Lmk if you enjoyed the long video! It took a full month but I had fun making it :) Hope everyone’s having a good Star Wars Day!! Feel free to share with your Star Wars friends 👉👈
After doing some research, the process of turning methane rich natural gas into hydrogen produces purple plasma. I thought you might like to know. Awesome video!
in the current canon all ships use Tabana gas as fuel not coolant and its used in turbo lasers, and tie fighter repeater blasters, its the gas that gives it a green colour, clone DC-15A tactical blaster rifle used a different gas, and currently blasters nolonger use crystals but instead have an excitement chamber and fires plasma rounds rather than particles rounds using an ionization chamber then the plasma round would be fired and it was the kinetic impact that did the damage not the heat
From what I’ve heard purple is the most powerful but more expensive which would explain why not many armies use them but purple looks awesome as a blaster bolt color
sounds goot to me, becaus it has the shorterst wavelenght of visible light. The rebell alliance/ the CIS have the opposit, becaus they use the longest wavelenght(red). I think I heard somewhere, that the geonosien starfighter was realy well made so that maby why they used purple.
I have also heard that the colors of the blaster bolts show the quality and strength. The CIS army has always depended on the mass of their droids, which is why they had to save on the quality of the blaster bolts. The Republic, on the other hand, has already equipped its clone soldiers better from the start. Green was of course the most expensive, which is why the Empire didn't skimp on it. The Resistance didn't have that much money so they also used the cheapest ammunition.
27:42 - "Geonosians have always wanted to keep to themselves" - Host Separatist meeting - Have Death Star plans "Never took the fight to their enemy" - Make droid factories allied with CIS, the droids are the army they take to their enemy
They were being manipulated by dooku/sidius, also weird tid bit, it's stated somewhere that geonosians if they have nothing to do, they will go to war with each other just cause they're bored so having them build shit was a must
This just makes me want a Ghost Recon-esque Star Wars game where you play as some ragtag mercenary group (or special forces group) and in addition to customizing your main character with clothes, outfits, species and more, modding your blaster is like a separate menu, where you choose what kind of blaster, then you start modding it out, like choosing the focal lens/crystal (blaster color), gas type (affects accuracy, damage, non-lethal options, affects droids or humanoids more, etc.), optics (for scopes and whatnot), heatsinks (efficiency of gas use), power cells (how many shots before it needs to be "reloaded"), metal color/paintjob, foregrips and stocks (for steadying while aiming), the option to add the half squeeze to aim with a laser before firing, Long nozzle mods to dim the blaster light and suppress the noise for stealth, just go absolutely HAM on customization for every blaster you can acquire in that game, and make it super detailed and one of the main features of the game. I think there'd be a subset of fans who would love this.
That would be incredibly cool, and for each mission, a smart player could reconfigure their weapon based on the mission parameters, and most likely opponents.
I would love to play a SW game that let's you customize your gun like in The force unleashed, I will say that the color of the blaster isn't determined by the focal lens (if there is one to begin with) instead the color changes because of the gas being used, cheaper ones are red meanwhile purple be expensive, blue is for droids cause that's what the blue was made for, and green id say it's like a better version of the red but it doesn't beat purple, I guess in game you can make that happen, make the red version weaker and cheaper to buy and the purple one more powerful, more expensive and give it a small debuf like the gun heats up faster depending on which type is used
Not sure if you want to have a deep dive into a Lego game. But in the Lego Star Wars saga the power orbs make your lightsaber purple and your blaster shots purple. Meaning they are straight up more powerful
"Wanted purple to stand out." Maybe that was part of the reason, but Jackson actually tries to sneak something purple into literally everything he appears in. IRL it's his favorite color.
Imo, I think the reason the empire uses more good guy colours is they used to be the republic and thus had the good guy colours used all around and the rebels needed a way to distinguish between their shots and chose red.
2:06 that scene shown if you watch the furthest tie fighters... you can see some litterally appear out of nowhere instead of emerge as a small point that get larger as they come into view.. they are not there... then there... i wish they'd fix that dang error. I cant unsee it ever now
@@oldylad yeah i think theres another in 4 or 5 if you watch the tie fighter pass the screen it heads towards deathstar and if you keep watching it... it just disappears lol i guess they thought id look somewhere else by that point in time but nope... i was still watching the tie fighter and BLOOP ... VANISHED... (MOVIE MAGIC?😆)
From all of the information I’ve got is that the difference between them is a variety of strength of each blaster bolt along with how much it costs per shot. The cost of each from cheapest to most expensive is red, blue, green, Mandalorian yellow, and then an exception being the weakest but probably expensive are the yellow/training bolts used by the clones on Tipoca City. The CIS/Rebels used red because they’re effective against living targets, while the Republic used blue because they’re more effective against droids, and the Empire used Green because they’re effective against everything and a bit stronger than red but to save resources for the Empires greater war machine.
Makes sense for the imperials to use something that’ll work against any material whilst being relatively cheap considering they’re not exactly the most accurate shots lol.
@@raymurray3401it’s plot shit dude, stop repeating this. Stormtroopers are amazing shots. If you NEED an explanation the plot armor is the will of the force and thus the heroes survive because the force wants them to
I know but it’s still kinda funny how the running joke about stormtroopers being bad shots lines up so well with them being given cheaper ammo lol. As for an in universe explanation you could argue their inaccuracy may be due to their use of cheaper materials since they are supplying weapons to an astronomical number of soldiers and as a result the weapons focusing crystals are prone to being knocked out of alignment reducing their accuracy.
my headcanon is, that most of the colos differences come fom diffrent gases on the planets, and bigger armies just used gases, that where found all over the galaxy
Tbh blue,green ,yellow,purple blaster bolts are my favorite basically i like them all except for the red blaster bolts for some reason its just so tacky for me
Headcanon is that everything depends on everything. It just makes the most sense that every little detail could have an effect on blaster color. For example, the TIE says the blasts are green because of the frequency of the crystal, but maybe other green blasters are green just because of the power output, and others still are green because of gases used. This especially makes sense because all 3 could lead to changes in the efficiency of the blaster. So maybe the gas blaster takes less power per shot, or the power blaster takes less gas.
