The Bounty Hunters - part 3
IG-88 - This tall, lanky, assassin droid turned bounty hunter appears formidable on first appearance, but on closer examination seems less than agile with it's pipe-like legs an arms, tiny pincer hands, and big blocky feet. Kudos to the creators of The Clone Wars televison series for using a group of very similar looking IG-86 assassin droids and showing them to be acrobatic and with more flexibility to their joints than a living creature would have.
A prop rather than a person in a costume, IG-88 actually began his life as a very different prop in Star Wars three years earlier. IG-88's head was one of a number of similar pieces of ornamentation used on the drink dispensing equipment behind the bar in the cantina in Mos Eisley.
In the center of the image above, you can see two such IG-88 heads in the center of the frame, one with red circles, one with green circles.
According to the expanded universe material, IG-88 was one of five identical assassin droids with the IG-88 designation. Upon creation, one of them developed advanced sentience and downloaded its personality to the other four. The group killed its creators and set out to rule the galaxy. One of them sought intel as a bounty hunter. This is the one we see in The Empire Strikes Back. This IG-88 made also made it to Cloud City where it tried to beat Boba Fett to Han Solo. Fett destroyed this one, which can be seen below next to the furnace door behind Chewbacca when Chewie is recovering the pieces of C-3PO from the ugnaughts.
After this, two of the other IG-88s unsuccessfully tried to defeat Boba Fett on Tatooine when he was bring Han, frozen in carbonite, to Jabba the Hutt. The remaining IG-88 managed to download its consciousness into the second Death Star just before it was destroyed.
If you ask me, the expanded universe material often goes to far, usually because it tries to tie together too many threads in the Star Wars universe. This is a perfect example. I prefer to simple think of my own idea of who these characters are, or to just accept them for the mysterious characters as they were originally presented.
IG-88 also loved to dance. Don't believe me? Watch this.
2 comments:
I bet IG-88 does a mean robot...
Alright, I was groaning even before I wrote that, but seriously, someone had to.
I totally agree with you about the expanded universe stories.
IG-88 has always been one my favorite bounty hunters. I think Lucas missed a great connection between old and new trilogies not making the battle droids or at least Grievious' body guards, IG-88 droids.
Would of created a great back story and reason their spare parts show up here and there.
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