Galactic Style Guide – Binoculars

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! It’s been a while since we’ve looked at any in-universe hardware, but in this installment, we’re digging deep into a specific type of gear used in the field across the galaxy: space binoculars!
A good set of binocs (whether macro- or electro-) are a great accessory to help add depth to an appropriate character impression, filling in for the collapsible brass telescope or ‘field glasses’ frequently carried by characters in various SW-influencing historical genres – whether that be swashbuckling pirates, Old West cowboys, or World War soldiers.
Let’s get started with our ur-example: the Lydree MB450 macrobinoculars carried by Luke back in SW’77:

Though most of these scenes wound up on the cutting room floor, the prop was built on an Eumig 8mm movie camera, with the fold-out viewer and lenses borrowed from  Kalimar 660 cameras.

The following provide our most frequently seen style of ‘binocs. The Imperial droid-tracking sandtroopers are seen using what have been identified as Neuro-Saav TD1.4 electrobinoculars; however, they appear to be identical to the TD2.3’s subsequently carried in the next film by the Rebels on Hoth and in Rebel Assault II, which was 90% likely the same OT prop. In the original Visual Dictionary, these are specified to be ‘stolen Imperial equipment’.
True to Classic Trilogy form, these props are really just repainted, slightly-dressed-up Euro milsurp: in this case Norwegian laser rangefinders (the Optronics LP7 or LE-7 made by Simrad) with the eyepiece and a few tasteful greeblies added.

The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology (2004) gives us a decent view of the eyepiece side:

The Prequel films contain a sizeable sample set for us to analyze. We first see Darth Maul’s pair of electros, which I think are really sleek looking. Note that they feature exposed screws, but these aren’t something mundanely common like Phillips or flathead, but rather a large tri-wing:

As I learned while researching this article, Hasbro apparently released a set of functional (only 6x, but whatever) binoculars based on these back in ’99, which look pretty accurately styled — except for the completely-superfluous domed ‘listening device’.

We also see the Trade Federation battle droid commander at the Grassy Plains battle use a pair of macros – although it always begs the question why a droid wouldn’t just have them built in? Oh well, probably the same reason the B1s don’t have blasters for arms, I suppose.

Even wilder than the Darth Maul example above, I’ve also learned that Tiger/Hasbro released an Episode I tie-in B1-styled combination binoculars/35mm film camera (it even had a flash)!:

While none of the following are (as far as I’m aware) seen onscreen, the Episode I Insider’s Guide CDROM included a veritable trove of various examples of electro and macro binocs; it’s not clear if these were proof-of-concept designs, or fabricated and handed out to (presumably) podrace extras, but feast your eyes!:

In episodes II and III, Obi-Wan is equipped with this little black pair, a cheesy reproduction of which you can buy at the Disney parks.

Speaking of Jedi, this next example is a headscratcher, since they don’t (as far as I know) appear anywhere onscreen and are only seen in the post-Disney 2017 Complete Star Wars Visual Encyclopedia – but these sure look like off-the-shelf binos to me:

We see the Republic’s clone troopers use a common style throughout the Clone War – apparently color-coordinated to the battlefield!:

Before we turn away from the Prequels, I would be entirely remiss if I didn’t shout out the Gungans’ wildly-divergent ‘farseein’:

By my rough scaling calculations, these things are around four feet wide, and just totally wacky; you gotta love Gungan tech! They almost put me in mind of early 20th century military devices like these German ‘audio radar’ headsets from 1917:

As the franchise’s standout First Person titles, I feel the need to include the Kyle Katarn games as an interesting example. In its release materials, Jedi Outcast identifies its binocs as TD2.3 (the Imperial/Rebel model from the OT), and while I guess the body is pretty similar, the eyepieces make them a far cry from what we saw above:

However, unlike in Rebel Assault II, in Dark Forces II the ‘binocs seen in the live-action cutscenes appear to be just a pair of regular (albeit chunky-bodied) binoculars – anyone recognize these???

The first episode of The Mandalorian sees our windchilled taxi driver scoping out the path with a macrobinoc following the original example, as this one is also based on a vintage movie camera – although I know I’ve seen folks make props of this model, my Google-fu hasn’t turned up any results, so if you know please drop a comment below! 🙂

Finally, let’s close with two examples from the ever-excellent Andor. In the second arc, we see some of the rebel crew using macrobinoculars also built from an early movie camera (this time, a triple-lensed Bell & Howell ‘Zoomatic’)!

In the final episode of Season 1, Cassian carries a tiny folding monocular, which as it turns out is an actual piece of Soviet mid-century engineering, simply with an extension added on one end. This is a 5×25 monocular made by МСП (Zagorsk Optical and Mechanical Works) – very slick!

So there we go, I think that will about cover everything! What can we take away from our examples? If we look at the kinds of characters who carry such devices, I note that these seem to be most clearly associated with the more ‘active’ or ‘hands-on’ classes – pretty much just soldiers, plus Jedi, Sith, or Rebel agents in the field, as well as a farmhand out working the open range. Bounty hunters? Perhaps – if on the job; I can maybe see an upstrata opera-goer carrying something similar to Obi-Wan’s pocket binocs, and downstrata podrace attendees renting civilian styles, but that’s about it. A shipbound captain/smuggler certainly wouldn’t need to keep a pair on their person, neither would a shopkeeper, nor a politician!
Visually, as usual, please note that none of these are particularly colorful (the clone model has some detailing, but it’s still offwhite overall); none have any exterior text (that’s what the display is for!); and none have any factional branding. However, they all appear to have some degree of weathering, suggesting long use. So: muted colors, text-free, no logos, and at least a bit of wear and tear – wouldn’t you know it, yet again, these are our fundamental elements of good SW design!
Is there anything I’ve overlooked? Let me know with a comment below, or come discuss with us at the SWLH facebook group!

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