I've only ever heard that the color is determined by the refinement process, and how refined it is. So those other points were fairly interesting. And I've been playing the og battlefront II for a couple decades now, and I've never seen a purple blaster from something that has never had it. (Clones)
From when I remember playing as a kid if you get enough kills with a certain gun on your profile it will upgrade that gun making it do more damage, change the sound it makes, and the color of the laser.
If memory serves you had to get something like 20 kills without dying and you had to not only land the killing blow with that weapon but that weapon also had to be responsible for the majority of the damage dealt to the target.
The blue and white TIE bolts in the the THX remaster I think were initially caused by failing to add the final green rotoscoping on top of the white core of the bolts, leaving just the white. The blue bolts could be an overdone color correction, you can see in the comparison shots that the star destroyers have noticably cooler hue to them the others. On top of the white bolts left by forgetting the green pass, the color correction could give that odd blue tint. Anyways, not an expert or anything, if anyone else has more or better detail on the specifics, Id be interested.
Sounds about right. I don't remember the exact details, but there's a similar color error with the Rebel pilots' helmets, R2-D2, and I think some of the X-Wing markings during the original Death Star trench run which caused anything blue to show up as grey/black due to the fact that they used blue screens instead of green screens at the time (these color errors were fixed in later releases). The TIE lasers suddenly switching to blue only for that one sequence just means it's another error that nobody caught at the time rather than anything involving the laser's actual in-universe properties
explains why there’s white showing in the middle of the bolts giving it a two-toned look never seen anywhere else, they didn’t add the yellow on top of the blue to make green or simply rushed through it and forgot to finish the shot
I think red must be the cheapest to produce because the CIS used red when they were the faction with the most guns there for spending the most and the republic with its near unlimited budget used the slightly more expensive blue stuff. same goes for the empire we see in bad batch that when starting the army the empire did use red and then when they began gaining more power and moving more money to the army they bought the expensive green stuff and obviously the broke rebels used the cheap red stuff. i cant think of anything sound for the last three films idk maybe the resistance was using the expensive stuff left over from the new republic idk.
Sommething solid is disney has always made fairytales that have no thought put into them and thus didint think about anything on even a surfece deep level when making the movies.
Blue was an ion shot,and because of how the CIS was basically completely droid armies ion attacks would be the best against them whilst not wasting money
Really thought this would be a 45-minute yap fest but no it is genuinely one of the most insightful Star Wars videos on UA-cam it is a must-see for all Star Wars fans and definitely deserves way more love.
20:15 The purple flack explosions may be from B2 arm rockets, if they existed in that battle they also look very similar to the eyplosions of the purple laserbolts from the geonosien starfighters
Want to know something that is funny. During the Clone Wars, all of the Clone Troopers, Standard Issue weapon, was the DC-15 Blaster Rifle, later the DC-15A. Which was in a sense modular, but always shot blaster bolts. Which makes no sense, since their main enemy would be Droids, and Mechanical enemies, thus an Ion Blaster would have been better. Also a fun note: Ion shots, usually is a cyan blue, but have been seen with yellow, white and pink bolts. Also Yellow bolts, has been seen used by Sandpeople from Tattooine, which is a fun little thing. So here is a little bit that most people forget. Slugthrowers, illegal by Republic and Galactic Empire law. Mostly seen on the fringe worlds and rimworlds of the Star Wars universe. The Sandpeople use the Cycler Rifle, which is seen to shoot Yellow Bolts, but in fact is a Solid mass of metal: I.o.w the Yellow bolt was also a sign of someone using a slugthrower. The reason why these weapons were or are illegal in the universe. They penetrate Armour like it was made out of cardboard. But they came with that they usually were unaccurate since most SW tech companies have forgotten the science of Rifling your Barrel. The very thing they don't need to do with the crystal and gas setup of a normal blaster rifle. Also historical fun fact: Any gun that was called a Rifle, was only called so because the Barrel had been Rifled. Meaning it had those grooves that twists and spin around the whole length of the barrel, for better accuracy. Which later became the standard name for any and all guns which was of a certain size and weight.
@@Average_Enclave_Soldier The way it works in Star Wars, by Legends, by Extended Universe, and by Canon. Blaster Bolts, is two things that combine: Energy from the energy Packs, which people call Ammo Packs in many cases, and Gas; These Gases are stored inside the gun, and has to be refilled from time to time but last for a very long time (For the DC-15 this could be up to 1000 shots with low energy, and a rough 600 shot with high energy). They are *never* Ionized. That require a Ion Rifle, Carbine or Pistol, which doesn't use Gas at all, but used Ionized Energy instead, which causes its Bluish colour in many cases. You don't have Half-Ionized, Semi-Ionized, it is either or. Also the Ionized Energy, doesn't work with the Gas, so it can't become a Blaster Bolt, however, there is Illegal modifications, which cause a electrical current to go with the blaster bolt, that practically ionized the air around it. But those are extremely rare, and as said illegal. And the DC-15, DC-15A and the later versions were only Blaster Rifles, well Heavy Blaster rifles to be exact. And the Clone Troopers did fight other things than only Droids, but their Main Enemy was Droids. Even before the Clone Troopers became an army for the Galactic Republic, they had Ion Rifles and Pistols to fight robotic enemies. It is just odd that the Clone Troopers were rarely if ever equipped with Ion weaponry when they were going to face Droids and not Biological beings, which Ion bolts still can harm very well, and high enough charges does kill them as well.
Tiny point of interest on the magna tri droid, in real life, lasers can be used to cause atmosphere to ionize, and therefore carry electrical charge. Perhaps the beam is just there to direct the electrical blast that actually does the damage.
This is an insane deep dive in to blaster and blaster adjacent tech. You should consider adding something to the title to indicate that there is a lot more covered besides purple blasters.
