Founded in 1957, Galoob was a toy brand best known as the home of Micro Machines, and was given a license in 1994 to add Star Wars to its lineup. In addition to rolling the franchise into Micro Machines’ existing style of tiny molded plastic miniatures, a larger scale die-cast series was released under the Micro Machines banner, called Action Fleet. The size of these toys allowed for greater detail, features, and for figures to fit into them. They were released individually, with playsets, or with play accessories like the handheld Flight Controller. The trio of “Transforming Playsets” released in 1996 and 1997 were notable for having box art created by Ralph McQuarrie. This artwork was the last new work that he would contribute to the Star Wars franchise.
Naturally, the Y-wing was a clear subject to depict in this series. The defining trait of this version was its the large canopy size. The proportions were also chunky, similar to Kenner and Hasbro’s action figure scaled Y-wing. In terms of reference, Galoob had commissioned ILM model maker Adam Savage to create miniatures of the Y-wing and Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter. While they must have used it, Bill George’s miniature also seems like it would have been a reference point, judging by the fuselage.
It was released in three (technically four) different liveries. The gold livery was first, with a “clean” variant and one that had dirt or damage printed onto it. The red and blue versions followed; neither of them used the traditional “flagged Y” striping pattern. Action Fleet’s Y-wings were released as standalone toys as well as being included in the Y-wing Flight Controller. The packaging for these Y-wings purported that they were the two-seater BTL-S3 version. Though there is some space behind the pilot, it is not enough to fit a second figure, and these toys were only ever released with one pilot and an astromech droid. The cramped rear might also be due to the canopy hinge taking up space.†
Galoob was acquired by Hasbro in 1998. Under new ownership, the Action Fleet series did continue for a time, but ended in 2003
† For this project, these will be built as true two-seater BTL-S3s.
Decipher Inc. is a gaming company whose primary association with Star Wars was their Customizable Card Game which ran from 1995 to 2001. Near the end of this period, Decipher also created the short-lived Young Jedi Collectible Card Game and the Jedi Knights Trading Card game. Jedi Knights began in 2001, and stood out by only using computer generated artwork in order to create dual-image, stereoscopic art. One of the artists who was commissioned to contribute CG assets to the project was Alexey “Al” Meerow. At the time, he maintained a website for his work portfolio, and hosted his Y-wing asset as a publicly downloadable file. Over the years, it would be hosted and used by Meerow and others across the web.
The model has a handful of traits that set it apart. It has an off-center astromech socket which sits just slightly to the starboard side, and an oval on the stern with Meerow’s initials “ALM” in the center. Less radical departures include the longer nose, narrow canopy, the engine nacelles rotated 45 degrees, and the forward guns’ square muzzles. Meerow cited Troy Vigil’s schematic in The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels as a reference in an interview. It took him two weeks of work to model it, spread out across three to four months.
Over the next two decades, Meerow’s rendition of the Y-wing saw extensive and varied use, dramatically outstripping its original commission for the Knights card game. It is commonly used by both fan and franchise alike. On the fan side, perhaps the most high profile usage was in Paul Johnson’s TIE Fighter anime short film released in 2015. Jeff and Daniel John Harris’ 2018 fan film The Lost Patrol uses the Meerow Y-wing for at least one shot, but otherwise uses the Special Edition style Y-wing.
Meerow’s Y-wing is commonly used by both fan and franchise alike. On the fan side, perhaps the most high profile usage was in Paul Johnson’s TIE Fighter anime short film released in 2015. Jeff and Daniel John Harris’ 2018 fan film The Lost Patrol uses the Meerow Y-wing for at least one shot, but otherwise uses the Special Edition style Y-wing.
On the franchise side, Meerow’s Y has far outstripped its original purpose in the Jedi Knights Card Game, appearing in:
The body of the Rebels Y-wing also seemed to take some inspiration from this version. While the interior and head were based on the original The Clone Wars BTL-B asset, the middle bout of the fuselage and underside include some of Meerow’s cues, like the pronounced toroid ring around the bomb hatch.
In 2002, Battlefield 1942 was released, part of the newly minted genre of Class-Based Shooters (named for the combat classes that players can choose from). In 2003, modders had already released a Star Wars overhaul for 1942 called Galactic Conquest. The demand for a full-fledged Star Wars game in this genre this was clear. Fortunately, Pandemic Studios was well underway with one: Battlefront. It was released in 2004, and featured the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War on land and in the air. Two of the maps in the game allowed players to take to the skies in a Y-wing. Compared to the Lucasarts/Special Edition-derived model that had been used in Rogue Squadron II and III, the Battlefront Y-wing model is surprisingly rudimentary, possibly due to the rigors of online gameplay and player counts.
