CT Why did Lando have a torture device in Cloud City?

I just finished watching Empire Strikes Back for the billionth time tonight and never thought to wonder before why Lando has that device that Vader uses to torture Han with. Is it's original purpose for torture or something else? Or did Vader have it delivered from his star destroyer? I can't imagine Lando being the type of city administer to employ torture..

 

I think Vader brought it from his Star Destroyer.

 

It's a prostate exam machine. Vader just put Solo in it backwards.

 

In the novelization it was scanning equipment that Vader had improvised into a torture device:


http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Scan_grid

 

Why would a scanning grid have a rotating backboard with wrist straps that can hold humans? Sometimes the retcon explanations for things in SW are silly.

It's much more likely, and a cleaner explanation, that Star Destroyers have these devices on board and they brought one down onto the city. How else could they interrogate prisoners in the field? Just hope very planet has some spare analyzing equipment that can be jury rigged?

 

Under normal circumstances they have these droids:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/IT-O_Interrogator

But they weren't interrogating Han. "They never even asked me any questions". They were trying to cause as much pain as possible - so as to give Luke visions and get him rushing to Bespin.

That said, while the novelization calls it a scan grid after the event - it doesn't say anything about it being mining equipment - so, in that sense, the EU did concoct an after-the-event explanation for what scan grids are.

 

I always assumed it was some other piece of equipment that Vader retrofitted to be a torture device.

 

You're a Darth Vader. You arrive at Cloud City and plan to capture and and torture Luke's friends in order to lure him to the city via a vision of pain. You're unimaginably powerful in the Force, but instead of using the force, your lightsaber, or your herculean strength as a means of torture, you instead order a team of engineers to come down and retro fit a scan grid with a bunch of straps and some metal hand restrains welded in just the right place. Very efficient, makes total sense to me!

 

I want to know why Vader didn't just call on his resident torture expert:

 

BDSM.

 

I think it is equally plausible that he either had it delivered from one of his ships or that he had his guys construct it while on Cloud City. I don't think Lando had it stored somewhere and brought it out for Vader's use.

 

I thought for a little while that the floor Lando, Vader and Fett are on when Han is being tortured was in the basement since if you notice when Vader enters the elevator and it goes up, the panel indicates they are on the bottom floor and that's why there are no windows...

Then I realized this is cloud city and even the lower levels are up in the clouds...duh!

 

Because Lando was an evil ******* who liked to torture little pig men.

anakinfan edit: That word is not allowed.

 

The obvious answer is that Vader brought it with him from his ship.

 

I was always of the opinion it was created by the Ugnaughts.
We see the junk pile, it's implied they are maintenance/engineers.
I always assumed that since the Empire had control of Bespin, they gave the little piggy people a brief to create the device, from whatever they had to hand.

 

Yeah, it didn't seem to fit the usual Empire design aesthetic. Jury-rigged would be a polite description for it.

 

When he got it zapping just right he was heard yelling "It's working...it's working!"

 

Why wouldn't Lando have a torture device in Cloud City? Hell, he had the airspeeders almost blow the Falcon out of the sky for failing to follow in a straight line. Seems rather touchy, don't they? Anyway, Lando needs to keep Lobot in line SOMEhow, right?

 

Hmmmm, perhaps it was Lobot's charging cradle!

Or Lando's pleasure room, for his "50 shades of Bespin"!

 

<Has a mental image of Lando in nothing but leather straps getting into the machine>

Oh thanks for the image, pal. Thaaaaaanks. Now where's the brain bleach...

 

Lando was a kinky fellow. One never knows what he's into this week.

 

Lando's torture chair: it works every time.

 

Ah but you see, it was never actually Lando's torture chair, he's not into that kind of fun... Lobot on the other hand? Oh yeah.

 

Occam's razor answers this clearly:

Lando= Darth Plagueis