Luke Skywalker’s X-34 landspeeder
First seen in: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Man oh man, did my imagination run bonkers when I first saw this thing as a kid. An open air vehicle (reminiscent of a convertible), with no wheels that hovered a few feet off the ground that also offered speed, what’s not to love with this thing?!
The only reason this vehicle doesn’t rate any higher for me is we never saw it again after the first movie. Since the main action of the films was removed far away from the dusty desert planet of Tatooine, there was no longer any need for a ground based vehicle to appear.
Still though, the most memorable sequence featuring it came as Luke, Obi-Wan, C-3PO, and R2-D2 were all loaded up in it headed towards Mos Eisley and Obi-Wan famously used a Jedi mind trick on the lead stormtrooper that had accosted them.
We never saw the landspeeder after that scene but it aided in the visual transition, taking the film from the sleepy Lars homestead to the eccentric Mos Eisley cantina where things swiftly kicked into high gear.
The landspeeder served as an appropriate segue from the film’s first act towards the subsequent ones. Though its time was relatively brief, it is still worth remembering and it is brought up fondly from fans.