I always thought that green was the cheapest kind of gas and that the empire used it because they just had soo many ships that it was the best gas to get in bulk
Yellow Blaster bolts: 1st a thought that might explain it. Mandalorians also are known for fighting Jedi, and in the past even used slug throwing weapons to fight them. If they're keeping that tradition forward (and they seem to in The Manalorian), Mando weapons may have a more "physical" impact than standard blaster bolts. It also stands to reason that if Beskar can deflect standard blaster bolts, a blaster bolt that also hits similar to slug throwers to do physical impact as well wouldn't be out of pocket for them. Thus yellow (and possibly orange with even cheaper gas) training bolts may give impact but not damage similar to rubber/paint bullets from modern firearms. I can't find anything that specifically backs that up, so it's pure theory-craft. However, what I can back up is that it's also noted that the WESTAR-35 and GALAAR-15 have the "Accurate" qualifier in the Star Wars RPG, which feeds into the idea of sniper rifles having yellow shots in Clone Wars/Bad Batch. Many other non-yellow blasters also have this quality in the game as well, so big grain of salt there. Just some tangential thoughts, that yellow blaster bolts, similar to purple "electrical" weapons and then purple blasters, may have multiple reasons. So perhaps both of these are also reasons.
Just a heads-up, the orange color isn’t always for training l. In the republic commando game, when you are on geonosis, the Geonosian elite beam weapon was orange and BOY does it do a lot of damage. Also, the trandotion slavers use blue concussion rifles. They also used yellow in their heavy rotary machine guns, elite SMGs, and shotguns, which were powered by a yellow gas somewhere on the body. The transition elites had two large banisters on the back, and they never ran out of ammo.
17:56 i wonder if the green blaster bolts appear blue due to the fact that the blaster bolts are pass so close to the screen view that they may have put a screen flash effect over it originaly then had to remove it later bleaching the green effect to blue?
blue used to mean ion cannon in the games. 1995 was right around collector's edition games remaster too not just THX. they might have been trying to telegraph disabling shots since it really doesn't make sense to shoot the hostages with fatal ship to ship fire since you want to capture them. I like your explanation of white blasters. side note there were pink/purple missiles that were EMP in the TIE fighter game.
Cool fact; the E-11 blaster was a British L3A1 Sterling smg with a shortened mag, the stock folded and a few bits bolted on. In 1977 they couldn't go crazy with effects. To get the muzzle flash in the original film they used blank-adapted Sterling, you can see spent cases near a troopers elbow as he fires prone. This means out there somewhere is an E-11 which could very easily be re-barreled to become an actual live firing smg.
A note about the Flechette Shotgun from the Battlefront game. Unless the name is a misnomer, the term "flechette" means "little arrow/dart", so does this mean that they have been swapped out for something like the Wookie Bowcaster that actually fires solid projectiles *sheathed* in blaster energy?
Possible thought towards the "cosmetic" angle: invasion stripes. In WWII the allies would paint a striped pattern on the wings of aircraft whenever they planned a surprise attack so they wouldn't shoot their own pilots. These patterns were kept secret until the invasion was flown to prevent the enemy from trying to disguise themselves. Also in more modern times, secret police add a coloured band to their guns on the day of an operation for the same reason. Obviously for film reasons these colours rarely change, but it could be possible that they intentionally colour their fire for identification of friendlies on the battlefield.
42:51 something that got me confused here is that at no point was it said that the spin-sealed Tobana gas was specifically red. So, if we keep going by the color spectrum theory, that the higher the frequency, the more powerful the bolt would be, you could still say that the green bolts were a more refined version of the red ones (and the purple, the most refined). What would make sense to say the empire had more resources, and thus, more powerful weapons.
I think you might have forgot one more purple blaster bolt source... In the 1996 Nintendo 64 game Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire, you can collect different munition type for your blaster and one of them is called Pulse cannon wich as purple projectiles. There where many more interesting weapons in the game including one called distruptor wich was pretty much a pocket death star/BFG9000. Fun fact, I think this game is still technically cannon too since your main character's ship is seen leaving Mos Eisley in Episode 4 in every version of the movie made after the game release. Thanks for the video, it was fun to watch. :)
Half of the examples of purple blasts you mentioned I didn’t realize they were purple. I love being red green colorblind They looked like a weird shade of dark blue to me
Around 16:53 you talked about blue lasers as a difference for that version of the movie. As an effects editor, I would say that is actually the prototype laser. It probably wasn't colored for the final cut. That would make that version of the movie pretty rare.
I love how Star Wars explains its lasers and stuff with such declination and detail that it seems like it can be in the real world, and how you explained it was awesome. Subscribing for sure
21:32 my headcannon is that yellow is probably more accurate, and purple is extremely unstable and prone to explode mid-flight. This would explain why storm troopers are inaccurate(although “stormtrooper aim” is a retcon being directly due to fans getting the wrong message from a New hope and the Falcon escaping, seriously, why would the empire want to destroy the ship if they could use the planted tracker to find the rebel base?)because they were trained on and are used to a much more forgiving blaster and accurate blaster. It would also explain why purple is rare because it was so hard to properly control, and why it acts like a Flak round in AotC. It also lines up with the Electromagnetic Spectrum and how ultraviolet/purple light is the most energetic.
I never thought I would ever be invested in this…but I am. I now want to see more purple blasters in Star Wars. This was definitely an amazing video and I can’t wait to see what you do next. Also Happy ‘belated’ Star Wars Day and May The 4th Be With You.
The plasma bow things (I don't care what their official name is) feel pretty impractical. Like, why use a bow that requires you to draw back the arrow bolt, when blasters exist that can fire just a deadly projectiles with less of the effort? Meh, at least they look cool.
Speaking of the yellow mandolorian blasters being armor penetrating against beskar, in Jedi survivor you can hear a storm trooper talking about how “if you have your blaster tuned just right it will go right through mandolorian beskar”
I pointed out the similarities between the blaster colours and the tracer colours used in WW2 very early, but I didn't realise that it was an intentional choice, but it's no surprise as some of the people working on it really knew their stuff about weapons and history.
I grew up on the THX version and always thought I was imagining things when they were blue/white. Now I realize I wasn't hallucinating. Which is always a good thing.
This video is a really good example of canon spurring on the growth of lore. Like the yellow blaster bolts, being depicted as powerful enough to pierce Beskar but also being used by imperial trainees, we don't know why that is but somebody's gonna have to write something that talks about it now!
My usual sentiment is "I'm not watching a 45 minute video about purple. He could give the presentation in 5 minutes". However, I have to run a carpet extractor all day so I'm glad to have something long to listen to
My thought with the yellow is that it usually indicates some sort of suppressor modification-either to reduce intensity, or to narrow the beam and increase accuracy and range for a sniper shot. This is separate from the mandalorian weapons, which are probably using a local gas.
