"Bounty Hunter"? — Page 2

Nice one. :D

Err, was the name messed up in any other publications? From comic books and trading cards I had at the time, I only remember the action figures making this mistake. Everywhere else Zuckuss was the guy in the mask and 4-LOM was his droid. A name like 4-LOM being numbers and letters seems like a very droid like name, so it stands to reason that it was intended this way and Kenner just make a mistake.

Also, judging by the fact that Kenner later corrected the mistake, I'd take this as overwhelming evidence that the names were in fact mixed up, and not just a change forced on us after Star Wars "turned bad".

The cards called the droid 4LOM and the alien Zuckuss.

If my 5 year old self could figure out that 4-LOM was the droid and Zuckuss was the alien, I'm pretty sure that it was a mistake on Kenner's part.

I did some research (I searched the Googles), and there was no front of card with Zuckuss or 4-LOM listed.  One of "IG-88 and Boba Fett", but the other card is just the line up of bounty hunters.  I couldn't find the back of the card though to see if it ran down the list on there.  Anyone have the cards handy?

Wookieepedia:

In the fifth draft of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Zuckuss's name is misspelled as "Tuckuss" and he is described as a "Human-type" bounty hunter. This error was also carried over into the novelization.

If we're making typos "canon", what's REALLY his name? ;-)

4-LOM isn't in the novelization, and it sounds like he's not mentioned outside of the toys until 1989, where the Galaxy Guide add-on to the RPG gives the correct names for him and Zuckuss.

It seems to me that the only source for their names were the toys (which were incorrect even in 1985) until 1989, where the names were "corrected" from that point on.

Vaderisnothayden said:

doubleofive said:

I did some research (I searched the Googles), and there was no front of card with Zuckuss or 4-LOM listed.  One of "IG-88 and Boba Fett", but the other card is just the line up of bounty hunters.  I couldn't find the back of the card though to see if it ran down the list on there.  Anyone have the cards handy?

So maybe the question is whether the card back listed the names and applied them in the same arrangement that was embraced 1989 onwards.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at.  The problem is that we don't know where any of the companies got their name information.  Who's to say that Kenner didn't give the names to Topps, or if there was one master document that got sent to all of the companies that had that typo?

I actually have the entire collection of Empire Strikes Back cards from the 80s, but I shudder to think of the time it would take for me to locate them within the piles of my old junk. Perhaps I am wrong, but I sustinctly remember being somewhat confused by conflicting sources of his name and deciding on my own that obviously Zuckuss was the alien and 4LOM the droid. Had the figures been the only source of the names, I am sure my young self would have just went with the nonsensical 4LOM as the alien and Zuckuss as the droid. But I really have no way to confirm if the cards had their names without resolving myself to dedicate a few hour digging through boxes. I am surprised the internet doesn't have a more detailed story behind the bounty hunters identity confusion.

From what I read while trying to look into this, Kenner was in charge of naming many of the background characters that got figures, so if that is the case, and the names came from them and not anywhere else, then I concede that the original names they gave them were initially correct and the change may have been made retroactively.

C3PX said:

From what I read while trying to look into this, Kenner was in charge of naming many of the background characters that got figures, so if that is the case, and the names came from them and not anywhere else, then I concede that the original names they gave them were initially correct and the change may have been made retroactively.

That would change everything!  If the script and novelization call the humanoid "Tuckuss" and the toys call him "4-LOM" and the droid "Zuckuss" and Kenner came up with the name "Zuckuss" than TUCKUSS is the canon name and Kenner messed it up by calling him "4-LOM"!

So many layers!  I just go with my gut, and my gut says Kenner got a picture of the line up that said "here are the guys" and they either made up names for those that had none, or the names were given backwards, or somewhere down the line from toy design to packaging someone got the names crossed.  They would look very similar if the toy wasn't painted.

To me, 4-LOM is the droid and Zuckuss is the humanoid.  It just makes sense.

miker71 said:

 Only the later EU stuff paired these together (and West End RPG IIRC) until then I thought all the bounty hunters worked alone.

Hmm, I always just assumed that the droid belonged to the alien (perhaps this is very droidist of me? Nothing in the movies ever gave any indication of robots living independant, though they exhibit their own personalities, they are always refered to and treated as property). The robot (don't even know what to call him anymore) is obviously built in the image of the race of aliens from which the humanoid belongs to, so it would be natural to infer that they work together, or that one owns the other. 

And IG88?

Actually, with IG-88, my young self assumed/invented a back story for him where a company manufactured these droids and clients could sort of rent them. For example, I have some idiot that is making my life miserable and I need him out of the way, this company would look into the situation, and if they deemed it a job worth taking/something that wasn't going to get them in more trouble than it was worth, then they'd sent one of their programmable hitmen to deal with the situation for me.

As far as I know, there is no real canon backstory for IG-88 beyond the fact that he is somehow and bounty hunter and an Imperial model Assassin Droid. The EU backstory for IG-88, while being a very amusing and fun to read IMHO, is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. The EU story is that he became self aware, killed his makers, made copies of himself inside other IG droids, and started working as a bounty hunter to pass time until his plans for universal domination came into action. Oh yeah... and there was that bit about him transplanting his conciousness into the Death Star and essentially becoming the Death Star.

So yeah, I guess if we take the EU story to be canon worthy, then IG-88 was an exception to the seemingly rule of droids having owners. But from what we see in the actual movie, it is reasonable to assume he has an owner, but the owner didn't deem it necessary to travel across the galaxy meeting with Vader and hunting the bounty when he could simply sit on his rear end and let his robot do it for him.

Yep and droids like IG-88 and that droid from Kotor that are assassin droids are illegal because they don't follow the asimov laws of robotics lucas so casually borrowed for star wars, but star trek the next generation did too so i guess lucas is okay,lol.

Your mom.

Well, I guess Star Wars doesn't. Being as we have droids used for war in the PT and for assassinations in the OT.

I can think of many other works that have droids killing people as well. So yeah, I guess there are plenty that don't use the three laws.

Was there ever an indication Lucas actually borrowed these laws? We know it is against Threepio's programing to hurt people, but that seems like just a natural safety feature a responsible manufacturer would put on a droid intended for household use. I personally wouldn't consider adhering to the three laws.

It may just be my opinion.  I'm willing to admit that.