CT The lost pilots and scenes from the Endor space battle in Return of the Jedi

First, I'd like to correct myself: The pilot chatter line "Stay close to the ground" was apparently considered for a cockpit view other than Wedge's "Stay low until we get to the unfinished side" (Chapter Eight) when skimming the Death Star surface, i.e. had nothing to do with the deleted attack on the "larger" Star Destroyer (aka main communications ship).

Considering that the "First catch of the day" Star Destroyer in ESB started with the Devastator model (from ANH) and ended with the larger ESB VFX model, tells me that ILM did take some artistic liberties with the way they recycled, altered or combined Star Destroyer VFX. And one of the oversights on the large ESB model was the obvious lack of a protruding bridge balcony with windows which we nevertheless knew must have existed aboard Captain Needa's Avenger.

Needless to say, the top image in ROJ got me really excited when I first saw the film. IMHO the ILM model builders retroactively fixed that "continuity error" from ESB by providing us - the audience - with the large conning tower model featuring the overdue bridge balcony. And sizewise and in comparison with the Falcon attached to its back, it's a pretty good and rather accurate match.
Simply put: The top image just shows how the front of the conning tower of the Avenger should have looked like in ESB and for real (perhaps it is the Avenger in that particular shot?), so IMHO there was never any good reason whatsoever to retcon the top image from ROJ into use for a different class of Star Destroyer.

Regarding the "Tector-class" surface shot, I hesitate to take it more serious than the ILM model builders probably intended it to be. Since they didn't have a large top side model of a Star Destroyer's bow they simply turned the model upside down and flattened it to make it pass as the forward and top section of a Star Destroyer. It doesn't match any of the two VFX models but could just be a variation in armor plating.

Where I had to chuckle was the claim that the "Tector-class" is just one mile long, too. If that's supposed to be the "main communications ship" it inevitably would have to be a "larger" Star Destroyer (i.e. longer than your regular 1,600 m Star Destroyers).

And I think the clue to solve the riddle (from an in-universe point of view) is here:

http://deeplyobsessed.blogspot.de/2013/12/no-hope-for-princess-this-time.html

http://deeplyobsessed.blogspot.de/2013/12/blog-post.html

Stinson Lenz illustrated that to accomodate Princess Leia's Tantive IV, the loading bay of the Devastator would have had to be much longer and ultimately this Star Destroyer had to be larger than just your regular 1,600 m. Keep in mind that the 1 mile length figure was introduced along with the ESB VFX model, but didn't necessarily mean that all Star Destroyers (including the Devastator type) are built at an equal length.

And there's more: One unique feature of the Devastator model (and only in ANH!) had been its erected antenna array, apparently to jam any messages Captain Antilles might have tried to send. Since the larger Star Destroyer mentioned in the novelization also jammed particular readings regarding the Death Star's shield status, I can very well imagine it to have done so with an erected antenna array, too.

 

All I'll do in this post is report my findings after purchasing the enhanced ebook of Making of Jedi.

I. At Location 5425 or 10733 (51%), there is a 39 second video. This is the Dermot Crowley Cry of Victory. Caption: "Printed dailies from February 16, 1982, of General Nadine (Dermot Crowley) and crew as they react to the battle and destruction of the Imperial fleet)
"
Clapper loader: "B127 Take 3"
Director (most definitely not Lucas): "Ok, busy flying."
Director: "Back ground action."
Director: "Flash!"
Director: "Stagger!"
Director: "Flash!"
Director: "Stagger!"
Director: "Don't stagger until I tell you!"
Director: "Keep flying."
Director: "Action Ackbar!"
Director prompts: "You've got to give those fighters more time." (Here I think the director was reminding who he thought was Ackbar of what the first line was.)
Off screen female voice, helpfully: "Madine." (She may have been assistant director? Production assistant?)
Director: "Sorry." (He apparently forgot that this new character was General Madine, and was not to be addressed as Admiral Ackbar.)

Cut in film. (Which probably removes General Madine repeating that line, and may remove Madine saying other useful lines as well.)

Director: "A big flash."
Director: "And a hit!"
Madine and deck crew: Surprisingly powerful cheer.
"

So, without doubt, by hint of the prompt line, Madine's footage here was of the final order against the SSD. And the victory cry is from the SSD being dealt a death blow.

See also an Interview with Dermot Crowley


He said Lucas directed Second unit. The director in the scene B127 is not Lucas.

II. At location 5894 of 10733 (55%), there is a 26 second video. Caption: "A black-and-white dupe of a daily showing the death of a female X-wing pilot (Vivienne Chandler), as filmed and directed by the second unit. (0:26)"
This is the exact same footage as has already been released on youtube from a SW Celebration con. Presumably this is just a proof by ILM/LFL of the survival of at least some of this footage, and is not intended in any way to be an intentionally full presentation. As more information become$ available, e.g., the Lost Rebels reel, a number of assumptions can be re-examined.

Assumption one. "Showing the death of". No, not really necessarily. Careful examination of every last Lost Rebel shot *indicates that everyone who sat in a cockpit had to read a fixed set of lines, the last line of which was 'I've lost my main stabilizer. I can't pull out.' So, the fateful line shown here is a line that was included for every pilot in order to present the final editor and compositors with a full spectrum of options. There is no specific reason any one pilot of any particular make of ship had to have any specific line at any specific time. It was a broad option space for Lucas to work in. *"indicates" means powerfully suggests, without assertion.

Assumption two. That Dovorio Bold had a whole page, or even according to some click sites, two entire pages of dialogue. No, not really necessarily. Anyone that is doing their own homework and not pirating reportage will discover that it was not just this one (female) X-Wing pilot that recorded several lines, enough to make a good long sequence out of. The tally of unique lines spoken by pilots who are not Wedge or Lando (Lost & Found Rebels) could be as high as thirty one. It's possible that each actor was prompted for thirty one lines during their time in costume in the cockpit.

The direction she gets from this director is cursory and could be, and might as well be, the direction that the other two filmed X-wing pilots got, who both had squibs go up around them and were featured in the film, as well as Y-Wing "I'm hit", who also got squibs. The fact that the males got squibs at a previous line ("She's gonna blow", "I'm hit"), and also at no line at all (first casualty inside DSII), indicates that this reading by Vivienne Chandler might *not have been her production reel. But it also might *have been, looking at how Poppy Hand's sequence was used. No squibs during her set, but her face made it to the final film. So there is some algebra of conviction that goes into selecting which pilot gets to have squibs go off around them.

III. At Location 6978 of 10733 (65%), there is a 1:11 minute video. It is telematics I have not seen before showing a combination of the attack through the reactor tunnels, Jerjerrod's countermeasures, the height/ low clearance of the obstruction that the X-Wing sails through and the MF loses it dish to. It also has one additional line from A-Wing pilot Jake Farrell, "Those fighters are still back there". It additionally dovetails with events in the novelization (Jerjerrod's countermeasures of DSII reactor-type out-gasses) and in the film (the fact that Lando tells Green Group to head back to the surface and take some TIEs with them). Caption: "Telematics (or videomatics) are featured in Marquand's cut ( a black-and-white dupe) of the attack on the second Death Star (portions are without audio), which is intercut with Imperial Moff Jerjerrod (Michael Pennington) ordering countermeasures; Ben Burtt performs Ackbar's lines, circa August 19, 1982."


Transcript:

"

Wedge character, American voice?: "This isn't going to be easy. The shaft branches off."

Lando, himself: "Now lock onto the strongest power source. It should be the power generator."

A-Wing pilot who said "Copy, Gold Leader": "Those fighters are still back there." It sort of sounds like him, but it's hard to tell, and it is not an American accent, and the lip movement looks like it matches the words. I would say, yeah, fine, that's him.

Ackbar, voiced by Ben Burtt: "The Death Star is turning away from the fleet. It's going to blow up the Endor moon."

Lando, himself: "How long before it's in position."

