In space or on Earth, is Boba Fett’s ship or a Jawa sandcrawler better for running errands?

By Mike Vago, Sam Barsanti | November 18, 2015 | 6:00am

Film Features Film

Star Wars creatures, critters, and robots get lots of appreciation, but what about the imaginative carriages that make all the heroes’ galaxy jetting possible? With Star Wars Wars, The A.V. Club showcases some of the best vehicles in the galaxy far, far away by bringing them down Earth—our Earth, specifically the suburbs, where we imagine what Star Wars conveyances make the best modes of transport for gas-guzzling mall treks and country-club jaunts. Vote for your favorite in our poll, and Friday will see the four winners duke it out for the title of best Star Wars suburban ride. Yesterday saw the tauntaun and AT-AT go head-to-mechanical-head for the best way to get around in wintery conditions; today, our writers defend the better vehicle for running errands.

The best suburban Star Wars errand vehicle

The Jawa sandcrawler brings R2-D2 and C-3P0 to Luke Skywalker, and so what if its owners took the droids against their will and subjected them to viewing the torture of their fellow ’bots? The sandcrawler got them where they needed to go, an enormous house on wheels hardy enough to travel through the desolate Tatooine desert. Boba Fett’s Slave I ship, on the other hand, transported Han Solo in a block of carbonite across the galaxy, taking him to the last place he wanted to go—Jabba The Hutt’s menagerie and Han’s certain doom. Both vehicles played their roles in transporting our heroes and moving their stories forward, but what about when their owners put their cruisers to work on less glamorous activities? Groceries, dry-cleaning, and dropping the kids off at soccer might not be as exciting as transporting captured droids and scoundrels, but everyone in the galaxy needs milk, be it bantha or cow. Which is better for these mundane but necessary tasks? Read on and cast your vote in the poll below.

Boba Fett’s Slave I

Life in the suburbs isn’t about having the most useful or practical vehicle, it’s about having a practical vehicle that is also better than whatever your neighbor has. To that end, there’s no better choice for running errands than Boba Fett’s Slave I. It’s fast, it has slick retro styling, and its cargo hold is secure enough to carry an untrustworthy smuggler frozen in carbonite all the way from Bespin to Tatooine without putting a chip in his handsome face. That means your groceries won’t get tossed around when the youngling at Space-Walmart does a haphazard job bagging them. Plus, while it may lack the absurd size and trampling capability of the sandcrawler, its pair of blaster cannons can easily free up a spot in even the most crowded parking lot—or maybe wipe the grin off the face of that smug jerk down the block when his new SUV is replaced with a smoking crater. [Sam Barsanti]

Jawa sandcrawler

The auto industry sold America on the minivan with one dazzling scenario: What if you had to take all the kids on the Little League team out for ice cream after they win the big game? Here’s a car that can do it. Well, minivans are for chumps. What if you had to take all the kids on every Little League team in your home state out for ice cream? The 130-foot long, five-story, all-wheel-drive Jawa sandcrawler has you covered. Want to be the designated driver for every drunk person in town? Want to help all of your friends move at once? Need to make an Ikea run and buy the entire Ikea? Or just want to make the neighbors’ Hummer feel woefully inadequate by comparison? The sandcrawler is the car/tank/building for you. And those 10-foot-high tank treads are also terrific for traversing a desert landscape, which is handy, since given the sandcrawler’s colossal carbon footprint, your neighborhood is going to look a lot like Tatooine in 20 years. [Mike Vago]