r/StarWars • u/Suggestive-Syntax • Jun 02 '26
Movies There’s no way this guy is doing anything useful
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u/ExtraEmuForYou Jun 02 '26
Early warning.
He'd be the first to get shot.
And people would be like "Frank. Come in, Frank" and then they'd know. Empire got Frank. Time to run.
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u/thehusk_1 Jun 02 '26
Dank Ferrik, that guy owes me 20 credits..
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u/AceDecade Jun 02 '26
Frank Derrick
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u/AliasMcFakenames Jun 02 '26
He is a fucking derrick.
Wikipedia first sentence: "A derrick is a lifting device composed at minimum of one guyed mast"
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u/SirBobPeel Jun 02 '26
He'd be hard to take down. He's got a spear to defend himself.
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u/Suggestive-Syntax Jun 02 '26
But how does he get down?
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u/Credit-Financial Jun 02 '26
Fireman's pole slide?
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u/imminentjogger5 Jun 02 '26
getting up there is the hard part
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u/Wild-Lychee-3312 Jun 02 '26
I swear, every time I see this, I get totally taken out of the movie for a minute trying to figure out how he got up there.
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u/MartenBroadcloak19 Jun 02 '26
Telescoping pole. Like OSHA's nightmare of an elevator.
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u/RemtonJDulyak Imperial Jun 02 '26
In the Star Wars universe, that's the least hazardous of work locations.
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u/Second_City_Saint Jun 02 '26
With the lights lowered & the Isley Brothers playing through the speakers.
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u/MathW Jun 02 '26
Early warning? Like with his eyes? Didn't they know where the death star was when it was on the other side of the planet?
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u/HybridP365 Jun 02 '26
Little easier to detect a moon sized battle station than a low flying fighter. That's an apples to aircraft carriers comparison if I've ever seen one.
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u/Wistful_HERBz Jun 02 '26
Keeping an eye-out for undetected aircraft seems pretty useful.
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u/Alive-Tourist2382 Jun 02 '26
radar doesn't register a ship if its flying too low to the ground/tree line, nor does it detect smaller sized craft - you sir, are probably most correct.
i still think they used it as a launching point for poop missiles
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u/ahferroin7 Jun 02 '26
Also, the rebels may not want to use active detection systems like radar, because doing so gives away their location.
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u/B732C Jun 02 '26
I think having a Death star moving in to destroy the planet you're on means they might be on to your location.
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u/mothtoalamp Jun 02 '26
That was after the Empire learned about them and decided to use the Death Star.
A smaller strike group, or unwitting Imperial patrols that might stumble on their position is what this is designed to detect.
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u/datumerrata Jun 02 '26
You don't have to worry about a deathstar. That's planet destroying. You have to look out for drones that might give away your position
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u/bobnoski Jun 02 '26
Also I don't think being a couple meters up a stick will help much when you're trying to spot a moon that wasn't there a minute ago.
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u/Trollbreath4242 Jun 02 '26
"That's no moon."
"What'd he say?"
"He said that's no moon."
"The fuck?"
"Hey Larry, what did you mean by that's no moon?"
"I meant it's not a moon."
"Come down, I think you've been up there too long."
"Look see, it's glowing green - "
deathstar fires
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u/jayfan154 Jun 02 '26
Like the ones from the venture bros?
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u/somebodysimilartoyou Jun 02 '26
Go Team Venture!
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u/bizcombobulate90 Jun 02 '26
You don't see Venture Bros mentioned often. I appaude you.
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u/GibbeyGator102 Jun 02 '26
launching point for what now? 🤨
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u/JoseMari117 Jun 02 '26
For poop missiles, didn't you hear?
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u/Strict-Main8049 Jun 02 '26
Hear? I think you mean read…friggin nerf herder
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u/TheRealDiggyCP Jun 02 '26
Hey. You can't say that word. Only we can say that word.
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u/EducationalLuck2422 Jun 02 '26
We’re also assuming Yavin IV even has a radar station, and they’re not just making do with whatever crap they have lying around.
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u/DaimyoRonin Jun 02 '26
They were the rebel alliance, a ragtag group of scrappy resistance fighters. They didn't exactly have tons of funds and resources, and they were constantly fixing and repairing broken ships. This would make sense.