Ackbar, voiced by Ben Burtt: "Point Oh Three."

Lando, himself: "That doesn't give us much time."

Wedge, himself: "Red Wing. Form up. And stay alert. We could run out of space real fast."



Imperial controller: "Rebel fighters have entered the superstructure."

Jerjerrod, himself: "Open the power discharge gates. Flood Sector 304 and 138. That should slow them up a bit."



Lando, himself: "I got a reading on a shaft obstruction at 6 marks."

Wedge character, American voice?: "Just picked it up on my scope. We'll make it through. Will you?"

Lando, himself: "This is gonna be a tight squeeze."
X-Wing opens S-Foils after coming out.
Falcon loses dish.

Lando, himself: "That was too close."

"

 

The Tantive IV is not 150m though - it's 126.68m. 150m was "West End Games conjecture" which was eventually retconned.


http://www.starwars.com/databank/alderaan-cruiser

Interestingly, a case is made here that the Avenger-type Star Destroyer is actually more than a mile long:

http://www.weaponsofstarwars.com/star-destroyers-length

but it requires a Falcon that's much larger than the 34.37m (Legends) or 34.52 to 34.75m (Newcanon) figures currently given. And the 34.52m figure comes from The Force Awakens tie-in material. Given that a full-sized prop was built for TFA, which fixes some of the sizing problems that occur in the OT (inevitable when your prop is only 80 feet long) I think we can safely say that the 34.52m figure is based on that prop, and is here to stay.

 

Hernalt

Gread findings all together! It would also explain how deleted scenes specialist Mark Johnson was able to add things (not present in the ROJ novelization) in his ROJ script reconstruction - he had the ebook while I "just" have the hardcover print edition to look things up.

Looks like the assumption (Dermot Crowley reacting to the destruction of the sSD with cheers) has been confirmed. That would probably put him in command of the Rebel Star Cruiser we see in the lower left frame from Ackbar's POV.

One line that's definitely puzzling me is Dennis Lawson's "Red Wing. Form up. And stay alert. We could run out of space real fast." But to me it seems the "Red Wing" part was deliberately trimmed from the final cut for continuity reasons (i.e. Lando had ordered Gold and Red Group to follow him, Wedge's "Red Wing" remark would have suggested only Red Squadron was following...).

Iron_lord wrote

The Tantive IV is not 150m though - it's 126.68m. 150m was "West End Games conjecture" which was eventually retconned.

That's what I get for playing along trying not to open up another can of worms in this thread (LOL). Yes, the Tantive IV is shorter than 150 m, one of my friends even claims just 90 m based on the two doorframes in the model's cockpit bridge, yet IMHO it's ultimately the size of the model's escape pods compareded to the life-size prop in Tunisia (see my avatar) that should determine the actual length.

But I believe even at 126.88 m it still wouldn't fit into the loading bay of Star Destroyer as suggested by the composite shot in ANH.

That's an interesting link suggesting a Star Destroyer to be longer than one mile. Back in the 1990's a friend of mine made an accurate side view drawing of the Star Destroyer model (both) and we used the known studio prop size of the Falcon to compare that with the dome on the top which we compared with the overall length. It turned out that the one mile figure was positively accurate.

IMHO, the culprit obfuscating the figure is the width of the Tydirium shuttle leaving / in relation to the smaller, forward ventral bay in ROJ. This would probably suggest an ISD length exceeding one mile, but in contrast the visible "Avenger" balcony bridge on the large conning tower model (image in my last post) would rather suggest a length of less than a mile. Again, the one mile figure appears to be the perfect compromise between these two shots.

 

If the primary bay's roughly 1/8 the length of the Star Destroyer (as suggested by the aforementioned pictures - that makes it (using a 1600m ISD) 200m long.

Plenty long enough.

 

Iron_lord

You are right. The side walls of the Devastator loading bay consist of 8 segments with each approx. 23,5 m wide. Assuming the Tantive IV is parked "behind" the 2 first segments and "before" the last segment, the Star Destroyer wouldn't have to be any longer than 1,600 meters. (at equal length of 1,600 meters each, the loading bays on both models would be 188+ m long).

 

As it turns out I've taken interest in this "Tector-class" Star Destroyer approach / rationalization (the enigmatic "larger" Star Detroyer from the deleted scene) and think I might have located it, stay tuned for some visual food for thought...

 

iphone, nor formatting.

note that tarlandia is a eu response to a saxton response to the long isd surface,
whereas pride of tarlandia is an eu r sponse to the 5 bridge unprecedented conning tower.

im working on a schedule of each capital ship engaged and commentary.

 

Tector is an EU (Saxton-devised) response to the long ISD heavily armoured, bay-less surface. There's no ship class just called Tarlandia.


The newcanon has there be both the Battlecruiser Pride of Tarlandia, and the Tector-class Star Destroyer Harbinger, be present at Endor - they're not intended to be the same ship.

Given that the communications ship in the novel had some kind of cargo bay for the Rebels to enter and attack a reactor inside:


Green Wing was hit.
"I'm losing power!"
"Get clear, you're going to blow!"
Green Wing took it down like riding a rocket, into the Destroyer's front batteries. Tremendous explosions rumbled the port bow.
"Thanks," Blue Leader said quietly to the conflagration.
"That opens it up for us!" yelled Wedge. "Cut over. The power reactors are just inside that cargo bay."
"Follow me!" Lando called, pulling the Falcon into a sharp bank that caught the horrified reactor personnel by surprise. Wedge and Blue followed suit. They all did their worst.
"Direct hit!" Lando shouted. "There she goes!"
"Pull up, pull up!"
They pulled up hard and fast, as the Destroyer was enveloped in a series of ever-increasing explosions, until it looked finally just like one more small star. Blue Leader was caught by the shock wave, and thrown horribly against the side of a smaller Imperial ship, which also exploded. Lando and Wedge escaped.


it makes sense that it not be synonymous with the "hangarless Star Destroyer" that ended up becoming the Tector-class.

 

Tector-class Star Destroyer hint # 1

Knowing that the port side edge of the Star Destroyer to the right was the model that revealed the (starboard) edge of the Executor in ESB (Falcon fly-by near the end of the film) I had thus far believed what we see in the above image was the super Star Destroyer exchanging broadsides with a Rebel "Nebulon" Cruiser.

Where it gets interesting is the original scene description in connection with the subsequent description in the novelization:

118 EXT SPACE - AIR BATTLE
The two armadas, like their sea-bound ancestors, blast away at each
other in individual point-blank confrontations. A Star Destroyer
explodes. The Rebel victor limps away, its back half alive with a
series of minor explosions. The Rebel cruiser manages to move in next
to a second Star Destroyer before it explodes completely, taking the
Imperial Star Destroyer with it. The Falcon and several fighters attack
one of the larger Imperial ships.

The bold part from the screenplay is obviously what we saw in the above illustrated film scene (originally introducing the deleted scene of the attack on the larger Star Destroyer by Lando and several fighters) and the particular screenshot supposedly indicating the Tector-class Star Destroyer: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tector-class_Star_Destroyer

Kahn's novelization (Chapter Nine) continues:

Lando, Wedge, Blue Leader, and Green Wing went in to take out one of the larger Destroyers (= The Falcon and several fighters attack one of the larger Imperial ships). ... It had already been disabled by direct cannonade from the Rebel cruiser it had subsequently destroyed. ...

Essentially, what Khan is telling us here, is that the Rebel cruiser we see firing at the outer edge of the Star Destroyer didn't survive the encounter - and that the outer edge of the Star Destroyer does not belong to the super Star Destroyer but to the "larger" Star Destroyer, i.e. the Empire's "main communications ship", instead.

While most of the outer edge of the Star Destroyer models (both ANH and ESB) is just as tall as the diameter of a spherical top dome which itself matches the circular diameter of the Millennium Falcon, the Star Destroyer's outer edge structure in the broadside exchange does not match any outer edge structure of the regular Star Destroyer models and ultimately appears almost twice as tall (especially should the Rebel Blockade Runner floating near the Rebel cruiser be given serious consideration to define the size relationships).

