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

Hernalt wrote

I am interested in the Y-Wing's front nose cannon with respect to their caliber, range of motion/bore sighted, and what they mean for its ability to train them (if bore sighted) onto their target ... I can say that the Y-Wing in ROTJ does acquit itself in a fighter role. On two separate occasions a Y-Wing takes out a TIE Interceptor. That lays to rest whether Y-Wings were able only to fight the wars of yesterday (maybe their avionics got upgraded...).

It's difficult if not impossible two assign certain primary functions to the OT fighters. Regarding the Battle of Yavin, I'd speculate that the Y-Wings were chosen over the X-Wings for the thermal exhaust run because it was perhaps believed, that their targeting systems to accurately deliver the proton torpedos were slightly superior.

Of course the Grumman TBF Avenger was first and foremost designed as a "torpedo bomber", yet "later models of the TBF/TBM dispensed with the nose-mounted gun for one .50 caliber gun in each wing per pilots' requests for better forward firepower and increased strafing ability", suggesting the pilots also wanted to be able to use it as a fighter.

Which, of course, seems almost hilarious for this particular Japanese plane, the Aichi "Val" D3A dive bomber:



"As the war progressed, there were instances when the dive bombers were pressed into duty as fighters in the interceptor role, their maneuverability being enough to allow them to survive in this role."

With these real-world analogies in mind, apparently also influencing the thinking of George Lucas, the "fighters" in the OT look like real multirole combat spacecraft, ultimately depending on the skills of the pilot.

 

That is very similar to the ARC170s in ROTS. Wonder if Lucas decided to reuse his old 3 person Y wing design for the design of the ARC170s? ROTS also showed that tail gunners were largely ineffective as enemy fighters easily avoided their rear gun fire while shooting them down. So perhaps by the OT, rear tail guns are outdated and even removed from older craft that had them for mass reduction which might have been more effective.

 

^ For a real world parallel to that theory, look at the deHavilland Mosquito of WW2. It was a bomber built without armor or defensive armament and built largely out of balsa wood to keep it light. Unlike heavier bombers which were often shot down by the dozen, the Mosquito had one of the lowest loss rates of any combat aircraft. Enemy aircraft just couldn't catch it.

 

Do you mean there were not other combat aircraft of this type with three people? I read the Wiki entry on TBF Avenger. Its maiden deployment was at Midway and it didn't show well. Not too surprising. And partly of no fault of its own as it didn't have escorts. But it went on to have a storied successful career. One thing that caught my eye is that “Grumman's first torpedo bomber was the heaviest single-engined aircraft of World War II". So I wonder if Lucas had a fondness for this plane, or perused the catalogue looking for a specific set of properties. It had to accommodate three characters in relative speaking proximity, but also maybe carry a big enough weapon to do a big job, but also have a bit of multi role capacity ( like a fixed machine gun in the nose...). By the end of the article, I felt that Lucas could have had a more than cynical fondness and chosen a veteran of 'countless campaigns' that would aptly fit the reputation the Y-Wing gained. In another resonance with SW77, “The aircraft had overall ruggedness and stability, and pilots say it flew like a truck, for better or worse. With its good radio facilities, docile handling, and long range, the Grumman Avenger also made an ideal command aircraft for Commanders, Air Group (CAGs).” I entertain that Gold Leader outranked Red Leader, just because he gets to vocally reveal the strategy of X-Wings covering Y-Wings. This choice by Lucas, and their fairing at Midway, could support an interpretation that he had Midway in mind for some future analogue naval battle. I'll have Midway at the back of my mind when I analyze BoE. There are certainly elements of deliberate traps and spies and codes. BoE most certainly ports Battle of Jutland, because there is broad side slugging, but there's more, but it obviously ports carrier warfare.

As for the tail gunner position. He certainly got to deliver sort of what he wanted in the early SW77 script in the interchange between Dack and Luke in Luke's Snowspeeder. We got to experience the esprit, camaraderie and despair of the guy who ain't the pilot. So that box got checked. It may have emboldened those who happily suggest what face at the briefing was the gunner for which Y-Wing pilot.