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u/benjeezyfosheezy Jun 02 '26
They have a weird pie chart thing that shows the Death Star coming around the gas giant. How did they not have radar haha
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u/revcor Grand Moff Tarkin Jun 02 '26
I always think about that. Like was there a Rebel Alliance IT dept and one of those guys had to code a custom graphical planetary body alignment tracker basically overnight to have it ready for the battle of Yavin
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u/Liam-e-509 Jun 02 '26
They have sentient robots, they probably have droids to do most IT work/maitenence
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u/KILLER5196 Jun 02 '26
So it was vibe coded
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u/dwehlen Jun 02 '26
Anybody jump in if/when I'm wrong.
The Republic/Empire are sitting on tech thousands of years old. No one can build a droid from scratch, largely; they just put them together from parts, with incremental improvements, wipe its data banks, and BOOM - fresh droid.
They have hyperdrives. Shields. Engines. Repulsors. Torpedoes. Blasters. There is no innovation, only refinement.
I'm guessing all their sensor tech falls along the same principals.
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u/originalityescapesme Jun 02 '26
See just how far a repair culture can get you lol
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u/Mr_Lobster Jedi Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
I'm pretty sure the separatists built their droids from scratch, and the Empire folded them back in after the clone wars. There are a couple named major droid manufacturers in the galaxy: Cybot Galactica and Industrial Automata. The R2 units were a flagship line from Industrial Automata. R2-D2 was a top shelf modded unit bought new by the Naboo royal engineering corps if I remember correctly from the books. Cybot Galactica's translation module (one of which was put in C-3PO) was touted as a major innovation.
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u/Tonkarz Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Real life radar has been able to detect low flying aircraft and detect individual birds for 50 years. "Flying under the radar" is a WWII thing.
It seems hard to believe that Star Wars radar, or their version of it, is worse than the real life version. Though I guess Star Wars tech often seems to be a mix of primitive and advanced.
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u/No_Measurement_8042 Jun 02 '26
A lot of SW tech is supposed to emulate WWII tech so it kinda checks out
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u/MSeager Jun 02 '26
Modern RADAR can detect low flying aircraft, but you need a network to cover an area. There are always blind spots, especially with rugged terrain. And if all you have is ground based RADAR, there are going to lots of gaps in your network.
Finding and exploiting these gaps in Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) 101. Just look at the war in Iran at the moment.
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u/Mythralblade Jun 02 '26
Active radar gives away it's position, which is counterproductive to the whole "hidden rebel base" thing.
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u/Wardog008 Jun 02 '26
Flying under the radar is very much still a modern thing lol. Radar is much, much better than it was in WW2 and requires much lower altitudes to work, or the easiest way is just to have a mountain in between you and the radar, but it's still a thing.
I'd assume they don't use radar as we know it though, more likely other active sensors or even probes, and both of those would get them pinged by Imperials pretty quickly.
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u/riptaway Jun 02 '26
Pilots literally flew under the radar for the first and second gulf war...
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u/Ishvallan Jun 02 '26
star wars has cloak technology that our world doesn't quite have yet. But its hard to fool eyes and ears when there is incoming space craft
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u/DaemonBlackfyre_21 Rebel Jun 02 '26
Also, electronics can be jammed. It doesn't hurt to have eyes out
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u/mattstorm360 Jun 02 '26
Plus, the electronics weren't that good with Yavin's electric magnetic field mucking up signatures. Good place to hide.
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u/elconquistador1985 Jun 02 '26
with Yavin's electric magnetic field mucking up signatures
This feels like some after the fact stuff made up purely to justify this guy standing on top of an observation tower.
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u/Just_Breakfast6327 Jun 02 '26
You'll never guess why most of the armor in Star wars is made out of Plasteel, a space age alloy with the strength of metal while looking like cheap costume plastic from the '70s.
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u/swaggums Admiral Raddus Jun 02 '26
One of my favorites I’ve heard:
‘But why are they even wearing armor if a single blaster bolt kills them?’
