The Hilarious Story Behind Forgotten Star Wars Bounty Hunter’s Name
Many of the characters in Star Wars have strange and memorable names, including droids like R2-D2 and C3PO. Most of these names have crazy stories behind them, but perhaps nobody can match the funny origin of 4-LOM’s name. You see, 4-LOM is secretly an acronym that means “for love of money.”
No One Named The Background Bounty Hunter
Before we can proceed any further, you may need a refresher on who 4-LOM is, especially because the character gets so little screen time. In short, 4-LOM is one of the bounty hunters that the Imperials hire in The Empire Strikes Back. He looks a bit like a robotic insect, and he’s often confused with his partner in crime and fellow onscreen bounty hunter, Zuckuss (more on this soon).
Not Nearly As Famous As Other Droids
Unlike more famous droids (ranging from the helpful C-3PO to the fearsome IG-88), 4-LOM’s name is an acronym. As confirmed by a now-obsolete entry on the official Star Wars website databank, 4-LOM stands for “for the love of money.” Exactly why it stands for this, though, depends a bit on who you ask.
For example, the excellent Star Wars Minute podcast claims that the droid’s name originally had a slightly different meaning: “for love or money.” That’s a pretty cool handle, obviously, if a little weird for a killer droid. However, these podcasters claim that Kenner making a figure out of someone who was barely onscreen meant they were only doing it “for love of money,” and this in-joke stuck around and became a permanent part of the character.
Officially Part Of Star Wars Canon
Interestingly, this particular in-joke was made part of the character’s lore in the 2006 book The New Essential Guide to Droids. In this text, Industrial Automaton workers were investigating the droid to see if a malfunction had caused him to become so murderous and malicious. They don’t discover anything wrong with his processor, but report 4-LOM himself said he is doing this “for love of money.”
Kenner Struggled With The Star Wars Aliens
While many old-school Star Wars fans know that 4-LOM’s name is an acronym, stories of how he ended up with the name have grown in the telling. For example, some claim that Kenner helped name the character because Lucas had not already done so, and others claim the toy company held a contest among employees to determine the best name.
However, stories about Kenner’s extensive involvement with his naming are hard to verify because the toy company didn’t seem to know exactly who the bounty hunter even was.
A Name Swap
When The Empire Strikes Back toys were first coming out, Kenner accidentally swapped the names of 4-LOM and Zuckuss, leading to serious confusion about their names (it didn’t help that they were never named onscreen). This was officially corrected when Lucasfilm published the Galaxy Guide 3: The Empire Strikes Back in 1989. However, most fans didn’t notice the correction until Hasbro began releasing new figures in the ‘90s.
The Quest For More Money
Adding to the confusion over 4-LOM’s name is that when Hasbro released figures celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, they released a Zuckuss and 4-LOM two-pack that had the names reversed again. Re-releasing figures for the umpteenth time just to mine the nostalgia from a decades-old production error? It looks like “for love of money” is more accurate than ever before when it comes to all things Star Wars.
