Why Purple Blasters Are So Rare In Star Wars 

Lmk if you enjoyed the long video! It took a full month but I had fun making it :) Hope everyone’s having a good Star Wars Day!! Feel free to share with your Star Wars friends 👉👈

Jackson's grin when George tells him he might get purple will never get old

From what I’ve heard purple is the most powerful but more expensive which would explain why not many armies use them but purple looks awesome as a blaster bolt color

A 45 minute video about the color purple that is not boring, legendary!

27:42 - "Geonosians have always wanted to keep to themselves" - Host Separatist meeting - Have Death Star plans "Never took the fight to their enemy" - Make droid factories allied with CIS, the droids are the army they take to their enemy

This just makes me want a Ghost Recon-esque Star Wars game where you play as some ragtag mercenary group (or special forces group) and in addition to customizing your main character with clothes, outfits, species and more, modding your blaster is like a separate menu, where you choose what kind of blaster, then you start modding it out, like choosing the focal lens/crystal (blaster color), gas type (affects accuracy, damage, non-lethal options, affects droids or humanoids more, etc.), optics (for scopes and whatnot), heatsinks (efficiency of gas use), power cells (how many shots before it needs to be "reloaded"), metal color/paintjob, foregrips and stocks (for steadying while aiming), the option to add the half squeeze to aim with a laser before firing, Long nozzle mods to dim the blaster light and suppress the noise for stealth, just go absolutely HAM on customization for every blaster you can acquire in that game, and make it super detailed and one of the main features of the game. I think there'd be a subset of fans who would love this.

Not sure if you want to have a deep dive into a Lego game. But in the Lego Star Wars saga the power orbs make your lightsaber purple and your blaster shots purple. Meaning they are straight up more powerful

2:06 that scene shown if you watch the furthest tie fighters... you can see some litterally appear out of nowhere instead of emerge as a small point that get larger as they come into view.. they are not there... then there... i wish they'd fix that dang error. I cant unsee it ever now

Imo, I think the reason the empire uses more good guy colours is they used to be the republic and thus had the good guy colours used all around and the rebels needed a way to distinguish between their shots and chose red.

Tbh blue,green ,yellow,purple blaster bolts are my favorite basically i like them all except for the red blaster bolts for some reason its just so tacky for me

my headcanon is, that most of the colos differences come fom diffrent gases on the planets, and bigger armies just used gases, that where found all over the galaxy

I've only ever heard that the color is determined by the refinement process, and how refined it is. So those other points were fairly interesting. And I've been playing the og battlefront II for a couple decades now, and I've never seen a purple blaster from something that has never had it. (Clones)

From all of the information I’ve got is that the difference between them is a variety of strength of each blaster bolt along with how much it costs per shot. The cost of each from cheapest to most expensive is red, blue, green, Mandalorian yellow, and then an exception being the weakest but probably expensive are the yellow/training bolts used by the clones on Tipoca City. The CIS/Rebels used red because they’re effective against living targets, while the Republic used blue because they’re more effective against droids, and the Empire used Green because they’re effective against everything and a bit stronger than red but to save resources for the Empires greater war machine.

Man your channel is criminally underrated

head canon: purple bolts are to green bolts what blue bolts are to red bolts. ion charged shots, just from a different or more refined gas

The blue and white TIE bolts in the the THX remaster I think were initially caused by failing to add the final green rotoscoping on top of the white core of the bolts, leaving just the white. The blue bolts could be an overdone color correction, you can see in the comparison shots that the star destroyers have noticably cooler hue to them the others. On top of the white bolts left by forgetting the green pass, the color correction could give that odd blue tint. Anyways, not an expert or anything, if anyone else has more or better detail on the specifics, Id be interested.

