Did you guys know that Star Wars has its own official weekly show? Every Wednesday, hosts Andi Gutierrez and Peter Townley discuss all the Star Wars news that”s been percolating on the aptly named The Star Wars Show. Each episode also contains interviews and special guest stars that are near and dear to a galaxy far, far away.
Like any piece of media, it can take a while for a web show to gain a significant following. The Star Wars Show started out strongly enough, with the first episode currently sitting around 240k views. After that, it”s been a slow decline in viewership except for bright points whenever Rogue One: A Star Wars Story reveals are involved. So hey, if fans want Rogue One news, then by golly that”s what they”re going to get!
In yesterday”s episode, a member of the Lucasfilm Story Group stopped by the show to reveal a new ship debuting in Rogue One; the U-Wing!
Creative executive Matt Martin explained the ship”s purpose.
“A new ship in the Star Wars universe, it is a troop transport and gun ship. It”s there to bring in rebel troops to heavy fire zones and get out as quickly as possible. The wings move depending on the situation. [The full technical name is] the INCOM UT-60D. Also, really cool about it is that it was sort of secretly unveiled last year at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, where the very first piece of Rogue One concept art [was] showing a U-Wing dropping off troops.”
Knowing that Rogue One is set immediately prior to A New Hope, there”s a tiny pedantic part of my geek brain that wants to question where the U-Wing was during the original trilogy. But I can squash that by reminding myself we never really saw a big battle sequence in those films. The Battle of Hoth was more a panicked flight than a coordinated effort on the Rebellion side. Then there”s the part of me that wonders why a cultural language based on Aurebesh uses the Greek alphabet for ship design. But that”s just petty.
Only after completely defeating my inner cynic (“You have no power over me!”) am I able to appreciate the U-Wing in all its wartime glory. A transport ship that isn”t bulky and wide open on the sides, (looking at you, LAAT Transport) the U-Wing offers the kind of troop transport protection later seen used by the First Order in The Force Awakens. I guess once your ground troops can”t be pumped out at a factory or a cloning facility, you actually have to take their welfare into account!
Need more information? Watch the whole episode of The Star Wars Show below!