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 Vulcan wrote:
Tell me, what in all of that equals the Holdo Maneuver? If this is even remotely possible, then the Death Star is POINTLESS.

- Don't you remember how Vader told us that the Death Star was pointless in the OG? "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force." Right after he blew the galactic defense budget on a machine that blows up planets.

What are you hiding, Vader?


-The equivalent would be Ani quickly slicing off both of Dooku's hands because for that single brief moment, one Jedi noticed that all of these lightsaber flourishes were totally pointless and that his opponent didn't have a hand guard.

-Or Grand Moff Tarkin waiting until the Death Star moved around the planet's orbit in order to destroy Yavin 4 rather than just shooting the planet. Or even moving the Death Star around the planet with its faster than light capability.

-Or maybe the fact that following the second Death Star's destruction, the Imperial fleet that still had the Rebels outnumbered and outclassed chose to surrender.

-Or the way that Darth Maul survived being cut in half, falling into a seemingly bottomless pit and transported through outer space to a planet that acts as a dedicated landfill- seemingly because he was angry at the time.

-Why did the Naboo palace have a bottomless pit with precarious catwalks and randomly activating shields in its basement anyway? What was that built for?

-Or maybe the way that the Empire shielded the Death Star from the moon of Endor rather than affixing the shield generator to the Death Star (ie, where it could shield itself). The shield was impenetrable, they could have just left it up and won every fight forever.

-Why has no one started harvesting medichlorians until The Mandolorian?

-And if Force Sensitivity is genetic, and force sensitive children are identified in infancy, how can forbidding Jedi from having families make any sense? They should have died out centuries ago like other religions that forbid having children for all adherents.

-The fact that there are shape shifters in the setting has implications thst are ignored. It is kind of silly that shape shifters aren't running the galaxy.

The only one we see waa Jango Fett's subcontractor. Presumably Jango expected his assassin to shape-shift into someone close to Padme and was rightfully upset with the whole poisonous bug approach. But then he stuck around for what now?

-And not to mention that A New Hope is one of those plots that is ruined by cell phones. The setting has faster than light communication that can contain detailed images. All it would take is some basic encryption to get the plans from Leia to Alderaan and Yavin.

-If Luke is the great hope, why doesn't his lack of participation in the Battle of Endor make a difference? (Han's team takes down the shields, Lando's team blows up the Death Star with Palpatine inside- Luke isn't required).



Fans have come up with loads of headcanon to explain all of this in convoluted ways that are mot present in the films themselves. A few of those fans have gotten official seals to put their headcanon into EU books or newer materials (like the explanation about the Holdo Maneuver).

As fans, we choose which stupid things we accept and love and which stupid things we become enthusiastically angry about.

 LunarSol wrote:
The Executor was also brought down by the impact of an A-Wing to the bridge, so.... yeah...

One major difference there: the Executor was damaged by the a-wing, it was only destroyed because it was in close proximity to the death star and a momentary loss of control was enough to put it on a collision course it couldn't turn away from in time. In a deep space battle with no convenient obstacles around the a-wing would have done superficial damage and merely taken the ship out of the fight for a short time while officers elsewhere in the ship regained control. Holdo doesn't just inflict a temporary loss of control with a lucky hit on a vital system, she cuts the flagship in half and obliterates all of the ships behind it.

Sorry, but most of these have very straightforward answers without resorting to fanfiction or EU material.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
- Don't you remember how Vader told us that the Death Star was pointless in the OG? "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force." Right after he blew the galactic defense budget on a machine that blows up planets.

"Guns are pointless, what we need is more Jesus, without faith in Jesus our country will be destroyed."

It's very obvious that Vader is hyping up his religion here, not making a literal statement that the death star has no value. He's putting Tarkin back in his place and reminding him that the priests run the Empire and he needs to spend more time praying and making donations to the church instead of feeding his own ego.

-The equivalent would be Ani quickly slicing off both of Dooku's hands because for thst single brief moment, one Jedi noticed that all of these lightsaber flourishes were totally pointless and that his opponent didn't have a hand guard.

There are real-world weapons that don't have hand guards and yet "attack the hands" is not a magic auto-win strategy.

-Or Grand Moff Tarkin waiting until the Death Star moved around the planet's orbit in order to destroy Yavin 4 rather than just shooting the planet.

You mean the planet that did not have the rebel base on it? And that's assuming the death star has unlimited firepower and can destroy a huge gas giant just as easily as it destroys a tiny rocky planet.

-Or maybe the way that Luke's torpedoes curved down into the "exhaust."

I'm not sure why "guided weapons can turn to follow a target" is supposed to be some kind of plot hole?

-Or maybe the fact that following the second Death Star's destruction, the Imperial fleet that still had the Rebels outnumbered and outclassed chose to surrender.

I'm not sure why "they didn't fight to the death after their leader was killed aboard his god-level fortress" is supposed to be some kind of plot hole? Forces surrender all the time in real life when they feel that fighting has no further purpose.

-Or the way that Darth Maul survived being cut in half, falling into a seemingly bottomless pit and transported through outer space to a planet that acts as a dedicated landfill- seemingly because he was angry at the time.

He didn't survive. He died, and only in EU material did they bring him back.

-Why did the Naboo palace have a bottomless pit with precarious catwalks and randomly activating shields in its basement anyway?

Valid point. But we all know the prequels are stupid.

-Or maybe the way that the Empire shielded the Death Star from the moon of Endor rather than affixing the shield generator to the Death Star (ie, where it could shield itself).

Remember that the death star was still under construction? It needed an external shield generator because they had to protect it until it could bring its own shields (and weapons) online to protect itself. Maybe that could have been done by the time the rebel fleet attacked but at some point the death star was just a skeleton framework with stuff being attached and it still needed defenses.

