Snowspeeders Are GREY (And Always Have Been) 

If we could just keep all of the “hOw CouLd YoU nOt LikE eMpiRe??!” comments as replies to this chain, that would be great. It’s easier to ignore replies than it is standalone comments. 😉 K thanks!

The Slug-O-Meter for ESB definitely needed the Hot Take slide aswell

As a member in the 501st legion (the costuming group) who has multiple screen accurate costumes, it becomes quickly apparent that color in Star Wars (and films in general) can be extremely variable, and what we see on screen is often not the actual color of the prop/model/costume. You mention that star destroyers are grey here, but the several of the shooting models are closer to an off-white than a light grey. The primer they used for the ship was actually off-white, but the weathering passes darkened it a bit, but it varies from each film and model used so its actually a range between the two colors throughout the films. But to bring it back to lego here, the mini figures for the newest AT-AT walker sets make no sense to me. I'll explain: The AT-AT drivers look white on screen, however the actual costumes were painted light grey (one of the original helmets has been preserved so we know the exact color for a fact). They look white on screen because the huge studio lights blow out the color on such a light grey, in fact, that's why they were painted grey, because the white helmets would have overexposed and blown out the image. So they are actually grey, but meant to, and look, white on camera. So the original minifig was white to reflect on screen and the new ones a light grey to be accurate to the prop. Makes sense so far, I prefer the accuracy to the filming props over on screen apperance. But then we get to General Veers in the same scene. Now the ESB scenes on Hoth were color-graded colder (in terms of color not actual degrees temperature) this is pretty standard for films to do for what is meant to portray physically cold environments. The opposite is true for hot environments, hence the "Mexico orange" cliche. This color grading for Hoth on ESB makes the snowy planet "feel colder" by giving the image a slightly blue tint to the image. The actual costume for General Veers, and other imperial officers, is an olive green, in fact his hard armor is even greener than the soft uniform, because they did not color match it to the fabric. Now lego likes to use dark grey for the officers, which makes a lot of sense because even off screen, they do look fairly unsaturated and grey-ish, but not Veers's hard armor, that is very much an olive green through and through. So most of lego's old Veers minifigs, are depicted as grey to keep it consistent with their other officers. But wait, what's this? the new AT-AT sets have him as sand blue? because the blue tint makes him look blue on screen? even though the armor is an olive green? So to make this clear: The AT-AT drivers were once white like they appear on the film, but changed to grey to be more accurate to the costume off-camera. But in the same exact set, instead of being consistent and making Veers olive green to be accurate to his costume, they make him a sand blue to reflect the color grading we see in the film? I wouldn't mind if he was blue and the drivers white, or they drivers grey and veers green, but to mix and match the on-screen and off-screen colors between minfigs makes no sense to me and drives me insane. At least a middle ground at grey for veers makes more sense than the sand blue to me. This is very minute problem that no one else cares about, but as someone in my costuming who strives for as much accuracy to original props in the films I love, things like this stick out like a sore thumb to me.

I think should also be noted that in starwars, the ships called snow speeders aren't actually made specifically for cold environments. We know this because It's is mentioned in ESB that the speeders are having a hard time adjusting to the cold environment of Hoth. So it wouldn't make sense that they'd be painted white unless they were modified afterwards.

God, I would love to see an official sand blue TIE Fighter on shelves.

I feel like UCS models should adhere to the original screen-accurate colours as much as possible, while smaller sets should go for whatever makes for a more ‘toy-like’ colour scheme. Hardcore collectors get the most accurate rendition possible, while casual buyers get a more colourful and visually striking model

This was my first LEGO set, I called it the "Megger ship" and it could destroy the entire universe in one shot, according to my imagination.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. Snow Speeders were always gray. It was their final, most essential command.”