37:00 this is because rockets irl work like that. They gain more speed the further they go so long as they have fuel. This can affect how much of the payload is detonated, what direction the payload goes, and the kinetic energy of the rocket on impact.
In the battlefront games, most missile and bomb weapons work the same way. The faster they're going the more damage they do, and they need tone to reach max speed.
I only do minimal work on video, but I do a lot of work with photos. If you look at the scenes where the Ties are shooting blue and compare the other objects colors, it looks as if they tried to make the stars and star destroiers look more white by reducing how much yellow there was. That's all well and good, but it seems like they hue shifted the footage, then simply forgot to recolor the bolts green in that shot. Remember, green minus yellow = blue.
so basicly blasters color is mainly determined by a coloring system in the blasters but gass, focusing crystal, and manufacturer can also influence this. maybe the coloring system is initally set by the manufacturer to being off while these systems take more power to change the color of certain gasses.
17:12 they were shooting ionised projectiles that are way more effective on machines, that is also why clones were shooting blue, tie pilots most probably wanted them alive but not to let them fly away
I could always tell there was something weird about the splash damage, and I just couldn't for the life of me figure it out. The rocket splits the splash damage between multiple targets and seems to account for the speed of the projectile before it makes contact in order to see if that particular target survives.
I always took the THX version of the TESB sequence to be explained as the TIEs being equipped with ion cannons. It was a thing in the TIE Fighter games, and the sound effect for those blasts was consistent with the ion cannon / turbolaser effect. It's actually kind of unusual they didn't stick with that for the subsequent releases because it made more sense.
Attack of the Clones and those tie fighters color errors in 1995 are not the first time blue blaster bolts are seen in a live action Star Wars movie. The first intentional instance of blue bolts in Star Wars was in 1983 in the Ewoks Battle for Endor movie. Mace has a sporting blaster that shoots Blue in the first scenes and later Noa's starship cannons shoot blue during the fight against the Mauraders. These were consistent, intentional colors, not color errors
It’s intresting that it is purple that’s one of the rarest colours also a fun fact is that purple is also one of the rarest colours on flags in real life
Purple is the color of empire IRL, at least in Europe. There was a time when only the Emperor of the Roman/Byzantium Empire was allowed to wear it, and the particular shade the Byzantium Emperors used was literally the rarest and most expensive product on Earth. How to make it was ultra secret, but today we know it's slime off a certain sea slug.
in my head cannon the colors tell who they are meant to target, red for flesh, green for shields, purple for dense armor, yellow for light armor and blue for droids which is why the stun setting is blue, also the stun setting can cause brain damage if used multiple times
In a lot of legends lore (and maybe even in cannon?) disruptor projectiles are colored purple, a weapon so dangerous it was outlawed by many governments.
I think the earliest we actually saw Yellow blaster bolts was in the Jedi Knight game series where Kyle Katarns Bryarr Blaster Pistol shoots yellow bolts.
Going off topic I think it’s so funny even the sepritist put a glass box for the droids to be in next to the giant ion cannon but the imperial troopers just got a little platform without any handrails 😂
It looks to me like the blue and white TIE fighter shots are caused by the colour-correction process they used to change the look of the scene. Check out the difference in background colour for the asteroids scene, for example
i think the expulsion after the purple blaster bolt makes contact is more spalling from what ever it hits not being about to absorb the energy imparted by the purple bolt.
When you talked about yellow blaster bolts, you forgot one faction that used yellow besides the mandalorians, it's the zigarians who also used yellow light whips and electro staffs, also under Darth Maul the mandalorians fired red blaster bolts and were able to penetrate bescar just fine for some reason.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Lmk if you enjoyed the long video! It took a full month but I had fun making it :) Hope everyone’s having a good Star Wars Day!! Feel free to share with your Star Wars friends 👉👈
May the fourth be with you Micheal
You really should have put an epilepsy warning on this.
After doing some research, the process of turning methane rich natural gas into hydrogen produces purple plasma. I thought you might like to know. Awesome video!
in the current canon all ships use Tabana gas as fuel not coolant and its used in turbo lasers, and tie fighter repeater blasters, its the gas that gives it a green colour, clone DC-15A tactical blaster rifle used a different gas, and currently blasters nolonger use crystals but instead have an excitement chamber and fires plasma rounds rather than particles rounds using an ionization chamber then the plasma round would be fired and it was the kinetic impact that did the damage not the heat
way to long. I had a concrete question and you went all over the place to answer it.
Jackson's grin when George tells him he might get purple will never get old
Its like a little kid going with his mom to the shop, and being told he can pick out a sweet to buy
@@cyqry it literally is Jackson's inner little child coming through.
Perfect example of why Star Wars was simply more fun under George
From what I’ve heard purple is the most powerful but more expensive which would explain why not many armies use them but purple looks awesome as a blaster bolt color
sounds goot to me, becaus it has the shorterst wavelenght of visible light. The rebell alliance/ the CIS have the opposit, becaus they use the longest wavelenght(red). I think I heard somewhere, that the geonosien starfighter was realy well made so that maby why they used purple.
@@THATfishguywithfish why would wavelength of the light matter for a plasma bolt?
@@robertharris6092 Because they emit light?
@@robertharris6092 becaus in light a shorter wavelenght has more energy.
That means, that a high energy bolt may give off a higher energy color
I have also heard that the colors of the blaster bolts show the quality and strength. The CIS army has always depended on the mass of their droids, which is why they had to save on the quality of the blaster bolts. The Republic, on the other hand, has already equipped its clone soldiers better from the start.
Green was of course the most expensive, which is why the Empire didn't skimp on it. The Resistance didn't have that much money so they also used the cheapest ammunition.
A 45 minute video about the color purple that is not boring, legendary!
Ikr?! Well done!! 💯
Wait until he finds out about Prince.
I didn't even realise how long it was untill I finished it.
45 mins of mostly filler. This could've been done in 10 mins.
@@TechnoMinarchistthen do it?
27:42 - "Geonosians have always wanted to keep to themselves"
- Host Separatist meeting
- Have Death Star plans
"Never took the fight to their enemy"
- Make droid factories allied with CIS, the droids are the army they take to their enemy
Not wanting to doesn't mean you can't get forced...