-Why has no one started harvesting medichlorians until The Mandolorian?

Prequels are stupid.

-And if Force Sensitivity is genetic, abd force sensitive children are identified in infancy, how can forbidding Jedi from having families make any sense? They should have died out centuries ago like other religions that forbid having children for all adherents.

Prequels are stupid.

-The fact that there are shape shifters in the setting has implications thst are ignored. It is kind of silly that shape shifters aren't running the galaxy.

Prequels are stupid.

-And not to mention that A New Hope is one of those plots that is ruined by cell phones. The setting has faster than light communication that can contain detailed images. All it would take is some basic encryption to get the plans from Leia to Alderaan and Yavin.

You're confusing "plot hole" with "failure to foresee the technology of 20-30 years in the future". At the time ANH was written there was no issue here.

-If Luke is the great hope, why doesn't his lack of participation in the Battle of Endor make a difference? (Han's team takes down the shields, Lando's team blows up the Death Star with Palpatine inside- Luke isn't required).

Because he's the great hope in the religious war between jedi and sith. And he fills that role perfectly. He kills the sith lord and redeems his apprentice, ending the sith line and securing victory for the jedi.

(like the explanation in Rise of Skywalker about how the Holdo Maneuver was a desperate one in a million bet that would not work again)

It's a stupid explanation though. They say "it's one in a million" but at the time she does it everyone expects it to succeed. Holdo expects it to work, has the "well, this is it for me" look as she pulls the suicide lever, and is willing to spend the ship on the ramming attack instead of making a more conventional distraction attack. Poe's "no she's not" clearly recognizes that she's about to sacrifice herself to destroy the enemy fleet even though he, of all people, would be expected to have a "WTF is that idiot doing" reaction about an officer he thinks is hopelessly incompetent. The first order officer's "OH GOD NO" is a clear recognition that they're all about to die. Even the designated "angry idiot officer" character recognizes the threat and attempts to stop it. None of them treat it as a one in a million gamble, or even suggest that it might have any real chance of failure.

I love how your answers show how you self select into loving the original trilogy and hating the prequels and everything that follows. I don't blame you and your explanations work well enough for fanon anyway.


Just two points of clarification,

- Darth Maul comes back to life in the Clone Wars series, which was the last show that Lucasfilm contributed before selling to Disney, so it falls into pre-Disney stupidity.

This is a big deal for people who want to cut Star Wars off at the Disney purchase rather than at the prequel releases.


- I didn't fully articulate my point about lightsaber combat, but basically sword fighting should be essentially different if you can cut through anything with minimal force. That moment where Ani dismembers Dooku is one of very few moments where that happens, but the criticism stands for the entire series up to that point and beyond.

And while some weapons do not need hand guards, I am not convinced that is true for Lightsabers.




+But you want to get more into the OG, so we should keep the flaws away from things like "Why does Obi-Wan wear his Jedi uniform all the time" or "Why doesn't Yoda help anything ever," or "Why does the anit-slavery Republic decide to trust and employ an army of mind-controlled clone slaves without properly investigating who commissioned them, when, why and why the guy they were cloned was working in confederate army closely with Dooku?"

So here are a few more OG things to think about:

- How does a Sarlaac Pit Monster evolve?

This is a giant creature that lives in the sand with its mouth open to the sky all the time and waits for some little desert creatures to randomly fall into its mouth. It doesn't even seem to have anything to entice creatures into its maw like a Venus Fly Trap. But it is a giant animal that would need to eat WAY more than fly traps (which subsist primarily on photosynthesis from all of their leaves rather than protein from the bugs they catch).

- And while we're at it, what about that giant sand-worm-like monster that lived on an asteroid? It just waits there in deep space waiting for a passing space ship to enter the asteroid field and fly into its mouth? How has this species not starved to death centuries before it could evolve?

There’s a difference between “This minor detail doesn’t make sense” and “This major plot point retroactively makes a ton of earlier material no longer make sense”.

- What was Palpatine's plan in the throne room? He keeps telling Luke that he's going to turn Luke to the Dark Side and therefore Luke will join Palpatine. So let's say it goes that way, Luke kills Vader (just like Yoda told him to) then why would he join Palpatine again? Like he'd say "Hey Emps, doing that just turned my alignment evil, so I guess we're good buddies now."

This is a point that is made more glaring by the way that it is not echoed in the prequel trilogy. We see Palpatine grooming Ani from age 10 and slowly putting seeds into his mind about how he should agree with Sith ideology- ultimately turning him by convincing Ani that he is an ally and worth saving.


Ah, that's enough for now. I think the people I have the most trouble with aren't the ones who can't see the problems of the OT but the ones who claim that Disney ruined a Star Wars franchise that was perfect then they got it (ie- after the prequels and the retcon of Darth Maul).

But ultimately I think that it is okay to choose which Star Wars to love and which to hate.

Don't forget the Emperor did not expect to lose the fight in space, let alone in the throne room. So his expectation was that the Rebels would have the core of their leaders and military power destroyed. Meanwhile Luke would kill Vader.


However in doing so Luke would start to become broken inside, having killed his father and then seen his entire world destroyed (again) as all his friends are killed.


Emperor likely didn't mean that Luke would join him right there and then, but that Luke would start his fall there. A festering wound of pure anger and hatred. Something the Emperor could start to mould and influence over likely years after that event.

 Geifer wrote:
I find the idea exceptionally humorous that a capital ship could possibly hope to maneuver to block more numerous and massively cheaper, expendable small vessels aiming their hyperspace ram at critical parts like the reactor to inflict catastrophic damage. Not to mention that space stations and planets don't dodge oncoming ships so well. But hey. Agree to disagree, I guess.

