View Full Version : Blasters, Green and/or Red??

04-29-2003, 10:08 AM
If someone has a better reputation with the empire, will the lasers of his/her blaster turn red? And vice versa of course!?

Would be a nice idea though, because it's done in the movies....

04-29-2003, 12:07 PM
It shouldn't matter what side you're on, but rather what weapons you use.

After all, Queen Amidala has a "green" blaster in TPM, and everybody else everywhere in the movies uses red, with a few exceptions (Clonetroopers use Blue in AOTC).

Where the "Green = Empire/Red = Rebels" comes into play is with ship to ship turbolasers. Jango Fett's ship fires Red shots. In terms of ship/vehicle guns though, there are still exceptions... like the purple shots fired by Dooku's support ships, blue beams fired by Clonetrooper Artillery, green beams fired by Republic LAAT gunships (similar to the death star superlaser on a smaller scale), etc.

Then there's the blue "stun" setting on the Stormtrooper rifle.

Having different colors adds a little variety (and helps determine who's shooting whom) but its not based on what side you're on, not like the lightsaber color thing.

Dark Moon
04-29-2003, 03:07 PM
Heh, it would be cool if you could purchase different power packs for your blasters that would have different features such as adding power, adding different properties, and/or changing colors. This could add a lot of variety to the firepower in SWG.

04-29-2003, 03:27 PM
Some have speculated that the color of the bolts has something to do with the "efficiency" of the "lasers" being used, but that's purely fan speculation.

I am guessing that the blaster/turbolaser mechanism is supposed to be different than the lightsaber mechanism (of which of course there are several competing and non-canonical theories), otherwise that might prove an interesting contrast.

Its interesting that lightsabers just happen to feature the same colors as the "lasers" (blue, green, red, purple).

04-29-2003, 04:28 PM
Maybe it's gonna be one of the custimisable options when a weaponsmith is building a blaster or something...

04-29-2003, 04:48 PM
I think Bzrk is closest to the truth. After all, the artisan gets increasing colour customizing skills thorough their skill tree (since the maximum is 255, it is surely the 256 colour palette).

04-29-2003, 07:31 PM
I heard somewhere that originally the lightsabers were only blue and red to represent Good and Evil. Later, though, George decided that he didn't want to do that crap, and let Luke have a Green one. Then later later, he gave people whatever color he felt like. So, I think the only restriction on lightsaber color should be the rarity of the crystal the builder decides to obtain.

04-29-2003, 08:59 PM
The official story I've heard many times is that the reason they used a Green saber for Luke in ROTJ was primarily because it showed up better against the yellow sandy background of Tatooine (notice how Anakin's blue saber in ANH looks greenish in the Tatooine scenes).

Some of this can even be seen in some of the early trailers/publicity shots for AOTC... it appeared that blue sabers were purple, and green sabers were gold.

On the AOTC DVD Lucas says that blue and green are "for good guys" and red "is for bad guys" but he lets Samuel L. Jackson have a purple one for his Mace Windu character.

In the EU it has something to do with crystals, and every author has their own spin on it, so who knows what they'll decide. Logically, if the color of the crystal is really all that matters, one could simply synthesize the colored crystal of their choice, with the right tools.

04-29-2003, 09:18 PM
Didnt Sam L. Jackson ask Lucas for the color purple?

04-29-2003, 09:39 PM
Yes. Appearantly Sith Lords makes synthetic chrystals by specially engineered 'ovens' and the Sith's own focused anger. That's why all their blades turn out red.

04-30-2003, 09:02 AM
Hmm, very interesting.

04-30-2003, 09:02 AM
Originally posted by c_afro919
Didnt Sam L. Jackson ask Lucas for the color purple?
Yes he did. hat's only because he asked Lucas for that. He is the only Jedi that has another color than blue, green or red.

04-30-2003, 01:24 PM
I think the color of the blasters is just the same as the sabres.

It depends on the crystal they use to power it. The jedi use natural crystals to power theirs. and the sith used synthetic. The only difference is that the synthetic crystals wear down much quicker. but thats all still confusing since the good jedi use green, blue, purple. The sith use red but when it comes to space battle its the opposite. So i'm a little confused.

04-30-2003, 02:17 PM
I would imagine that the guys at ILM were adding in the blasts and colors for the lightsaber without putting that much thought into it. "Hey why don't we give Mace a purple lightsaber that would be cool." "Ok dude go for it." I would imagine that beyond the symbolism of red for the sith and other colors for jedi, that that is where the symbolism ends. But that's just my opinion.

04-30-2003, 06:19 PM
In one of the Ep.II documentaries it shows Samuel L. Jackson asking George for a purple saber.

04-30-2003, 07:15 PM

That's not true, actually.

According to the Shadows of the Empire Novelisation (an EU source of course) Luke's lightsaber is made with synthetic crystals, and it happens to be GREEN (and last time I checked, he wasn't a Sith). ; )