They were used by the dark side 😕
They were being manipulated by dooku/sidius, also weird tid bit, it's stated somewhere that geonosians if they have nothing to do, they will go to war with each other just cause they're bored so having them build shit was a must
This just makes me want a Ghost Recon-esque Star Wars game where you play as some ragtag mercenary group (or special forces group) and in addition to customizing your main character with clothes, outfits, species and more, modding your blaster is like a separate menu, where you choose what kind of blaster, then you start modding it out, like choosing the focal lens/crystal (blaster color), gas type (affects accuracy, damage, non-lethal options, affects droids or humanoids more, etc.), optics (for scopes and whatnot), heatsinks (efficiency of gas use), power cells (how many shots before it needs to be "reloaded"), metal color/paintjob, foregrips and stocks (for steadying while aiming), the option to add the half squeeze to aim with a laser before firing, Long nozzle mods to dim the blaster light and suppress the noise for stealth, just go absolutely HAM on customization for every blaster you can acquire in that game, and make it super detailed and one of the main features of the game. I think there'd be a subset of fans who would love this.
That would be incredibly cool, and for each mission, a smart player could reconfigure their weapon based on the mission parameters, and most likely opponents.
Ah yes Star Wars Force Unleashed but with Blasters sounds fun
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Republic_Commando
@morgans.9842 Republic Commando is a fantastic game - but it's overdue a newer game with mechanics like I mentioned above
I would love to play a SW game that let's you customize your gun like in The force unleashed, I will say that the color of the blaster isn't determined by the focal lens (if there is one to begin with) instead the color changes because of the gas being used, cheaper ones are red meanwhile purple be expensive, blue is for droids cause that's what the blue was made for, and green id say it's like a better version of the red but it doesn't beat purple, I guess in game you can make that happen, make the red version weaker and cheaper to buy and the purple one more powerful, more expensive and give it a small debuf like the gun heats up faster depending on which type is used
Not sure if you want to have a deep dive into a Lego game. But in the Lego Star Wars saga the power orbs make your lightsaber purple and your blaster shots purple. Meaning they are straight up more powerful
Yeah I remember that was awesome
For a second I thought you meant the Skywalker Saga and I was confused but I remember that part of the Complete Saga
"Wanted purple to stand out."
Maybe that was part of the reason, but Jackson actually tries to sneak something purple into literally everything he appears in. IRL it's his favorite color.
Imo, I think the reason the empire uses more good guy colours is they used to be the republic and thus had the good guy colours used all around and the rebels needed a way to distinguish between their shots and chose red.
2:06 that scene shown if you watch the furthest tie fighters... you can see some litterally appear out of nowhere instead of emerge as a small point that get larger as they come into view.. they are not there... then there... i wish they'd fix that dang error. I cant unsee it ever now
Shit like this was common in the OT but mfers bitched about the updated version lmao, Disney won’t touch it
Stealth Tie Fighters?
@@oldylad yeah i think theres another in 4 or 5 if you watch the tie fighter pass the screen it heads towards deathstar and if you keep watching it... it just disappears lol i guess they thought id look somewhere else by that point in time but nope... i was still watching the tie fighter and BLOOP ... VANISHED... (MOVIE MAGIC?😆)
From all of the information I’ve got is that the difference between them is a variety of strength of each blaster bolt along with how much it costs per shot. The cost of each from cheapest to most expensive is red, blue, green, Mandalorian yellow, and then an exception being the weakest but probably expensive are the yellow/training bolts used by the clones on Tipoca City. The CIS/Rebels used red because they’re effective against living targets, while the Republic used blue because they’re more effective against droids, and the Empire used Green because they’re effective against everything and a bit stronger than red but to save resources for the Empires greater war machine.
Makes sense for the imperials to use something that’ll work against any material whilst being relatively cheap considering they’re not exactly the most accurate shots lol.
@@raymurray3401it’s plot shit dude, stop repeating this. Stormtroopers are amazing shots. If you NEED an explanation the plot armor is the will of the force and thus the heroes survive because the force wants them to
I know but it’s still kinda funny how the running joke about stormtroopers being bad shots lines up so well with them being given cheaper ammo lol. As for an in universe explanation you could argue their inaccuracy may be due to their use of cheaper materials since they are supplying weapons to an astronomical number of soldiers and as a result the weapons focusing crystals are prone to being knocked out of alignment reducing their accuracy.
@@oldylad Its called a running joke, bud
my headcanon is, that most of the colos differences come fom diffrent gases on the planets, and bigger armies just used gases, that where found all over the galaxy
That was my mindset too. The gas is what determines the color.
head canon: purple bolts are to green bolts what blue bolts are to red bolts. ion charged shots, just from a different or more refined gas
Tbh blue,green ,yellow,purple blaster bolts are my favorite basically i like them all except for the red blaster bolts for some reason its just so tacky for me
probably because we're used to seeing laser and "laser" weapons as red
Red is conventional
Red is iconic now
Man your channel is criminally underrated
Headcanon is that everything depends on everything. It just makes the most sense that every little detail could have an effect on blaster color.
For example, the TIE says the blasts are green because of the frequency of the crystal, but maybe other green blasters are green just because of the power output, and others still are green because of gases used.
This especially makes sense because all 3 could lead to changes in the efficiency of the blaster. So maybe the gas blaster takes less power per shot, or the power blaster takes less gas.
I've only ever heard that the color is determined by the refinement process, and how refined it is. So those other points were fairly interesting. And I've been playing the og battlefront II for a couple decades now, and I've never seen a purple blaster from something that has never had it. (Clones)
From when I remember playing as a kid if you get enough kills with a certain gun on your profile it will upgrade that gun making it do more damage, change the sound it makes, and the color of the laser.
@@ThirdEye-47 I've only ever earned the special unit for that faction.
If memory serves you had to get something like 20 kills without dying and you had to not only land the killing blow with that weapon but that weapon also had to be responsible for the majority of the damage dealt to the target.
@@raymurray3401 I only ever used the primary weapon of the standard class and it's grenades. If I wasn't in a vehicle the entire match.
The blue and white TIE bolts in the the THX remaster I think were initially caused by failing to add the final green rotoscoping on top of the white core of the bolts, leaving just the white. The blue bolts could be an overdone color correction, you can see in the comparison shots that the star destroyers have noticably cooler hue to them the others. On top of the white bolts left by forgetting the green pass, the color correction could give that odd blue tint.