Indeed a lone capital ship is very vulnerable to a lot of thing, just like capital ships are vulnerable to a whole lot of thing without proper escort and protection today. In the same movie we see that a single fighter piloted by an ace can basically make a capital ship near defenseless by exploiting the vulnerability of said capital ship to small, fast and high power enemy vessels. Capital ships need a screen of fighters or smaller ships to protect it to even be remotely effective and the same is true today and since the invention of the fist effective torpedo in the late 19th century. Yes, a lone capital ship would be vulnerable to a multitude of smaller vessels using that method of attack, but so would it be against standards methods of attacks as it was shown multiple time. The same is true for a space station of course. Then again, if the ship is small like fighter or corvette size, it might not be able to do any damage should the capital ship have good shielding and if larger, they are not very maneuverable and much easier to be targeted by a capital ship largest and most powerful weapons (it also becomes more expansive than just building a ship that can be used more than once too). The Executor was destroyed when it's bridge was destroyed by a fighter crashing into it after its shields were knocked down not before and even then, it was not destroyed by that, it simply went out of control and crashed against the Death Star.

Also note that planets are a lot larger too and their gravitational field used to make hyperspace jumping in proximity of them impossible until the developments seen in between episode 8 and 9 on that level. Considering the distance between ships for a hyperspeed ram, it seems to me that you would need to in atmosphere to execute this which would certainly make the entire thing even more complicated. Then again, at that point, planet destroying weapons that were multi-use and a lot more effective at it were already available and had been so for decades.

 Overread wrote:
Don't forget the Emperor did not expect to lose the fight in space, let alone in the throne room. So his expectation was that the Rebels would have the core of their leaders and military power destroyed. Meanwhile Luke would kill Vader.


However in doing so Luke would start to become broken inside, having killed his father and then seen his entire world destroyed (again) as all his friends are killed.


Emperor likely didn't mean that Luke would join him right there and then, but that Luke would start his fall there. A festering wound of pure anger and hatred. Something the Emperor could start to mould and influence over likely years after that event.

The logic presented in the film is literally. "if Luke hates me enough then he'll naturally kill my apprentice and join up as my new apprentice because that's what hating me naturally makes people do." I mean, maybe that will turn him to the Dark Side, but why would he join Palpatine? It really sounds like being evil in the Star Wars universe forces you to become allies with everyone else who is evil.

I'm pretty sure that's how motivation works in Knights of the Old Republic- where a Sith tortures a Jedi until the Jedi becomes evil and joins as his apprentice. Because that makes sense.


- Part of the problem is the complete lack of echo in the prequels. Jedi gave us the impression that Ani was once in the same position as Luke- that Luke's story could be the same as Ani's if he chose differently. And of course, we get the opposite- Palpatine says "trust me" a lot instead of "hate me." He says "no really, the Sith are the good guys and we can stop people from dying" rather than "let your hate flow through you," "every moment you make yourself more mine" and "you, like your father, are now MINE!"

I mean, in the OT, he represents a sort of mythological devil figure- one who doesn't care who wins the war so long as the minds of those killing one another are turned to hatred and anger. I feel like it all breaks down when you try to view him as a full character with a mortal body and human ambitions.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
I love how your answers show how you self select into loving the original trilogy and hating the prequels and everything that follows.

Shrug. What do you want me to say? You posted valid criticism of the prequels, I don't dispute that they have major flaws.

- I didn't fully articulate my point about lightsaber combat, but basically sword fighting should be essentially different if you can cut through anything with minimal force. That moment where Ani dismembers Dooku is one of very few moments where that happens, but the criticism stands for the entire series up to that point and beyond.

Ok, I'm not a sword fighting expert so I'll grant that there might be some style issues here. But that's not really in the same category of hyperspace ramming. There's no blindingly obvious situation where you ask "why didn't they just do X" and even a casual viewer will notice the problem. Maybe someone whose hobby is sword fighting can criticize the technique (and the technique in every other case of stage combat TBH) but it at least holds up well enough for suspension of disbelief to apply. With hyperspace ramming even a viewer with no exceptional expertise in a relevant field is going to ask "WTF why didn't they just hyperspace ram the fleet to death".

"Why does Obi-Wan wear his Jedi uniform all the time"

Because it wasn't the jedi uniform, it was just typical desert robes. Retconning it into a jedi uniform in the prequels was a pretty silly decision.

"Why doesn't Yoda help anything ever,"

Because he's hiding from the Empire and making any overt move could get him killed. I thought that was made pretty clear in ESB?

"Why does the anit-slavery Republic decide to trust and employ an army of mind-controlled clone slaves without properly investigating who commissioned them, when, why and why the guy they were cloned was working in confederate army closely with Dooku?"

Prequels are stupid.

(Also, because the guy in charge of the Republic was running both sides of the war. I'm sure he "investigated" the issue and found nothing suspicious about it.)

- How does a Sarlaac Pit Monster evolve?

Who cares? The issue is not that we don't have an explanation for every single detail, it's that there are inconsistencies between details/events in different places. There's no situation where the precise details of how a sarlaac evolves could ever be relevant to the plot, it's just a weird monster that never comes up again. It's not like you have a plot point in ANH that, say, Obi Wan remains hidden in the desert because everyone knows no life can survive that far out and then it's revealed in ROTJ that no, actually his house is right next to the sarlaac pit. But that's exactly what you have with hyperspace ramming. You have an event where the existence of it directly contradicts other events, character actions/beliefs, etc. There's no issue with deciding that Star Wars FTL allows hyperspace ramming, but if you do that then you can't turn around and have everyone promptly forget about it in the next movie even when hyperspace ramming would be the obvious war-winning strategy to use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
The logic presented in the film is literally. "if Luke hates me enough then he'll naturally kill my apprentice and join up as my new apprentice because that's what hating me naturally makes people do." I mean, maybe that will turn him to the Dark Side, but why would he join Palpatine? It really sounds like being evil in the Star Wars universe forces you to become allies with everyone else who is evil.

