CT When did we learn what a T-16 Skyhopper was?

So talking to a friend earlier today about Luke and his flying and it occurred to me I have no idea when the first real mention of a T-16 was.

let me explain yes in a new hope we have the famous line



LUKE
It's not impossible. I used to bull's-
eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back
home. They're not much bigger than
two meters.

Now no where in the movie are we shown what a T-16 actually is. I always thought (until the games and toys of course) that he was refering to his Landspeeder ie the only thing we saw him pilot.

But of course it's later shown that a T-16 is an actual ship. So my question is when is the first released toy or explanation of what it is in Star Wars.

I remebmer there was a toy around the mid 90s. I think they mention it in Shadows of the Empire which would have been around the same time.

Of course in A New Hope luke is playing with a T-16 and there is part of one in his house in the background but we are never told that is a T-16.




So anyone know when the T-16 was actually introduced to us?

 

It was introduced to us in Star Wars A New Hope. We do not get to see its actual size until Star Wars Return of the Jedi when GL did those special editions in the 90s. Not the Phantom Menace, but I am pretty sure we also see one of them in Attack of the Clones. Yeah, cause HC plays Anakin so we do see one in AOTC.

 

I don't know when or if it was ever officially named, but back in 77 that's what most of us assumed it was.

 

really? what made you think that was the T-16?

 

The original novelization made more of Luke's background as a bush pilot than the movie did, then the movie showed him playing with the toy while the full-sized ship was parked in the garage behind him. So it just made sense that's what it was; an assumption, yes, but one that fit the known facts.

 

ahh ok novelization then. Thanks

From the known facts of just watching the movie I and everyone i ever talked to about it thought it was his speeder. Seeing as thats the only vehicle he drives and while it is in the background unless you knew what it was you wouldn't think that is a ship especially since its crammed into a tiny room

 

I think the ship was first identified when West End Games began publishing information books which would identify ships, weapons and other items.

 

I think Marvel Star Wars actually showed the "Luke wrecks his T-16" scene (which Luke references in the novel) long before West End Games started work on Star Wars.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_17:_Crucible

 

Luke playing with the toy model of the T-16? That I knew about.

The actual T-16 being parked behind them in that scene? Never even noticed it or considered it as such till this very moment. Wow hahaha!

 

well that's it in the movie obviously he doesn't say the model is a T-16. Now it seems in the Novelization it mentions it but few people read that.

 

good catch ok so 1978 we have a confirmed picture of it and its called a T-16

 

Well, technically 1976, since the novelization was published before the movie was released. But before it was codified in the proto-EU, we all, indeed, just assumed it.

 

When I was young I had the Star Wars sketchbook and there was a drawing of the T-16 in it. Wish I still had that book

 

Is it possible that it mentions his T-16 in the whole deleted sequence from the beginning of ANH where he goes to Tosche Station with his friends?

 

It's just referred to as a skyhopper there:

LUKE... so I cut off my power, shut down the afterburners and came in low on Deak's tail. I was so close I thought I was going to fry my instruments. As it was I busted up the skyhopper pretty bad. Uncle Owen was pretty upset. He grounded me for the rest of the season. You should have been there... it was fantastic.

BIGGS: You ought to take it a little easy, Luke. You may be the hottest bush pilot this side of Mos Eisley, but those little skyhoppers are dangerous. Keep it up, and one day - whammo: you're going to be nothing more than a dark spot on the down side of a canyon wall.

 

Hm ok, probably was the novelization then,

 

Even the novel doesn't actually combine T-16 with Skyhopper. However, the novel does say that a skyhopper's controls are very similar to an X-Wing's - with the strong implication that Luke's T-16 platform for "bullseying womp rats" was one of those.

'Aren't you Luke Skywalker? Have you been checked out on the Incom T-65?'
'Sir,' Biggs put in before his friend could reply, 'Luke's the best bush pilot in the outer-rim territories.'
The older man patted Luke reassuringly on the back as they studied his waiting ship. 'Something to be proud of. I've got over a thousand hours in an Incom sky hopper myself.'
He paused a moment before going on. 'I met your father once when I was just a boy, Luke. He was a great pilot. You'll do all right out there. If you've got half your father's skill, you'll do a damn sight better than all right.'
'Thank you, sir. I'll try.'
'There's not much difference control-wise between an X-wing T-65,' Blue Leader went on, 'and a skyhopper.' His smile turned ferocious. 'Except the payload's of a somewhat different nature.'
He left them and hurried toward his own ship. Luke had a hundred questions to ask him, and no time for even one.

So early Legends conjecturing the "T-16 skyhopper" as the craft's full name, made sense.

 

So "an Incom sky hopper" (novel text) = "my T-16" (film dialogue). Pretty strong evidence that they were always one and the same.