Another thing regarding the original Blue Squadron and Y-Wings. Stock helmets with the blue starbird exist. Speculation: Once blue X-Wings were not going to work on blue screen, there was no need for the blue helmets to be attached to any one group, like the X-Wing pilots of Blue Squadron. So they went to Y-Wing pilot extras.
http://www.starwarshelmets.com/original-xwing-helmet.htm

That was the best V8 I've had in a while. Of course A-Wings have torpedoes! The lost rebels reel proves it! The size of that fireball that strikes the base of the tower, to my eye, is not as large as a full fighter. It could be as large as the cockpit of a TIE. That could be flaming wreckage of a fighter, not a rebel fighter. It could be some kind of missile, maybe not a proton torpedo. Its destination certainly has a low probability of being random. (Except that in space, that dome is not going to 'fall' onto the conning tower just because someone crashed into the legs.)

I keep bringing up designed roles because someone out there in the lived world made enough suggestions that it stuck, and the canon dealers have given it imprimatur, but I can't seem to find the source of this authority of assertion or assignment. So I have to reconstruct it from outside the privileged knowledge. I agree the A-Wing is multi role. But its set of roles is different from the Y-Wing's. The A-Wing is least worst at a particular thing, a different thing than the Y-Wing is least worst at. And that is its go-to role, if there comes a time when a situation calls for some specialization. The B-Wing ... Well, we didn't really see the B-Wing. The following storyboard allows that it had some pursuit capability on its own. Maybe it was not as effective in pursuit as an X-Wing, but here we could have seen it trying.

 

Hernalt wrote

Do you mean there were not other combat aircraft of this type with three people?

I learned in the meantime that the Japanese had combat aircraft with three people, too, something I wasn't aware of previously.

Regarding the A-Wing I can't help but notice that it's essentially the Y-Wing head with noticably shorter Y-Wing engines. I'm wondering if the real life analogy was something like the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet or the jet-powered Me 262 or some kind of breed of both of these.


(notice what appear to be four booster engines in the center, 'shielded' from the main propulsion engines left and right)

In dogfighting TIE's its superior maneuverability should have shown (though we didn't see much of it), while attacking Star Destroyers its superior speed could have been an asset to evade Star Destroyers' flak fire. During the attack on the Super Star Destroyer's conning tower we clearly see an X-Wing taken out by its forward batteries while Green Leader's A-Wing is merely damaged, yet deprived of its maneuverability, but apparently still too fast to be actually shot down by the forward flak batteries.

Possible analogy?: "The Royal Navy's best test pilot, Captain Eric Brown, chief naval test pilot and commanding officer of the Captured Enemy Aircraft Flight Royal Aircraft Establishment, who tested the Me 262 noted: "This was a Blitzkrieg aircraft. You whack in at your bomber. It was never meant to be a dogfighter, it was meant to be a destroyer of bombers..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262

Hernalt made a couple of great, new discoveries, he wanted to share: http://www.playapni.com/star-wars-e...uction-model-featurette-play/4yRnfFVZSoA.html

At 00:34 there are a couple of very interesting storyboards behind George Lucas, clearly illustrating the attack on a Star Destroyer's conning tower involving A- and B-Wings.

And here - http://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.de/2016/10/ilm-classic-image-nothng-will-stop-them.html - we'll get an idea of the Death Star surface attack involving all Rebel fighters.

The way it looks to me, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that George Lucas felt that four different Rebel fighters sharing only seconds of onscreen time would have been too confusing, thus he decided to remove all B-Wing footage and replaced B-Wings by A-Wings in the last minutes wherever possible.

 

I. The following is the lead I am following to characterize the actor, Erroll Shaker, who 'may have' read the Lost Rebels lines, for Y-Wings, on the same day and in the same uniform as Timothy Sinclair and Eiji Kusuhara. I do not have the conviction that this is a confirmation. A confirmation would have to wait until verifying this event with the actor. But it is highly probable that this is ‘the’ Erroll Shaker who was ‘the’ actor who was ‘also’ in a movie, Hospital Britannia, that had at least three Other Star Wars actors.

The lead who takes credit:

Erroll Shaker in English films
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0787635/

Erroll Shaker in German films
http://vollfilm.com/de/actor/errol-shaker?record=0

Hospital Britannia (1982) (Which also stars Mark Hamill and Ronnie Cush from ROTJ, and Ted Burnett / Wuher Mos Eisley Bartender.)
Erroll Shaker / Captain Mbwami
Actual face, actual voice at 00:27.