So we now do know what the outer edge of the "larger" Star Destroyer ("Tector-class") did look like.

Iron_lord wrote

It makes sense that it not be synonymous with the "hangarless Star Destroyer" that ended up becoming the Tector-class.

"Makes sense"? Alright, let us talk about things making sense and feel free to correct me if and where I might be wrong:

The shot with Lando and the other fighters flying over what appeared to to be the top bow of this larger Tector-class Star Destroyer was accomplished by "flattening" the ventral bulb and covering the ventral loading bay (hence "hangarless") of the ESB Star Destroyer model and shooting it upside-down. It was a cost-saving trick to pass the underside of the Star Destroyer model as an upside Star Destroyer surface.

Pardon me if I sound blunt, but seriously suggesting that Ken Ralston and George Lucas wanted to convey the impression of a Star Destroyer flying in three-dimensional space with Lando and company flying over the underside of a Star Destroyer is rationalization overdrive which ultimately must be dismissed as fanwank.
This would then be the only (!) ship ever seen in the Saga flying upside down.

Some may not like it, but George Lucas persistent style thoughout the entire Saga had been to show capital ships flying through space as if there were the need for a two-dimensional alignment with a clear distinction of "up and down" (rotating B-Wing cockpit anyone?).

In the Star Wars Storyboards Joe Johnston vocally rejected the criticism that starfighters move like airplanes in the film, reminding everyone that it was done to give audiences (only aware how planes maneuver) a familiar feel to enhance their illusion of being there. I think it's safe to say that the same kind of philosophy applies for the space battle scenes seen in both ROJ and RotS and others, where spaceships move like a formation of WW II bombers.

So what we see in the particular screencap linked to the "Tector-class" must be a Star Destroyer top surface according both to the filmmaker's intentions and philosophy - which tells us little to nothing whether the "Tector-class" has hangars / cargo bays or not.

For argument's sake there is no necessity for the Tector-class to have the regular ventral loading bay / hangar but it could have such hangars or cargo bay on the upper surface instead, which appears to be what James Kahn implied in his ROJ novelization.

P.S. I'm increasingly under the impression that the Tector-class Star Destroyers may look like a mix between the regular OT Star Destroyers and the former Republican Acclamator-class assault ships: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Acclamator-class_assault_ship

 

The Fleet Junkies threads already discussed that question (as did the Talk page for the Tector) and the general conclusion seemed to be that an "upside-down ship" while unusual - couldn't be ruled out.

 

yeah yeah yeah I read the latest post before posting this. I'll deal with it later.
------


This will attempt to account for specific engagements involving specified capital class vessels, at least up to the Empire main communications ship. I.e., if the vessel or action is singled out for comment by any source, it is specified. Gerald Home scenes aboard Home One all have an appended A. Some sources say at least 8 separate ISDs were destroyed. I'll see if I can reproduce that finding using canon sources. I will follow book order.



I. Scene 101. My bracketing indicates that scene 100 is a VFX shot showing the veering off of fighters from the shield. A storyboard indicates at least some fighters crash into it. I may be mis-remembering another storyboard, but I think there's one where a capital ship also crashes into it. Scene 100 commences with Ackbar saying to take evasive action, still under the impression that the only emergent circumstance is that the shield is still up. Up until the point he hears that there are enemy ships in the rear, his orders are given in light of this first problem, the shield. What "Holding Sector" means is not explicit. The TIEs reach Home One before any Imperial capital ships.

Scene 101A (not in novel): "Launch all interceptions." This word can mean Rebel fighter interceptors, which allows for reserve A-Wings to be launched. Only so many fighters can act effectively going down the DSII's reactor shaft, and some were wisely kept in the respective hangars. It also allows for a countermeasure against incoming TIE bombers, none of which are shown in combat in the film, but one of which is certainly shown, maybe only as a reminder that the Empire has a fast, nimble bomber unit, in the DSII hangar. I would be hesitant to say that this takes the form of proton torpedoes in analogy to surface to air missiles. There could be an analogous 'proton bomb'. It's inconclusive to me what this line, "Launch all interceptions", means.

Chapter 7 / Scene 101A:

I would figure from 'thermonuclear' that previously attested proton torpedoes are being used, who knows by who. This could be evidence for TIE bombers, off screen in the film. There may also be an argument against TIE bombers - they could have taken glory away from the Emperor's new toy, and so were kept back, while the anti-fighter TIEs, the regular TIE and the TIE Interceptor, were thrown against the threats which had doomed the first death star, which had had a tight enough defense against capital ships.

Because "Gold Wing" is hit hard, which incidentally indicates they were in the van, Ackbar orders to "give them cover" (*plural), and presumably pick TIEs off their backs. In the context of protecting these fighters, Ackbar places importance on saving time, or not losing time, or not having time stolen. As if the fighters are the key to this entire operation, which they are. Even if the fighters cannot effect the actual detonation of the DSII reactor, they can create such a threat of doing so that the Emperor is presented with the quiet pragmatism, "Shall I have your ship standing by?" So this can mean that the "time" available to achieve this end goal scales with remaining fighters. Out of fighters, out of "time".

As for Ackbar's 'stand your position, wait for my command to return,' one can look to the Battle of Hastings (or Battle of the Two Bastards) to see the salutary effect of provocation to break the opponent's formation. So as far as this moment goes, Ackbar orders the Rebel fleet to *not engage the Imperial line if their commanders were individually tempted to do so. But Lando and accompanying squadrons, which apparently did not at this instant include Gold Wing, were "already way ahead of the pack", in this context taking the brunt of incoming TIE fire that was just leaving the line of Imperial capital ships. This sets up the next engagement of a capital ship.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Carrier_Group_tactics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interceptor_aircraft

{ U.S. naval destroyer doing a hairpin turn
https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=mzveUz-WRGQ

U.S. carrier doing evasive high speed turns
https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=d4KnCqcTEOU }

* Compare to what happens to "Gray Wing" and consider how "complete" a "disintegration" has to be for something in space to be considered "disintegrated". We know of one warning given by Vader to Boba Fett where he did not say, "And no complete disintegrations" but sufficed the meaning to be adequately conveyed by the conservation of definition, without an amplifying adjective, "And no disintegrations." And therefore a word of such potent meaning, prefixed by an intensifier, ought to mean an event that is quite surprising and devastating. Gray anything is never heard from again during this battle.



II. Scene 102 shows the fighters' attempt to draw fire from the cruisers and includes lines from the Lost Rebels reel. The "Medical Frigate" is specified. That the Medical Frigate is a presumably non-combat vessel, and is in need of defense relatively early, led me to map out its reasonably likely position in the battle space. This lead to a spare handful of physical and ranking subdivisions in the fleet. The following is a putative, not suggested, structure to bring greater resolution to the deployment of forces on the Rebel side. So if I make specific references, interpret it as 'something like this or that', 'something analogous to this or that'. In absence of other models, and in presence of the use of color groups, and in presence of the fleet being under an Admiral, which implies subunits under hierarchy, I gesture to and appeal to this system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squadron_(naval)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_(Royal_Navy)#History

By this logic, a non-combat or lightly-armed ship like a hospital ship, or the Medical Frigate, would be in a rear squadron. By earth conventions, a hospital ship has to have clear markings and carry no offensive weapons, and is therefore in principle immune to enemy fire. The following are the most useful analogues of real world hospital ships that were fired upon (in these cases, sunk) during times of war, and then also a modern ship that performs hospital duties but that cannot be considered a hospital ship, and so is *not entitled to a hospital ship's protections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMHS_Llandovery_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_hospital_ship_Armenia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AHS_Centaur
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Argus_(A135)

Geography of battle. Evasive action to avoid the shield meant that the forward ships had to slow down and turn around, and this compression wave would march back through the 'center squadron' to the 'rear squadron' (assume I am using single quotes on every single real-world military term). When the Imperial fleet showed up behind the Rebel fleet, whatever ships were in the rear of the intended formation were now in an unintended ad hoc 'front' line. Logistics and support ships, which are not combat vessels, would last even less time against ISDs than Ackbar's assessment of how long armored cruisers would last, which was 'not long'. (The Medical Frigate also possesses the fame of having hosted Luke Skywalker, and so carries a non-trivial symbolic value as an honorary flag bearer. Just on this one particular dialectic, contrast the symbolic values of Vader's ship, the SSD, against Luke's safe harbor, the Medical Frigate.)

