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Seattle v. 5 Star Wars Cities
The Force Awakens has received glowing reviews, and everyone is feeling The Force flow through them.
It’s a perfect time to look back on the old Star Wars we’ve known and loved for years, to remember Darth Vader and Obi-Wan and Yoda—and a perfect time to look at the cities those characters passed through. How do those long-time-ago and far-far-away places compare to our own beloved, rainy Seattle?
5. Gungan City
The underwater, bubbled Gungan City was a bizarre, beautiful place in one of the worst-reviewed Star Wars movies. It sits on the ocean floor of the planet Naboo, and its location is a secret to everyone but the floppy-eared Gungans.
Gungan City is built of force-field bubbles that keeps water out but lets people in. Its layout is a hub-and-spoke network—in a way, it looks similar to cities that grew out of streetcar networks. Think of each bubble as a streetcar stop, as a burst of stores and restaurants amid a sea of residential areas. These bubbles expand outward from a downtown core.
Similarity to Seattle: Green Lake used to be a streetcar stop. And we have the light rail stations stretching from downtown to Sea-Tac. But to have a true city like Gungan City, we’d need a whole lot more “bubbles.” There’s a plan to do that, though.
4. Theed
This one comes from the first movie, too. It’s Queen Amidala’s city, the one invaded by battle droids and Darth Maul. It’s a Neoclassical paradise. Lavish gardens, old European extravagance, stoic monuments. It’s more Baroque Mediterranean than the Baroque Mediterranean.
We only see Theed during an occupation, but it still seems… fabricated. There’s no traffic, no industry. Nothing but luxury and privileged residents. This isn’t a sustainable city.
Similarity to Seattle: This might be Mercer Island or Medina if they received an superinjection of income and a few hundred years of stone architecture.
3. Mos Eisely
Mos Eisely is the first city we met in the Star Wars universe, back in 1977. It’s where Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker met Han Solo for the first time, and it’s where we saw the dirty underbelly of aliens and starships.
Take everything about Theed, and turn it on its head. This is a frontier town on a backwater planet. An entire city of crime and danger—a “hive of scum and villainy.” Murderers, thieves, smugglers, bounty hunters, crime lords—these are the people who call Mos Eisely home. It’s as unsustainable as Theed, but for the opposite reasons.
Similarity to Seattle: This place makes Pioneer Square look like a playground. Unless the country descends into lawlessness, we’ll never anything like this in our city. Thank goodness.
2. Cloud City
Han Solo was frozen into a block of carbonite here, shortly after Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford delivered the classic, “I love you,” “ I know,” exchange. Cloud City is a space station floating above a gas planet, but although the premise is extremely sci-fi, it’s one of the most believable Star Wars cities.
Cloud City has industry (gas mining), it has traffic (complete with police), and it has class divisions (just look at the types of people in those quick shots that establish setting). It’s a working city, but it’s not without an upperclass.
Similarity to Seattle: Replace clouds with tech, and Cloud City feels pretty familiar. We aren’t a one-company town, but housing prices and lack of inventory show just how much one growing industry affects this city. Cloud City even has those semi-underground tunnels where Luke and Darth Vader fight, which bear a faint similarity to our city’s own underground backstory.
1. Coruscant
This is the galactic capitol. The city-planet. Urban sprawl covers the entire landscape with thousand-story skyscrapers, the Jedi Temple, and the massive Senate building.
We see traffic here, but for an entire planet’s worth of people, that traffic seems surprisingly light. The only explanation? Public transportation. Coruscant must have its share of flying busses and futuristic light rail. Green space doesn’t really happen, here, unfortunately—I can’t image the air quality.
Similarity to Seattle: Belltown looks like a suburb compared to Coruscant. It’s a good reminder of the importance of preserving spaces like Discovery Park, the Arboretum, and parklets. Fortunately—unlike Coruscant—Seattle’s pretty good at saving space for nature.