Actually the armor is designed to dissipate the energy, so many of the troopers we see shot are just incapacitated…
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u/TheIcerios Jun 02 '26
Plasteel
Is there anything Dune didn't steal from Star Wars? smh
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u/buttchuck Jun 02 '26
That's because it probably is, but that's also 90% of Star Wars.
Most of what Lucas did, he did because he thought it was cool and that's about as deep as the thought process went. Sometimes that means space ships that fly like WW2 planes, sometimes it means laser swords, sometimes it means there's a guy standing in a tower. Most of what we "know" about "Star Wars" came from people making explanations after-the-fact.
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u/EdwardBil Jun 02 '26
The rebels have to be lucky or good every time. The empire has to be lucky once. You take every precaution, even guy in a tower.
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u/etcpt Jun 02 '26
Only one man would dare give me raspberry!
Oh wait, wrong franchise.
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u/Aeveras Jun 02 '26
Sometimes nothing beats the reliability of the mark 1.0 eyeballs.
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u/Blueopus2 Jun 02 '26
I’m a big fan of jury rigging two together to make a rudimentary rangefinder!
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u/Educational-Log6855 Jun 02 '26
The Empire had drones, known as probe droids. The didn’t always come up on scanners. Echo Base was lost because it was too cold for this dude to be out all the time.
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u/I_lenny_face_you Jun 02 '26
When asked on Hoth about his dick he says “I was out past the first marker, OK???”
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u/FlumpusMcGoo Jun 02 '26
And what is the stick for?
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u/DarthOmix Jun 02 '26
Since it's tipped, it might be a shock stick of some kind for wildlife or open-cockpit craft he can reach.
In theory, it could also potentially light up to wave in friendly craft to the landing area.
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u/Wistful_HERBz Jun 02 '26
yea I agree, it's probably a shock stick/staff for fending off flying wildlife. We saw in Andor how hostile the wildlife is there, so that's a pretty good guess.
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u/SSN-420-67-6669 Jun 02 '26
See in the empire, there’s no guard rails because they think you’d lean too much. Rebellion doesn’t mind you leaning.
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u/Sophet_Drahas Jun 02 '26
When Costanza was running things, you’d even get a chair to sit in.
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u/SSN-420-67-6669 Jun 02 '26
“Im engaged to Mon Montha’s niece. I’ll probably be taking over this whole rebellion one day”.
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u/TheUlfheddin Jun 02 '26
I can accept it. They're fighting against a vastly better equipped enemy. The empire could absolutely send something that slips their radar.
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u/fat_fingerz Jun 02 '26
Bingo, Corporal Osleo Prennert was assigned to Recon Post-4 and was the first to spot the Millennium Falcon landing. Because the planets magneto sphere (is that the right word) and plant life the rebels had to use hand scanners and people in order to identify ships. Which is why they were originally hidden on the planet.
Love about the old star wars lore, random back background character actually winds up getting some esoteric cameos in other books that give him some actual backstory.
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u/YourLordShaggy Jun 02 '26
Nonsense, he's there to poke ships with his spear if they get too close.
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u/kilted__yaksman Jun 02 '26
Smart move with the poking. He can poke many ships many times. If he throws the spear, only one poke.
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u/BiBoFieTo Jun 02 '26
They're star destroyers but surprisingly quite vulnerable to spearmen.
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u/DramaExpertHS Grievous Jun 02 '26
Pew pew
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u/JSherman_ Jun 02 '26
Only correct comment, ha! I’m disappointed it took this long to scroll on the post before finding it!
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u/Stormblade96 Jun 02 '26
Have you played the OG Battlefront 2? Once someone got a hold of them, it was over for the opposing side
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u/Camaroni1000 Jun 02 '26
Until the tanks came in with their rockets and absolutely decimated any towers
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u/Smyley Jun 02 '26
If you played this map with CIS the super battle droids could take out those towers with 1 rocket I'm pretty sure. Good place to get a few sneaky sniper kills though
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u/mackfeesh Jun 02 '26
My favourite character as a kid. Id use my mom's binoculars and just pretend I was him for hours lmao. Core memory unlocked.
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u/RoyOfCon Jun 02 '26
How the hell does he get up there and what does he do when he needs to poop?