Anyways, not an expert or anything, if anyone else has more or better detail on the specifics, Id be interested.
Sounds about right. I don't remember the exact details, but there's a similar color error with the Rebel pilots' helmets, R2-D2, and I think some of the X-Wing markings during the original Death Star trench run which caused anything blue to show up as grey/black due to the fact that they used blue screens instead of green screens at the time (these color errors were fixed in later releases). The TIE lasers suddenly switching to blue only for that one sequence just means it's another error that nobody caught at the time rather than anything involving the laser's actual in-universe properties
explains why there’s white showing in the middle of the bolts giving it a two-toned look never seen anywhere else, they didn’t add the yellow on top of the blue to make green or simply rushed through it and forgot to finish the shot
just a little something you may not have noticed on the flechete shotgun in the origional BF2 is the rounds are yellow on the flechete
Theyre also flechettes. Not any sort of energy projectile.
I think red must be the cheapest to produce because the CIS used red when they were the faction with the most guns there for spending the most and the republic with its near unlimited budget used the slightly more expensive blue stuff. same goes for the empire we see in bad batch that when starting the army the empire did use red and then when they began gaining more power and moving more money to the army they bought the expensive green stuff and obviously the broke rebels used the cheap red stuff. i cant think of anything sound for the last three films idk maybe the resistance was using the expensive stuff left over from the new republic idk.
Sommething solid is disney has always made fairytales that have no thought put into them and thus didint think about anything on even a surfece deep level when making the movies.
Blue was an ion shot,and because of how the CIS was basically completely droid armies ion attacks would be the best against them whilst not wasting money
Really thought this would be a 45-minute yap fest but no it is genuinely one of the most insightful Star Wars videos on UA-cam it is a must-see for all Star Wars fans and definitely deserves way more love.
20:15 The purple flack explosions may be from B2 arm rockets, if they existed in that battle
they also look very similar to the eyplosions of the purple laserbolts from the geonosien starfighters
Want to know something that is funny.
During the Clone Wars, all of the Clone Troopers, Standard Issue weapon, was the DC-15 Blaster Rifle, later the DC-15A.
Which was in a sense modular, but always shot blaster bolts.
Which makes no sense, since their main enemy would be Droids, and Mechanical enemies, thus an Ion Blaster would have been better.
Also a fun note: Ion shots, usually is a cyan blue, but have been seen with yellow, white and pink bolts.
Also Yellow bolts, has been seen used by Sandpeople from Tattooine, which is a fun little thing.
So here is a little bit that most people forget.
Slugthrowers, illegal by Republic and Galactic Empire law.
Mostly seen on the fringe worlds and rimworlds of the Star Wars universe.
The Sandpeople use the Cycler Rifle, which is seen to shoot Yellow Bolts, but in fact is a Solid mass of metal: I.o.w the Yellow bolt was also a sign of someone using a slugthrower.
The reason why these weapons were or are illegal in the universe. They penetrate Armour like it was made out of cardboard.
But they came with that they usually were unaccurate since most SW tech companies have forgotten the science of Rifling your Barrel. The very thing they don't need to do with the crystal and gas setup of a normal blaster rifle.
Also historical fun fact: Any gun that was called a Rifle, was only called so because the Barrel had been Rifled. Meaning it had those grooves that twists and spin around the whole length of the barrel, for better accuracy.
Which later became the standard name for any and all guns which was of a certain size and weight.
I’m pretty sure that the blue bolts were partially ionized, as clones didn’t only fight droids so having full ionization would be stupid and expensive
@@Average_Enclave_Soldier The way it works in Star Wars, by Legends, by Extended Universe, and by Canon.
Blaster Bolts, is two things that combine: Energy from the energy Packs, which people call Ammo Packs in many cases, and Gas; These Gases are stored inside the gun, and has to be refilled from time to time but last for a very long time (For the DC-15 this could be up to 1000 shots with low energy, and a rough 600 shot with high energy). They are *never* Ionized.
That require a Ion Rifle, Carbine or Pistol, which doesn't use Gas at all, but used Ionized Energy instead, which causes its Bluish colour in many cases.
You don't have Half-Ionized, Semi-Ionized, it is either or. Also the Ionized Energy, doesn't work with the Gas, so it can't become a Blaster Bolt, however, there is Illegal modifications, which cause a electrical current to go with the blaster bolt, that practically ionized the air around it. But those are extremely rare, and as said illegal.
And the DC-15, DC-15A and the later versions were only Blaster Rifles, well Heavy Blaster rifles to be exact.
And the Clone Troopers did fight other things than only Droids, but their Main Enemy was Droids. Even before the Clone Troopers became an army for the Galactic Republic, they had Ion Rifles and Pistols to fight robotic enemies. It is just odd that the Clone Troopers were rarely if ever equipped with Ion weaponry when they were going to face Droids and not Biological beings, which Ion bolts still can harm very well, and high enough charges does kill them as well.
It's also used by Hapes Consortium too!
Tiny point of interest on the magna tri droid, in real life, lasers can be used to cause atmosphere to ionize, and therefore carry electrical charge.
Perhaps the beam is just there to direct the electrical blast that actually does the damage.
Repeatedly using the clip of Jar Jar's face getting electrocuted. A man of culture, I see.
Windu wasn’t the only Jedi with a purple lightsaber, there was a second purple lightsaber in the first battle of Geonosis.
dude you could've made this like 8 different videos like I am so impressed that you covered like EVERYTHING lmao
This is an insane deep dive in to blaster and blaster adjacent tech. You should consider adding something to the title to indicate that there is a lot more covered besides purple blasters.
I always thought that green was the cheapest kind of gas and that the empire used it because they just had soo many ships that it was the best gas to get in bulk
If you were gonna fire at ships,you would need the strongest choice
Yellow Blaster bolts: 1st a thought that might explain it. Mandalorians also are known for fighting Jedi, and in the past even used slug throwing weapons to fight them. If they're keeping that tradition forward (and they seem to in The Manalorian), Mando weapons may have a more "physical" impact than standard blaster bolts. It also stands to reason that if Beskar can deflect standard blaster bolts, a blaster bolt that also hits similar to slug throwers to do physical impact as well wouldn't be out of pocket for them. Thus yellow (and possibly orange with even cheaper gas) training bolts may give impact but not damage similar to rubber/paint bullets from modern firearms. I can't find anything that specifically backs that up, so it's pure theory-craft.
