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The weapons that turned Owen and Beru into skeletons were (at least originally meant to be) stormtrooper blasters

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 (Edited)

Considering that the attack on the homestead was meant to look like being the work of the Tusken, who neither own nor use flamethrowers and especially not disintegrators, and we don’t see both kind of weapons in the Sandtroopers arsenal for this mission, the most likely weapon that caused the condition of Owen and Beru’s corpses are blasters.

Blasters were shown to be able to turn people into charred corpses a short time later in ANH, when we see Han shoot Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina. Perhaps another reason for this scene, beside giving him a reason to travel with Obi Wan and Luke to Alderaan.

And why would Sandtroopers, trying to imitate a Tusken raid, give their victims a funeral? We never seen or heard about them doing this anywhere.

And simply burning along with the homestead also doesn’t make sense, because the corpses lay outside and not in one of the destroyed rooms of the moisture farm.

And people often forget that George hadn’t the idea of stormtroopes using thermal detonators, flamethrowers or disintegrators when he made ANH or at least didn’t introduced them at this point. The only hand weapons we see anyone use in the movie are blasters, gaffi sticks and lightsabers.

So i think highly powered blaster fire from more than one Stormtrooper was the most likely cause for Owen and Beru Lars becoming charred skeletons.

At least that was most likely the reason George Lucas had in mind, when he created the first movie.

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Han’s blaster in the original movie is wildly inconsistent, from Greedo’s death to the massive explosions on the hangar bay walls. As for Uncle Owen, I always assumed they just started a fire to cover their tracks.

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Mocata said:

Han’s blaster in the original movie is wildly inconsistent, from Greedo’s death to the massive explosions on the hangar bay walls. As for Uncle Owen, I always assumed they just started a fire to cover their tracks.

Yes, that’s true. But to come to your second point, in this case, why wouldn’t they have simply burnt the Jawas like the homestead with Owen and Beru?

Dropping the pretense of Sandpeople being responsible for the killings, when they arrived and decided to destroy the moisture farm, makes no sense in the situation.

That’s another reason why i think they kept the charade alive.

And Sandpeople apparently only were meant to use blasters and gaffi sticks during their raids and don’t care about the condition of the corpses of the people they killed at all.

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Mocata said:

Han’s blaster in the original movie is wildly inconsistent, from Greedo’s death to the massive explosions on the hangar bay walls. As for Uncle Owen, I always assumed they just started a fire to cover their tracks.

Chewie was shooting the Stormtroops with the Falcon’s gun. There are more shots than Han is firing and from a different angle. I had never thought of that, but someone around here brought it up.

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But is that actually in the movie? His shots would have to be totally inaccurate and again still very OP - compared to what is seen in Empire.

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The blasters most likely have different settings. With smaller power they just make a burning hole, but with bigger power the actually fry the victim.

And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.

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I think the same. Perhaps they cost too much energy in normal battle situations to use, especially since the average setting is deadly enough.

Could be that the Stormies used it on the Lars farm, because they got the situation under control, there was no danger for them and to destroy the complex.

Not to speak of sending a message.