He'd join because he's a weak apprentice and Palpatine is an experienced master with many dark side secrets for Luke to learn and a galaxy-spanning Empire at his command. If he immediately kills Palpatine he turns to evil but will never be more than a fumbling amateur. If he joins Palpatine with the intent to learn everything he can and then kill him he wins in the long run.

And of course, we get the opposite- Palpatine says "trust me" a lot instead of "hate me." He says "no really, the Sith are the good guys and we can stop people from dying" rather than "let your hate flow through you," "every moment you make yourself more mine" and "you, like your father, are now MINE!"

Sure, but he also has the advantage there that nobody knows he's evil yet. He's working from a position of trust where he can say "we can do good together", and he has years with Anakin to manipulate him towards the eventual goal. By the time of the OT everyone knows who he is. Nobody who isn't already evil is going to believe him about anything, and he has only a short time to convert Luke or kill him. And so he has to fall back on baiting Luke into taking those first steps across the line and convincing him that once he does there is no redemption.

On Uncharted, Tom Holland was totally miscast for the role.

On Star Wars, 7 was ok reintroduction of the SW universe,got that and than it got worse.

Same with the series, mandalorian was great and then it slowly got worse.
Vespa scooter gang right
Obi wan series, some major head scratching when i saw that.

I really liked Rogue one and solo, those were better IMHO.

Lot of 80's action movies had major plot holes but they took themselves not serious.

epronovost wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Tell me, what in all of that equals the Holdo Maneuver? If this is even remotely possible, then the Death Star is POINTLESS. Load up a bulk freighter with useless asteroids and slam it into the planet at lightspeed, problem solved for WAY less than a superlaser. Use a probe droid to pilot it - the probe droid is not just capable of hyperspace navigation, but also is fanatical enough to self destruct under the right circumstances. Should be child's play to alter the programming into an AI kamikaze.

This argument to me is bafflingly stupid. Yes, there is this thing called "innovation" it's when people improve on existing methods or technology or develop entire new technology or method altogether. The "Holdo maneuver" is an innovation. While some might have theorized it, she was the first to apply to this scale and successfully. It seems and is even mentioned and shown very clearly in the movie that hyperspace technology has improved significantly between the 30 years that separate Luke's and Rey's adventures. Yes, the "Holdo maneuver" might dramatically change the face of Star Wars battle tactics in the future and make obsolete the Death Star or, using technology like hyperspace jammers like those developed by the Empire in Star Wars Rebels, you could make the "Holdo maneuver" impossible and useless.

You do know you're talking about a galaxy where hyperdrive has been in use for thousands of years, yes? And never ONCE over those thousands of years has anyone considered the implications of E+Mc squared?

If the Holdo maneuver is impossible for whatever reason, it makes sense. And without it, Star Wars: A New Hope makes sense.

If it's possible, someone would have weaponized it. And as I said, in the newer novels there was a planetary disaster caused by a hyperdrive accident resulting in debris striking the planet during the Old Republic era. In light of that disaster I submit the Empire would have spent a year or two developing THAT technology, instead of 20 years developing a 'super laser'.

Now, tell me about those advances in hyperdrive technology in the new trilogy. Bear in mind the Millennium Falcon is NOT an example of this, as there's no indication it's been refitted with any new technology.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epronovost wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
1) In every setting with FTL fans inevitably look at the massive kinetic energy of relativistic objects and ask "why don't they ram stuff". If random fans can think of it there's no way a universe full of hyperspace scientists and engineers never thought about it. The only plausible answer was that it simply wasn't possible to do it, with the popular explanation being that objects in hyperspace don't interact with objects in normal space so the collision wouldn't work.

Which is the case in Star Wars where you later see the Falcon going through a planet while going hyperspace which leads us to think that ship that goes hyperspace can pass through things (though some phenomenon might still affect it), but can still hit things at tremendous speed while accelerating toward hyperspace which is exactly what the Holdo maneuvre is. Hitting the bad guy by going hyperspace very close to the enemy and hit them during the top of the acceleration period right before the ship leaves realspace. The maneuvre itself is probably impractical in most setting since if your enemy is a little too far away you simply pass through him harmlessly, too close and its basically just ramming. You got to be positioned perfectly. The Holdo maneuvre is an innovation and a very niche tactic that works specifically in that situation but is unlikely to succeed in most others. You got to have the perfect mixture of distance, fuel and gravitational strength to make it work. That's why everybody recognise what Holdo is about to do and how it's likely to succeed because they all recognize that she's in the perfect spot for hyperspace ramming and the First Order officer realize too late that he basically moved his ship right into that trap that he didn't thought about probably because the maneuvre itself is so niche. Why don't they use it all the time? Because it was very niche in its application and that was the time where it specifically worked.

Yes.... against other SHIPS.

How hard would it be to arrange to be at that specific distance to a PLANET? Given even a planet in a very tight orbit isn't moving all THAT fast compared to a starship, I'd say 'not terribly hard at all'.

That's why it breaks Star Wars. It makes the Death Star irrelevant. Just load up a cheap bulk freighter with useless rock and a probe droid motivator, and BOOM!

