Podracers Are Such BS

Back so soon to piss and moan about Star Wars, am I?

So I’m watching TV and The Phantom Menace comes on, and I gotta say it’s a pretty good movie, ignoring all the non-Maul scenes.

Wait, people have already bitched about everything there is to bitch about in The Phantom Menace? They’ve been going at it for the last twenty-odd years?

Well, have they talked about the podracers?

As I sat down and spent the next ninety or so minutes watching these things whiz around the desert, it really hit me how… impractical these machines are.

And yes, I’m discussing practicality in a movie where an alien flips around with a double-bladed laser sword.

The one constant thread that persists throughout the entirety of the podrace is that these machines are improbably dangerous and will explode at the slightest provocation.

If you recall the events right before the race (and I know you do) Sebulba threw, like, a screwdriver into one of Anakin’s engines. And it wasn’t even super in there! It was like, slightly wedged in.

And this sneak attack almost cost Anakin the race. Sebulba threw a literal wrench – or screwdriver, whatever – into his plans. Hang on – aren’t both Anakin and Qui-Gon force-sensitive? Did nobody feel that? Shit, did nobody see that?

But back to the machines themselves. Anakin got lucky, the way he… jiggled all the buttons and switches until his podracer started working again. Atta boy! But what about that other guy whose machine stalled? He straight-up exploded!

Think about most high-speed vehicles. Heck, think about any Star Wars vehicle. What do they all have in common?

None of them are powered by engines that comprise like eighty percent of their total mass! And these things explode on a whim! And what happens when your cockpit is suddenly launched into the side of a mountain at approximately a million miles per hour?

Are podracers not allowed to install airbags in their machines, maybe even an eject button? Would it be too much to ask to install a roll cage, or is that gonna mess up their drag coefficient too much? I may sometimes resent the fact that I don’t live in a world where I can use force super-speed exactly one time, but I can at least rest easy knowing that my rink-a-dink Corolla won’t explode next time I hit a curb.

That’s all from me for probably a month or two. If you need me, hit me up on Twitter where I’ll be posting my Darth Sebulba fan theory.