Mythbusters Star Wars Special

By Micaela Seekell

The new season of Mythbusters came out starting with an episode all about Star Wars myths. It began with they're own version of the Star Wars opening crawl. They then introduced the 501st and told the viewers a bit about them. After that it was on to the myths!

The first myth they took on was from the scene in Star Wars: A New Hope when Luke rescues Leia and they swing across the chasim. Jamie Hyneaman and Adam Savage broke it down into three parts and took them on individually before trying to recreate the scene.

Part 1: Could someone throw a grappling hook from the same distance and angle to have it catch and hold? After many tries Jamie was able to do so proving you could, but getting it on the first try like in the movie? Probably not.

Part 2: Could you support yourself from a waist belt? After trying a small test to see, it was concluded that in a life death situation you could but it would be painful and not the first choice.

Part 3: Could you swing while holding someone else's weight? This was shown to work in their smaller test so it was on to recreate the scene.

While doing the full blown version Jaime opted out of the waist belt and used a standard harness instead. Sophia Bush was introduced as the one to play the part of Princess Leia. With costumes on and stormtroopers ready to fire they recreated the swing and made it safely across. Afterwards they decided that this myth was plausible.

Myth two was from a scene in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi where the ewoks used tree logs to smash an AT-ST. After smashing a car and an armored truck Tori, Kari, and Grant concluded this myth was plausible. 

The third myth was from the scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back were Han Solo puts Luke Sywalker into a tauntaun to keep warm. After Adam made a life size tauntaun and Jamie found the perfect recipe for tauntaun guts it was into the freezer.  Monitoring a special dummy that can emulate a realistic body heat reactions Adam and Jamie were surprised by the results and decided that this myth was plausible.