(My interpretation of this thread is that…) The objective of this thread is to synthesize a deeper, originating canon that lies beneath the canon that is attested to in the film. The film is the highest source of canon. This highest source of canon is a compendium of inconsistencies and spatial and temporal discontinuities, all in the service of an emotional continuity. And so this highest source of canon can be diffracted into a spectrum of sub-canonicities. The film shows that the Medical Frigate, if that's what the Nebulon B was, and was intended to be from the earliest conceptions, was aligned in a certain way and accompanied by a certain number and type of ships. The lighting and alignments can be used to make guesses about its position.

The fiducial light source that dominates the battle is the star of the Endor system. The DSII is in opposition to the forest moon (and its gas giant, the actual planet Endor), and the star of the system. For a liquid water environment to exist, this moon and its planet are a distance away from their star on the order of one astronomical unit in earth terms. So, the plane of the ecliptic or path of the gas giant is visualizable as a disk that perfectly bisects the terminus of the moon, and of the DSII. The star is 'up there', to the upper right, when looking at the forest moon and DSII for the first time. The presumable plane of battle, that matches the galactic plane (WEG, I guess?) is then more or less consistently 45 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. (There will be changes in lighting away from this dominant, persistent light source.)

When first presented, the "Medical Frigate", presumably this very same Nebulon B from ESB, is presented as being lit from its dorsal port fore. Using the precedent that the fleet took evasive maneuvers to veer away from the first axis of threat, the DSII shield, half the fleet went left and half went right. The lighting on this Nebulon B would be consistent with it having been on the right side and it still trying to complete its hard turn to starboard so that the dominant consistent light source, the star of the system, should then shine on its dorsal port aft. It's not quite there yet.

Immediately to its starboard is a Mon Cal cruiser of the class I call Freedom* (Wingless MC80 per EU or Wingless Liberty per Saxton). Note the shadows of the divots on its water line, or, equatorial meridian. Treat them as lunar craters. The terminus of these 'craters' equivalently suggests a light source that is dorsal port forward.

Next in this sequence is a view up to a (shadowed) Freedom-class ventral side. The Freedom class has four distinguishing lobes on its water line, a right handed fingerprint of bulges on the ventral side, and most crucially, the purplish well-lit ventral starboard hangar bay. Frame by frame shows that this Freedom-class is pointing anti-parallel to the Nebulon B. To justify this using the light sources, the cruiser has only recently started to make the turn, to the left, that the surrounding ships have already mostly made, to the right. My sense is that this is a deliberate compositing choice to keep the photogenic purple ventral hangar out of the frame, since it's the Nebulon B's show. Further support for the Medical Frigate being in the rear squadron is that the very next frames have MF POV turning to face a distinctly proximate Imperial fleet with SSD front and center.

Worth noting here is a contrast of lighting. The lighting of the Imperial fleet when it was first introduced was from the exact same dominant, consistent light source as everything else. The light was from the Imperial fleet's dorsal starboard fore, which is to say, the Imperial fleet was being consistently let along with everything else from the Endor system's star. You can especially see the SSD's port-side hull lights lit up in their shadow. But now, after the sequence with the Medical Frigate, the Imperial fleet is presented as lit from the dorsal port fore. For lack of a better regimen or schedule to quantify these light source changes, I can easily draw upon the artifice of lighting choices most easily seen in the famous frames of Luke's face lit with red from the right and blue from the left.



To be as formally clinical as is possible, the Imperial / Emperor / DSII interior colors, blue hues, ghostly cool hues, shine from the left. The humane flesh tones that reveal living flesh and blood shine from the right. So, perhaps, cool blue light sinister, warm red light dexter. Now regard the the two introductions or master shots of the Imperial fleet. The Blu-Ray media have a magenta fume over everything, so the color concept may bear out more thoroughly with a full color restoration. But as it is, the Blu-Ray first intro is warm red light dexter. The second intro is cool blue light sinister. Regardless of color hue, the direction of light itself is an artistic choice that signals the change in context, expectation or stakes.

* 'Freedom's just another word for 'nothing left to lose'.


III. Liberty. It's going to be scene 109, 110, or 111, baring additional Call Sheets of the Throne Room scene.

When Liberty is first presented, it is in the company of a Nebulon B, a corvette, two cargo ships, and three X-Wings flying across for good measure. (The lighting is from above and slightly forward and starboard. So, quite different from the system star, and likely a choice made to showcase the engines. Not sure if anything thematic. Maybe it's underscoring the new imperative of flight?) The lance from the DSII goes upwards at 20-so degrees. The lance strikes the Liberty at 30-so degrees. So that means this group of cruisers has been at an 'altitude', or 'elevation' above the main plane of battle, which so far has more or less been associated or aligned with the DSII's equator or center mass. To refine the interpretation, this battle group is heading back down into the common battle plane at a pitch of 10-so degrees. (Of course azimuthal perspective can alter these apparent elevation angles.)

The Liberty group is facing away from DSII. The novel says it was "one of the Rebel Star Cruisers that was surging in the midst of the heaviest fighting" and that it "had been engaged in a furious long-range battle". Considering that the Imperial fleet had been given the command to "Hold here" and 'not attack', Liberty cannot (or should) not have been exchanging fire with any ISD. That means it was "engaged in a furious long-range battle" with TIEs which should very reasonably make difficult, nimble targets, particularly the TIE Interceptors. But, it was also "in the midst of the heaviest fighting". What can it mean if a cruiser was in the middle of a fight but taking long-range shots? It could mean that it was swarming with nearby TIEs and it wasn't paying attention to them. Perhaps it was providing cover fire for higher value targets. It could also mean it had already 'paid attention' to its nearby TIEs and was looking for additional targets at increasing range. The footage from the film shows the Liberty group had no TIEs immediately around it.

If the DSII fire control was presented with a selection of Rebel cruiser targets, which would be a more appealing first blow? The flagship / brain trust which was not yet distinguishing itself, but was certainly in the 'top ten' and maybe next, or, the warrior champion who was mowing down its foe before the gates?



IV. Potentially an ISD. The full scene 113 A from the Gerald Home script is:

So there's an immediate question about the geography and deployment of both fleets. The Rebel fleet has had to take evasive maneuvers to avoid the shield, pivot in place / get clear / double back and other variations of 'put distance between themselves and the DSII, while facing the enemy they are capable of fighting, which in this case was the waves of TIEs that have been incoming from the axis of threat of the Imperial fleet'. And perhaps, with some clues from the novel, some of the capital ships like the Liberty are engaging long-distance with ISDs. Only after it is obvious that the shield is not the greatest worry from the axis of threat of the DSII, does it enter the calculation for Ackbar that they may as well try point blank range with their capital ships.

To what degree was there any reconfiguration of squadrons in the fleet? I have argued that the "Medical Frigate" logically could have been in the rear right flank. It was accompanied nearby by two Freedom class, a Corellian corvette, and some cargo ships. The Liberty has two clues pointing to it being relatively proximate to the DSII. Home One was in the van but is now in the 'rear' after the fleet's about face. Previous details indicate that attacks by TIEs likely have the capability to make a ship of Home One's size shudder.