See also http://www.aveleyman.com/FilmCredit.aspx?FilmID=2506

Ghost Writer (2010)
Erroll Shaker / Mainland Ferry Attendant
Voice replacement at 00:04.




II. The following is information on the Lost Rebels ‘gramma’ A-Wing pilot.
http://www.nerf-herders-anonymous.com/p/swad.html
http://www.nerf-herders-anonymous.com/p/murray-ann.html

Not a gramma

Her selection is consistent with SW peppering the cast with well established actors.

Notice under Miscellany “1982 - Was paid double to hang upside-down in the Y-Wing prop for ROTJ.”
Any ideas, anyone?

 

Impressive...most impressive!

I assume that the center screencap was a close-up zoom in the original recording?

 

I used http://waifu2x.udp.jp/ for noise reduction. There are slightly cleaner expanses that let some details pop a tiny bit more.

For the upper one, how many ship types can be seen?

 

No luck improving this:


These should be recognizable moments that fix this wall sequence to the film sequence.

 

I find this one really interesting. So we have a group shot of several B-Wings descending onto a target (apparently Death Star) followed by a close up cockpit shot apparently featuring a Sullustian pilot.

 

The biggest tragedy was the omitting of most of the B-Wing footage and the failure to be able to create any usable extra footage in 1982, it would've given the Rebel Fleet such a depth that it was easily believable that this was every vessel the Rebellion had. The reason the B-Wing was created was to have a Rebel heavy Starfighter that could seriously damage Imperial capital ships, they were never intended to attack the Death Star.

 

Django Fett

I just wanted to say: I like your username.

 

Here’s what I think I see. The best course is to download this clip and just keep looping it, and traversing it back and forth and letting your eye form multiply over sampled impressions. This pixel crap is for general ‘table of contents’. I will look at the first 4 4-part storyboards.

I. The upper left most 4-part storyboard *could be the attack group first responding to the order to start the run on the DS2
1. ?
2. A view inside MF cockpit, over characters, out the starboard side of cockpit. But it could be some other cockpit - perhaps a B-Wing.
3. ?
4. Without consulting my paper references, that may be an A-Wing cockpit. But it could be an X-Wing cockpit.

II. The middle left
1. ?
2. This profile view from port side shows two frames over canopy. Most like a modern jet fighter. Without consulting, I suppose this is an A-Wing. We of course have no profile A-Wing shots in BoE as is.
3. The is a Y-Wing foreground pointing in a downward direction. Y-Wings are trusty workhorses that have been around doing their job. And then there’s a middle ground white arrow that is probably the motion of a different fighter being shot down. Or, it could just be group motion.
4. Clearly a group motion arrow for a pack of four B-Wings. That informs/re-informs what might be teased out of lost rebels (period historical interpretation) and new Disney canon (fiat for years 2012-ongoing, proposals for years prior to 2012)

III. The bottom left
1. A Sullustan in storyboard form without a doubt. But is it a B-Wing, or an A-Wing? It seems to me that we are seeing back through a cockpit in the same manner of an A-Wing, and that we are seeing the starboard engine. So this inadvertently informs Hasbro’s choice to make a Mon Cal pilot action figure, in green flight suit, and market it as an A-Wing pilot, based on an incomplete understanding of the lost rebels deleted scenes. This ’squares’ the incorrect interpretation of Hasbro and puts it into play. We could in theory have Sullustan pilots of both A and B-Wings, and Mon Cal pilots of both A and B-Wings. I can then look over there… at TFA… which places a Sullustan in an X-Wing.
2. Clearly a flak tower of DSI design. (Heck, let’s call it Massassi design… ) I can’t pick out individual fighter types, and there may be none. It might be the flak tower’s show.
3. Nice tracking shot over DSII surface. An A-Wing in foreground on tail of an X-Wing in middle ground. Since the middle left 4-part is a different physical piece of paper than the bottom left 4-part, I am not inclined to assume that the diving B-Wings necessarily indicate that the next image, the Sullustan, is driving a B-Wing. I think, visually, he’s in an A-Wing. And so this frame with an A-Wing might be him.
4. ?