I think the blue TIE fighters are now canon since they were a skin in Star Wars Squadrons. I wonder if LEGO will ever make a white-ish gray to give the X-wing a more accurate look

Blue Tie Fighters are so appealing to me, when I was a kid they were the de facto Lego version of the Tie. Ya the blue was intense, but it made them look very unique to me and while now I find it kind of garish looking back, I remember going to my friends house and playing with his deep blue Tie Kenner toys. It was so cool looking to me to the point that I remember having genuine disappointment when I first saw the UCS Tie back in the day with black and gray. I thought it would be a giant deep blue Tie so seeing this was somehow the ultimate Lego Tie turned me off from the design. Seeing that Interceptor MOC awakened something in my soul. I need to build one for myself, even if it costs me all my arms and legs.

Slugger understands the issues we lego fans truly care about. He has a slimy slug finger on the pulse of the community, clearly!

I wish very light gray had caught on in more then less than 100 very limited pieces. The fact there are only 2 shades of gray for the majority of the catalogue feels very limiting sometimes. Very light gray seems like it would be a welcome addition to the pallet. If only there was someone out there who did in depth content about limited run Lego colors...

That's one of the main reasons why the Lego Bad Batch shuttle is one of my absolute favorite Lego sets. It uses Sand Blue perfectly and gives it such a cool look. If Lego can use Sand Blue for a $100 Star Wars set, surely they can use it on a $50 tie fighter

10:00 those hinges could’ve been substituted with the O-clip and bar plates and been perfectly fine. I have no idea why they used the ugly mixel joints instead. They literally included the other pieces on the other wing corners

The thing with snowspeeders is that the official props were gray, but a very light shade of gray that, until the "stone gray" colors came out, didn't exist in LEGO's lineup. It's a very light gray that shows up almost as white under bright light. So that might explain the original switch to white. But now that "light stone gray" is a thing, I don't know why they haven't switched back.

I've always liked grey for Star Wars vehicles since I think it better replicates the incredible weathering done by ILM, especially for The Rebels. It's definitely funny seeing how the scale modelers debate around what shade of grey German tanks were painted, and how blue it was, is replicated almost word for word in the Star Wars community, especially since the design language of The Empire was so inspired by them. I love this sort of minutia though, it does a really good job of highlighting the people behind the props!

As a rather big snowspeeder fan, I feel the need to point out most other toy models have it white also, lending claim to the market reseaech idea. However, the black series and Bandai models make them look more grey. My favourite colour scheme for them is more of a light light grey, closer to white but still noticeably grey. It is a fascinating subject on the "colours of the snowspeeder." With a very literal white washing in fans minds of it's colour. Edit: added the word toy before model.

On a similar note, I think the old lego dark grey reflects the olive grey colour of an imperial officer uniform much better than dark bluish grey

There's been quite a lot of video variety as of late, I like it

I gotta say I really miss the starry space backdrop of the old Star Wars instructions. They were so charming and fun! Also, the old pod racer sets are some of my favorites because it was the first and last time they would ever make more than just Anakin and Sebulba’s pod racers. The other pod racer designs are super creative and colorful and just really fun overall.

it's funny, as someone who builds model kits as well as lego, I did build and paint a snowspeeder kit a few years ago, and looking at the studio models, I did realize they're mostly grey. Even as a kid, I had a tiny diecast snowspeeder that was all grey! I figured it was just common knowledge lol. Edit- Oh, and I will say, I think the white snowspeeder thing mostly boils down to wanting to make them a different color from the AT-ATs that a lot of people will end up displaying their snowspeeders with. If they both end up grey, it looks a bit boring, but the white and orange is much more striking and different.

NO. No. I DO CARE. The white snowspeeders have always bothered me. I was IMMEDIATELY aware of the discrepancy and have yet to accept it.

But Slugger, it's not fair to call that grey! Its very obviously *light* grey.

Slugger you're my hero. This very subject has been bothering me for decades. Now someone PLEASE explain to me why the iconic orange accents got changed to dark grey

slugger yelling WRONG (at 3:42) threw me off that was hilarious, i want to add it to my discord sound board (if that's okay, of course)

In the Marvel comic adaptation of the movie from 1980, the snowspeeders are BOTH light grey and white. It depends of the panel, but usually, they're grey if they're on snow, white otherwise.