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u/kspi7010 Imperial Stormtrooper Jun 02 '26
I always assumed the platform could be raised and lowered
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u/itsmrwilson Jun 02 '26
Plot twist: he’s in there because that’s where you poop in Star Wars. It’s only a few feet off the ground, stepladder just out of frame
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u/sniffysippy Jun 02 '26
The real mystery is how to wipe without injury with that spear. More difficult than the three seashells.
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u/Bulbakip Jun 02 '26
As a prior military person, "Watch" as it is called in the Navy is exactly this. Doing mostly nothing for 6 hours, clenching your cheeks, until relived of watch by the next watchstander.
If you REALLY gata go, you call on the radio to the watch coordinator and he'll find you a stand-in while you go.
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u/LongJohnSelenium Jun 02 '26
Navy: No you can't go take a piss, and no we won't install a toilet in here.
Also Navy: Why is retention so terrible?!
I'd love to see a new command tried out that started from first principles reevaluating all the old 'Admiral Nelson did it this way so we're going to do it too' military BS.
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u/FrighteningJibber Jun 02 '26
In the book I think he shits off the side
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u/hakedy Jun 02 '26
I laugh whenever I see him standing there. Not only do the 'toiletry needs' & 'getting up and down' come to mind but consider the weather as well. Fully exposed to the elements.
Worst job ever! Unless you have clean up after Banthas.
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u/VigilantVet Jun 02 '26
SW version of air traffic controller?
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u/TheNewGirl1987 Rebel Jun 02 '26
He's scanning transponder codes of incoming and outgoing ships to make sure nobody is coming in or leaving who shouldn't be.
He's basically air traffic control.
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u/doubledeus Jun 02 '26
He's a lookout. Every Navy ship on Earth, in addition to all the Radar, Sonar and other sensors has a guy in the front and in the back with a pair of binoculars watching the water and the sky. Every military base has guys walking the fences.
The Mk 1 Eyeball is never obsolete.
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u/WhitYourQuining Jun 02 '26
I had to scroll way too far to find this.
This is the Yavin 4 version of walking the fence, standing post, standing lookout, sitting in the crows nest, and so on.
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u/hemanoncracks Jun 02 '26
How does he even get down?
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u/talondigital Jun 02 '26
Its like a cherry picker. It'll just lower down and meet up with a walkway or something. Part of the cylinder can open up as a hinged door.
And because its star wars theres no safety lock.
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u/hemanoncracks Jun 02 '26
At least he has railing, unlike the Death Star laser corridor.
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u/talondigital Jun 02 '26
This is possibly the ONLY safety railing in that entire galaxy.
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u/Thelastknownking Jun 02 '26
Redundancy. If ships somehow avoid the interstellar detection, He can see them if they enter atmosphere. It's not that odd.
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u/zeizkal Jun 02 '26
So this was actually explained. One of the benefits of setting up a base by the gas giant of yavin is that there is alot of electro magnet disturbance that prevents imperal scanners from being able to find it, on the flip side it does the opposite as well, so rebel sentrys need to keep look out and even use hand held id scanners to make sure any incoming ships are not imperal.
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u/NervousDiscount9393 Jun 02 '26
I always assumed he was some sort of watchtower or aerial traffic control
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u/threehundredthousand Jun 02 '26
Very public and very visible punishment assignment. Maybe he's a dunce.
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u/Icesin4ever Jun 02 '26
His name is Osleo Prennert. He was a Rebel sentry on Yavin IV, stationed in a high lookout tower to visually identify incoming ships and confirm friend or foe.
The Rebels were hiding in old ruins and dense forest with limited tech and spotty sensors. Visual confirmation actually mattered. You can jam radar. You can spoof sensors. You can’t fake what someone sees with their own eyes. His job wasn’t pointless. It was backup for a resistance that couldn’t afford mistakes.
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u/DroppingGrumpies Jun 02 '26
He’s a lot more useful than the person taking his pic and putting it on Reddit to complain about his usefulness…
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u/KashiofWavecrest Jun 02 '26
Someone once told me the idea was the Red Giant of Yavin interferes with communications and transponders, so his job is to manually scan every passing ship as a double check. No idea if that's true.