ANH Death Star Countdown?

Does anyone remember, in A New Hope, when the Death Star was circling around Yavin to aim at the Rebel Base, there was a "countdown" sequence displayed on the vidscreen. They were also announcing the minutes until the Rebel Base was in range. Is it just me, or does that countdown make no sense? It seems to start with only seconds remaining, and minutes later it's still only a couple seconds or so ahead of where it was in the last scene. Does anyone else remember this, and is it something they might fix in the DVDs?

 

I remember it being in range in 30 minutes, then the countdown started. Then i think it was 5 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds. then it was in range...

no probs from my view...

 

I agree. The countdown that is said over the intercom or whatever is definetly not in snyc with the visual one that is shown. But then again, that can be said with almost any movie that has some sort of "countdown sequence".

 

No, it's not in sync. Maybe the numbers on the screen will be digitally changed to match the voiceovers on the DVDs?

This raises another question - if they measure time in parsecs in the SW universe, how come the countdown is still in minutes? Is that like "sitting ducks" in TPM? Or OB1 referring to Kamino as being "south" of the Reechee (phonetic) Maze?

 

HAN: Han Solo. I'm captain of the Millennium Falcon. Chewie here tells me you're looking for passage to the Alderaan system.

BEN: Yes, indeed. If it's a fast ship.

HAN: Fast ship? You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?

BEN: Should I have?

HAN: It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.

HAN: (continued) I've outrun Imperial starships, not the local bulk-cruisers, mind you. I'm talking about the big Corellian shipsnow. She's fast enough for you, old man. What's the cargo?

Ben knows that Han is lying about the whole parsec thing (this is from the official screenplay).

Anyway, about the Death Star thing -- my wife giggles at that every time we watch ANH (did it just last night as a matter of fact). The viewscreen is obviously counting down seconds.

 

I think when the fighters are taking off it's announced the Death Star will be in range in fifteen minutes.

That's not a heck of a lot of time to fly to the Death Star and blow it up!

Can you imagine the pressure those pilots were under? Most of them seemed to be playing it really cool, though.

If it'd been me, I'd have had a nervous breakdown.

But that's why I'm not a snub fighter pilot.

 

Countdowns in movies are NEVER in sync with the story. Ever notice how many bombs have 2 seconds left and take about 10 to explode?

 

I hope they've changed the numbers on the screen to aurebesh on the DVD.

 

But this isnt a matter of a few seconds difference...the clock on the screen would've ended EXACTLY 29 minutes and 30 seconds early lol.

 

I agree. Screwed-up countdowns happen all the time. The worst one I can think of is in Dragon Ball Z when Frieza's like "Five minutes....that's all you have and then KABOOM! this planet will explode!" 12 episodes later he's like "you have one minute left until this planet is no more!" Of course, each episode only did get like 8 minutes of actual episode progression in. The name should be changed to "Draggin' Ball Z"

 

Man, I loved the 2 weeks of that planet's last 5 minutes
My mother watched it, too, but had nightshift for a few days and couldn't see it. When she saw it again, she said "What!? They're still there!??"


Ahem, anyway....
maybe those numbers aren't some kind of countdown clock, but... something... entirely... different... like... some calibration or something. Or a fast-forwarded ETA simulation.
I'm not making sense, am I?

 

Vaderbait's right, most movie countdowns are always way off.
Watch Aliens for a rare example of an accurate countdown...