Planet may not be blown up, but you've certainly sterilized the surface and killed EVERYONE there. Bonus points because it works with any largish ship you don't mind expending, making it nearly impossible to defend against, You just don't know it's coming until it's too late.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epronovost wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Are you actually suggesting that measuring distance and doing math around velocity and acceleration is an almost impossibly hard problem to overcome in a setting with thousands of years of commercial space travel?

Absolutely not, but since it's simple, so can the enemy and not give you the opportunity to make such a maneuvre effectively. The counter is easy, just keep the distance between you and a still mobile ship greater or shorter than the very short distance where hyperspeed ramming is possible. If they see you prepping for the maneuvre they can accelerate towards you and just get rammed in a more traditional way or move backward and keep their distance to avoid being hit by it. The only reason the Holdo maneuvre worked so well was because Snoke's ship was basically moving towards Holdo's ship thinking it was either going to run off or basically surrender. They realised their mistake too late and Snoke's ship was too big to get out of the way in time. A predictable ''finicky'' move with little margin for success is usable only in a very limited way which is useful as a desperate ''dirty trick'', but not useful at all as a basic strategy or even something upon which to build an entire combat doctrine. It's basically the ''viffing'' of space warfare (viffing is a desperate maneuvre some aircrafts like the Harrier could use to stall and dodge to force an enemy fighter to overshoot, but it's very risky and doesn't work all that well).

As I said, against other ships you'd be 100% right.

Planets, on the other hand, do not accelerate or dodge at all well...

 Vulcan wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Geifer wrote:
Are you actually suggesting that measuring distance and doing math around velocity and acceleration is an almost impossibly hard problem to overcome in a setting with thousands of years of commercial space travel?

Absolutely not, but since it's simple, so can the enemy and not give you the opportunity to make such a maneuvre effectively. The counter is easy, just keep the distance between you and a still mobile ship greater or shorter than the very short distance where hyperspeed ramming is possible. If they see you prepping for the maneuvre they can accelerate towards you and just get rammed in a more traditional way or move backward and keep their distance to avoid being hit by it. The only reason the Holdo maneuvre worked so well was because Snoke's ship was basically moving towards Holdo's ship thinking it was either going to run off or basically surrender. They realised their mistake too late and Snoke's ship was too big to get out of the way in time. A predictable ''finicky'' move with little margin for success is usable only in a very limited way which is useful as a desperate ''dirty trick'', but not useful at all as a basic strategy or even something upon which to build an entire combat doctrine. It's basically the ''viffing'' of space warfare (viffing is a desperate maneuvre some aircrafts like the Harrier could use to stall and dodge to force an enemy fighter to overshoot, but it's very risky and doesn't work all that well).

As I said, against other ships you'd be 100% right.

Planets, on the other hand, do not accelerate or dodge at all well...

Even then, the relative cost of a dozen or so hyperdrive-equipped hulls deployed at varying distances and angles against a capital ship would render capital ships worthless. Sure, you might be able to manoeuvre to prevent one ship being able to Holdo you, but even 5 or 6 would be almost impossible to defend against. What makes the Holdo manoeuvre even worse is it takes place in a setting where building impractically large spaceships is kind of the MO of the antagonists.

epronovost wrote:
Also note that planets are a lot larger too and their gravitational field used to make hyperspace jumping in proximity of them impossible until the developments seen in between episode 8 and 9 on that level. Considering the distance between ships for a hyperspeed ram, it seems to me that you would need to in atmosphere to execute this which would certainly make the entire thing even more complicated. Then again, at that point, planet destroying weapons that were multi-use and a lot more effective at it were already available and had been so for decades.

The problem is, IF that is a new(ish) technology, it was installed onto the Millennium Falcon before it was left on Jakku, because there was no time for such a major retrofit between Rey and Finn stealing it, and Han taking it not just into the gravity well, not just under the planetary shield, but clear into the LOWER ATMOSPHERE of Starkiller Base.

The movie explains it as 'only Han Solo is simultaneously crazy enough to try, and good enough to even have a chance to pull it off'. And... given Han's history of insane piloting stunts on screen, it works. No need to invent new technology that wasn't ever mentioned on screen.

Now. Where is Admiral Holdo's piloting skill while implementing an insane stunt established on screen? Where is the new technology allowing hyperspace rams mentioned on screen?

Yes, there are holes in various place in Star Wars. (Incidentally, lightsabers not having handguards is not one of them. What do you make the handguard out of, to stop a blade that cuts through everything? And if you can, why not build the whole thing out of that material? Why not wear armor made out of it? Why not armor spaceships out of that material and render most weapons useless?) Very few of them render the entire plot of the original movie pointless.

Big difference in minor plot/story points where something does not make sense and the ENTIRE movie plot has no feet, leaving you so frustrated that the entire movie, not just small instances, simply does not work.

Sure, SW has a bunch of things where you go, "Wait a minute, that is stupid, does not follow," but I do not think it renders the entire movie impossible.

 MDSW wrote:
Big difference in minor plot/story points where something does not make sense and the ENTIRE movie plot has no feet, leaving you so frustrated that the entire movie, not just small instances, simply does not work.

Sure, SW has a bunch of things where you go, "Wait a minute, that is stupid, does not follow," but I do not think it renders the entire movie impossible.

It is a very personal decision on what breaks immersion for you. For me, I can deal with spaceships doing WW2 style dogfights and a Death Star that can destroy a planet but Starkiller base is just a step too far. Some things jar with me at first but later I am ok with once the logic behind it is explained, like the B/SF-17 bombers. So I do not think it is a case of just rejecting new ideas.

You do know you're talking about a galaxy where hyperdrive has been in use for thousands of years, yes? And never ONCE over those thousands of years has anyone considered the implications of E+Mc squared?

Yes, that is the universe as it exists.