However, what I can back up is that it's also noted that the WESTAR-35 and GALAAR-15 have the "Accurate" qualifier in the Star Wars RPG, which feeds into the idea of sniper rifles having yellow shots in Clone Wars/Bad Batch. Many other non-yellow blasters also have this quality in the game as well, so big grain of salt there.
Just some tangential thoughts, that yellow blaster bolts, similar to purple "electrical" weapons and then purple blasters, may have multiple reasons. So perhaps both of these are also reasons.
Just a heads-up, the orange color isn’t always for training l. In the republic commando game, when you are on geonosis, the Geonosian elite beam weapon was orange and BOY does it do a lot of damage. Also, the trandotion slavers use blue concussion rifles. They also used yellow in their heavy rotary machine guns, elite SMGs, and shotguns, which were powered by a yellow gas somewhere on the body. The transition elites had two large banisters on the back, and they never ran out of ammo.
17:56
i wonder if the green blaster bolts appear blue due to the fact that the blaster bolts are pass so close to the screen view that they may have put a screen flash effect over it originaly then had to remove it later bleaching the green effect to blue?
blue used to mean ion cannon in the games. 1995 was right around collector's edition games remaster too not just THX. they might have been trying to telegraph disabling shots since it really doesn't make sense to shoot the hostages with fatal ship to ship fire since you want to capture them. I like your explanation of white blasters. side note there were pink/purple missiles that were EMP in the TIE fighter game.
Cool fact; the E-11 blaster was a British L3A1 Sterling smg with a shortened mag, the stock folded and a few bits bolted on. In 1977 they couldn't go crazy with effects. To get the muzzle flash in the original film they used blank-adapted Sterling, you can see spent cases near a troopers elbow as he fires prone. This means out there somewhere is an E-11 which could very easily be re-barreled to become an actual live firing smg.
A note about the Flechette Shotgun from the Battlefront game. Unless the name is a misnomer, the term "flechette" means "little arrow/dart", so does this mean that they have been swapped out for something like the Wookie Bowcaster that actually fires solid projectiles *sheathed* in blaster energy?
Bread Circus shout out is fantastic. Goated YTer
Possible thought towards the "cosmetic" angle: invasion stripes. In WWII the allies would paint a striped pattern on the wings of aircraft whenever they planned a surprise attack so they wouldn't shoot their own pilots. These patterns were kept secret until the invasion was flown to prevent the enemy from trying to disguise themselves. Also in more modern times, secret police add a coloured band to their guns on the day of an operation for the same reason. Obviously for film reasons these colours rarely change, but it could be possible that they intentionally colour their fire for identification of friendlies on the battlefield.
42:51 something that got me confused here is that at no point was it said that the spin-sealed Tobana gas was specifically red. So, if we keep going by the color spectrum theory, that the higher the frequency, the more powerful the bolt would be, you could still say that the green bolts were a more refined version of the red ones (and the purple, the most refined). What would make sense to say the empire had more resources, and thus, more powerful weapons.
I think you might have forgot one more purple blaster bolt source... In the 1996 Nintendo 64 game Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire, you can collect different munition type for your blaster and one of them is called Pulse cannon wich as purple projectiles.
There where many more interesting weapons in the game including one called distruptor wich was pretty much a pocket death star/BFG9000. Fun fact, I think this game is still technically cannon too since your main character's ship is seen leaving Mos Eisley in Episode 4 in every version of the movie made after the game release.
Thanks for the video, it was fun to watch. :)
Half of the examples of purple blasts you mentioned I didn’t realize they were purple. I love being red green colorblind
They looked like a weird shade of dark blue to me
if i remember correctly, the old tie fighter game had blue ion cannons as an option alongside standard green lasers and one can switch between both
I distinctly remember that Kyle Katarn's basic blaster pistol in the Jedi Outcast games was shooting orange bolts as well
I love how they give explanations in universe and not just for us the audience and the characters never address it.
Around 16:53 you talked about blue lasers as a difference for that version of the movie. As an effects editor, I would say that is actually the prototype laser. It probably wasn't colored for the final cut. That would make that version of the movie pretty rare.
I love how Star Wars explains its lasers and stuff with such declination and detail that it seems like it can be in the real world, and how you explained it was awesome. Subscribing for sure
21:32 my headcannon is that yellow is probably more accurate, and purple is extremely unstable and prone to explode mid-flight.
This would explain why storm troopers are inaccurate(although “stormtrooper aim” is a retcon being directly due to fans getting the wrong message from a New hope and the Falcon escaping, seriously, why would the empire want to destroy the ship if they could use the planted tracker to find the rebel base?)because they were trained on and are used to a much more forgiving blaster and accurate blaster.
It would also explain why purple is rare because it was so hard to properly control, and why it acts like a Flak round in AotC. It also lines up with the Electromagnetic Spectrum and how ultraviolet/purple light is the most energetic.
Loved the MatPat ❤
I never thought I would ever be invested in this…but I am. I now want to see more purple blasters in Star Wars. This was definitely an amazing video and I can’t wait to see what you do next. Also Happy ‘belated’ Star Wars Day and May The 4th Be With You.
The plasma bow things (I don't care what their official name is) feel pretty impractical. Like, why use a bow that requires you to draw back the arrow bolt, when blasters exist that can fire just a deadly projectiles with less of the effort? Meh, at least they look cool.
Fun fact from the Star Wars: X-Wing game and its sequels. Ion Blasts are blue as well and operate on machines the same as blue blaster stun bolts....
been putting off watching this for a while, but glad i finally did
I love how this became about blaster mechanics in Battlefront II
Speaking of the yellow mandolorian blasters being armor penetrating against beskar, in Jedi survivor you can hear a storm trooper talking about how “if you have your blaster tuned just right it will go right through mandolorian beskar”
I pointed out the similarities between the blaster colours and the tracer colours used in WW2 very early, but I didn't realise that it was an intentional choice, but it's no surprise as some of the people working on it really knew their stuff about weapons and history.
I found your channel today via shorts, and this video has starting a very long binge watch 😂 love the detail in these videos
I grew up on the THX version and always thought I was imagining things when they were blue/white. Now I realize I wasn't hallucinating. Which is always a good thing.