IV. Column 2, top
1. If you compare this with the frame with the Sullustan, you can suppose that the skull shape is the Sullustan, or some other pilot, and maybe not specifically a human pilot. Or, maybe the same pilot as frame 4.
2. Fighters coming out of the sky.
3. I think those are movement arrows. Maybe going into the screen, maybe coming out of the screen. I’m not certain this is the DSII. At some point there will likely be a transition to the SSD having some shots with fighters. I don’t know that it has to wait for Ackbar’s command to concentrate fire.
4. This could be a shot looking rearward through a Y-Wing canopy. The Y-Wing pilot is facing left forward. The focus is on the gunner who is facing away. This would square up fanon contributions of individual actors in X-Wing suits at the briefing scene being gunners attached to specific other actors in Y-Wing suits in the briefing scene. It would mean that that fanon might have been generated by doing exactly this - looking at period sources and behind the scenes materials. And having access to these Joe Johnston storyboards. And so here again is a case for giving Disney canon a chance at some point, on the assumption that they have consulted period resources as they devised their insertions or overlays. And it may not be such a shot, in which case I take back everything I just said about Disney.

 

I.






This demonstrates that blue flight suits existed in GFFA as of events of ROTJ, as of 1983. The top image is an example of where the compositor made an error of which element goes in front. I assume the actors were shot against blue screen. Then that image was composited against a (smaller than life size) matte painting ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Matte_paintings ) . This scaling mistake between layers is the same that occurred when the Nebulon B was trading broadsides with the edge of the SSD, and the Corellian Corvette should have been behind the Nebulon B.

...Unless someone can somehow contend or demonstrate that that is gray, not blue, because of the very bluish tint to the frames...

II.






One frame contains three comparable figures. A Mon Cal in khaki and distinctive helmet, which is the same design worn by Tim Rose Mon Cal B-Wing pilot, and rebel flight deck crew or crew chiefs in light tan suits and white helmets. The Hasbro Action Figure that most closely resembles this figure from the film has a picture of a bridge officer. So this Mon Calamari Officer, appearing in the hangar in a white safety helmet (and not wearing a combat flight suit like the B-Wing Mon Cal) could be interpreted as an analogue of an Air Officer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_United_States_Navy_carrier_air_operations

 

Hernalt wrote

...Unless someone can somehow contend or demonstrate that that is gray, not blue, because of the very bluish tint to the frames...

Looks to me as if there were some coloring issues combining the elements. In your top image on the left we see a Rebel with a cap dressed in the same uniform some were wearing during the Rebel briefing and his uniform looks blue though it should be green.

I can only assume that the Rebel Pilot with the White X-Wing helmet also doesn't wear a blue flight suit but perhaps a green one, 'borrowed' from an A-Wing pilot.

Interesting detail about the Rebel technicians in their white / grey overalls: The guy on the left wears the same kind of helmet they wore in ANH, but the one on the right wears the helmet of the Alderaanian Guards (i.e. Princess Leia's defenders in ANH).

 

Color comparisons for what I can only assume in the is a khaki rebel technician top panel, walking left (previous post). These medium shot images (top of this post) were taken in a well lit full set. No color matching or light level matching with matte paintings. I'm sure there's blue-ing due to bluray / dvd / bad color correction efforts, but the tans appear stable in the briefing scenes. If one notices the similarity of hue between briefing Lando and technician khakis, then it becomes apparent when looking at hangar Lando and technician khakis that there is some gross color failure. Lando's khakis have not turned blue, but the technician's have.

That being said, because the bright green A-Wing suit in the hangar was filmed separately from the pair of red flight suit and I-think-blue flight suit, it's possible that it was filmed under perfect lighting conditions and so its color has highest fidelity. But even in the presence of a bright green flight suit shot under best conditions, that might set up a strong contrast to anything that is not green, I do not see how what I'm calling the blue flight suit can be an intrinsically bright green flight suit that was lit under bad conditions, or color filtered, or color corrected, or something else. Blue-ing up the kind of bright green that we already see in the separate composite layer should blue up the adjacent red flight suit until it is magenta or purplish. But it's a stable red. Maybe a tiny bit of blue-ing. The bottom of this image compares the khaki and red flight suit. It is also possible that these were filmed as separate layers, but it doesn't look that way. I will try to reach out to Mike Verta. Also, ROTJ1983 might have less blue color correction.

 

This is absolute gold. Thank you.