 

oh i have no doubt they were always meant to be the same what i'm saying if you just saw ANH you wouldn't know that when look had that line during the death star scene that he was refereing to the model he was playing with at the start of the movie.

 

I never thought they were different vehicles. The T16 was always the "skyhopper" to me. In ANH you can see part of the real thing in the garage, and it looks a lot like the model Luke is playing with. Besides, I don't think a farm boy like Luke would have had many different kinds of "airplanes" or space ships in his garage. He had his landspeeder PLUS skyhopper, I think that's pretty good for a boy his age living on a remote farm on an outer rim desert planet.

 

got to disagree with you that they look alike especially given how everything looks in Star Wars. from seeing that triangle shoved into a tiny room it might as well have been a dishwasher.

Skyhopper isn't mentioned in the movie just in the novel. It is mentioned in a deleted scene from the script and in the original script instead of playing with the model he was supposed to be looking at the damaged ship.

But of course no one knew that when the movie came out.

 

You are right, that thing in the garage really looks different, I must have misremembered that shot. It's not the lanspeeder either. Maybe it's an older model landspeeder Luke doesn't use anymore. Or maybe it belongs to Owen.

 

This shot?

It isn't just the triangular rear - it's the slope of the fin, and the cylinder in the fin.

It's fairly clear that What Luke's Playing With is a model of the thing Artoo is silhouetted against.

 

You are right, I guess I missed that. Yes, looks like it could be part of the same vehicle Luke is playing with.

 

Spoiler

I did not realize that part of the set was a vehicle when I first saw it. There is nothing that determines that a flat slope illuminated with some circular structure cannot be anything but a full size vehicle. Now, that pointy beak type structure sticking out of the dark passage - that at least suggests strongly that it could be a vehicle in the spirit of the land speeder. That possibility is solidified later when 3PO tries to hide behind it. Furthermore, it is not clear from the available camera representations of the Lars homestead where and how exactly it is deterministic that that shape must be a full size vehicle requiring a suitably large garage type space. None of that is obvious looking at the level desert surface of the homestead, or the interior camera shots looking down into the homestead. There is one structure on the desert surface that is a large dome with ring lights. I had early on thought that was a nice match to the interior space Luke is shown in here. This complexion of events is easily perceived when Luke goes out with his binoculars to scan the horizon for R2. That shape matches the interior of the garage shape. In such an event, where might be the fin of a putative full scale skyhopper? Restating the assertion: It is not deterministic, therefore, it is not obvious, that that shape in the background must be a full scale vehicle.

No one mentioned that that model Luke is holding is the only Colin Cantwell to make it into theatrical without first going through transformation for blue screen by Joe Johnston or practical effects by Lorne Peterson, etc. All of Cantwell was transformed except this concept model. I personally can't stand the shape of the skyhopper, because it was not made WW2 air combat-compliant by Joe Johnston's industrial design degree, but it is obviously a bold statement with an aquiline nose and absurd blind spot for the pilot and this honking what shall it be called underneath, and belongs to a species of fanciful impractical that is of a piece with other fancy, like floating cities and space worms.

The ungainliness of the skyhopper design also inadvertently strengthens the characterization that Lucas gave to Luke of being a bush pilot. (At least in the first film, the area rule or cross section of the fighters was very trim, very sleek, very practical for combat. The B-Wings with large area rule might answer to a fighter version of a skyhopper. The expansive fixed wing footprint of the skyhopper looks more like Shuttle Tydirium, and is not visually what one would associate with maneuverability.) The glowing epithet of bush pilot that comes up when Biggs is endorsing Luke to (theatrical) Red Leader signals that (Biggs thinks that) Luke knows how to handle modified craft in confined spaces under unpredictable conditions. Says he's the "best bush pilot in the outer rim" (lower case, thank you). This can be contrasted with the dropped scene in Anchorhead where Biggs privately admonishes that even if Luke is "the best bush pilot this side of Mos Eisely", Luke might kill himself. Of course in retrospect, Biggs is character building the exact kind of skill and derring-do that qualified Luke to be a choice pilot for the Death Star mission. The emphatically increased scope of endorsement later given to Red Leader also builds up that Biggs has seen some stuff since Anchorhead and knows that this is a do or die moment for the cause.

Further cues to the landscape that Luke is accustomed to, fitting him for the final action, is the location shooting in Death Valley (Desolation Canyon, Golden Canyon) and Tunisia (Sidi Bouhlel gorge), the rocky vertical / valley locations where Jawas and Sandpeople were introduced. Beggar's Canyon will be bigger, and flying that huge ungainly skyhopper will require a bigger space, but the idea is present from the location shooting alone that Luke is capable of tight maneuvers in vertical confined spaces. I find it merely interesting, not suggestive, that Modesto is 7 hours drive from Death Valley.

I forget why I dove into this topic when it happened, but it had to do with Rey v Luke and who's written correctly and how their character is based on a solid footing, etc.