Pandemic released the sequel, Battlefront II, in 2005. One of the many additions was space combat, in which the Y-wing had the role as the Rebel Alliance’s bomber. It appeared to be indistinguishable from the previous game’s Y-wing. In both titles, the Y-wings were perhaps the most visible usage of the “BTL-S3B” submodel. Whereas most Y-wing turrets use ion cannons (regardless of how many seats it had) these Y-wings had a blaster turret instead, thus the name. Essential Guide to Warfare introduced this new designation in 2012 to clarify why some Y-wing turrets did conventional damage while most did not.
The contrast between the X-wing and the Y-wing was always that the X was like a dragster, while the Y was more of a hot rod. In Joe Johnston’s 1977 The Star Wars Sketchbook, he explained that Rebel technicians left the armor off after having to constantly repair them. He likened it to leaving the hood off of a car.
In 1998, DK Publishing released Incredible Cross Sections. The book lavishly illustrated the vehicles of the Star Wars saga, with cutaways revealing their mechanisms and interiors. Previously vague detailing and greebles were explained explicitly and pseudo-mechanically to be hyperdrives, power generators, or other components. Most of the vehicles were drawn out across two-page spreads in order to annotate all the small elements, and the Y-wing was one such subject.
A short aside in the corner of the page revisited the anecdote about the Y-wing’s discarded armor. A small illustration shows an example, with a glimpse into the ship’s past that had only been described until that point: fully clad in armor, with an orange livery. This style was seen again in the version of The Force Unleashed for PS2, PSP, and the Wii in November of 2008, the first and only time this style was put into motion in any medium. In the months prior to that, however, there was a shift. The Clone Wars television series began in September, along with many other tie-ins, such as the graphic novella Shipyards of Doom. In it, and the next handful of episodes of the TV show in October, the Y-wing’s earlier days were revisited, but in a new way: the BTL-B, the Republic Y-wing. These had a vastly different hull design compared to what Incredible Cross Sections had depicted, and the 1998 hull generally fell by the wayside.
After the Disney era began, April 25, 2014 marked the new start point for what would and would not be considered canon in the franchise. It began again with the six saga episodes that existed at the time, The Clone Wars feature film and animated series, and part one of Blade Squadron, a short story series which had started only three days prior. Other than some specifically noted exceptions, everything after this point would be considered canon, with everything else using the branding “Legends”. Meanwhile, the Incredible Cross Sections series had continued to grow since 1998, and now also included the Complete Vehicles compilations. In regards to the also-ran 1998 Y-wing armor, things were getting hazy. F-Toys released a blind-bag miniature of the 1998 hull in 2016, the only merchandise of the craft that has ever existed. Despite The Clone Wars’ BTL-B seeming to overwrite the 1998 hull, the 2018 edition of Complete Vehicles surprisingly included it, and even more surprisingly attempted to rationalize the co-existence of both the 1998 and 2008 styles in-universe. It implied that the 1998 version was more or less the standard Y-wing body type, while the 2008 BTL-B was the “heavier bomber variant which was notable for its bulkier hull design”. However, the book’s 2020 edition left out any mention or appearance of the 1998 armor, perhaps signaling its end.
The Longprobe variant of the Y-wing was mentioned throughout the 90s, but it outwardly looked the same as any standard Y-wing. This changed (somewhat) with the release of 2004’s Jump to Lightspeed, an expansion to the online game Galaxies.
As it had been done in the tabletop RPG realm, Galaxies had the BTL-S3 and Longprobe as its two Y-wing models, and like many online games, customization and equipment leveling played a big part. Customizing the engines was one such option. The Base Engines resembled the Y-wings seen in most media, but the Adv Engines were a new design that sat higher and were enclosed. Even though both Y-wing types could use either engine, the game’s Adv Engine has become more synonymous with the Longprobe due to the superior specs of both the Longprobe and the upgraded engines. Because of this gameplay-oriented pairing, Longprobe’s design now can feel incomplete without the Adv Engines. Other modifications available were various paint patterns and colors, turret placement, and more.
As Rebels progressed, Y-wings took on their more familiar Original Trilogy appearance. The partial armor seen at Reklam station was dropped, and they were now single-seaters. The show’s Ralph McQuarrie-esque aesthetic naturally presented a more simplified surface detailing compared to the films.