I have never seen Lego TIE Fighters in sand blue before *and now I'm in love.* It's the perfect harmony between blue and grey without making either of the colors stick out too much. Under the right lightning it can look like either a dark or light grey, but with a subtle blue reflection to it that's just noticeable enough upon closer inspection. It's genius. It would describe the three chameleon-like colors perfectly. I don't know why Lego doesn't use that color for those sets since they still have so many parts in that color.

Can we just put slugger as an executive in the Lego group so he can choose all the colors for the sets. His eye for color is unmatched

The talking indidicators during the discussion with maydayfigs are the character icon borders from the lego star wars games. Nice detail.

Even after seeing the Empire Strikes Back so many times i never realised this 0_0 I guess everyone assumed it was supposed to be burnouts from enemy blasts

The choice to make it white is probably to give a more colorful lineup to an already very Grey theme. The white makes it camouflage well in the snow and reminds the buyer it is from a snow planet. I see no reason to change anything about it even if it is a little inaccurate. 👍

I love lego Qi Gon as an excited wojak, lego Qi Gon as an excited wojak is precious !

What a boss. Spent the whole video talking about StarWars just to casually drop a STARTREK reference at the literal last second!!!!!!!

I still say they should make a sand blue Executor. That thing is very blue in the movies, and it was intentionally a different color than the normal star destroyer.

The yelling was so unexpected lmfao, actually startled me. I felt like I was the one being yelled at

1/3 for ESB is how we know Slugger's Star Wars takes don't need to be taken too seriously 😆

WRONG (This is about Empire’s placement on the Sluggometer, even if it was definitely a joke) You’re right and you should say it, I miss my 99 Snowspeeder. It’s been a minute since it was released, so hopefully the next iteration greys up a bit

Same thing applies to the X-Wing to me. They should be grey!!

The V1 Snowspeeder is one of my favourite LEGO sets. Chunky, sturdy, swooshable, lots of fun play features... And SCREEN ACCURATE! While I didn't mind the TIEs changing to grey as much, the much earlier and more significant switch to white for the snowspeeder filled me with baffled confusion that I still clearly remember to this day. Also poor MayDayFigs, hah. :)

I really like the original LSW sets. They felt like Star Wars adapted for LEGO, not LEGO trying to be as accurate as humanly possibly. It feels more fun and toyetic compared to the sets we have today.

As someone who owned the original Star Wars Visual Dictionary from a very young age, I was always fairly aware of this issue. That book was always my go to reference for how accurate my Lego models were, and in it there's a picture of Luke getting out of his crashed Snowspeeder, that is clearly grey. I have mixed feelings about the grey vs sand blue TIE colours, because it really depends on the shots or photos you look at. From an accuracy perspective, I would be fine with either really, but the sand blue is definitely a more interesting and unique look. Grey does match a lot of the other Imperial vehicles though, which gives some nice faction cohesion. The sand blue accents on the TIE Striker model were really nice at least and it's a shame they haven't carried that over into the more recent TIEs.

Even bigger color scandal: Lego is currently trying to sell us a big dark turquoise (or "Bright bluish green") Lion as "The Mighty Azure Lion" (Monkie Kid 80048) Why is nobody talking about this?

The late Very Light Bluish Gray™ needs to make a comeback.

Swap the Snowspeeder for the X-wing and you basically covered my exact thoughts over the past few days, even down to the TIE Fighter color choice.

great video as always!! thank you :D also fun fact, the set at 11:05 was actually my first ever lego set when i was around 4 years old 🥺 i’m 20 now

Huh, I always wondered why the old tie fighter I had was made with those bright blue grill pieces along the wings. Cool video!

Oh what a crime! Star Wars being robbed of the ONE gray vehicle it had! All we have left now are diverse, vibrant colors of the rest of the theme...

You’ve opened my mind in ways I never thought possible.

