CT Logic flaws in the Star Wars Trilogy (long)

Why didn't anyone stop Luke when he was dragging Vader across?

Simple. Vader was the second-baddest man in the galaxy, one who could choke you from across the room...and he's now being dragged across the hangar bay. What does this tell them?

"Oh cripes! This kid is obviously much more stronger than Lord Vader, so I shouldn't mess with him!"

 

Me too. I didn't know this shot bothered anyone until now.

Definitely. And also, "this space station is obviously about to blow up, so screw the Empire, I'm getting out of here!"

 

Maybe the movie didn't make it clear, but Yoda guided Luke's X-Wing to himself. Yoda created the interference that messed with Luke's scopes, and he reeled the vessel in with the Force. If you recall, Luke had no such trouble landing on Dagobah when he returned in Episode VI.

 

All of this could be true, but isn't one of the rules for plotholes (or at least the ones people like RLM, Confused Matthew, etc use) that the explanation has to be given in the film itself rather than novelizations, spin-off books, etc? Cause in the films themselves there's no real strong hint or indication that Yoda himself did it. And without the speculation, or revleations wherever you read it what happened in RETURN OF THE JEDI (Luke's smoother landing) could be percieved as an inconcistency.

There's definitely room for speculation, but no answer is outright given.

 

Also, we never actually see Luke's landing on Dagobah in ROTJ. For all we know, it was just as hectic. But yeah, that stuff about Yoda causing the crash is puuuuuuuuuuuuuuure speculation, and something that's never even hinted or implied in the film itself. This is Star Wars, not Lost.

 

Yeah, you're right. Guess my mind automatically jumped to it being a smoother landing 'cause we don't see it and everything seems find. When you don't see something intense happen and it isn't brought up later it's easy to assume that things just went smoothly.

 

Mhm. All we see is the X-Wing landed, which only means he probably didn't crash into the swamp this time (although he could've, and lifted it out with the Force). And even if his landing itself was smoother, he very likely could've had the same turbulence and disruptions as before. Hell, playing the "let's fill in the blanks" game a but further, those very things might've been reasons that Yoda chose Dagobah as his hideout for all those years.

 

Here's another one for ANH-- why was Leia's mission to bring Obi-Wan and the Death Star plans to Alderaan, when all the big Rebel build-up is on Yavin IV? Was there another, bigger base on Alderaan? They don't seem too concerned about the loss of the planet from a strategic perspective when Leia arrives on the Falcon.

 

I read in a few books ( Not sure if it's true) That the plan was for Obi-Wan to get back with Bail Organa, since Kenobi apparently worked with him during the clone wars..

 

I'll see if I can post some logic flaws..

ANH

1. Honestly, it was pretty stupid of Tarkin to only send out about a handful of TIE fighters to the rebel force that engaged, when it's known that the DS can hold several hundred different TIE fighters. He could have sent out about 300 fighters and blasted the rebel fighters out of the sky before they even got on the surface...

2. Again, why does Vader waste time and his own life going out to pick out the fighters, when you have several THOUSAND turbolasers at your disposal? I refuse to buy the excuse that the fighters can evade the turbolasers so easily...

 

How about this: Luke is wiser, more patient and less reckless in ROTJ. In TESB, he still hadn't learned to calm his mind and rely on the Force, so he was using the scopes and panicking and before he could do anything he was crashing. He also just wasn't familiar with the planet.

"Why would firing the barge's deck gun at the barge's deck destroy the whole barge and explode it? Why would Jabba have a barge that was so easy to blow up with just one shot from its own deck gun? That is way too contrived."
"Yeah, it's weird. It was pointed towards the back, though, which is where I would think the propulsion system would be... and I would suspect that system would be volatile."

The gun fired more than once. Leia set the gun in an automatic mode of sorts and it fired into the deck multiple times.

Regarding questions about TESB.... I have never been bothered by the distances between planets in TESB. Perhaps the movie instilled this vague idea of space (and other locations) into me for me to find it preferable but I like not seeing and knowing exactly where everything is in relation to each other. Simply by accepting it as science fiction should allow us to figure traveling at lightspeed is really, really fast (ludicrous speed?) and traveling at sublight speed is really fast. The same vagueness works for the Hoth battle. We don't really see where the AT-ATs land in relation to the entrance to Echo Base, in relation to where Vader arrived, in relation to where the X-Wing and Rebel Transports were.

 

Why even build a second death star anyway? Why niot use that money to build like 30-50 Super Star Destroyers, and then conquer the galaxy that way?

 

They can't destroy a planet. The Empire wants to make sure people understand who is in control. Threatening to blow up your world would accomplish this.

 

As Jawa says, SD's can't destroy a planet. But the bigger point is the "use that money" part... money does not seem to be a concern for the Empire when it comes to military spending, so they can probably build a Death Star AND more SD's if they think it's worth it.