This type ended up as a hodgepodge of three different Y-wing sources. Like the “Reklam” variant before it, these used the Clone Wars BTL-B CG asset. Unlike the long-headed “Reklam” Y-wings however, the head was now shortened to a more typical length. Some signifying traits from the Clone Wars asset remained: an open-roofed canopy, a closed nose, long forward guns, and a specifically styled interior with a solid back behind the pilot seat. With the armor removed, wholly new sections had to be created to make it look like a Rebellion era Y-wing. The second source appears to be the Al Meerow Y-wing, evident in the underside of the hull, the middle bout of the fuselage, turret, and the highly rounded thrust vectrals on the back of the engines. The third source seems to be the original miniatures which is seen in the arm detailing, engine nacelles, and by not including the Meerow oval on the stern.
Five different color schemes appeared on the show’s BTL-A4s, and seem to be “palette swaps” on the same base CG asset. Gold Squadron colors were understandably the most common, and they were frequently seen landed throughout the airfield on Yavin 4. ILM’s Gold Two miniature is the stylistic basis for all of Rebels’ Gold Squadron Y-wings. They take after its color patterning on the head, the gold piping, and plain engine domes without gold rings. Fittingly, in their first appearance in “Secret Cargo”, Ezra Bridger fills in and uses the Gold Two callsign.
The other four color schemes are first seen in “Zero Hour” during the Battle of Atollon. Some of these Y-wings used a different paint pattern: separated stripes that sat along the side edges of the canopy, and on the engines, a smaller split ring on the front of the domes. Some of the fighters used this pattern in red, some used it in green. Curiously, the red-marked fighters were designated as Blue Squadron in behind-the-scenes notes. The rest of the fighters in Green Group used the film-used paint pattern but in green, though with the unusual green piping on the fuselage. Fighters resembling Red Jammer also flew at the Battle of Atollon in “Zero Hour”, in the background on Yavin 4 in “Kindred”, and during the assault on Lothal in “Rebel Assault”.
Outside of Rebels, this CG asset was re-textured and used again for the Galaxy of Adventure animated online series. The canopy roof on these were now solid instead of clear, and were now closer in paint style to Gold Three rather than Gold Two.
Rebels did not feature Y-wings in its first two seasons, but did go on to reveal them in the third season premier “Steps Into Shadow”. In it, Phoenix Cell was tasked with stealing a squadron of them that was in the process of being scrapped at Reklam Station, a floating Imperial salvage installation on Yarma. Their armor left over from the Clone Wars remained only in part, with the engines and fuselage somewhat exposed. In contrast to to the Original Trilogy Y-wings, the head reached further aft in order to accommodate the full length BTL-B-style canopy style.
Pat Presley
Technical specs for Republic and Rebel Y-wings show that they differ in length. The classic Y-wings of the Original trilogy have a length of around 16 meters, while the armored Y-wings of the Republic have a length of over 23 meters. The difference in length is due to the latter’s extended engine pods. By the time Y-wings appeared at Reklam, the engines have been shortened, which brings their total length in line with the Y-wings of the Original Trilogy.
The Haynes Rebel Starfighter Owner’s Workshop Manual claims that these Y-wings were BTL-A4s (the single-seater model), but behind-the-scenes images of the 3D asset show that it had a rear seat and rear canopy hatch, meaning they were present but unused during the episode. While BTL-Bs had a signature bubble turret, the Reklam Y-wings did not have them, which would at first seem to disqualify it from being that model. However, Captain Rex’s BTL-B was both seen with a bubble in The Clone Wars, and without a bubble in The Bad Batch. On the latter version, the turret that replaced the bubble looks just like the ones seen at Reklam. Rather than being BTL-A4s, a workable explanation could be that the Reklam Y-wings were BTL-Bs that had the same turret refit that Rex’s Y-wing did.
In total, there were four different styles for the “Reklam” variant:
Gold Two style livery: This kind was flown by Captain Rex and Chopper, and had the most armor left on.
BTL-B style livery: Sabine Wren and Garazeb Orrelios flew this kind. Additional ones were flown by remote.
Gold lateral ring on nose, red accents: Inspired by McQuarrie’s painting of the Cantwell Y-wing on Yavin 4.
Red-striped livery: Used as an enemy fighter in a flight simulator, in the “The Antilles Extraction”.
A mangled version of this CG asset was used to portray a crashed Clone Wars-era Y-wing outside of the Syndulla residence in the Rebels episode “Hera’s Heroes”, and multiple episodes of The Bad Batch. Aside from that technicality, after “Steps into Shadow” and “The Antilles Extraction”, Y-wings never looked this way again. Y-wings of the later episodes in the series look much more similar to that of the Original Trilogy ones.