I really need to dig through my old bin of childhood Lego, i could probably find 90% of the OG snowspeeder. It was definitely my favorite design, but i was 11 when it came out so that may tip the scales in its favor 😅

Excellent video, as always. I always think the most straightforward evidence is to look at the pilot helmets in both the studio and film set mock up models. There is clearly a difference between the white pilot helmets and the steel grey look of the ships. I think that LEGO designers dip into the nostalgia of their childhood by copying or emulating some of the original Kenner toy ship models from the original 77-83 toy line. The Snowspeeders were more white than grey there. In addition, you'll also note the other great offender--the white X-wings. You'll see white X-wings there in the original '78 release until they changed to the correct grey color with the ESB battle damaged version in 1980.

The snowspeeder has such a good model. Its the perfect size for a ship that holds two figures and manages to be scale accurate to the figures. A lot of lego star wars vehicles end up being way bigger or way smaller than they're supposed to be relative to the figures. Sets like the ucs millennium falcon or the ucs at-at are some examples of sets that are scale accurate but are gigantic and super expensive, so the normal play scale versions are scaled down to make them more affordable.

This video was a fun watch, especially the segment talking about tie fighters being blue(-ish!). Great video slugger!

3:42 damn thats the most emotion I've ever seen out of our beloved slug

a couple of years ago i was given some random bricks by my grandmother, now i finally know they where from the original snowspeeder very cool

Snowspeeder is one of the few Star Wars sets I owned! I loved it. I had this, an X-Wing, and that small set with Jar Jar, Qui Gon, and a couple of battle droids on their little vehicles.

I love the use of the instruction comics version of Qui-Gon Jin in the thumbnail. Those ware great! Early Lego Star Wars was so extra and I don't feel they ever came close to that again since.

3:43 SLUGGIE YOU CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD

This always bothered me as well, but I do appreciate the color contrast with almost ALL the other SW ships. Similar to the Bad Batch shuttle which lots of people complained about the sand blue color scheme, I like that it breaks up the otherwise boring line up.

Wow, 30000 subscribers! congratulations Slugger, those are some BIG numbers! :D

Great video I've often wondered about the colour choice myself Also loved the Midnight Oil reference

We've had this argument before lol, but just to restate my take on the matter publicly, I've never really cared all that much about screen accuracy and prefer the white snowspeeders because they look better than the ones in the film. Similarly, I actually really like the black-with-blue-highlights look of the original TIE sets and would love to see that look come back, but honestly I'd accept sand blue as a compromise. Definitely better than grey.

The way I always heard it, TIEs were originally straight-up blue, and then they realized that wouldn't work with the bluescreen, so they changed it to a muted blue, and Lego's original choice of blue was inspired by the original concept.

This is my first time commenting on your channel. I'm very fond of your content, and you have some great ideas for videos! Keep up the good work, mate.

very interesting, as a fan of Lego (and Star Wars) that never owned a Lego Star Wars set, these missmatching of colours are intriguing.

The first time the Slug loses it and it's on MayDay, 10/10 quality content

Hey Slugger! The first few waves of Star Wars Legos were my faves. I loved the font of the set names,the heroes and villains standing lined up for the theme emblem,and the classic yellow mini figs. Cool vid.

You know, this was the inspiration I needed to make a snowspeeder moc in Grey

And I thought I was the only one who thought that Snowspeeders were grey! Thank you!

Congrats you guys to 10K/30K!

😂😂 3:42 slugger sounds unhinged, what a change of pace

Game shows have "Incorrect" Lawyers have "Objection!" Slugger has "WRONG! IT'S GREY!"

Since most LEGO Star Wars vehicles do not include landscaped side-builds, I can understand the appeal of a white snowspeeder, since it's a lot easier to imagine your vehicle flying over snow and ice if the vehicle itself is the color you are trying to imagine. Plus, people will think "SNOW = White, thus a SNOWspeeder must be white." Or, they will think, "A snowspeeder must be white in order to blend in with the terrain and be camouflaged." However, I agree that it's inexcusable, and I am horrified that I myself thought that Snowspeeders were white. Also, Sand Blue TIE Fighters is a genius idea which I 100% support. Plus, it certainly is interesting that LEGO themselves have included blue or sand blue accents on official TIE fighter models.

I think this was appropriate payback for MayDay not consulting you about Earth Orange in his video

I've never, ever thought Snowspeeders were white.. they're the same color and product line as X-Wings and Y-Wings..