The space battle sequences in ROTJ are my favourite in all of Star Wars, but over the years, I've lamented the continuity errors and the lack of further coordination, bigger picture strategy and overall flow (sadly this is also applicable to the RO space battle). This sequence described above is brilliant and would have gone a long way to addressing that latter concern. It really would have shown both the rebels working together, the sacrifices required, and the hopefulness that this was something that they could still do... if only Han could get the shields down.

If I had the skills, money and time, I would love to recreate this.

 

redxavier

You are most definitely welcome. But I also want to stress that this thread wouldn't nearly be what it is, had it not been for the tireless research efforts and contributions of Hernalt.

 

By coincidence I recently figured out how to get screenshots off the original unaltered trilogy. The transfers have low illumination but un-altered color. The technician figure leaving screen-left in the lower subsequent frame cannot be perfectly identified without some kind of Mike Verta restoration or subtraction of ambient color. That figure could be a technician in khaki seen in the briefing room, a uniform I am not sure was ever seen in SW77. Or, it could be a deck technician in silver white, a uniform I am pretty sure is the same costume seen in SW77, using the helmet as an indicator. The belt on the figure makes me think it was the silver white suit, which would be consistent with a helmet. But the figure leaving screen left has a cap, the cover for the khaki suit. In SW77, the silver-white deck hands did not have a cap, as far as I know, during the launch scene. The upper preceding frame, a few seconds before, shows both khaki and silver-white in the same lightning context. The khaki sure looks khaki, and the silver-white is not as blue as the figure in the second frame.

An analysis of the SW77 Medal Ceremony shows that the limited number of extras and limited number of props resulted in some costume mismatches, where one type of suit was matched with a non-standard cover. So, because of the color confusion as to what suit that is leaving screen left, there can be no standard calibrator to determine what color is the blue-appearing suit coming from stage right. This really needs a Mike Verta treatment. The rhetorical question, ‘well, how blue is the red flight suit in this frame of the unaltered original trilogy? how blue is the green flight suit?’ doesn’t eliminate the corner case that there were post-production lighting choices in 1982 that can make a white, off-white, light-gray flight suit appear blue. That flight suit could be a blue that is not a deep or navy blue. But then it could also be dark gray or charcoal.

 

Just a small find to add to this thread, as the planned scenes of capital Alliance ships bombarding the Death Star could have perhaps featured TIE "FACs" taking out some of these 'bombers':

 

Is the top left image (BoE) from The Art of Ralph McQuarrie? Is "Fast Attack Craft" printed by an inside hand like his or Joe Johnston's? In the lower left (BoE) I've had no reason to wonder if that was not a TIE Bomber. It is clearly by implication suspended from a gantry a great distance over the hangar floor. The stairway in the painting goes down to the anatomically correct starboard cockpit nacelle. Personnel intending to get into the port nacelle would have to duck and squeeze through a narrow connecting passage, or use a scissor lift, or an air stair. Or its pilot would have it disembark from its bat garage and park on the floor to be loaded up by troops. If it's a bomber, the situation is the similar. There is no single specific clue separating Boarding Craft from Bomber. This is the first time I've heard of "Fast Attack Craft". While it is sufficient for the shape we see in the matte painting to be explained by "Fast Attack Craft", it is not necessary. So why do you make that assignment? Without further reasoning, that could be a Bomber, a Boarding Craft, or this new revealed McQuarrie era "FAC". (Good work of course, in case you haven't been thanked lately.)

 

I didn't read the whole thread so I apologize if this has already been mentioned but IIRC the b-wings weren't shown much because they had trouble with the models and getting them to look right in shots.

 

Quoting from starwars.wikia.com,
"The craft's unusually thin shape was problematic for blue-screen photography, because the model tended to blend into the star field. As a consequence, some planned sequences with the B-wing were cut from the original release of Return of the Jedi, and the B-wing is not shown in action during the Battle of Endor in the film. In fact, after the ships fly away from the still-active Death Star II shield at the start of the battle, the B-wing is hardly seen at all. The rotating cockpit design of the B-wing was based on early concept art for the Millennium Falcon."
This, and the subsequent post production editing, made a jumble out of these combat scenes, great for conveying the chaos of the fight, but a nightmare for OCD rivet counters who want to trace every craft and pilot. (A category that I consider myself to be a part of)

 

I'd love to see some B-wing action in a future Anthology movie.