So Gerald Home / AID reports that "forward ships", which now, after the hair pin turns, would be whatever combat-capable cruisers that were originally in the rear, or originally in the middle, have now arranged themselves in the new van against the Imperial line. "Forward ships" *can include the Medical Frigate, because the Medical Frigate was one of the first to be attacked and was likely closest to the Imperials. But if it needed defended by Wedge and the MF against three TIE Interceptors, this should calibrate the utility it will bring to a point blank confrontation between it and an ISD. (I would suggest it is no longer in the newly formed van of "forward ships", but has been maneuvered back or outflanked by surrounding dedicated combat vessels.)

By whatever visual means, Home One is *not yet among the "forward ships" but is close enough to the Imperials that Ackbar is able to uniquely point to *a Star Destroyer "in front of them". When Ackbar says, "Concentrate on their power generators", it is a general tactic for all Rebel combatants, not just Home One. And its objective is not preservation of capital ships, but preservation of the ship type that is crucial for the entire plan to work at all, the small fighters that can maneuver down into the DSII reactor core.

Again Home One "is rocked by an explosion." This can be more TIE attacks, it can be new long range fire from the line of ISDs, or particularly, it can be fire from the specific ISD Ackbar pointed to. The film itself does not have any frames where a Home One class is firing or receiving ISD fire. Unused footage, however, available in the enhance ebook version of Rinzler's Making of Jedi, shows a Home One-class bridge being lit up and jostled like it was a Star Trek set. How would a generalized flagship, under the command of a generalized Admiral of the Alliance, have been used in this high stakes battle? Both HMS Victory and USS Constitution were in the front or had point blank engagements. E.g., during Battle of Trafalger, "Victory broke the line between Bucentaure and Redoutable firing a treble shotted broadside into the stern of the former from a range of a few yards." E.g., during the engagement between USS Constitution and HSM Guerriere: "After a few exchanges of cannon fire between the ships, Captain Hull maneuvered into an advantageous position and brought Constitution to within 25 yards (23 m) of Guerriere. He then ordered a full double-loaded broadside fired of grape and round shot which took out Guerriere's mizzenmast."

In Home One's case, there could be wisdom in keeping the flag ship an arm's reach out of harm's way. The original plan, where Home One dropped out of hyperspace in the lead, was under the expectation of a need to form a perimeter around the DSII (a picket or blockade action). Considering the final moments of the SSD, where Ackbar was able to exercise his command and control, perhaps Home One stayed somewhat shy of broadside battle / point blank range engagements, but close enough to keep eyes on everything. His job was not to take out Imperial capital ships but to maintain the possibility that the fighters could get in and do their job, and maintain the possibility that the Rebels could intercept an escaping Emperor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_captain



V. Scene VFX 116? The second Rebel cruiser that the DSII destroys is a Home One-class. This Home One-class is surrounded only by three small cargo ships, and the master shot has all elements properly lit from the star of the system, upper right. This image is a very direct echo of the previous shot where the first wave of TIE fighters sweeps over the entirety of the Rebel fleet. In that preceding shot, a Home One-class is front and center, properly lit from the upper right, but its bearing gives clues that it is not Ackbar's Home One. When the fleet took evasive action to pull away from the shield, it split along the axis of threat and peeled away in two halves. Ackbar's Home One turned hard to port. This other Home One class turned hard to starboard and had/has not yet completed its turn. There are still many fleet elements in the early frame. If the three Home One-class cruisers were local spheres of authority at various points of the extended Rebel fleet, this one would be a good candidate for the middle Home One-class. I'll call it or think of it as 'Home Two'.

Considering that in the film three Home One class cruisers were attested to, and two remained in the final (Special Edition, I guess) shot of the fleet, and footage exists of General Madine commanding one when the SSD is dealt a death blow, and footage exists of a second Home One close to engagement with the SSD, moving right, after Ackbar has ordered concentration of fire on the SSD, it is a very reasonable consumption of available data to regard that Crix Madine was Acting Rear Admiral commanding the (I'll call it) 'Home Three' Home One-class cruiser that is moving to the right, away from the plunging SSD. By extrapolation of the British color system given in links above, the Home One class that was destroyed by the DSII (after Liberty) was under the command of an Acting Vice Admiral. To underscore the under-representation of Admirals in the Rebel fleet, just run through the total variety of Generals so far attested to on the Rebel side.

So something like:
Home One (Admiral Ackbar, Flag Captain Mon Calamari Gerald Home)
'Home Two' (Acting Vice Admiral 'General Same Uniform as General Madine')
'Home Three' (Acting Rear Admiral General Madine)
I approach this data from first principles but I know one of these has been given the name 'Independence' by the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_(rank)

In the shot where it is destroyed, the Home One-class is not the closest capital ship to the DSII. That proximity would go to a left-handed Freedom class that is to the right of the DSII, possibly not in range of its super weapon. This shot also has the highest population of Nebulon B frigates, five. For whatever reason, the compositor has them transiting backwards in front of the Home One-class.


{ The VFX shot of the DSII itself is worth noting. This second blast from the DSII uses the exact same frames as the first blast, except they are vertically mirrored. The effect is that while the first blast was lit consistently with the star of the system to the upper right, the second shot is lit from the lower right. I can borrow some cues from the Luke and fleet horizontal lighting: If this is an artistic choice, and not simply a brute stretching of a limited stock of expensive VFX shots, then, one can look at the second shot, lit from the thematic depths below, as the DSII equivalent of the Emperor taking glee in his Force lightning. }



VI. The ISD that Lando flies against in Scene 117. Chapter 8: "In the Millennium Falcon, Lando steered like a maniac through an obstacle course of the giant, floating Imperial Star Destroyers—trading laser bolts with them, dodging flak, outracing TIE fighters. … “Great!” yelled Lando, skimming over the surface of the destroyer. “Then we're inventing a new kind of combat!” … “We'll last longer than we will against that Death Star and we might just take a few of them with us!” Lando whooped. With a jolt, one of his forward guns was blown away. He put the Falcon into a controlled spin, and careened around the belly of the Imperial leviathan."

So, from establishment of a group of "giant, floating Imperial Star Destroyers", James Khan selects for Lando (suddenly, in media res, while we have not been properly introduced) "*the destroyer" that Lando shall be "skimming over the surface of". And then Lando "careened around the belly of *the Imperial leviathan". A leviathan is a giant, so there is no particular property that is newly and uniquely assigned to this particular star destroyer. There are many like it, but this one is Lando's. He *was "skimming over the surface", but now he *has "careened around the belly". Now, had the big, long belly been pointing up in the direction of every other Imperial conning tower ever presented in the first, second and third film, including the two master front shots of the Imperial fleet and the master side shot from the throne room, then the "surface" that Lando would have been adjacent to would have been a surface, with a conning tower, that was pointing down with respect to every other Imperial conning tower ever presented in the first, second and third film, including the two master front shots of the Imperial fleet and the master side shot from the throne room. In which case, if James Khan intended to represent something so intriguingly unusual, he would have said something of the sort of "under" "the surface", not, "over" "the surface".

So in the film, the surface that corresponds in terms of story boards, scene numbers, and sequences of actual frames shows the MF flying over an ISD-like surface that is as long as the keel of an ISD because it is in fact the ventral side of an ISD with modifications to hangar and bulge. Because it is not obvious that this is "only" a standard ISD, and it is not obvious that ILM was making their limited inventory of models stretch so as to depict fighters against an ISD forward dorsal surface, options for alternative interpretations remain. Some interpretations are invalid from a standpoint of treating the novel as a source of *any canonicity, and then treating *all that the novel says with an equal weight instead of cherry picking, and then using basic reasoning and basic knowledge of the conventions of the English language.









