Star Wars Revealed How Its Interrogation Droid Works – And It’s Terrifying
The Interrogation Unit from A New Hope still remains a stand-out droid in Star Wars, yet its methods of interrogation are the stuff of nightmares.
The Star Wars original trilogy has no subtly surrounding the Empire, with Imperials mostly serving as the space-Nazis of the galaxy. Yet despite this, Star Wars usually refrains from showing the truly horrific side of the Empire, with most of its plans being cartoonishly evil and over-the-top. However, A New Hope still features one of the darkest and most terrifying aspects of the Star Wars galaxy to date — the interrogation droid.
With Princess Leia captured aboard the Death Star, a small black droid interrogates her for the location of the Rebel base. Named the IT-O Interrogation Unit, this droid is nothing more than a floating orb with a comically large needle strapped on. And yet it’s remained one of the most recognizable droids in Star Wars, and even featured decades later on Star Wars Rebels and The Bad Batch. But while its design may be simple, its interrogation methods are certainly not.
The main purpose of the IT-O droid was to extract information by any means necessary. It would first approach the target with its unnecessarily long needle to frighten them, then inject a Truth Serum to make them give up valuable information. It’s unknown how accurate this drug was at extracting the truth, but the droid would use a built-in lie detector to see if it was working.
While terrible for most, Jedi were taught to resist the effects of any “mind probe,” which made hunting Jedi all the more difficult. Star Wars Rebels is a prime example, for the Jedi hunters (known as Inquisitors) would use IT-O droids on captured Jedi to try to locate their friends, but their methods always proved futile. This could also explain why the interrogation never worked with Leia in A New Hope, as Vader is surprised that, “her resistance to the mind probe is considerable.”
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back shows Han being lowered onto some kind of torture device in Cloud City. And on Andor, the Empire is at its worst, using the screams of dying children as audio for tortured prisoners. And yet, each of these is topped by the methods of the Interrogation Droid, as it held all manner of terrible equipment within its small body to force a confession.
The most common tactic was to electrocute the prisoner and send sonic pulses through their brain while on the truth serum, in an attempt to overwhelm them with pain. And most terrible of all was revealed in Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, which claims the droids have “flesh peelers” and “joint cripplers.” And while it doesn’t go into detail, the names certainly leave little to the imagination.
And so, understandably, Star Wars tends to cut away when these droids enter a scene, and only a few characters have ever faced the wrath of an IT-O interrogation in current canon. But still, they’re a reminder the Empire isn’t as cartoonish as it may seem, as its behind-the-scene methods and morals paint a truly horrific picture.