Headcanon is that everything depends on everything. It just makes the most sense that every little detail could have an effect on blaster color. For example, the TIE says the blasts are green because of the frequency of the crystal, but maybe other green blasters are green just because of the power output, and others still are green because of gases used. This especially makes sense because all 3 could lead to changes in the efficiency of the blaster. So maybe the gas blaster takes less power per shot, or the power blaster takes less gas.

Repeatedly using the clip of Jar Jar's face getting electrocuted. A man of culture, I see.

just a little something you may not have noticed on the flechete shotgun in the origional BF2 is the rounds are yellow on the flechete

20:15 The purple flack explosions may be from B2 arm rockets, if they existed in that battle they also look very similar to the eyplosions of the purple laserbolts from the geonosien starfighters

It's also used by Hapes Consortium too!

Windu wasn’t the only Jedi with a purple lightsaber, there was a second purple lightsaber in the first battle of Geonosis.

I always thought that green was the cheapest kind of gas and that the empire used it because they just had soo many ships that it was the best gas to get in bulk

dude you could've made this like 8 different videos like I am so impressed that you covered like EVERYTHING lmao

Tiny point of interest on the magna tri droid, in real life, lasers can be used to cause atmosphere to ionize, and therefore carry electrical charge. Perhaps the beam is just there to direct the electrical blast that actually does the damage.

I think red must be the cheapest to produce because the CIS used red when they were the faction with the most guns there for spending the most and the republic with its near unlimited budget used the slightly more expensive blue stuff. same goes for the empire we see in bad batch that when starting the army the empire did use red and then when they began gaining more power and moving more money to the army they bought the expensive green stuff and obviously the broke rebels used the cheap red stuff. i cant think of anything sound for the last three films idk maybe the resistance was using the expensive stuff left over from the new republic idk.

I never thought I would ever be invested in this…but I am. I now want to see more purple blasters in Star Wars. This was definitely an amazing video and I can’t wait to see what you do next. Also Happy ‘belated’ Star Wars Day and May The 4th Be With You.

Bread Circus shout out is fantastic. Goated YTer

I found your channel today via shorts, and this video has starting a very long binge watch 😂 love the detail in these videos

Speaking of the yellow mandolorian blasters being armor penetrating against beskar, in Jedi survivor you can hear a storm trooper talking about how “if you have your blaster tuned just right it will go right through mandolorian beskar”

"Wanted purple to stand out." Maybe that was part of the reason, but Jackson actually tries to sneak something purple into literally everything he appears in. IRL it's his favorite color.

Wow, amazing video! 45 minutes of full enjoyment! I love your content, hope to see more :))

I loved this video! Always asked myself that too!

I think you might have forgot one more purple blaster bolt source... In the 1996 Nintendo 64 game Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire, you can collect different munition type for your blaster and one of them is called Pulse cannon wich as purple projectiles. There where many more interesting weapons in the game including one called distruptor wich was pretty much a pocket death star/BFG9000. Fun fact, I think this game is still technically cannon too since your main character's ship is seen leaving Mos Eisley in Episode 4 in every version of the movie made after the game release. Thanks for the video, it was fun to watch. :)

My thought with the yellow is that it usually indicates some sort of suppressor modification-either to reduce intensity, or to narrow the beam and increase accuracy and range for a sniper shot. This is separate from the mandalorian weapons, which are probably using a local gas.

i love the yoda reaction gifs you threw in there

Buddy asked what I was watching, he's not a big star wars fan but now he knows some obscure lore lol

im surprised you didnt mention it but the geonotion starfighters purple blasts exploded like a flak gun

if i remember correctly, the old tie fighter game had blue ion cannons as an option alongside standard green lasers and one can switch between both

"What? Mesa no have a blueball!" I lost it.

Imagine forgetting to turn the color of your machine blaster and the entirety of your enemy platoon start screaming Friendly Fire!

This a classic fr i love content like this

Am I the only one that sees green instead of blue and white on the tie fighters?

in Star Wars Trilogy - Apprentice of the Force, you play as Luke and start with a blaster pistol that shoots red lasers but you can find power ups to make it stronger lasers like blue, green & purple. Weakest to strongest red, blue, green & purple.