Ultimately, space combat is presented in very stupid ways compared to how it ought to look. Ships moving through space are traveling at crazy speeds relative to one another such that projectile weapons would rip them to shreds and ramming one another would create massive devastation, and they should be firing upon one another from crazy long range such that they can't see one another out the window.

But Star Wars space combat has never been good science fiction. So yes, the Star Wars universe is one in which no one for thousands of years has ever considered the implications of light speed travel.

It is a little bit like how heroes and villains only use their powers when it is dramatically appropriate (ie- Jedi can run at super speed to get away from battle droids but can't when Obi-Wan needs to catch up to Qui-Gon and Maul, or how blocking force lightning is a skill both of Luke's teachers have mastered and can even be done without a lightsaber except when Luke needs to be hopelessly outmatched by Palpatine).

This is all really a case of "the writer didn't think of it, and so no one in the universe thought of it." And yeah, that's really dumb.

- The problem I have with Poe's quick jumps thing isn't that they say it is dangerous and all, but that he does it from planet surface and then he's on another planet surface right after. Like, if he's going through hyperspace without using the computer to calculate his route, then he should be ending up at somewhat random places in the universe, and if there is SO MUCH MORE SPACE IN SPACE THAN PLANETS!

 Vulcan wrote:
Yes.... against other SHIPS.

How hard would it be to arrange to be at that specific distance to a PLANET? Given even a planet in a very tight orbit isn't moving all THAT fast compared to a starship, I'd say 'not terribly hard at all'.

That's why it breaks Star Wars. It makes the Death Star irrelevant. Just load up a cheap bulk freighter with useless rock and a probe droid motivator, and BOOM!

Planet may not be blown up, but you've certainly sterilized the surface and killed EVERYONE there. Bonus points because it works with any largish ship you don't mind expending, making it nearly impossible to defend against, You just don't know it's coming until it's too late.

You could make the exact same argument with an asteroid. Why don't they just put an hyperspace drive on a giant asteroid and teleport it straight on a planet they want to destroy? It doesn't do a better job than the Death Star. It might be cheaper and more simple, but money was no object for the Empire. It's not reusable for once and it doesn't have other secondary functions. The Death Star is also a giant military base to repair and supply ships, base tens of thousands of stormtrooper and equipment, etc. It can target ships effectively in addition to planets during the same engagement. It's not as easy to destroy (well the Death Star was easy to destroy, but mostly because it was sabotaged in the design phase) compared to a ship. It also has a intimidation factor which was supposed to be it's entire raison d'être. The simple fact you could ''parc'' the Death Star to intimidate or send a regular army to quell a rebellion in less drastic measures. The Death Star doesn't have an easy counter too. A simple Interdictor prevents any sort of Holdo maneuvre, but no shield is strong enough to resist a blast from the Death Star or the even more powerful Starkiller base which can shoot several planets at the same time without even needing to be close to it. Yes, 30 years or so after a New Hope, the Death Star was completely obsolete.

Don't ask me what I think about Rei finding the wayfinder to Palpatine's secret base.

M.

Star Wars blasters have always been inferior to what we have today. People talk like the Ewok's having such a low tech level, but we have measured arrows from bows and they travel faster than blaster shots from Storm Trooper rifles.

Blaster Speed Calculations- quick summary, they travel at about a fifth the speed of arrows shot from longbows (which are the slower arrow calculations I could find).

So who really had worse weapon technology?

Ewoks. Glowy thingies are more high tech than non-glowy thingies. This is common knowledge.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Star Wars blasters have always been inferior to what we have today. People talk like the Ewok's having such a low tech level, but we have measured arrows from bows and they travel faster than blaster shots from Storm Trooper rifles.

Blaster Speed Calculations- quick summary, they travel at about a fifth the speed of arrows shot from longbows (which are the slower arrow calculations I could find).

So who really had worse weapon technology?

Star Wars blasters are the equivalent of all the 'laser' weapons found in cartoons such as G.I. Joe and answers to the lasers vs. guns debate in movies and television can be found all over the 'net (for example):

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/205557/why-are-energy-weapons-seen-as-more-acceptable-in-childrens-shows-than-guns-tha

On the birth of Force Sensitives?

It’s not purely genetic. At all. Never has been. Yes having a Force Sensitive parent increases the likelihood, but it seems to be a fluke genetic quirk.

And the Jedi Order was never of a particularly set number, because it’s not a military. At least, it was never intended to be. As such, they have no particular need to have breeding programmes for new recruits. Those that occur naturally out in the Galaxy are enough. And one could argue that the true purpose of the Jedi Order is to ensure the powers and abilities of Force Sensitives is channelled in a positive way for the wider Galaxy.

And not to mention that A New Hope is one of those plots that is ruined by cell phones. The setting has faster than light communication that can contain detailed images. All it would take is some basic encryption to get the plans from Leia to Alderaan and Yavin.

This one is easy to explain. The Imperial Holonet is just that. Imperial. Given how paranoid The ISB could be, I can easily see them monitoring communication as much as possible. Add an identifier type encryption for something as top secret as the Death Star plans, and have your systems constantly checking for it. Follow it from source to destination, and boom, you’ve found your Rebel base, ready for a strike. So Leia simply couldn’t risk it. Hence she stuck to a hard copy inside R2.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the birth of Force Sensitives?

It’s not purely genetic. At all. Never has been. Yes having a Force Sensitive parent increases the likelihood, but it seems to be a fluke genetic quirk.

Like a mutation that happens randomly but somehow happens the same way across the galaxy?


