Slave I is a spacecraft

Spacecraft

A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....

 in the Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

universe. It first appears in the film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner. The screenplay, based on a story by George Lucas, was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan...

under the command of bounty hunter

Bounty hunter

A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward . Other names, mainly used in the United States, include bail enforcement agent and fugitive recovery agent.-Laws in the U.S.:...

 Boba Fett

Boba Fett

Boba Fett is a character in Star Wars. A bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to find the Millennium Falcon, he is a minor villain in both Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi....

 (Jeremy Bulloch

Jeremy Bulloch

Jeremy Bulloch is an English actor. He is best known for the role inside the costume of the bounty hunter Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy, though he did not voice the character...

), and then in the prequel film Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a 2002 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas and written by Lucas and Jonathan Hales. It is the fifth film to be released in the Star Wars saga and the second in terms of the series' internal chronology...

commanded by Jango Fett

Jango Fett

Jango Fett is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He first appeared as one of the main antagonists in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and later served as the protagonist of the LucasArts video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, played by Temuera Morrison.Jango Fett serves as...

 (Temuera Morrison

Temuera Morrison

Temuera Derek Morrison is a New Zealand-born actor. He has become one of the country's most famous stars for his roles as the abusive Jake "the Muss" Heke in 1994's Once Were Warriors and as bounty hunter Jango Fett and the Clone Troopers in the Star Wars series...

). Slave I also appears in numerous Star Wars Expanded Universe

Star Wars Expanded Universe

The Star Wars Expanded Universe encompasses all of the officially licensed, fictional background of the Star Wars universe, outside of the six feature films produced by George Lucas. The expanded universe includes books, comic books, video games, spin-off films like Star Wars: The Clone Wars,...

 books, comics, and video games; toys and models of the craft have been made by a variety of merchandising licensees.

Origin and design

The ship's design is said to resemble the shape of a street lamp. However, the actual inspiration for the shape of the ship was a radar dish according to Nilo Rodis-Jamero, the assistant art director and visual effects creator on The Empire Strikes Back. Rodis-Jamero created the initial design after seeing Joe Johnston

Joe Johnston

Joseph Eggleston "Joe" Johnston II is an American film director and former effects artist best known for such effects-driven movies as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park III, the period drama October Sky, The Wolfman, and Captain America: The First Avenger.- Life and...

's ideas for Boba Fett

Boba Fett

Boba Fett is a character in Star Wars. A bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to find the Millennium Falcon, he is a minor villain in both Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi....

 and states that "the original design I had was round, but when you looked at it from the side, it became elliptical...George [Lucas] thought it was elliptical, so that's what it became." He goes on to say that "[w]hen building the ship at ILM, someone looked at the street lamps and pointed out that they looked like Boba's ship. So everyone began to think that was where I got the idea for the design." Its appearance in the original release of The Empire Strikes Back was realized by a combination of matte painting

Matte painting

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques...

s and a 69-centimeter model.

Depiction

Slave I is an antiquated Kuat Systems Engineering Firespray-interceptor-class ship; both Jango Fett and Boba Fett modified and upgraded the ship's engines, weapons, and defenses.

The video game Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a Star Wars video game developed and published by LucasArts for the Nintendo GameCube and Sony PlayStation 2, released in 2002. In the game, players play as the bounty hunter Jango Fett, featured in the 2002 film Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones...

depicts Jango Fett's theft of Slave I.

Jango and his clone, Boba, escape Kamino

Kamino

Kamino is an ocean planet, in the fictional Star Wars universe, similar to Mon Calamari and Manaan. It was here that the Army of the Republic was generated. It is inhabited by a race of tall, elegant, long-necked creatures, called Kaminoans, who keep to themselves and are known for their cloning...

 aboard the Slave I in Attack of the Clones. However, Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. He is one of several primary characters in the Star Wars series. Along with Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3PO, he is one of the few major characters to appear in all six Star Wars films...

 (Ewan McGregor

Ewan McGregor

Ewan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...