Alongside X-wing, Lucasarts released Rebel Assault in 1993, the first Star Wars game that was developed entirely by Lucasarts, and their first game built for CD-ROMs. While X-wing and Rebel Assault were both starfighter combat games, they played in entirely different ways. Rebel Assault was a rail-shooter, which had players move along set paths, flying in third or first person. This allowed pre-rendered assets to populate the scenes and create environments. Though limited in gameplay, the CD-ROM’s generous storage afforded it visuals that exceeded what consumer hardware would have been able to generate in real time, and delivered a more cinematic and pre-determined experience. The sequel, Rebel Assault II took this further. The first game’s cutscenes
In 1997, George Lucas revisited the original trilogy with the Special Editions, which re-incorporated some deleted scenes and leveraged the advancements of digital effects that had occurred since the trilogy ended in the early 80s. For Star Wars, CG X-wings and Y-wings were added for the Battle of Yavin alongside original shots that used miniatures. John Knoll (co-developer of Photoshop and eventual VFX supervisor for the Prequel Trilogy) worked on the SE’s CG ships. According to the American Society of Cinematographers, “Knoll’s Y-wing actually incorporated about 40 percent of the CG model built in Lucasfilm’s games division”.
John Knoll’s revision had a unique trait: the fuselage arms met the engines at the exact equator instead of in the upper hemisphere as all other Y-wings had done before. This was the only time this style was used for a Star Wars film, since the CG Y-wings in 2016’s Rogue One were a totally new asset based upon the 70s miniatures. After the Special Editions, this style of Y-wing would return to games in the early 00s. The popular Rogue Squadron for the Nintendo 64 had two sequels, and both of them used derivatives of the “Rebel Assault II” model for both their cutscene and in-game Y-wings, though with some changes in dimension.
The wall decal company Fathead used the SE shape for its Y-wing decals. The renders for these are also currently used as the main images on multiple Y-wing pages on Wookieepedia. This Y-wing shape may actually have the greatest breadth of any style, even if it is not the original version seen in Star Wars’ theatrical release.
In 1979, George Lucas founded the Lucasfilm Computer Division, with different teams that explored advancements in computer graphics, video games, and audiovisual editing. The “Games Group” was formalized as Lucasfilm Games in 1982, but third party companies held the license to make Star Wars games until 1991. For the time being, Lucasfilm Games had to turn its attention to other projects. Along with the first graphical MMORPG with Habitat, and its eventual reputation as a graphic adventure game powerhouse, Lucasfilm’s early work had to do with fictional vehicle simulation games. This subgenre described their first four games, released in 1985: Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus!, The Eidolon, and Koronis Rift. All of them had players take a pilot’s perspective; the latter three of them placed emphasis on the player’s point of view at the controls. The cockpit instruments in these games were not merely decorative: they were part of the gameplay itself, and players had to read them as a pilot would. This particular style of gameplay led Lucasfilm Games to publish a trio of WWII-era flight simulator games: Battlehawks 1942, Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain, and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. These were developed by Totally Games, and were directed, designed, and programmed by the company’s co-founder Lawrence Holland.
As the 80s turned to the 90s, Skywalker Sound, ILM, and Lucasfilm Games were combined to form Lucasarts. This did not last long, and eventually the former two groups were instead spun off into Lucas Digital Ltd, while Lucasfilm Games became the entirety of Lucasarts. Soon after, the third-party licensing term concluded, allowing them to publish and develop Star Wars games for the first time. After co-developing and publishing, Lucasarts once again teamed up with Holland and Totally Games to release X-wing in 1993. An air combat simulator in the vein of their WWII trilogy, players could tactically choose between power to engines, weapons, or shields in what proved to be a potent and enduring gameplay mechanic.
The game’s central hangar had small cutscenes with its playable craft before and after missions. Among these was the Y-wing. While the 3D model is crude by today’s standards and the proportions and detail deviate greatly from the source material, it was notable for being the first Y-wing ever made with 3D graphics in any medium. Later, 1998’s Rebellion seemed to use a version of this asset for its cutscenes, but with more realistic textures and a traditional gold livery instead of red. X-wing was a success and had three sequels, TIE Fighter, X-wing vs. TIE Fighter, and X-wing Alliance. TIE Fighter brought full 3D to the gameplay itself, which had previously used sprites for enemy fighters. Four squadrons of Y-wings appeared, Gold, Red, Blue, and Green.