CT 'Death Star' and 'Star Destroyer' were terms coined by the Alliance right?

In ANH I don't think there is a single imperial that refers to their 'battle station' as the death star, nor do they refer to their bulk cruisers as 'star destroyers'.

Only in ROTJ did the bad guys start directly referring to it as the death star.

 

I think that was the intent when ANH was released. But in the context of the entire saga, they're known by those names because the Imperials named them that.

 

Wow another thing I just realized as well about ANH, Vader never refers to it as 'the dark side' of the force... only Obi-Wan does.

Makes more sense that the sith wouldn't see what they're doing as 'dark' or 'evil', it's just merely their instinct. Why would they call it the dark side?

I like it in ROTJ when Vader refers to it as 'the true nature of the force'.

 

"The Death Star plans are not in the main computer" - Imperial officer on Tantive IV

"We have a new enemy - the young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star" - Palpatine

"The Death Star will be completed on schedule" - Vader

 

I'm trading in my answer and taking this one as my own.

 

Seeing those quotes again makes me think of and question why in DC Comics Lex Luthor and the other villains decided to call their team "The Legion of Doom", or Magneto in the Marvel Comics Universe decided to name his team "The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants". You think these guys could higher a better PR guy.

As for Star Destroyer, a "Destroyer" is simply a class of naval war vessel. Granted in the US Navy Destroyers are small and fast but I guess if you stack a Star Destroyer against a Super Star Destroyer like the Executor or a Dreadnaught, then maybe those are the smaller ones.

 

That's how I interpreted it as well. I never once considered the possibility that a star destroyer could actually destroy stars.
As for the original question, it would be very easy to check, simply by watching the movies again. But I can tell you this with 90% sureness from memory alone: "star destroyer" was first used early in ESB at the Hoth base: "XXX (I forgot the number) fighters against a star destroyer?" says one of the Rebel pilots to Leia. In ANH the word does not appear, instead the ships are called "Imperial cruiser". I'm talking about the movies only, no idea about comics, radio dramas etc. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

FWIW, the line "Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival" that was added to the Special Edition of TESB was an unused recording from ANH.

 

I didn't know that! Any idea where in ANH that line would have been used?

 

Presumably during the opening sequence, as Vader returns to the Devastator.
That's the only part of the film where it could reasonably be used, I think.

 

I'm sure during the escape from mos eisly scene someone mentions 2 imperial cruisers, then worries that an imperial star destroyer is also behind them.

 

I'm guessing GL coined the term Star Destroyer just because he thought it sounded cool, and didn't put a whole lot of thought into how it would fit into RL naval vessel classifications. IIRC, the first drafts of The Star Wars included single-seat fighters known as Star Destroyers.

 

I really don't like that explanation for the name. When we see that massive warship at the beginning of ANH, are we supposed to think that this is a normal, medium-sized vessel in the GFFA? I rather doubt it. There was an old Databank entry on starwars.com a long time ago which basically said that Star Destroyers were not standard, normal vessels at all, and were absolute overkill for the actual needs of the Empire. Yeah, the Databank entry probably isn't canon now, but my point is that Star Destroyers were intended to be big, bad, over-the-top monsters. They might not be able to literally destroy stars, but they're so powerful that the name is warranted. I'd say that's a lot cooler than it simply being a destroyer in the battleship/cruiser/destroyer naval classification scheme.

 

25,000 Star Destroyers, and a million other ships to make up the fleet. I wonder if they came up with names for everyone or at some point they are just a number designation.

 

Don't remember that. Sources?

No, not medium-sized but big. And then 20 minutes later we see the Death Star, next to which the star destroyer looks TINY. What we do learn in ANH is that dimensions in that universe are on an incredibly larger scale than things on Earth. Yes, some of the ships are huge, but nobody in the movies seems all that surprised by the sizes. Ships/vehicles use all kinds of common (military) Earth names, cruiser, frigate, sail barge, cloud CAR.... and destroyer. A ship meant for space is a star ship, a cruiser becomes a star cruiser, a fighter a star fighter and a destroyer class warship for space is a star destroyer. The analogy makes complete sense to me.

 

Star Destroyers were called heavy cruisers in the earliest tie-in material, and portrayed as outgunning everything else:

STAR WARS: OFFICIAL POSTER MONTHLY #6: Published March 1978

http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post6-03.jpg

"Heavy cruiser of the Imperial Starfleet. Heavily fortified, bristling with armament. Backbone of the Empire's security forces, can outgun all other vessels except Death Star"

Then Lucas introduced the Executor, and then other writers back-ported Big Ships into the period before ANH, retconning this.