) tracks the ship to Geonosis, site of the film's climactic battle.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett tracks and then departs Bespin

Bespin

Bespin is a fictional planet, a gas giant in Star Wars films and books. The planet was first seen in the 1980 feature film Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back...

 with a now carbonite-imprisoned Han Solo

Han Solo

Han Solo is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise played by Harrison Ford. Introduced in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope , Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, Chewbacca , become involved in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire...

 (Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...

) in his cargo hold.

In other material, the Rebel Alliance impounded the ship after Boba Fett's supposed death in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...

; Fett later recovered the ship, flying the Slave II until Slave I's refit was complete.

Merchandise

Kenner

Kenner

Kenner Products was a toy company founded in 1947 by three brothers, Albert, Phillip, and Joseph L. Steiner, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, and was named after the street where the original corporate offices were located, which is just north of Cincinnati's Union Terminal.Kenner introduced its...

, Hasbro

Hasbro

Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...

, Code 3 Collectibles

Code 3 Collectibles

Code 3 Collectibles is a company based in Woodland Hills, California that creates customized model vehicles. On April 25, 2007, Matrix Holdings Ltd. entered into a multi-million-dollar agreement with Code 3 Collectibles to purchase the company. On August 19, 2011, Code 3 Collectibles announced is...

, and Galoob

Galoob

Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. was a toy company headquartered on Forbes Blvd. in South San Francisco, California. Best known for distributing the Game Genie, a videogame cheat device, for Codemasters in the US, Galoob was founded by Barbara Frankel and Lewis Galoob in 1954 as an import business. Before...

 have created Slave I toys and replicas. Lego

Lego

Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts...

 released Slave I models, one with Jango Fett's color schemes and two with Boba Fett's color schemes, with a third to be released in 2010. Slave I is an unlockable and pilotable craft in LucasArts

LucasArts

LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...

' Rogue Squadron flight simulator

Flight simulator

A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and various aspects of the flight environment. This includes the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of their controls and other aircraft systems, and how they react to the external...

s, and the ship is controllable in the Star Wars: Empire at War

Star Wars: Empire at War

Star Wars: Empire at War is a 2006 real-time strategy game developed by Petroglyph Games and published by LucasArts. Set between Episode III and Episode IV, it focuses on the fledgling struggle between the Empire and the Rebels. It uses Petroglyph's game engine Alamo. The most recent patch was...

real-time strategy game. Decipher

Decipher, Inc.

Decipher, Inc. is an American gaming company based in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. They began with three puzzles called "Decipher" then moved on to party games and Pente sets, but since 1994 produced collectible card and role-playing games. Their longest-running offering is the How to Host a Murder...

 and Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

 published several Slave I cards as part of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game

Star Wars Customizable Card Game

Star Wars: Customizable Card Game is a customizable card game based on the Star Wars fictional universe. It was created by Decipher, Inc., which also produced the Star Trek Customizable Card Game and The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. The game was produced from December 1995 until December...

 and Star Wars Trading Card Game

Star Wars Trading Card Game

Star Wars: The Trading Card Game was a collectible card game produced by Wizards of the Coast . The original game was created by game designer Richard Garfield, the creator of the first modern trading card game, Magic: The Gathering...

, respectively. Lego

Lego

Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts...

 created several models of Slave I, from both of the films it has appeared in.

Cultural impact

Hasbro toy designer Aaron Archer

Aaron Archer

Aaron C. Archer is a toy designer for the Hasbro toy company from 1995 onwards. Archer has worked on toy lines including Batman, Star Wars, and Alien Resurrection, amongst others. Archer's earliest Transformers work were designs for the later Beast Wars toys, including Transmetal 2 Megatron,...

 claimed at BotCon

BotCon

BotCon, briefly known as "The Official Transformers Collectors' Convention" , is an annual convention for Transformers fans and collectors. BotCon has been held annually since 1994...

2004 that the Transformers: Universe Depthcharge toy's color scheme was meant to resemble Slave-1. Years later Hasbro released a Transformer that actually turned from Boba Fett into Slave-1.