I disagree- I think that the films treat force sensitivity as genetic. It started with Luke and Leia's parentage- they're children of the powerful Sith so they both have abilities. Then Qi Gon asks about Ani's father because he knows that having a powerful dad makes you force sensitive (and Ani is powerful because his dad is medichlorians or the Force or a Sith Power or something). Then Kylo is super powered because his mom and grandpa were force powerful and Rey has super powers because her grandad is a big bad Sith lord.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the birth of Force Sensitives?

It’s not purely genetic. At all. Never has been. Yes having a Force Sensitive parent increases the likelihood, but it seems to be a fluke genetic quirk.

Like a mutation that happens randomly but somehow happens the same way across the galaxy?


I disagree- I think that the films treat force sensitivity as genetic. It started with Luke and Leia's parentage- they're children of the powerful Sith so they both have abilities. Then Qi Gon asks about Ani's father because he knows that having a powerful dad makes you force sensitive (and Ani is powerful because his dad is medichlorians or the Force or a Sith Power or something). Then Kylo is super powered because his mom and grandpa were force powerful and Rey has super powers because her grandad is a big bad Sith lord.

And Obi-Wan Kenobi was as powerful as Anakin yet was not born in a force sensitive dynasty and his younger brother is nobody... as of now. Yes, there is a genetic component to it, but that's mostly perceived as such because Star Wars has a strong family theme interwoven in it.

Yet Jedi don’t tend to knock boots and produce sprogs, yet there are Younglings. Well. There were Younglings

So yes, a Force sensitive parent is likely to produce Force sensitive offspring, but it’s clear that’s not a prerequisite.

It could be a recessive gene, where it needn’t be active in the parents to be active in the child. In fact, I’m relatively sure Palpatine’s son (who was a clone of some kind? I’ll have to read up again) wasn’t himself Force sensitive. Seems he didn’t have a strong connection to The Force.

But as I said, there’s clearly no requirement for the Jedi Order to have a particular head count, because they’re a religious order and not a military. Indeed getting them to be Generals in the Republic Army was a deliberate choice by Palpatine to speed their fall. Not only would a number of them be killed during the war, thinning their ranks, but it changed public perception from Peace Keepers and Negotiators to War Leaders.

Plus a given Jedi, whether Knight or Master, could only have a single Padawan at a time. If we look to Kenobi and Qui-Gon, that training period lasts a long, long time, as Kenobi was 25 in The Phantom Menace.

If we assume most Jedi had something like the average human life span, a Knight or Master might only be able to train one or two Padawans in their life (again using Obi-Wan as a frame of reference. Pass out at 25, take a Padawan, have them trained by 35-40, then the next and so on. Actually that makes it 3, maybe 4. I forgot to account Padawans aren’t assigned until their teens, with Ahsoka being 14 when she became Anakin’s Padawan.

So that puts an inherent limit on how many Jedi the order can train up in a given period.

Of course that means Luke and Rey both had super short training periods. Like….Dougie Howser short.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Ultimately, space combat is presented in very stupid ways compared to how it ought to look. Ships moving through space are traveling at crazy speeds relative to one another such that projectile weapons would rip them to shreds and ramming one another would create massive devastation, and they should be firing upon one another from crazy long range such that they can't see one another out the window.

Should they be firing at such long ranges? A bullet/laser/etc may still do damage at a million miles away but can you hit anything? Is fine control of those giant armored gun turrets precise enough to pivot them tiny fractions of a degree to hit at ranges where even a 0.000001 degree error means you miss by a mile? And if you can do that what reason is there to go out to long range? If you're facing accurate fire either way you might as well blob up right on top of the objective.

But, again, the issue here is consistency, not what technobabble explanation someone came up with in the EU to justify it. You can complain all you like about short combat ranges but at least Star Wars is consistent about it. Ranges are always short, you don't have weird outlier events of ships fighting at million-mile ranges and then characters saying "we can't hit anything 50 miles away" in the following movie.

or how blocking force lightning is a skill both of Luke's teachers have mastered and can even be done without a lightsaber except when Luke needs to be hopelessly outmatched by Palpatine

I'm not sure why you think it's a plot hole that Luke, a fumbling amateur who ran away from his training after a few days, didn't learn every single force skill that jedi with decades of formal training had mastered.

And Luke had never seen Force Lightning.

I mean, that particular complaint is akin to a Boomer mithering that a Milennial doesn’t know how to change a plug. Of course they don’t. It’s not inherent knowledge. It’s something the Boomer was taught by A.N.Other, not to mention most plugs these days, if not all plug, are moulded to the cable, completely removing not only the need, but the option, to replace the plug. Or criticising someone for not knowing how to do different wood joints when carpentry was never part of their formal education.

We also only ever see Yoda block Force Lightning without a Light Saber. Even Mace Window (lol. Window.) blocked/redirected/reflected Force Lightning using his Light Saber. An item Luke pointedly threw away just before the sparks flew.


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BobtheInquisitor wrote:

It’s not stated in the movie, and printed canon isn’t worth squat these days.

Perhaps you should stop worrying about the mite in other people’s knickers when there’s a beam in your own.

Er, wait. Forget that last bit.

Remember folks. Not finding the answer to a given question unsatisfying, does not in fact render the question in, erm, question, unanswered.

There’s a “great” tv interview between Eamonn Holmes and Jeremy Corbyn which exemplifies this. The Bloody Awful Eamonn Holmes claims victory, as apparently Corbyn refused to answer an insipid attempt at a Gotcha Question (if memory serves he asked Corbyn to denounce the IRA). Except….he absolutely, 100% did answer the question. Multiple times. Holmes in his egotistical, god awful manner simply didn’t get the answer he wanted.

Why yes I do have an exceptionally low opinion of Eamonn Sodding Holmes.