VII. In Scene 117, immediately following upon the previous ISD, the ISD that loses is starboard conning tower dome just after the black pilot of the X-Wing says, "She's gonna blow!" Because the previous ISD-like surface cannot be autocratically or by fiat constrained to a single interpretation, it has to remain a free variable. So this ISD here has to be different. Again, the subject or debate of sensor dome vs shield generator rears its head, because the explosion itself, the pyrotechnics, and indeed the word choice of pilot chatter do conspire to imply that there is a concentration of energy inside that sphere prior to it ever being torpedoed by storyboard B-Wings, or tapped on the side by A-Wing fighter blaster bolts, or crashed into, etc. I'm pretty certain what I think, being a fan of WWII naval history, and this presents me with a problem. It would seem, at the mouth of two witnesses -this here and the depiction of the conning tower sphere on the SSD- that Lucas himself advocates that these actions against these ships constitute an emotional finality which heralds the fait accompli of that ship's demise.

The novel's line in Chapter 9, "Get clear, you're going to blow!", is most analogous to the Lost Rebels line, "Get clear, she's going to blow!", which was originally destined for scene 120, the attack on the main communications ship ('MCS' for this post).



VIII. In Scene 117, immediately following that ISD, "I'm Hit!" Y-Wing Timothy Sinclair runs into the forward midships of an ISD.

The novel's line in Chapter 9, "Green Wing was hit. 'I'm losing power!'", is most analogous to the Lost Rebels line "I'm hit!", which was originally destined for scene 120 / MCS as well.



IX and X. The first ISD that is destroyed, and the foundering Rebel cruiser that did it. [In the film, the scene that precedes the novel's Chapter 9 is where (in Chapter 8) Vader throws his light saber at the catwalk and Luke goes into hiding, which is Scene 118, Stage 4, from Call Sheet 45. The next available frame from the space battle is of a Mon Cal cruiser going over a new SSD-like conning tower that has 5 bridges. This has to be or have been made to be Scene 120. Therefore I'll take one small step back to the novel at this entry point into Chapter 9.]

In chapter 9 of the novel is the first mention of an ISD being destroyed. It's the first basis for common interpretations of an Alliance policy or standard practice of collision. "Chapter IX. A Rebel Cruiser, its back alive with fires and explosions, limped into direct contact with an Imperial Star Destroyer before exploding completely—taking the Star Destroyer with it. Cargo ships loaded with charge were set on collision courses with fortress-vessels, their crews abandoning ships to fates that were uncertain, at best." It's probably easy to conflate these two tactics, one of opportunity, desperation and circumstance, with the several repeated attempts of a single type. For completeness, I saw no analogues in earth naval history of 'taking the other ship with it'. The most recent use of the principle of a fireship would be the incident of the USS Cole in 2000. A delayed fuse use of a fireship occurred in WWII with the HMS Campbeltown, but its target was a dock, not a vessel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Campbeltown_(I42)



XI and XII. The Empire's Main Communications Ship and its one vanquished Rebel cruiser.
Chapter IX:

So another Rebel cruiser has done enough damage to disable an important Imperial ship, and has been destroyed in return. (Big enough to do real damage by cannonade? Probably a Mon Cal cruiser.)

James Khan, or Lucas, or Kasdan, obviously forgot how the fighters were approaching this target. One emergency measure of interpretation, a conceit of flashback from media res, doesn't easily help because the first instance of flying 'rock-throwing low' was below the guns, and the second instance of flying low resulted in taking fire from every port. Is fifty feet 'rock-throwing low'? Most can throw a rock farther than fifty feet. This vessel clearly had AA guns that could reach low elevations. Perhaps a flashback from media res works if one interprets that after the dive and pull out they were within elevation of AA guns, and then they got lower and lower, closer to 'rock throwing low', where they could get below the elevations of the AA guns. It's unwieldy.

In the film, this sequence of space battle is followed by a middle segment of Scene 118 in the throne room, where the Emperor is just about to start electrifying Luke, and also Scene 123 and 124 which is where Han finally blows the shield generator. The effect is that the sequence of space battle under consideration must be scene 120, and scene 120 was designated for the attack on the EMCS. So if there is going to be an echo or vestige of any original ILM intent to represent some form of the EMCS that is indicated by the novel's response to the scripts' inclusion of an EMCS, it would be here in this segment. The unprecedented conning tower is the only standout vestige of a potential original intention to represent the EMCS.

It's not an automatic assignment to make. The unprecedented conning tower is being overflown by a Mon Cal cruiser (a Freedom class). Neither it nor the Mon Cal cruiser exhibit obvious damage as the novel would indicate if it were the EMCS, and furthermore the novel says that the EMCS takes on fighters after it dispatches the Rebel cruiser, not another Rebel cruiser. Saxton usefully taxonimizes this conning tower as an ISD-III, to go with ISD-II (Avenger) and ISD-I (Devastator). The primary reason I am not persuaded that this *has to be the finally delivered conning tower to the Avenger is that the ISD-II Avenger class were already being shown close up when the Falcon faced off against them in Chapter 8 / Scene 117 when Lando was saying, "Engage those star destroyers at point blank range". The structure of the Avenger-type conning tower face was starkly unmistakable through the Falcon's canopy. That's frame by frame, of course - maybe not by modes of consumption available in 1983. (Incidentally, the bridge windows of the leading ISD-II appeared to be lit as seen from the MF. It's a dim effect but present. How they are lit is a mystery since production photographs of the fully lit Avenger conning tower do not show light in the bridge windows, which in this case is the model piece of a three-gun battleship turret. Maybe some rewiring.)






https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16"/45_caliber_Mark_6_gun

I don't see overpowering attestation of the EMCS on film. I don't see in the novelization that James Khan had the faintest clue what were the relevant topologies, positions and momenta of the participants. My sense is that for this passage the script he had been given that did incorporate the Lost Rebels line might itself have been exceedingly slim on crucial stage direction. And so Khan merely recorded, rather than breathed life and interpretation into, the passage. Can't blame him. Not happy about it. It is a trial to restore any signal from this noise.

An attempt at reconstruction. Here I abandon entirely that the EMCS has the same topology as an ISD, using the logic that the SSD was described as a larger star destroyer but has key differences in topology. E.g., that huge ventral hangar, the fantail, the metropolitan midships, the propulsion arrangement.

For the reference to the high speed dive to have meaning, the writer, be that Lucas or Kasdan or Khan, were echoing a standard tactic of WWII where aircraft would dive wherever possible out of the sun (blinding the AA gunners) or from as close to vertical as they could, against the main body mass.

From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dive_bomber

From:
http://www.pacificaviationmuseum.org/pearl-harbor-blog/douglas-sbd-dauntless-scout-dive-bomber

The line, "Stay clear of their front batteries" probably means naturally they dived closer to the front batteries than to any other battery. We know that the physical model itself of an ISD has main batteries on both rear flanks, but an ISD can fire from wherever ILM wants to place the FX, including any necessary putative lighter AA guns.

So this EMCS has front AA batteries. Enough to create a 'heavy fire zone'.
Lando wants to get to the / get at the 'main power tree', whatever that is. His group have to get from the front-ish end of this ship through the front batteries to a tower that is apparently relevant to the 'main power tree'. In fact it appears that the 'main power tree' can be accessed in more than one way, i.e., from either right or left side. Maybe over top. Wedge recommends to concentrate on the left of the tower. So here the battle for supremacy of definition about these radar domes / sensor domes / shield generators / power trees / gum ball machines commences. A perfectly reasonable use of the word 'tower' would be the conning tower itself which is on every capital Imperial ship. As the fighters are approaching from the front, the left side of such a conning tower would be its starboard side. Lando could have reached the 'main power tree' by going to the port side of the conning tower, but Wedge said try the starboard side.

If I was forced to guess, "What might a "main power tree" be?", using this clue and an economy of presented details and terms and functionalities, I would say a main power tree is a kind of two-part power jugular that goes up, under substantial armor, each side of the conning tower. Under best circumstances there is redundancy, but under deteriorating circumstances a single failure may be a total failure. Attacking either side of this system, and getting through the shields and the hull armor, constitutes attacking the main power tree. Is a human's jugular armored? There's a tiny bit of muscle. Can a human survive a cut to one jugular? Yes, if controlled circumstances permit. If a human in combat experiences a cut to the jugular, what are the present odds of survival? Not as great as if controlled circumstances permit. That kind of thing. For a 'main communications ship' -class star destroyer, a cut to this main power tree would take its main communications array and functionality, presumably on top of the conning tower, out of action. "Main power tree" is mentioned with respect to no other class of star destroyer other than the EMCS.

