilogy, rebels employed red blaster fire and often attacked from the left, while the Empire employed green blaster fire and attacked from the right. In Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, the second film of the prequel trilogy, the color and the direction were reversed. In that film, the Republic employed green and blue blaster fire and attacked from the right, while the villains employed red blaster fire and attacked from the left.''

There is no way Kurosawa's Ran could have influenced the original Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983) for the simple fact that Ran was released in 1985, after the conclusion of the trilogy. . I do not know if this is a mistake from the source or a mistake in quoting the source, but it is certainly wrong as written and should be changed. I do not have Mr. Kaminski's book, and cannot check its accuracy or make a correction myself. I also do not want to absolutely erase this, as it is a large part of the article. I have also heard about the color and directional coding from another source but I do not know where (probably from an IMDB trivia page or a another article in Wikipedia). Ber06122 (talk) 14:09, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Whilst it's true that Imperial ships have green gunfire, their hand-blasters (such as those used by Stormtroopers) and ground artillery fire red beams. The direction of where the attack comes from is not as clear cut, either. I'm not convinced this section should be included as whilst it may be sourced, it doesn't seem to match what's on-screen.RoryKat (talk) 13:22, 9 March 2018 (UTC)