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Or maybe the fact that following the second Death Star's destruction, the Imperial fleet that still had the Rebels outnumbered and outclassed chose to surrender.

The Rebel fleet moved away from The Death Star. Then a bloody big explosion happened. Right next to The Imperial Fleet. The Fleet that had just lost its chain of command (Battle Station, Flagship, Emperor).

This is the trouble with Totalitarian approaches. No clear line of succession. Many higher ups became higher ups because they were loyal to The Emperor, rather than because they were necessarily competent.

Plus there was nothing stopping the Rebel Fleet jumping away should an attack be pressed there and then. And we can conclude from the celebrations shown it was a keystone removal, with whole planets and systems turning on The Empire.



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If Luke is the great hope, why doesn't his lack of participation in the Battle of Endor make a difference? (Han's team takes down the shields, Lando's team blows up the Death Star with Palpatine inside- Luke isn't required).

You may have noticed Luke kept Palpatine and Vader well occupied during the assault. Had Vader been on Endor, or taking part in a fighter? Potentially very, very different outcome. Hell, just position him in the Shield Generator and any Rebels breaching it are very, very dead.

Remember, The Chosen One wasn’t a prophecy on the end of The Empire. They were just meant to bring Balance To The Force. The trouble with that prophecy of course is it doesn’t exactly define what Balance meant…


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Why did the Naboo palace have a bottomless pit with precarious catwalks and randomly activating shields in its basement anyway? What was that built for?

Heat dissipation seems a distinct possibility. Literally chimneys to help keep the gubbins as cool as possible. Shield things? Because the plot required it, it looks cool, and they likely served some purpose we can only guess at, because Star Wars isn’t High Sci Fi.

Or maybe the way that the Empire shielded the Death Star from the moon of Endor rather than affixing the shield generator to the Death Star (ie, where it could shield itself). The shield was impenetrable, they could have just left it up and won every fight forever

As Admiral Gil Ackbar said? It’s a trap.

Much of the Rebellon’s successes were down to it being a nimble foe, with no single base to go knacker. Palpatine provided a target far too tempting, with the sort of exploitable weaknesses The Rebellon had become adept at taking advantage of. But, a target of such size and complexity (get a ground team in, take down the shield, fleet required to run distraction and escort for the Fighters) it needed a substantial force.

Spring the trap, shatter the backbone of The Rebellion, and allow Fear, Fear Of This Battle Station to keep the systems in line. That was the whole point of Endor. Get the buggers in one place at one time and kick the ever loving crap out of them.


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Suppose I should stress I’m not having a pop here. Just offering my knowledge as counter points. None of my posts here have a hidden “duh” intended.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
Ultimately, space combat is presented in very stupid ways compared to how it ought to look. Ships moving through space are traveling at crazy speeds relative to one another such that projectile weapons would rip them to shreds and ramming one another would create massive devastation, and they should be firing upon one another from crazy long range such that they can't see one another out the window.

Should they be firing at such long ranges? A bullet/laser/etc may still do damage at a million miles away but can you hit anything? Is fine control of those giant armored gun turrets precise enough to pivot them tiny fractions of a degree to hit at ranges where even a 0.000001 degree error means you miss by a mile? And if you can do that what reason is there to go out to long range? If you're facing accurate fire either way you might as well blob up right on top of the objective.

A laser is a terrible weapon for space combat because laser energy decreases significantly with distance: so it isn't good at extreme range. Really you should be relying on advanced targeting computers for all of your attacks.

The reason to go out at long range is because there is such an extreme amount of space. I mean, Star Wars shows "blockades" around planets where they feature just a few ships. Even if these ships are staggeringly massive like the size of cities, it would be pudding to launch a ship into space at a distance far enough that you wouldn't even see another ship as a speck in the distance.

or how blocking force lightning is a skill both of Luke's teachers have mastered and can even be done without a lightsaber except when Luke needs to be hopelessly outmatched by Palpatine

I'm not sure why you think it's a plot hole that Luke, a fumbling amateur who ran away from his training after a few days, didn't learn every single force skill that jedi with decades of formal training had mastered.

Well, we see four Jedi encounter force lightning in the prequels and every one of them can counter it with ease (despite not having encountered a Sith for like a century or something) and that includes both of Luke's teachers who also both knew that Palpatine uses Force Lightning as a standard combat tactic.

So that does seem inconsistent to me. I mean, it isn't the most inconsistent thing in Star Wars by any stretch.



But I think you calling Luke a fumbling amateur hits on one of the grand inconsistencies of the greater Star Wars narrative. Luke has to be the most powerful being in the universe or some kid who barely graduated from Jedi school after missing his first twenty years of classes now.

The problem is really that the Prequels WORSHIPPED the original series and sought to elevate the importance of those events well beyond the scope they reached originally.

- In the OG trilogy, you have a Jedi apprentice who fell to the Dark Side, caused a bunch of problems and his son who was also force sensitive came back for him. Back then, Vader was special because he was among the very last of the nigh extinct group force users and Palpatine was legitimately more powerful than him.


- Then the Prequels told us that Vader was the Messiah. His whole existence is the center of the Star Wars universe now. He's the "chosen one" from a vague ill defined prophesy with an even more poorly defined origin and because of this Vader and Luke are required to be the most powerful beings in the universe.

And now the plot of every story in the setting must bow to the superior importance of Luke and Vader's drama (and often go out of their way to undercut the importance of their own original stories).

So I kind of think that "Luke was a fumbling amateur" no longer matches what nearly every new Star Wars work is constantly telling me about Luke. But it made sense at the time.

Star Wars weapons aren’t lasers. The bolts are super heated gas, so basically Plasma as we understand it.

Yes some are called lasers, but they’re still not Lasers.