So, even as Lando is in range or getting into range, Green Wing, whoever that is, is starting to break up and is close enough behind them, apparently, to present a danger to their flight, while also being far enough in the rear of the formation to still be under the fire or over the physical location of the front batteries, however long they extend along the forward dorsal surface. And so Green Wing goes down into the destroyer's front batteries, but was apparently either over the port side bow or ended up near the port side bow (to the right and to the rear of Lando in the total formation), because Green Wing's impact appears to occur at the "port bow". James Khan either picked the word "bow", or was guided by the script to use the word "bow". "Bow" is specifically pretty front, pretty forward, i.e., doesn't extend very far back, so by the time all this dialogue has been uttered, this failure to get aft of the aft extent of the bow, without being sarcastic, means this is a ship of *some size.

Now, If Lando was in range that 'should' mean he was ahead of the rest (although we hear later that the Falcon's missiles are more powerful than Wedge's and should thereby sensibly require a longer range), and if Wedge was suggesting shots on the conning tower, but if Green Wing was still far back enough to dive into the front batteries, but Green Wing's actions opened up a hole of some kind that enables Wedge to exclaim, "That opens it up for us!", then, the most economical logic is that the front batteries were firing backwards over midships, or at least backwards to vertical on the overflying fighters, and perhaps most specifically, backward to vertical to starboard, where Wedge thought Lando's best shot would be, and making it difficult for Lando et al to set up the (first?) best shot.

So now, after Green Wing's apparently guided and intentional directing of his/her failing craft into the "port bow" batteries, all of a sudden Wedge announces they or Lando need to make an aggressive maneuver to get into position to get at 'The power reactors', whatever they are. Maybe they had to take an alternative target because Lando could not effectively target his primary choice of 'main power tree' due to the overwhelming fire of the front batteries, up until Green Wing damaged a useful number of front batteries, or their infrastructure, at least in the port bow of the ship, and so now Wedge is thinking fast on his feet and going to a secondary target which are these new 'power reactors' that have been placed 'inside a cargo bay'. Is Lando's 'main power tree' inside the same cargo bay as Wedge's 'power reactors'? How big is a cargo bay? Is a cargo bay as big as a hangar bay? A cargo ship that we can identify transports cargo objects of a size smaller than a fighter aircraft. The density itself of cargo, and the density itself of aircraft, constrain the respective volumes of their bay.

Here is what we Earthlings can call a hangar bay:
From:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hangar_bays_of_USS_Kitty_Hawk_(CV-63)

Etymology:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hangar

Here is what we Earthlings can call a cargo bay:

From:
http://www.aviationspectator.com/im...c-17-globemaster-iii/c-17-globemaster-iii-229

Etymology:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cargo

Which one can you even hope to fly an aircraft in? Probably not the cargo bay. Saxton usefully posits that the cargo bay was near the internal power tree, and that the cargo bay was exposed due to a shield failure.

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#commship

Time to look at the actual tower and then done.

I take this one to represent correct handedness. My magnifying glass tells me that the odds are high, or, not low, that the two last characters on the box in the back are "28". It could be an "01928" or an "0928" if I had to guess. The artist, who I cannot establish anywhere is Paul Huston, has a watch on the left wrist. Considering that most watches, generally of that period, had a dial on the right hand side, so that they could be wound by the right hand when on the left wrist, and he is performing work with his right hand, I conclude that this image is correct.


That means the following image is mirrored.


So the conning tower presented in the film is a mirror image of the physical model. Does it alter the following interpretation? No. So, looking at the conning tower as it is on film, note the three small hangar bay doors that are on each side of the bridge. This may be a piece of train car model. Doesn't look to me exactly big enough to house an inverted-wing TIE bomber shuttle. Maybe a tight squeeze. Anyway, there's three on the film starboard side, two on the film port side. If Lando needed to get at the "main power tree", and Wedge said 'try the starboard side', and then said wait a sec, let's just go for the "power reactors that are just inside the cargo bay", then of the three cargo bay doors / tiny hangar bay doors on the starboard side of the conning tower, the one nearest the bridge would be the one nearest to a putative "main power tree" that feeds the main communications equipment. The reactor in there depends on shielding and the hangar door. And in this scenario, the EMCS has already taken a beating and lost some of these protections. And the rebels make their move. Blue Leader, in his slow B-Wing, doesn't pull away in time.

I of course don't expect anyone to visualize any part of what I said here. It was an exercise to use every detail given to construct a plausible sequence of images.

Stopping here. Other engagements of capital ships remain. I think I missed discussion of lighting on some engagements.

 

My bad for typing on a tiny screen: "Tector is an EU response to a Saxton response to the long ISD-like surface."
Done. Carry on.

 

Iron_lord

So some felt it should be an upside-down Star Destroyer without the ventral bulge and loading bay but other than that still a regular Star Destroyer? So they didn't consider that it had to be "larger" than that, according both to screenplay and novelization, explaining a different surface structure?

I can't bring myself to accept it as anything else than the bow surface of that enigmatic "larger" Star Destroyer ("Tector-class"), considering what are the obvious intentions of ILM and Lucas, IMHO, but nevertheless consider that particular shot as Tector-class Star Destroyer hint # 2.

Before I proceed to hint # 3 I feel compelled to illustrate the different application of differently sized command bridge modules on the large Star Destroyer conning tower module built for ROJ.

The Millennium Falcon has an official (spherical) diameter of 17.4 meters which happens to match the diameter of the Star Destroyers' top domes. In the right image above you can see the variation that made it (fortunately) with a pretty good front view into the final film. The width of that balcony bridge in real life would be approximately 9 m.
The width of the (half built) balcony bridge control deck studio set for ESB (or the full set built for ROJ based on these plans) was 42 feet / 12.8 m.

Essentially, the balcony bridge module in the right image should still be a little bigger and wider, but basically it's a good match that tells us how the front of the Avenger should have looked like and what the front of the Executor must have looked like at least (here's to Adywan in case he reads this!).

In contrast we see on the left a smaller bridge balcony variation only half the size of the correct one and only one quarter the diameter of the top domes.

Either that balcony bridge is only half the width of the studio set we saw both in ESB and ROJ (now that would be impossible!)
OR
the conning tower we see on the left is twice as big, wide and tall as the standard conning towers on regular Star Destroyers - and the Executor.

For reasons I cannot explain it's the left conning tower variation (and with a third bridge module, one with flat windows!) that was used for Green Leader's kamikaze attack on the Emperor's super Star Destroyer, hence my argument that if we take the left variation as accurate for the sSD seen in ROJ, we are looking at a super-super Star Destroyer of at least 22 miles length that can't possibly be the Executor any more! (Adywan, please take notice!).
Now, before anyone gets scared of that walking distance, good news remains that we never get a clear view of the actual front of the sSD in ROJ in the final film (absolute canon), so we can safely assume it would looked correctly like the one on the right.

From what I've heard the explanation goes like that: For some strange reason the large conning tower model was built with a flat, undersized bridge and the two module variations were simply added in front of it (but must have gone lost as in all worldwide exhibits only the flat bridge variation had been on display).
Either the ILM model builders had completely lost their sense of scale when building this large conning tower module OR they planned ahead to also use it for the enigmatic "large" Star Destroyer in the deleted scene.

We don't know how much "larger" it would have been, but the outermost edge already suggested twice as tall...

Stay tuned for the last hint, i.e. Tector-class Star Destroyer seen in the distance but its conning tower rather close...

P.S. Just noted Hernalt's mega-post, almost coinciding with mine.