Great vid Slugger! I would love to see more materials about licensed theme on your channel, especially star wars!

I just want to put it out there that snowspeeder is a missnomer. They were regular civillian speeders adapted for military applications & then further adapted to work in the cold. It's why I find the hatred for 75204 so baffling. It's the same craft only modified to work in a different environment, much like sandtroopers are Stormtroopers with portable cooling systems.

This is my favorite thumbnail you've done 😄

This is the pedantry I subscribed for, and even though I am no where near as invested I 100% agree, I agreed the moment I read the video title.

the Snowspeeder was the first lego star wars set I ever got (my dad took me to the lego store when the first line launched, and "strongly encouraged" I get the snowspeeder over the speederbikes) ended up getting the entire first line, and the naboo starfighter from the phantom menace line when that launched

Great video! I agree with everything you said (aside from the opinion on Empire I guess, but to each their own!) LEGO, don't be cowards, give us a sand blue Tie Fighter!!!

Finally someone acknowledging it! And who else if not our dear Lego friend Slug!!! 🎉🙌🙌

The thumbnail redrawing of '99 Qui-Gon using the pointing open mouth pose, perfection.

Rating Empire as 1 and A new hope as 3 is extremely cool, thanks Slugger.

The market research suggestion does possibly make sense, where white was more receivable than gray. What is weird is that some other stuff from Hoth is gray. For instance the ATAT walkers, they are basically entirely gray. In fact I mainly get Star Wars stuff, so my collection of pieces is nearly 70% gray pieces. It’s an interesting subject.

Reminds me of the controversy that happened with the colours of the Bad Batch Shuttle set

Slug from a PC Lego game, explains how LEGO has been gaslighting us for the past three decades Also your screaming is the most unhinged and hilarious stuff I've ever heard

ah the nostalgia seeing Alexis Sinister and Sam Sinister / Baron von Barron again. thanks for the smile :)

You have forced upon me the desire for a sand blue Tie that I can never have, Slugger. For this I will never forgive you.

An interesting comparison is for the ATAT driver having a lighter grey/off white armour over a light grey uniform. It should technically be the same colour of bodysuit as the at-st driver but because Lego uses that colour for the helmet I think that's why the bodysuit is sand blue.

I love how he brought in the expert just to say that he was wrong

It’s crazy to think that the Star Wars Micro Machines from when I was a little kid were more accurate in their coloration than modern day Lego sets.

Modded t-47 airspeeder, I mean if we’re gonna be complaining about accuracy surely we’ve gotta name it properly

You have properly convinced me, bravo sir also 3:22 was hilarious

I'm pretty sure the Cloud Car and X Wing has the same issues as well as the speeder bike with the 40 year anniversary diorama set

Snowspeeders are indeed gray. This is the color of the Kenner versions, Micromachines, etc. Of course the original movie. I guess LEGO made them white to stand out on the shelf and tie back to the snow planet. TIE Fighters are a bluish gray color, moreso in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. They're more whitish gray in the first movie. And wow would sand blue be perfect for them! I didn't know that's why the mixel joints are always gray. That's good to know.

There is also the sand blue Marauder shuttle that is supposed to be dark gray and sand blue accents on the 4+ AT-ST. On the upside, they do introduce sand blue parts not seen prior.

Hecking dropped my lunch at 3:44. That was good

Concerning TIE fighters, I feel the grey works best on a purely symbolic level. The empire is supposed to be oppressive, so a lack of color conveys that nicely.

Great vid! There's also another fun colour play from TESB. Solo's jacket was introduced by LEGO as navy blue. That's correct, in the movie it is navy blue. BUT in the interior shots. Outside the base his jacket is clearly brown. And LEGO later reintroduced it as brown! You are damn right bout mixel joints, I cherish my legendary beasts collection, but they really suffer from this two colour options! Also Star Wars wasn't really first LEGO license. It was produced simultaneously with Winnie the Pooh line

Slugger is probably the first person I’ve seen rank empire so low. Sluggers gonna slug I suppose