CT Plot Holes in the CT

And the Death Star as a whole:

"The Death Star is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the star fleet. Its defences are designed around a direct, large-scale assault, but a small, one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defence".

Implication - its shields will stop capital ships from coming anywhere near it - but not small ships.

 

The Alliance's subfighters penetrated the "magnetic field" (same as the Falcon as it left the station) but nowhere is there a suggestion that this magnetic field is synonymous with a deflector shield.

Yet you're right that Dodonna refers to "heavy" shielding which suggests use of deflector shields. The way I see it the Death Star most likely has deflector shield power generators it can use as a protection against a capital ship attack but probably only uses these were needed (think Hoth deflector shield power generator, only protecting a surface section containing Echo Base).

The snubfighters either used gaps between deflector shields or Tarkin simply didn't raise them because he didn't consider the fighters to be a threat (but a good training excercise for his gunners).

 

The latter would make sense and fit in with his belief that the Death Star was invincible.

 

They say "We're opening the magnetic field" when they're tractoring the Falcon in. The implication is that a "closed" field won't let it in.

 

But the Alliance fighters did penetrate it and the Falcon must have penetrated it on its way away from the Death Star. Apparently you can penetrate the magnetic field or shield with active deflector shields.

The original screenplay from March 15 refers to "shields" instead of "field" in the final film:

PILOT LEADER
We’re passing through their magnetic shields, hold tight. Lock down your control units. Switch your deflector shields on… double front.

The way I read it this line implies that there is a clear distinction between "deflector shielding" (Alliance snubfighters) and the Death Star's "magnetic shielding". I still interpret this magnetic field to be rather some kind of mechanism that keeps an air bubble around the Death Star (thus serves as a natural shield just our Earth's atmosphere), explains that Imperial gunners and stormtroopers (without oxygen supply gear) shoot through open apertures at the Alliance fighters, explains Biggs "Eject" suggestion to Porkins (although he atctually did have a problem with his converter running wild, maybe he was to eject his converter), and ultimately - of course - why there is sound during a space battle.

 

I could mis-remember, but don't we see some storm-troopers outside, on the surface of the DS when the MF is being brought in? We see some guns and some soldiers among them.
That would also support your idea of a bubble of air around the DS.

Bye for now.
Blackboard Monitor

 

These two stormtroopers actually wore gear that suggested air supply. But this is the Death Star's equatorial ring and one could argue that the "magnetic field" in this scene was merely protecting Bay 327 from decompression.

On the other hand, on the Death Star's upper surface, neither the gunners nor the stormtroopers monitoring the cannons wear any kind of gear, yet shoot through open "blast door" apertures:



Admittedly, the above scene was shot in the UK and the 'spacetrooper' scene later in post-production, so the spacetrooper scene could suggest a premise change.

OTOH, IIRC, the wielding stormtrooper in ROJ didn't have any backpack...

 

Any idea why the 2 troopers in the second picture have their blasters drawn? At that point there was no enemy inside the DS. And they couldn't possibly have shot at Rebel fighters with their blasters.

 

Not if they wanted to be Force Choked by Vader.

 

Lets blame Gary Kurtz.

 

Good observation. They also carry their blasters during the actual film scenes.

But we saw 'earlier' in the Death Star firing scenes that gunners never operate independently, i.e. they were supvervised by samurai-helmeted guards. For all I know gunners could be the lowest in the Imperial food chain (perhaps even the 'Walrus Man' aliens we saw in Mos Eisley), so the stormtroopers carry blasters (probably set to "shock") to ensure they are doing their job and don't abandon their posts at the first sign of trouble.

As we saw in ANH they have little protection and I don't want to know about the radiation levels sitting right next to these guns:


(heck, what a filthy and hazardous working environment)

 

Hey... What if EpIX reveals that all the ray shields in the Saga were actually Rey shields?
Then it would all make sense!!

 

I was enjoying the discussion on Leia giving up Alderaan, but I felt it necessary to throw a wrench into the discussion. Tarkin does not wait until verifying Dantooine is deserted. He blows up Alderaan immediately after Leia says Dantooine. Tarkin's comment was, "You may fire when ready. You're far too trusting. Dantooine is far too remote to make an effective demonstration, but we'll deal with your Rebel freinds soon enough."

 

Don't know if this was ever brought up, but during the Battle of Yavin sequence the voice in the Rebel command center goes "Death Star will be in firing range in seven minutes". Shortly afterwards we see Vader summoning the two TIE Fighter pilots. Shortly afterwards, we see them take off. Shortly afterwards, the Y-wings are in the trench about to be ambushed by Vader, and then it cuts back to the command center, "Death Star will be in firing range in five minutes". So Vader was able to stroll to the hangar bay, complete his entire pre-flight checklist, then intercept the Y-wings...all in less than two minutes. Hmmm...

 

Maybe Vader, being important, and always impatient, has his own flight crew which keep his squadron ready for takeoff at all times no matter what?

 

Yeah perhaps, but I feel like even if that were the case, two minutes is still way too short of a time for all that to happen.

 

If a fighter is on standby for scramble, it can be launched in less than a minute. All the preflight inspections and checklist items are accomplished beforehand and the engines are kept warmed up, so the pilot just has to strap in and go.

 

They are at battle stations. Of course the fighters are prepared to launch in seconds. Do you think his wing men are standing minutes away from their hangar? It's not called "scramble" for nothing.

 

I thought on real-life aircraft carriers the quickest they can get a plane into the air is five minutes? Ah, oh well.

 

I will just assume @Sarge is right on this for obvious reasons. I would assume there is a hangar like right by the observation room which would be even more prepared to launch than others. You wanna get the Moffs out of there asap

 

Here is one thing I have wondered about -
In ROTJ , R2 was fitted with a restraining bolt soon after entering Jabba's Palace
Yet he still seemed to have full freedom of movement and Judgement while on the Barge to help Luke with his escape plan.
Even if allowed some freedom of movement to serve drinks he did not seem particularly restrained for a new addition to a crime lords inner circle. .

 

Maybe Lando discreetly removed it before they went to the barge? I know Lando was with Han, Luke & Chewie, but maybe he had an opportunity to get the bolt off of Artoo beforehand.

 

A restraining bolt isn't much use if the operators of it are preoccupied with the execution and then the chaos that kicks off during it.

I'm pretty sure their first reaction wasn't. "There's a Jedi running amok. Restrain the waiter and the interpreter." Leia was in chains and she still managed to exploit the confusion.

 

The point of the restraining bolt is to prevent a droid from trying to attack its master, or to prevent an escape. In ANH, we see the Jawa only activate Artoo's restraining bolt when he is upset at being separated from Threepio. The bolt is only removed by Luke because he doesn't believe Artoo will run away, which is what he winds up doing. The bolt is affixed to Artoo in ROTJ, but no one is paying attention except for Boba. But rather than alert Jabba, he follows him. When **** goes down, no one is paying attention as Martoto notes and thus Artoo is able to help Leia and Threepio. Hell, none of Jabba's people bother to help him when Leia's choking the life out of him. It's everyone for themselves, save for the guards to try to attack Luke and the prisoner skiff.

 

Luke is pretty handy with droids, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that he'd modified R2 to be immune to restraining bolts.