So cool a Star Wars actor answered yiour call! 🤯 .
Purple being a mix of red and blue. A jedi that could use the dark side without being consumed by it
At 42:23 you say Mace Windu had a purple blaster. 😂
This video is a really good example of canon spurring on the growth of lore.
Like the yellow blaster bolts, being depicted as powerful enough to pierce Beskar but also being used by imperial trainees, we don't know why that is but somebody's gonna have to write something that talks about it now!
My usual sentiment is "I'm not watching a 45 minute video about purple. He could give the presentation in 5 minutes". However, I have to run a carpet extractor all day so I'm glad to have something long to listen to
My thought with the yellow is that it usually indicates some sort of suppressor modification-either to reduce intensity, or to narrow the beam and increase accuracy and range for a sniper shot. This is separate from the mandalorian weapons, which are probably using a local gas.
37:00 this is because rockets irl work like that. They gain more speed the further they go so long as they have fuel. This can affect how much of the payload is detonated, what direction the payload goes, and the kinetic energy of the rocket on impact.
In the battlefront games, most missile and bomb weapons work the same way. The faster they're going the more damage they do, and they need tone to reach max speed.
Buddy asked what I was watching, he's not a big star wars fan but now he knows some obscure lore lol
Daamn I did not realize this was gonna be so long. I'm honestly really impressed. The *research*!
I only do minimal work on video, but I do a lot of work with photos. If you look at the scenes where the Ties are shooting blue and compare the other objects colors, it looks as if they tried to make the stars and star destroiers look more white by reducing how much yellow there was. That's all well and good, but it seems like they hue shifted the footage, then simply forgot to recolor the bolts green in that shot. Remember, green minus yellow = blue.
so basicly blasters color is mainly determined by a coloring system in the blasters but gass, focusing crystal, and manufacturer can also influence this. maybe the coloring system is initally set by the manufacturer to being off while these systems take more power to change the color of certain gasses.
i love the yoda reaction gifs you threw in there
This sounds like what color blasters output is a science in its own right.
17:12 they were shooting ionised projectiles that are way more effective on machines, that is also why clones were shooting blue, tie pilots most probably wanted them alive but not to let them fly away
FUNNY ENOUGH I HAVE THAT COLLECTORS EDITION THING YOU MENTIONED AT 16:09!!!!!!
I could always tell there was something weird about the splash damage, and I just couldn't for the life of me figure it out. The rocket splits the splash damage between multiple targets and seems to account for the speed of the projectile before it makes contact in order to see if that particular target survives.
I'm personally a fan of the white blaster bolts. Disruptors are great.
I always took the THX version of the TESB sequence to be explained as the TIEs being equipped with ion cannons. It was a thing in the TIE Fighter games, and the sound effect for those blasts was consistent with the ion cannon / turbolaser effect. It's actually kind of unusual they didn't stick with that for the subsequent releases because it made more sense.
Attack of the Clones and those tie fighters color errors in 1995 are not the first time blue blaster bolts are seen in a live action Star Wars movie. The first intentional instance of blue bolts in Star Wars was in 1983 in the Ewoks Battle for Endor movie. Mace has a sporting blaster that shoots Blue in the first scenes and later Noa's starship cannons shoot blue during the fight against the Mauraders. These were consistent, intentional colors, not color errors
It’s intresting that it is purple that’s one of the rarest colours also a fun fact is that purple is also one of the rarest colours on flags in real life
Purple is the color of empire IRL, at least in Europe. There was a time when only the Emperor of the Roman/Byzantium Empire was allowed to wear it, and the particular shade the Byzantium Emperors used was literally the rarest and most expensive product on Earth. How to make it was ultra secret, but today we know it's slime off a certain sea slug.
Thanks for the info @@lichlord9838. But i already know this but still thanks tho
in my head cannon the colors tell who they are meant to target, red for flesh, green for shields, purple for dense armor, yellow for light armor and blue for droids which is why the stun setting is blue, also the stun setting can cause brain damage if used multiple times
Heck yeah!! Purple fans rise up!
In a lot of legends lore (and maybe even in cannon?) disruptor projectiles are colored purple, a weapon so dangerous it was outlawed by many governments.
Imagine forgetting to turn the color of your machine blaster and the entirety of your enemy platoon start screaming Friendly Fire!
I think the earliest we actually saw Yellow blaster bolts was in the Jedi Knight game series where Kyle Katarns Bryarr Blaster Pistol shoots yellow bolts.
(small error at 23:05: thats Jedi General Eeth Koth not "Sanon")
I think he's showing a different thing to what he's talking about, but if not, then that is an error in the video.
Going off topic I think it’s so funny even the sepritist put a glass box for the droids to be in next to the giant ion cannon but the imperial troopers just got a little platform without any handrails 😂
im surprised you didnt mention it but the geonotion starfighters purple blasts exploded like a flak gun
Also don't forget the Purple lasers of the Dark Reaper in The Clone Wars video game in the early 2000s.
There is a reason I love SWG and how it handles colors. Basically just has to do with the type of elemental damage.
19:29 That's like being shot with a bullet and a taser at the same time... I would definitely consider that effective.
The white blasting tie fighters actually looks sick though
Michael Jae is a blast
-er expert
It looks to me like the blue and white TIE fighter shots are caused by the colour-correction process they used to change the look of the scene. Check out the difference in background colour for the asteroids scene, for example
i clicked without checking the runtime. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
i think the expulsion after the purple blaster bolt makes contact is more spalling from what ever it hits not being about to absorb the energy imparted by the purple bolt.
I had the THX box set in 1995, and they were my introduction to the franchise, sadly I never realized the Tie Fighters shot blue lasers.
17:08, but they shoot green, not blue. They definitely put some effects on them that added some outer glow, but they are still mainly green.
Am I the only one that sees green instead of blue and white on the tie fighters?
When you talked about yellow blaster bolts, you forgot one faction that used yellow besides the mandalorians, it's the zigarians who also used yellow light whips and electro staffs, also under Darth Maul the mandalorians fired red blaster bolts and were able to penetrate bescar just fine for some reason.
One of the books I read in my formative years was about how describing a thing kills its beauty/soul.
This a classic fr i love content like this