8

I'm asking about Star Wars because it claims to take place in our universe, but disconnected from us in space and time (a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away).

Even though the Star Wars universe has "humans", do we really know the scale of everything in the Star Wars universe to be the same as in the real world? Maybe everything in Star Wars is 10% the size, or 100%, or 10X bigger; or smaller.

The wikia page for the Imperial Standard Meter presumes that an Imperial Standard Meter is the same as a meter. This is not convincing.

Is there anything in canon, which really relates the scale of things in Star Wars to the real world? For example, knowing the speed on light in Imperial Standard units would do the job (presuming that we assume that the relationship between Imperial time units and SI time units is known).

Improve this question
9
  • 11
    My question is why would you presume they were NOT the same? What particular benefit would you get from assuming things were bigger or smaller than they appeared to be from the films. They are measured in meters, feet, yards, miles or lightyears, why would they be using a measure different from the ones we use if the writers want us to be able to identify with them without having to constantly remeasure things in our head?
    – Thaddeus Howze
    Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 19:58
  • 1
    @Thaddeus: why would you assume they ARE the same? Not having a reason to presume they aren't the same isn't a reason to presume they are the same.
    – ThePopMachine
    Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 20:05
  • 6
    But seeing how HUMANS are designing the series, humans are writing the series, humans have to build the sets, design the products, Humans even star in the series. The canon publications list everything in human measurements, OUR measurement systems. Why would you ASSUME THEY WOULD BE DIFFERENT? It's a question that answers it self because the simplest answer is most likely to be right. They would use the same measurement systems because we created them. If they were aliens, written BY aliens, THAT might make them potentially different.
    – Thaddeus Howze
    Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 20:13
  • I'm pretty sure there is no canon source...I've read a lot of books and other SW-related 'research' and have never seen it explicitly compare a SW-related unit to our world. There's just no point, since the units they use appear to be 'standard' and similar to ours to make it easy to understand (Galactic Coordinated Time, Standard meter, Galactic Basic)
    – The Fallen
    Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 21:26
  • 1
    I'd vote for everything in the Star Wars universe being smaller. That might explain the lack of handrails everywhere; falls aren't such a big deal when terminal velocity is low because of air resistance. Much easier to have flying cars and jet packs, too.
    – Kyle Jones
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 3:56

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
14

The canon answer is yes.

Per the (fully Disney canon) Star Wars Made Easy factbook, the "humans" we see in the Star Wars universe are anatomically identical to Earth-humans. This obviously includes their size and scale.

ARE THE HUMANS THERE "US"?

You mean, did they come from Earth and have our history? No, they're in a galaxy far, far away—I thought we covered this! These humans are not related to us at all, though they are anatomically identical, which probably made casting the movies a lot easier.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    In theory, couldn't they be anatomically identical but sized on a different scale? "He is exactly like you in every way... except 1/8th your size"
    – Skooba - Stands Against AI
    Commented Jun 12, 2018 at 14:36
  • 4
    @Skooba - Judge me by my size, do you? And he's 4 inches tall...
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 12, 2018 at 14:39
  • Nice find there!!
    – Conrad Bennish Jr
    Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 0:50
28

See this question and this answer.

Star Wars and E.T. are in the same universe. Members of E.T.'s species appear in the Senate chamber in Star Wars Episode I.

The humans that appear in E.T. are at least roughly the same size, relative to E.T., that the Star Wars humans are relative to the folks from Brodo Asogi in Star Wars.

(The idea of Star Wars and E.T. being in the same universe almost certainly started as a joke, but according to the linked answer, Spielberg and Lucas have put enough canon information in both universes to confirm it.)

Conclusion: Earth humans and Star Wars humans are close to the same size.

This assumes, of course, that E.T. takes place in our universe; we see more than enough information in the movie to confirm that that's the intention. It's conceivable, I suppose, that E.T. takes place in a parallel universe with a different scale, but that's not particularly plausible.

EDIT :

There are also physical problems with having human-shaped creatures of significantly different sizes. We've seen Star Wars humans walking around on a number of different planets, and they always appear to be moving normally. A human-shaped creature that's say, 10 meters tall would move very differently, assuming he could even support his own weight. Lower gravity could partly solve that, but then such creatures would have to move more slowly, and we'd have to assume that the movies are shown with a different time scale. Similar considerations apply for smaller human-like creatures. And we'd have to assume that the Galaxy Far Far Away is full of planets that appear Earth-like, but that consistently have substantially different surface gravities and breathable atmospheres.

(Personally, I like the idea that the "humans" in Star Wars are not human at all, that they're some random alien species that happens to dominate the galaxy, and they're portrayed by human actors in the movies for the sake of storytelling. But the E.T./Brodo Asogi connection probably contradicts that idea.)

Improve this answer
16
  • 13
    If Star Wars and E.T. are the same Universe, how is it that Star Wars is a movie franchise in the E.T. Universe? (Elliot plays with a Boba Fett action-figure, and has Star Wars-themed pajamas and blankets!)
    – Channel72
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 2:41
  • 4
    @Channel72 - Writers love doing stuff like this. For another example, Futurama and the Simpsons have crossed over into each others' stories, but they are apparently also fictional to each other.
    – Goodbye Stack Exchange
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 4:13
  • 3
    @Channel72 - maybe E.T. brought the idea of Star Wars to earth!
    – The Fallen
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 15:03
  • 10
    @Channel72 - Because star wars 4-6 are actually a documentary about what happened a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away... 1-3 are anti Nemodian propaganda designed to color our trade relations with them.
    – Chad
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 15:06
  • 2
    George Lucas is a Force user and saw the whole thing. And decided he could use it to sell toys.
    – John Sensebe
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 22:09

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.