Here:

STAR WARS: OFFICIAL POSTER MONTHLY #13: Published October 1978

http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/pos13-03.jpg


there's an implication that it is properly a "Corellian cruiser" and was only dubbed "Star Destroyer" by the model squad.

The quote in question:

Han: Looks like an imperial cruiser. Our passengers must be hotter than I thought. Try and hold 'em off. Angle the deflector shields while I make the calculations for the jump to light speed.
Han: Stay sharp. There's two more comin' in. They're gonna try and cut us off.
Luke: Why don't you outrun 'em? I thought you said this thing was fast!

 

There's a bit of justified confusion here. Already the rough draft for The Star Wars from May 1974 featured the term "Stardestroyer" but in quite a different context:

7. INTERIOR OF STARDESTROYER – ALDERAAN

Stardestroyers are two-man space craft crammed with sophisticated electronic weaponry. The pilot and gunnery officers sit side-by-side, surrounded by lighted readouts and switches. They wear the gleaming black uniforms of the Empire.

Fast forward to January 1975 and "stardestroyer" has become the name for an Imperial capital ship:

A tiny silver space craft races from behind one of the lifeless Utapau moons. The small rebel spacefighter is being chased by four giant Imperial stardestroyers. Hundreds of deadly laser bolts streak from the Imperial warships as they dive on the smaller craft.

Yet, in ANH "Star Destroyers" are only referenced as "big Corellian ships" and "Imperial cruisers":

HAN
It looks like an Imperial cruiser.
Our passengers must be hotter than
I thought. Try and hold them off.
Angle the deflector shield while
I make the calculations for the
jump to light speed.

EXT. SPACE – PLANET TATOOINE
The Millennium Falcon pirateship races away from the yellow planet. It is followed by two huge Imperial Star Destroyers.

All I can offer is a theory:
In ANH the Death Star was the actual "planet" or "star destroyer". Perhaps Lucas felt that use of that term would be confusing for audiences entering the SW universe for the first time and decided to drop all "star destroyer" references in ANH.
By the time of ESB the Death Star had gone, Lucas then could use "Star Destroyer" as the term for the capital Imperial ships.
By the time of ROJ audiences knew the difference between a "Death Star" and a "Star Destroyer".

 

In the Marvel comics published between ANH and TESB, the ships (heavily stylised, but probably intended to be the ANH ones) are called "Star Destroyer-class battlecruisers".

Two-word class names aren't unheard of in the real world.

Later though, once the "Victory-class Star Destroyer" terminology started being used for an EU vessel originally called "destroyer, Victory-class", there was a move from "Imperial Star Destroyer" to "Imperial-class Star Destroyer - which appears to be what the newcanon has settled on.

 

^ Another conjecture from "Uncle EU". So the Executor is still a "Super-class Star Destroyer"?.

(and I shall say nothing about "Rebel-class" vehicles... )

 

The newcanon Visual Encyclopaedia still calls it a Super-class Star Destroyer, yes (though at least one other newcanon work has used the term Executor-class Star Dreadnought. Blame WEG for the former and Curtis Saxton for the latter.

 

Of course I blame WEG, and while we're at it for their erroneous claim that a Super Star Destroyer was supposedly only 5 miles long.

I still admire Curtis Saxton's unwavering efforts to have that erroneous SSD length figure rectified (how many years did that take?). And Executor-class is obviously appropriate.

Using the political affiliation "Imperial" for a class is as if somebody would seriously claim that the WWII battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz belonged to the "German-class" or "Nazi-class". (it was the Bismarck-class)

Given the undisputed historical allusions in Star Wars to our own history and considering that equally the United States, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan created ship-classes after the first ship built, it's safe to assume that a similar thing applies in the SW Universe.

 

USA's had several "America-class" warships - why can't an Empire have an "Empire-class" or "Imperial-class"?

The "Ship's class is the name of the first of the line" convention is very common, but not universal - there are exceptions. Newcanon is creating more exceptions.

Newcanon's given us "Mega-class" after all - Supremacy being the first (and so far only) of the line, but Supremacy is not the actual name of the class itself.

And the Resurgent-class - first of the line being Finalizer.

 

"Empire-class", "Coruscant-class" or the likes are undisputed, but there's no "American-class", "Russian-class" or "German-class" etc.

IMHO, "Imperial-class" remains a stupid WEG conjecture that tells me that those guys somewhat did not understand that "Imperial Star Destroyer" or "Imperial cruiser" merely indicated a vessel operated by the Empire and not the Alliance, but most certainly was never intended to suggest "Imperial" to be some ship class of its own.

Newcanon may have given us "Mega-class" (what's next? The Giga-class and the Tera-class?) but newcanon also gave us TLJ.