I only do minimal work on video, but I do a lot of work with photos. If you look at the scenes where the Ties are shooting blue and compare the other objects colors, it looks as if they tried to make the stars and star destroiers look more white by reducing how much yellow there was. That's all well and good, but it seems like they hue shifted the footage, then simply forgot to recolor the bolts green in that shot. Remember, green minus yellow = blue.

Heck yeah!! Purple fans rise up!

Fun fact from the Star Wars: X-Wing game and its sequels. Ion Blasts are blue as well and operate on machines the same as blue blaster stun bolts....

Around 16:53 you talked about blue lasers as a difference for that version of the movie. As an effects editor, I would say that is actually the prototype laser. It probably wasn't colored for the final cut. That would make that version of the movie pretty rare.

So cool a Star Wars actor answered yiour call! 🤯 .

This was very interesting to watch while I worked.

42:51 something that got me confused here is that at no point was it said that the spin-sealed Tobana gas was specifically red. So, if we keep going by the color spectrum theory, that the higher the frequency, the more powerful the bolt would be, you could still say that the green bolts were a more refined version of the red ones (and the purple, the most refined). What would make sense to say the empire had more resources, and thus, more powerful weapons.

I actually knew about the blue and white bolts on TIEs, as the THX version is the only copies I own physically. I didn't know that it was fixed in the other versions.

"power output" determines the color. that's why the color of the bolts can change for a group of people within the same episode

Loved the MatPat ❤

I believe that the yellow blaster bolts are actually the easiest to change the intensity, also pretty sure that the yellow bolts are more exclusively on planets compared to other gasses

14:10 They actually made a space ATF? Now I don't want to visit the Star Wars galaxy.

One reason why the purple blast of the magna tri droids is explosive could be that they have such hich power that they vaporize whatever thy hit and the resulting pressure causes the explosion, that would be within the explanation that purple blast simply have a higher energy desity

I theorize that we have the technology to create those stun blaster bolts. We have those toy vortex cannons. They have made extreme hydraulic vortex cannons that shoot rings of gas at extreme speeds. Something like this could be modified to ionize a special gas, and then use some kind of rail or coil gun type mechanism to speed it up before leaving the barrel. Depending on the size of the ring, you could have stunning level bolts, or condense them into a small bolt with more power concentration, and the ability to go faster. Though I doubt it could be put into a blaster or rifle size weapon. Could be mounted on a large aircraft or a naval ship though.

In my headcanon they are different kinds of "ammo" Red for organics Blue for Droids (Ion) Yellow (Neutral) Green (yellow + blue) best against ships.

I mean it probably looks so cool in the first place *because* of how rare it is. Not in total number of users but in number of user in each shot.

hehehe purple blaster bolt go brrrrr

The different color tie fighter blaster colors in empire, hypothetically could be that the tie is running low on gas and the effectiveness is lessened and thus the discoloration could be then a visual indication to the pilot of how close to running out they are

My guess is, it's harder and more expensive to refine. Color would just reflect how well it's refined. The more refined, the more efficient and in that way, you'd get more bang for your buck. That might be why its used in smaller blasters and missiles.

Yellow Blaster bolts: 1st a thought that might explain it. Mandalorians also are known for fighting Jedi, and in the past even used slug throwing weapons to fight them. If they're keeping that tradition forward (and they seem to in The Manalorian), Mando weapons may have a more "physical" impact than standard blaster bolts. It also stands to reason that if Beskar can deflect standard blaster bolts, a blaster bolt that also hits similar to slug throwers to do physical impact as well wouldn't be out of pocket for them. Thus yellow (and possibly orange with even cheaper gas) training bolts may give impact but not damage similar to rubber/paint bullets from modern firearms. I can't find anything that specifically backs that up, so it's pure theory-craft. However, what I can back up is that it's also noted that the WESTAR-35 and GALAAR-15 have the "Accurate" qualifier in the Star Wars RPG, which feeds into the idea of sniper rifles having yellow shots in Clone Wars/Bad Batch. Many other non-yellow blasters also have this quality in the game as well, so big grain of salt there. Just some tangential thoughts, that yellow blaster bolts, similar to purple "electrical" weapons and then purple blasters, may have multiple reasons. So perhaps both of these are also reasons.