 

Isn't it great that certain self-appointed individuals ( one of whom self-identifies as "confused", and another who tells 20 times as many lies as Obi-Wan ) get to make the rules, and the rest of us just have to put up with it?

 

1) Tarkin wasn't the one who sent out the fighters, that was Vader. Second, where did you get that 300 figure from? It is not mentioned anywhere in the film just how many TIEs the DS has. Perhaps those that were sent out were all that they had. Stupid on the empire's part? Possibly but as was established in the DS briefing, the defences of the DS was directed against a large scale assault, so an attack by capital ships and the like. Against those ships TIEs are of little use and the TL will do the job quite well.
The empire did not consider a small, one man, fighter to be any threat so possibly they did not see the need for many TIEs.
There are other examples of stupid imperial design, the walkers on Hoth, why these tall things? Just dig a trench in front of them and they are stuck. They are very top heavy, have a very limited fiering arc and make no sense as armor design. The rebels are none to bright either as they keep coming at them from the front, where all the guns are. Attack them from the rear where there are no guns.

2) Wheter you buy it or not, it is established in the films that the X-Wings can evade the TL. One is shot down, Porkins. So the TL CAN hit an X-Wing, it just happens to be quite hard.

Regards
Nordom

 

If some EU is to be belived, they could do that with little problem. One ISD is said to be able melt the entire surface of a planet in one hour. One shot from one gun of an ISD is said to be more than all of earth nuclear weapons put together. With that kind of firepower. 10-20 ISD's could destroy a planet in a day or so.
Besides, if you lay waste to the enitre surface and kill all living things, the message is quite clear anyway.

Regards
Nordom

 

I remember the reference to a Star Destroyer being able to lay waste to a planet from the old Star Wars Sourcebook.

Assuming that's true, I think where the Death Star is set apart is being able to punch-through shield generators. Veers tells Vader that the Rebel's Hoth Shield is "strong enough to withstand any bombardment" (speaking from a fleet of one Super Star Destroyer and mutliple Imperial-Class Star Destroyers) but I doubt it would protect against the Death Star's Superlaser. Also, I assume many planets, particularly important industrial or military ones, have similar shields.

 

It's plenty true. It's canon that a Star Destroyer's guns (each one) shoots about 200 gigatons of energy per shot. To put this in perspective, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever constructed was about 58 megatons. About 1000 megatons=1 gigaton, and therefore we're talking about the equivalent of 20 of the largest bombs ever produced per shot, but with 12 guns firing all at the same time (the ISDs in ANH sported a dozen such weapons each.); so it's roughly 240 of the largest nuclear weapons ever produced all going off on your planet at once, until a)the planet is destroyed or b) the guns burn out. A fleet of such ships-or heaven forbid, the Executor, which had about 2,000 of these heavy guns aboard-could easily turn a world into scrap.

 

Yeah, but can Star Destroyers destroy a star?

 

Fly enough of them into one and sure.

 

If Darth Vader was Luke's father, then why did Vader try to shoot Luke down during the Death Star trench run? Couldn't he feel that Luke was his son, using the Force?


You were doing okay, until you came to the above. Vader did sense Luke during the Battle of Yavin. He sensed that the Force was strong with Luke. But he didn't know Luke's identity until later. And why would he assume that Luke was his son, because the latter was using the Force? As far as Vader knew at that moment, he was some Rebel pilot who possessed a connection to the Force.


Also, the Falcon's hyperdrive was inoperative until the end of the movie. So how did it travel all the way from Hoth to the asteroid belt and then to Cloud City on its jet engines or sublight speed alone? Wouldn't that have taken thousands or millions of years?

According to Lucas Films, it took the Falcon three months to reach Bespin without the use of its hyperdrive. The problem is that the movie failed to indicate this stretch of time.


How did Leia choke Jabba the Hutt to death with chains so easily? He was huge. How could he be that weak to have a woman choke him so easily?

She didn't choke him that easily. Leia literally had to struggle in order to choke Jabba to death.



1) Which trilogy(ies) do you like?

2) What age group is the one that ignores basically all logic errors and allows the magic of the film to consume them?

3) Do you think childhood memories do effect a person's critical view of a film they loved in their childhood?

4) How old were you when you saw both trilogies for the first time?



1) I like both trilogies equally.

2) I have no idea.

3) Maybe. I have maintained some of my childhood memories of certain films. For other films, my opinions have changed.

4) I saw the Original Trilogy between the ages of 10 and 16. I saw the Prequel Trilogy between the ages of 32 and 38.



Winston, why didn't you notice Obi-Wan's claim that Owen Lars was his brother?

 

Source?

I had thought the "official" position was that they had a backup hyperdrive. Backup hyperdrives were referenced in the SWRPG and Outbound Flight.

 

...so Han and Luke shoot the stormtroopers who enter the Falcon on the Death Star. How, then, can their uniforms still be pristine (shouldn't there be blaster holes in the suits?).

 

Not true. The empire didn't want to just threaten. I guess they wanted to blow up trillions of innocent galactic people...