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Color in Star Wars

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I was gonna put this in the Fan Edits category, but decided against it. Mods, feel free to move it (if you’re able to) depending which direction the discussion goes.

One thing I’m working on for my edits is changing the color of certain things to suit their thematic meaning. Star Wars is really inconsistent when it comes to color meanings. Good guys are blue and green (and occasionally other colors) for lightsabers, but their blasters are red in the OT. Bad guys are red for lightsabers and blasters, except the Empire and First Order ships shoot green, and the Sith Lightning is blue. It’s all over the place.

Since my edits are meant to avoid contradicting canon too much, and because I don’t have time to recolor everything frame-by-frame, I don’t want to change everything. However I am changing the following:

-I want to do something about the Jedi lightsabers colours in the Prequels, though I’m not quite sure what.

-The Alderaan Security Force troopers will shoot blue blaster bolts.

-The blue things in the Emperor’s throne room will be red. I’m considering making Force Lightning red when deadly (still blue when non-lethal).

The ship blast colors in the Originals was based on the Cold War tracers (red for the Americans, green for the Soviets). It was a bad decision to go with that in hindsight, but at around that stage in development lightsabers were still colorless, so it made sense.

How do you guys feel about the inconsistent colors?

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Ceci n’est pas une pipe

Han: Hey Lando! You kept your promise, right? Not a scratch?
Lando: Well, what’s left of her isn’t scratched. All the scratched parts got knocked off along the way.
Han (exasperated): Knocked off?!

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I am not a number I am a free man.

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Like I said, I wasn’t sure whether to put this in Fanedits or General SW Discussion, but given where this conversation is going, I should’ve put it in the Cantina.

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 (Edited)

My comment wasn’t a joke. It was a way of saying not everything with a certain colour needs some banal symbolism behind it.

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I actually dislike how blasters used by troops are sometimes not red after the OT. Rebel fighters using red makes them feel like a weaker military force, which is more appropriate than just any colour. The Empire using green turbo lasers made them feel like the top of the line.

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Mocata said:

I actually dislike how blasters used by troops are sometimes not red after the OT. Rebel fighters using red makes them feel like a weaker military force, which is more appropriate than just any colour. The Empire using green turbo lasers made them feel like the top of the line.

Color is very complicated. Green = evil and powerful when used with blasters, but it is not evil when used in lightsabers. Red = weak when used in blasters, but not when used in lightsabers, where it is strong and evil. Perhaps it comes down to the Sci-fi versus the fantasy elements of the universe, and the differing color meanings in these different paradigms.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Maybe red lasers are better at killing people while green lasers are better at disabling/shooting down/destroying space ships?

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I’m thinking anything that can destroy a spaceship can probably take out a human, but I dig the creativity.

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NeverarGreat said:

Mocata said:

I actually dislike how blasters used by troops are sometimes not red after the OT. Rebel fighters using red makes them feel like a weaker military force, which is more appropriate than just any colour. The Empire using green turbo lasers made them feel like the top of the line.

Color is very complicated.

Eh not really. Green = Death Star level i.e. the most advanced.