It’s intresting that it is purple that’s one of the rarest colours also a fun fact is that purple is also one of the rarest colours on flags in real life

Michael Jae is a blast -er expert

so basicly blasters color is mainly determined by a coloring system in the blasters but gass, focusing crystal, and manufacturer can also influence this. maybe the coloring system is initally set by the manufacturer to being off while these systems take more power to change the color of certain gasses.

Those VHS’s you showed looked familiar to me. I then go into my basement and find the exact same OT VHS 1995 THX pack, still sealed, piled with a bunch of other VHS’s. I want to watch them now but I also kinda want to figure out how much they could be worth, if worth anything lol

quick thing, the "focusing lens" is the crystal. yes. its a lens made of crystal. but also, the blue lasers in the THX re-release is due to improper colour grading during the digital transfer, there are multiple other scenes that are either washed out, or have "grey black" its just due to a bad conversion of the film. in the footage you show, you can actually still see the blasters as green a little bit around the edges. its because conversion from film stock to digital was still in its infancy at the time, it was a new technology and nobody really had an "ideal" or industry standard way to do it yet

It’d be cool if they did it by a guns color was based off its designed range; red or even invisable for snipers to purple for pistols and pdw’s and green for assault rifle types.

"Four fold" does not mean the same thing as "four times" It's a term from the very early days of mathematics. Fold a piece of cloth (or paper) four times, smooth it flat and then unfold and count the squares. This is where we get the mathematical term "square" from folding things into squares. So, four fold is sixteen times, but yes, the term is probably being misused here.

The plasma bow things (I don't care what their official name is) feel pretty impractical. Like, why use a bow that requires you to draw back the arrow bolt, when blasters exist that can fire just a deadly projectiles with less of the effort? Meh, at least they look cool.

Theory: The color is dependant on how much energy a bolt radiats in flight. This means that red bolts can be high power that is more efficent and not radiating or low power. Purpole on the other hand is very high power and radiats a lot. This woukd mean that purpole beats high power red in cqc but but its damage drops of quicker than red.

I wonder how deep an investigation into the music he would go on Purple Rain by Prince?🤔

Wookies used slug throwers or at least a version of slug thrower. The wookie bolt caster uses heavy amunition hence why when Chewy or Han use it, stormtrooper's armor explode

Blue/Cyan/Emerald blaster - you're old/new republic infantry. Red/Orange blaster - you're empire/rebel infantry/mercenary. Green blaster - you're planetar guardmen. Yellow blaster - you're tusken rider. Purple blaster - you're rich and can allow yourself to be cool.

The first game we see purple blaster bolts is actualy in "Star Wars Trilogy: Aprentice Of The Force" wich was only on gameboy advance and was released in 2004. You could have these kind of power ups in certain levels wich where different types of blaster bolts with limmited amount of shots wich all had specific effects. If I remember correctly, blue woud be auto fire with higher capacity (20 shots or something like that) but did the same amount of dammage of the standard red basic bolts (wich you could fire indefinitely), green would one shot pretry much every enemy you'd face but had a very limmited amount of ammo (10 if I remember correctly), then there's purple, wich you can only find once or twice in the entire game, it was a one shot like the green bolts but you could charge your shots and it would put down up to 4 enemies with a single bolt. It also had more ammo than the green one

A note about the Flechette Shotgun from the Battlefront game. Unless the name is a misnomer, the term "flechette" means "little arrow/dart", so does this mean that they have been swapped out for something like the Wookie Bowcaster that actually fires solid projectiles *sheathed* in blaster energy?

