How tall would a 3 3/4" scale AT-AT be? Are we talking 6' or 7' tall?
As I'm sure you know, an AT-AT correctly scaled for 4 inch Hasbro figures would be absolutely ENORMOUS, far larger than my SAndcrawler!
For those of you that own the
STAR WARS Chronicles photo refernce book, the land vessels comparisons page shows the Sandcrawler as dwarfing an AT-AT in scale. In my humble opinion, this is incorrect. Based of what we've seen in the films themselves, an AT-AT is definitely larger than a Sandcrawler:
My custom built Jawa Sandcrawler takes it's scale (basically) from film and photo references of the full-sized filming set used in Tunisia. This was where we saw the
relative height of the Sandcrawler's treads when compared to jawas, droids, and average heighted individuals (C-3PO, Uncle Owen, Luke Skywalker, Ben Kenobi, etc.)
Based on that information, a correct Hasbro-scaled Sandcrawler was determined to be (approximately) 2-1/2 FEET tall and just over 5 FEET in length. Pretty big.
Now let's look at the AT-AT based on what we saw in TESB. Here is what was written in the technical commentaries over at The Force.net:
The scale of the AT-AT is contentious. There are several independent claims and points of evidence:
• West End Games and derivative sources indicate a height of fifteen metres, but they do not state any justification or proof. Their number could be an arbitrary invention for all we know. On the other hand, AT-AT walkers seem much bigger in the movies.
• A late-stage ILM scaling diagram from the production of The Empire Strikes Back indicates a height of about 14.5m. However it's impossible to say whether this diagram reflects the final condition of the movie.
• Long-range views of Luke Skywalker ascending a cable beneath an AT-AT indicate a height of 22.6m, with a precision of seven percent.
• Comparison of an AT-AT and the scale of the handrails of a docking platform at Endor in Return of the Jedi indicate a height of about 23m, with the rail being slightly more than 1.0m above the deck. This is consistent with architectural standards handrails on Earth.
• One of the walkers on Hoth managed to crush Skywalker's snowspeeder, covering most of the vehicle with the walker's footpad. If an AT-AT is about 23m tall, the foot diameter is about 4.5m. The snowspeeder's length is independently known from set blueprints: 4.53m. If the AT-AT was only 15m tall, it could not have covered the 'speeder as well as it did.
• Interestingly, the length of the snowspeeder as indicated by set blueprints [The Art of STAR WARS Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back] is 4.5m, which would suggest that the walker foot should have covered it. However vehicles on movie sets are traditionally built underscale. Oddly, the West End Games value for the snowspeeder length is 5.5m, which supports the larger, non-WEG value walker height.
• A stormtrooper officer receiving orders from General Veers was able to stand and walk within the AT-AT cockpit. If the vehicle was only scaled to 15m tall, the space between floor and ceiling in the cockpit would have been no more than 1.3m. The walker must be scaled to over 20m in height in order to allow the observed cockpit scenes to fit.
• Observations of a snowspeeder in the act of tying an AT-AT's legs would provide another scale estimate. By initial eyeball estimates, these scenes seem to support a larger AT-AT height.
On the balance of evidence, an AT-AT walker is approximately 23m tall and 26m long. Judging by direct front views, the hull width is approximately 35% of the height, the width across the legs is about 26% of the height, and the width across the toes is about 46% of the height.So if our friends over at The Force.net are correct (and I believe they are!), an AT-AT stands approximately 75-1/2 FEET tall. So much for early descriptions of the AT-AT in magazines and documentaries as "...40 foot tall giants..." Way off!
That's equivalent to 12-1/2 average men (6 FEET in height) standing end to end.
If we stand 12-1/2 average STAR WARS figures (4 inches in height) end to end, we get 50 inches (or an AT-AT's correct HASBRO scale height). Add to that the fact that Hasbro's Snowspeeder is actually too LARGE in its scale size for Hasbro figures, and this all seems to pan out.
My friends,
THAT translates to a toy that would be (sigh)
4 FEET 2 inches in height. LARGER than a correctly-scaled Sandcrawler.
Now, just to give you some perspective on this: The
largest AT-AT miniature built by ILM for filming
The Empire Strikes Back came in at roughly the same 4 feet in height!