How did that tiny A Wing take out the Executor?

Yeah, it rammed through the bridge, but that was a HUGE ship. Why weren't the shields up? With all those cannons it slipped through?

 

The one imperial said "sir, we've lost the bridge deflector shields". The explosion in the bridge caused a chain reaction throughout Executor, causing it to blow up from the inside much like the Trade Federation ship in Episode I.

 

The A-wing didnt take out the Executor, it merely destroyed its bridge (since bridge deflectors were down). This made the ship steerless and made it crash into the Death Star.

 

And they presumably didn't have time to activate the auxiliary bridge.

 

The scene involving the Executor's demise sounded cool, but when I actually saw it for myself I was greatly disappointed.

 

Agreed. It's such a monumental catastrophe ... probably the biggest "shipwreck" in Star Wars history and the models used are like my old SW toys, some gasoline, and a Lego Gray castle set.

Lucas could easily bone up on this explosion and give it some umph.

 

Chain reaction from the bridge? How is that even possible? No, it just took out their ability to control the thing. What destroyed the Executor was its collision with the Death Star.

Also, it wasn't just A-wings - Ackbar had ordered all ships to concentrate fire on it.

 

You have a massive ball of fire in the bridge that spread through all bridge exists. When it spreads into the next part of the ship, that part also begins to explode internally and the explosion moves on. It's not that hard to comprehend.

 

If I recall that right the auxillary bridge couldn't be activated fast enough before the steerless Executor was drawn into the artifical gravity of the Death Star and that's why it blew up. A catastrophe come and think about it, considering how many people were on that ship

 

But that's not how an explosion acts, it doesn't keep expanding just like that. It needs fuel, and secondary explosions as ammo and fuel ignite - neither of which is likely to be near the bridge. The bridge area is destroyed because the A-wing explodes, and this explosion spreads throughout that area. But once the initial explosion is over, and the A-wing's fuel is expended, the explosion dissipates and there's only fire remaining (and we see this still burning as it collides with the Death Star). It doesn't create a 'ball of fire' that then spreads into the 'next part of the ship', no other sections of the ship show any sign of damage except the bridge. Fire alone doesn't just make things 'explode internally'.

Bottom line, it's not at all like the droid ship in TPM, where their reactor core or whatever had been hit.

 

If you say so. I will simply agree to disagree.

 

I don't just 'say so'. It's all there in the movie. It's quite simply not a chain reaction, you goofed, you erred, you misinterpreted the data at hand!

 

I don't believe it's a misinterpretation, as I'm going by common sense rather than what 1983 special effects were able to show. You have your opinion and I have mine. It shouldn't matter to you.

 

Only the Executor's bridge was on fire. The rest of the ship was undamaged until it crashed into the Death Star.

 

As I said....

To me, it makes sense that a chain reaction would have been set off within the ship.

 

Except that there was no chain reaction. The movie only shows the bridge on fire. And it's not just the 1983 special effects, either. If Lucas wanted the Executor to have more internal explosions, he could have put it on the DVD. He didn't.

And do you really think that a ship could be so poorly designed that an explosion in one section could take out the rest of the ship? Granted, the Trade Federation ship blew up in sequence, but that was because its reactor exploded. There was no reactor on the Executor's bridge.

Common sense says that if a section of a ship that has no explosive material gets destroyed, only that section will be destroyed, leaving the rest of the ship intact.

For example, the battle in the beginning of ROTS clearly shows several ships with parts of their hull exploding, but the rest of the ship stays unharmed.

 

Common sense tells you that if there is a fire and something that can catch on fire right next to it, the fire will spread.

 

Yes, but ships in Star Wars have safety measures to counteract that sort of thing. Any internal bulkheads will seal off, containing the breach spot. Once all the atmosphere leaves, the fire will go out.

 

I had never heard that before. Interesting.

 

"Agreed. It's such a monumental catastrophe ... probably the biggest "shipwreck" in Star Wars history and the models used are like my old SW toys, some gasoline, and a Lego Gray castle set.

Lucas could easily bone up on this explosion and give it some umph."

You youngens have been mislead by the cgi of latter day. How often have you really seen the shockwave from a helicopter crash roll like a wave on the outside of an office complex, or a planet turned into saturn by shockwave rings, or evil being killed and it's shockwave pushing every elf warrior to the ground. Those shockwaves doesn't exist except for on very special occasions like when detonating an A-bomb.

 

You're welcome to persist in your opinion on this one, but it's wrong, both in the context of the film and physics.

1) The Executor isn't some thatch roof on a cottage, it's not going to be made out of materials that just ignite in proximity to a fire - it's primarily metal, which doesn't simply catch fire in a matter of seconds.

2) The A-wing explosion couldn't possibly fuel a fire big enough to spread throughout a ship the size of this one. It's only the fact that it hits the bridge that takes the Executor down.

3) And most of the fire resulting from the A-wing explosion would have dispersed through the exit holes caused by the explosion (see in film). Fire won't be spreading away from escape into space

There's not much common sense in your argument, and all the evidence goes against it. Blaming 1983 SFX is a poor excuse for believing in a 'chain reaction' hypothesis.

 

I don't know if you read a few of the above posts, but timmoishere more or less convinced me of that with the last thing he said.

 

It doesn't even matter what is or isn't in the movie...Yes, fire spreads, but it needs fuel, something to keep it going. It doesn't just spread just because. The reason the Federation ship explosion in TPM spread is because it was FUELED by the leak in the reactor - which spread throughout the ship. It's not an opinion, it's physics.

Plus, just something else I noticed - if the executor's explosion spread throughout the ship, it would have been just the spread of FIRE, like a house burning down-no additional explosions...if THAT is the case, it would have taken MUCH longer than it did for a ship that size to be destroyed from the inside by the fire, because it would have taken that much time for the fire to spread.

I AGREE that just because it didn't SHOW it exploding from the inside doesn't mean it didn't SPREAD, but MY personal thought is that if Lucas were intending us to think the Executor was destroyed by spreaded explosions from the inside, he wouldn't have made such a huge display showing it STEER out of control, and crash into the Death Star...

 

Shall I use my powers for good or for evil?

 

I keep hearing that only the bridge was on fire. If I haven't missed anything yet, the Executor's engines, along with the bridge, are spewing flames as its careening into the second Death Star. There is also explosions on the left of the command tower. Wouldn't that indicate that fires and explosions were spreading through the ship? Even though its hardly shown on screen?