As far as I know how the OG canon goes, not the Disney Canon, Purple blasters use more expensive gases as fuel, while slightly more powerful than the most powerful common blaster color, green. It's rare because economically unviable, of course hand blasters are meant for the rich and the Geonosian fighters use it because they have an abundant amount of this type of gas. And you might think, then why the battledroids don't use it? The answer is simple, the E-5 is THE cheapest blaster, made by a different company that meant to be easily replacable and discardable, unlike the Clone Army's. Thus, they used the cheapest, least powerful fuelsource for it

Attack of the Clones and those tie fighters color errors in 1995 are not the first time blue blaster bolts are seen in a live action Star Wars movie. The first intentional instance of blue bolts in Star Wars was in 1983 in the Ewoks Battle for Endor movie. Mace has a sporting blaster that shoots Blue in the first scenes and later Noa's starship cannons shoot blue during the fight against the Mauraders. These were consistent, intentional colors, not color errors

If I remember correctly the Mandos in clone wars didn’t have full beskar armor and a mix of a composite armor in more areas

I was like oh the ESB Blue ties are cool but the White tie is so much cooler

15:03 ANH Leia underrated as hell

I always thought it was types of gases and exotic colors are different types of gases that aren’t common or illegal. Because they can effect death or being more painful or crude upon killing

Purple is the middle in the force between Siths and Jedis, at least that's what you see in the sabers, I don't know how it works with the blasters.

My theory for the white color in universe is that they used special settings so they would not ignite the gas and cause catastrophic reaction that would kill everyone.

Purple honestly my second favorite color

"you.." *sighs* "you might get purple"

21:32 my headcannon is that yellow is probably more accurate, and purple is extremely unstable and prone to explode mid-flight. This would explain why storm troopers are inaccurate(although “stormtrooper aim” is a retcon being directly due to fans getting the wrong message from a New hope and the Falcon escaping, seriously, why would the empire want to destroy the ship if they could use the planted tracker to find the rebel base?)because they were trained on and are used to a much more forgiving blaster and accurate blaster. It would also explain why purple is rare because it was so hard to properly control, and why it acts like a Flak round in AotC. It also lines up with the Electromagnetic Spectrum and how ultraviolet/purple light is the most energetic.

seems like in squadrons if you change weapon loadouts it changes colors as well depended on the guns

I love how your goofy blaster color video taught me about illegal gas compression on the down low lmao

Idk if anyone can relate but when I was little we had these nerf guns with a little crosshair shaped flashlight that would activate if you half pulled the trigger. It was really cool in a dark room but the nerf guns themselves kinda sucked. They weren't star wars themed or anything but this just reminded me of them.

I hear it only turns purple if you do a weird out-of-place spin before firing

So does this also explain some of the mysterious weapons in the galaxy like Mando’s “disintegrating” rifle?

Now idk if it’s changed but I did see at one point wooky wepons arnt blasters and shoot solid or explosive projectiles and the blaster look of the shot is a byproduct of the weapons proportion system

Red vs blue/green is explained with red using synthetic khyber crystals to form the bolt, and green and blue are natural. Whichever faction is more powerful, has readier access to crystal mining, and ends up using natural instead of synthetic. Purple is an outlyer with no obvious explanation.

I used to actually think blasters simply fired bullets but only could shoot tracer bullets.

What if its just a coil that further Energizes the bolt bevor or after the crystal focus. That could give it greater power, would explain the Extra "flintlock" style Elements

I REALLY want a buff bounty hunter who uses a 2 barrel flechette slugthrower and a big fucking gun that shoots miniaturized decimators, who picks up new weapons he hasn't seen and tries his best to get in close to beat people up with his fists.

realistically they could've explained it by them having old clone war era blasters which were mass produced