 

Hernalt



What a passionate work and research attempt! Somebody should make a couple of 2D plans to illustrate the various maneuvers you described in-depth.

I concur that Ackbar was launching extra fighters from the bays of the Rebel Star Cruisers, Interesting theory about TIE twin-pods from the Death Star (seen at the beginning of the film) joining the attack to damage a couple of capital ships, trying to cripple their propulsion systems, thus preventing their escape and instead have them lined up as sitting ducks for the Death Star to dispose off.

According to a ROJ storyboard of Vader's arrival, the planet we see in the background (and upon Tydirium's Arrival) is "Endor", so I guess all the illumination during the battle is mostly provided by the system's star or sun.

There are a few points I will address in the upcoming "conclusion" (gladly notice I can still postpone this one), but first I'd like to wrap up my theory on the "larger" and/or Tector-class Star Destroyer.

Tector-class Star Destroyer hint # 3

I think the above annotated illustration speaks for itself, and I hope my previous post regarding the differently sized conning towers (because of the bridge module variations) was graphic and understandable.

As shown above the approach scene of the Shuttle Tydirium is not free from size-relation issues. Assuming that the Tydirium is all that time just flying in front of the conning tower of the sSD will inevitably only allow the conclusion that this sSd must be at least twice as long as the Executor.

Alternately, the Star Destroyer earlier behind the sSD has moved forward in the last image and its his conning tower Tydirium is now passing, having left the one of the sSD already behind.
But if we were to assume that it's still a "standard size" conning tower, then Tydirium's port side wing would already be scraping against its exterior hull which is most definitely not "fly casual" or "keep your distance (but don't make it look like you are trying to keep distance)".

There still has to be a healthy distance between Tydirium and that conning tower, and the inevitable consequence is that it's a much larger conning tower than ever seen before, ultimately one that's least twice as big. While the shot of this "larger" Star Destroyer in the first image's background lacks detail, it still reveals the basic silhouette of a regular Star Destroyer, therefore features a conning tower variation with a small bridge module.

While our overall understanding of this enigmatic "large" Star Destroyer is incomplete, we nevertheless now "can know"

1. It's top side structure basically resembles a regular Star Destroyer including a conning tower
2. It's forward bow section resembles the bottom side of a regular Star Destroyer
3. It's outer edge resembles the outer edge of the Executor
4. It's approximately twice the length of a regular Star Destroyer, i.e. 2 miles or 3,200 meters

 

Official where?

The Avenger tower (with 1600m Avenger length) is approximately 270m wide - the shield domes are approximately 1/9 the diameter of the tower - making them not 17.4m but a lot larger. Consistent with the newcanon length of the Falcon of 34.52m and diameter of a lot more than 17.4m.

 

^ balcony bridge matches original studio set dimensions perfectly

Iron_lord

Thanks for the correction, turns out doing the calculation I accidentally entered 24.75 m instead of 34.75 (we are not seriously arguing whether its XX.52 or XX.75 m?). So the circular diameter of the Falcon (and the shield power generator domes) would be approximately 24.3 - 24.4 m.

The large command bridge module is half that diameter which would make it approx.12.2 m wide. The real life width of the command bridge control deck studio set with the balcony is 12.8 m, thus the large command bridge module (and contrary to some belief I read in other posts) is the one that qualifies as an almost perfect match that features the correct appearance of the both the Avenger and Executor command bridge seen from the outside in real life.

 

The 19 km Executor requires a slightly larger tower - 289m instead of 270m.

The actual Executor model had a tower 4.2 cm wide - and according to West-Reynolds, the model itself was 277cm long. Thus, it was to a 1/6860 scale, using newcanon figures.

In short, to do what the EU did, and try and make sense of things that don't quite make sense as depicted in the movie.
Thus, what's seen (like the SSD crashing into the Death Star, or the changing size of the Forest Moon relative to the Death Star) can be treated as an approximation, which is subject to special effects limitations.

 

Iron_lord wrote

The 19 km Executor requires a slightly larger tower - 289m instead of 270m.

Your point is what exactly? If the big balcony bridge is only 12.2 m wide on the Avenger conning tower, but once I multiply that number with 107% (270 m x 107% = 289 m) I'll get a balcony bridge width of 13 m which is closer to the actual studio set dimensions of 12.8 m.

So the screencap in my last post may not be a perfect match for the Avenger, but the large bridge module is a perfect match for the Executor given her overall dimensions.

Irrefutable fact remains that the small bridge module we've seen applied behind-the-scenes for the attack on the super Star Destroyer conning tower in ROJ is not compatible with an sSD "only" 11 miles long.

 

The "multibridged tower" when the Falcon's actually making its flyby, looks to have domes twice the width of the Falcon:



They only reach "the width of the Falcon" when it is far in front of the tower:




Hence the theory that it's not an ISD-scale tower, voiced here:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pride_of_Tarlandia/Legends

 

Iron_lord

While I can see how someone could arrive at such a conclusion, it nevertheless provokes a facepalm gesture on my end.

We can't safely determine the size of an ISD based on the Tantive IV, but we can determine the size by comparing the exterior dimensions of the Falcon to the Star Destroyer domes and take it from there.
Comparing the diameter of the domes with the large balcony bridge module, whose real life studio set width is 12.8 m (I do have a copy of the original plan view blueprint with measurements) we see that the ILM model makers paid commendable attention to these things and we get a close to perfect match, which I find rather outstanding.

Since we all do know that compositing the different VFX elements often yielded strange results (e.g. Falcon passing Blockade Runner, Blockade Runner during broadside exchange...) I will never understand how fans arrive at such conclusions based exclusively on VFX and disregarding the actual model miniatures (add in this particular case that we don't know how far the Falcon is behind or already in front of the conning tower to arrive at a reliable conclusion).

 

Just dropping a really fast mention that after seeing those two B&W images of the conning towers, I have the suspicion that the right-most one with 5 bridges may have been the first built incarnation ready for photography, and then got a few nice sequences, and one of those sequences made it into the movie, and then they did a little bit of work on it. They took off the five bridges, added a smaller central bridge, maybe did a bit of paint job, did some nice close up photography, switched out one of the whole towers with a hand-crafted exploded one, finally restored the model to its SSD configuration, and that's what is left of the 5-bridge conning tower. It had its day. It got filmed. It got repurposed. This principle of repurpose is how ILM got the Liberty cruiser out of the non-winged Mon Cal cruiser, which had received a great deal of angles and shots that were in the can but not necessarily destined or promised or intended to be used.

I was looking for something and hit a French site of a Star Wars road show and the SSD conning tower was showcased behind glass. The photographer took such a high res photograph it makes this B&W a poltergeist. Do I remember where I put that link. Of course I don't.

 

Sometimes the model miniatures are apparently not to scale with one another. Hence Saxton's 3.2 km Home One (despite the fact that the Home One and Liberty models are about the same length.


Now, it hasn't yet been stated outright for the newcanon that the Battlecruiser Pride of Tarlandia mentioned in jasonfry 's The Levers of Power is synonymous with the multi-nodule Star Destroyer - but it seemed to me that, back in the Legends era when the ship was created, authorial intent was pretty clear - and that there's no point in changing it now.

I thought that it was the other way round - that, from the look of the "work in progress" multi-nodule ship - the bridge was added on via something like plaster or modelling cement, and would be difficult to remove.
Thus, they did the SSD shots first, then added nodules for that one Falcon shot.

 

Hernalt wrote

I was looking for something and hit a French site of a Star Wars road show and the SSD conning tower was showcased behind glass. The photographer took such a high res photograph it makes this B&W a poltergeist. Do I remember where I put that link. Of course I don't.

That one is coming up ASAP, with some annotations of mine...

But I can already say that this conning tower (with the small bridge module) would be 357 m wide in real life.

 

Then how did Saxton manage to get 289m out of it? (the figure in Complete Locations - the book on which he was a consultant)

Rebels's depiction:



fixes some of the issues (ISD-I having atypical sensor domes, for example).