science and star wars

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that the ‘Star Wars’ films take place “A long time ago…” since they depict high tech wonders that seem like fantasy.  But in the decades since the first films featured laser swords (lightsabers), laser blasters, holograms, cryogenic freezing (carbonite) and other outlandish concepts, it turns out that the real world has both taken inspiration from George Lucas’ reality and in some instances caught up to it!  A new Youtube series, ‘Science and Star Wars’ will examine the real world advances that emulate the once imaginary concepts of ‘Star Wars’.

Sponsored by IBM, ‘Science and Star Wars’ will appear on the Star Wars official YouTube Channel, which already features ‘The Star Wars Show’, a web series that spotlights news about all things Jedi.  ‘The Star Wars Show’s co-host Anthony Carboni will also present ‘Science’ which will include guest appearances by real life astronaut Cady Coleman, voice actor Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano in ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ and other animated projects) and none other than C-3PO himself, Anthony Daniels.

You can get a little bit of a preview in the following installment of ‘The Star Wars Show’ (around the 2:30 mark):

As you can see, the show examines the field of robotics, cybernetics/prosthetics, real life “Forces,” holograms, the plausibility of lightsabres and blasters and more.  They even built a miniature working Landspeeder!

There is no release date given, but the first episode should be made available sometime this month.

Granted, ‘Star Wars’ is widely regarded as a science-adjacent fantasy, but it’s influence can’t be denied and it clearly made an impact on young, budding scientists growing up immersed in these films and tie-ins.

Are there any science topics related to ‘Star Wars’ that you are curious about?  Is this a series you’d be intrigued by?

Source: Youtube