Did Star Wars Forget About Tractor Beams?

7:39 I though gravity well tech was different from tractor beam tech?

It's probably an SFX issue – the lack of a visible beam means it always needs to be exposited to the audience, which complicates things and slows scenes.

Honestly, let's look at the two examples of tractor beam usage in ANH:

1) The Tantive IV had to have its engines disabled first before it could be tractored in. This sorta implies the ISD couldn't pull the Tantive IV in otherwise.

2) The Millenium Falcon vs the Death Star is the ONLY example in films (and TV shows AFAIK) of a tractor beam pulling in a powered ship against its will.

These two datapoints would kind of imply you need a Death Star sized power supply to generate a tractor beam just to pull in a ship that's barely larger than a fighter. Anything less size discrepancy and you either don't inconvenience the target ship enough to matter, or you give up too much other stuff in your ship (weapons, shields, etc) as to not be worth it.

Or maybe tractor beams are used all the damn time in Star Wars which is why everyone flies slow enough relative to each other that they can be tracked by the Mark I eyeball, and it just goes unmentioned because it's so routine to everyone in-universe that there's no need to mention it.

I was trying to figure out why what I was listening to sounded off, and then realized it was because there was no music…
Great video regardless

I believe the power it takes to operate doesn't allow for operations under combat situations.

i always assumed that a ships shields would stop a tractor beam unless the tractor beam was of immense scale such as on the Death star.

The emperor skipped on the tractor beam option on some destroyers.

Fun fact new star wars Canon don't even KNOW it's OWN canon as the Starhawk flys strait into the face what OTHER older CANON books have said about how they work… The new Thrawn books have Thrawn literally saying that a Tractor beam works by pulling two ships together with the most HEAVY ship working as an anchor and pulling the lighter one toward it.. And if you go and look at Tonage an ISD-II have MORE mass then a Starhawk which means the Starhawk wouldn't be pulling the ISD apart BUT would infact pull it SELF toward the ISD-II.

I’d like to mention that the Disney writers for Kenobi definitely forgot about the tractor beam. The final episode with the star destroyer was ridiculous

Timothy Zahn certainly didn't forget about them and still uses the hell out of them in his books.

I don't know if I read it in an SW novel or somewhere else, but it makes a lot of sense: fly full speed directly towards the tractor beam emitter and then break off to the side at the last moment. It's how you "defeat" whirlpools when you are swimming in a river or so. Whether that works or not will be seen once we finally develop that technology for real, tho :=)

It was the first movie, I'm sure they werent thinking of anything other than trying to get through all the issues with shooting and editing. This movie is super old and the studio was just enough to get by for the first movie.

Would tractor beams have been any use against the Resistance after the first order came out of hyperspace? I realize there's distance and size involved but they seemed close enough initially. You said it could slow ships down so using them against the faster resistance ships would help right? Some of the star Destroyers use their tractor beams while the others use their Turbo lasers

Ya as that would of made the Saga better right if they had used a beam on the Tant IV and then A New Hope would of never happened………

I wonder if tractor beams are subject to Newton's third law, especially between ships of equal size. If so, a Star Destroyer using them on a comparatively similar sized capital ship would in turn also limit its own maneuverability.

First of all, this is "Star Wars". A fantasy fiction setting.

That being said, in Star Wars, the tractor beam is generally short range. With the exception of something like the DeathStar, which, obviously is ludicrously enormous.
In battle, highly ineffective.
Since the Star Wars 'universe' is ancient, it is assumed that every ship has a built in ECM. In some situations, writers explore ideas. Of course the plot then is decided.
One of my favourite 'fanfilm' Anime versions of Star Wars has an Interdictor mess up incoming missiles. Clever.
Star Wars is supposed to be about the shooting it out, rather than the precision like phasers in Star Trek.
In Star Trek, fighters would be useless. However the later versions have put that in. Which I think 'breaks' Star Trek.

Star Wars is ridiculously big ships that pound each-other with laser (actually energy bursts) and ion cannon fire. Fighters that fight each-other, but then can also attack capital ships on strategic points, or just pick away at them.
Tractor beams in battle are ineffective as you put here in your video. Until a ship is disabled or just one that comes too close. The "book" Thrawn, (pardon the analogy), 'thought outside the book'. That was why he was so dangerous. The Disney Thrawn is ok I guess. In what is non-cannon, Thrawn used experimental technology against the ones that created it. Rather than use it himself.
No "super-weapons", rather strategy.

I may be getting off-topic here of tractor beams.

Do I have to say this again? StarWars is fantasy fiction. Heh heh!

Also consider the mass of the target ship versus the mass of the ship with the tractor beam. If the target is too large, it will pull the tractorship along with it! Assuming of course that the tractor emitters are strong enough to hold on.