Saga What is that bright object at the end of Empire Strikes Back?

While recovering in the rebellion fleet, Luke, Leia, and the droids look on at a steller object before the end credits roll. Is it a protoplanetary disk, a nebula, a quasar?

 

The newcanon From A Certain Point View: TESB anthology, has one reference to a protostar in one short story set at the rendezvous. So it's probably that.

Legends took the approach that it was the Star Wars galactic core itself - with the rendezvous point being way above the galactic plane.

 

According to Wookieepedia, it's a protostar.

 

Since it matches the image in the Jedi Archives in AOTC, it's the galaxy, impying the rendezvous point was far outside the normal galaxy.

 

I always thought it was the galaxy. It's a beautiful and sad shot, and yet hopeful.

 

Well, it's definitely not the galaxy, as that would put them at a distance from it that would take at least a few centuries to reach even at their top speed. If they're looking at their galaxy's core, then it is definitely an active one (though not on the scale of a quasar or blazar). To me, only three options make sense:
(1) Their galaxy's active core/nucleus.
(2) A protostar./planetary disk,
(3) A globular star cluster.

One thing is clear, and that is that the Star Wars galaxy, or perhaps the universe as a whole, has very little cosmic dust.

 

Maybe I read it in a book or heard it in an interview or maybe I made it up, it's one of those tidbits you pull out of your brain that you aren't quite sure where it came from or if it's true but I think it's supposed to be the Rishi Maze. Now the Rishi Maze didn't exist when Empire was released but I think in the prequel era that image was retconned into being the Rishi Maze...or...again...I just made it up.

 

From the PT onwards, ships could cross the galaxy in a matter of hours. Making "it's the galaxy" a bit more plausible than in the early Legends era when speeds were slower. Plus, it could be that the difficulty of plotting a route that avoids stars and other space hazards is what slows ships down - and there are virtually no stars above the galactic plane.

By "galactic core" I meant the huge galactic bulge - some 10,000 light years across - with the outer arms being a little on the dim side. That put it half a galactic diameter or so away from the rendezvous point.

 

This seemed familiar so I googled, which took me to the wook:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rishi_Maze/Legends

 

Yeah, I think it’s meant to be their galaxy. There’s really nothing in the movies that limits hyperspace travel to the point where that would be an issue. But even that sort of misses the fact that in Star Wars, sometimes visual impact is more important than logic. But like I said, there’s no actual logical issues there, just ones the EU created for itself, which is why it was retconned as the Rishi Maze.

 

The above quote about the Rishi Maze:

makes it clear that it was never retconned into being the Rishi Maze in the first place - "may be" is not the same as "is".

Curtis Saxton was pretty disapproving of the "it's the galaxy" idea, at least:

https://www.theforce.net/swtc/astro.html

Rendezvous-point spectacle

After escaping Lord Vader's trap at Bespin, Luke Skywalker and his companions rejoined their portion of the rebel fleet. From the rebel medical frigate a large white disk dominated the sky to the port side. The disk was thicker and brighter towards its centre and it seemed to contain a myriad of tiny points.

There is much conjecture about the nature of this phenomenon. The Topps Widevision cards refer to it simply as the "vastness of space." Unfortunately it is not possible for other references to be so circumspect; a definite identification seems necessary.

Some people believe that it is the entire Galactic Empire, or else a nearby companion galaxy. This theory seems to have been adopted by Tales of the Bounty Hunters, which describes the rebel fleet resting somewhere above the galactic plane. However the object seen outside the medical clinic window is more distant than several times its own diameter; the viewers are not merely just a little way above the plane of that disk. Perhaps the bulk of Palpatine's galaxy is out of sight in the other half of the sky and the glorious vista is just a neighbouring galaxy?

There is a crucial difficulty with the "galaxy" interpretation, at least with the sequence seen in the original version of The Empire Strikes Back. Viewers of The Empire Strikes Back report that the phenomenon seems to rotate visibly within only a few seconds. This spin is much too rapid for a galaxy. Motions within a spiral galaxy are of the order of up to a hundred kilometres per second, but Palpatine's galaxy is of the order of a hundred thousand light years across. As pointed out in The Cosmic Mind Boggling Book, the observed rotation would equate to rotational speeds on the rim reaching at least "the impossible velocity of 33 billion times the speed of light".

The object seems too bright to be a galaxy. When viewed from a distance great enough to account for the observed size, a spiral galaxy would look like a dim milky disk to the naked eye. It would have the same kind of luminance as the shine of the open sky on a moonlit night. From a vantage point inside a brightly-lit medical theatre, a spiral galaxy would be harder to see than the blazing entity at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. If it is galaxy-sized, the object must be a quasar or some other exotic active extragalactic entity which just happens to be in the neighbourhood of Palpatine's galaxy.

A normal galaxy also exhibits overall colour variations due to regional differences in stellar populations. The galactic core should be a somewhat redder hue, and the disk bluer. It is not certain whether the object is colourful enough to be a normal spiral galaxy.

This object's morphology also seems a bit unusual for a spiral galaxy. The arms are too tightly wound, and the nucleus is proportionately too large. On the other hand, it might be a galaxy which has suffered a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, which could distort its shape. There may be other galaxian possibilities capable of explaining the shape of this object; maybe it is some kind of nearby dwarf galaxy.

Other commentators assert that it must be a protostellar disk, a cloud of gas and dust collapsing under gravity to form a new planetary system with a sun at its centre. Or it might be some kind of accretion disk surrounding a black hole or other compact strong gravitating body. Or it might be something yet more exotic, perhaps even something which exudes matter as it rotates, rather than accreting stuff. However it is not clear whether the structure and colouration suits a protostellar disk or accretion disk either. A protostar should be surrounded by dusty molecular cloud material, not open space as seen in the film. The observed rotation is less ludicrous for these smaller kinds of objects than for an entire galaxy, but it is still very problematic.

The notion that the object is something of less than galactic scale is supported by a caption in a report in CINEFEX #2 p.8. The object is pictured and explicitly described as a "nebula". A nebula is one or another kind of cloud of gas and dust in interstellar space. It could refer to a protostellar nebula, or something similar in scale but presently unknown to science. The exact quote is:

"Effects unit art director Joe Johnston prepares a model nebula for photography. The swirling star formation was filmed with a slight rotation and incorporated into the final sequence."

The novel The Mandalorian Armour supports a nebula interpretation, since it describes a similar "spiral nebula" near the Kuat system and remarks that there are several of these objects in the galaxy.

This topic remains unconcluded; it is possibly the most severe technical difficulty in the whole trilogy.

 

It's "a dense, luminous galaxy swirling in space."

 

I remember seeing in some book or magazine an image of that scene, it was the shot of Luke and Leia and the droids all looking out the medcenter window, and in that image it was actually a giant pink nebula. Personally I would've preferred that would've been what made it into the final film-it would've made for much less confusion!

 

I'm almost certain that's "The Empire Strikes Back Storybook" since I took it as gospel that that pink thing was what was outside the window in that scene between first seeing ESB in 1980 in the theatre, and catching it again on its rerelease a year or so later and being all "wait what there's a galaxy there? It looks cool but how does that make sense?"

But straight up, the whole scale thing hadn't even vaguely been thought about at the time and the idea was clearly "let's put some space-looking-stuff on screen to show that we can do more than just the black-sheet-with-holes punched in it background". You were at the point where cloud tanks were being developed (see Star Trek TMP and TWOK, Close Encounters, Raiders) and ILM was eager to show off some new sophistication. It's epic, but it doesn't make sense... and they didn't think we'd still be discussing it 40 years later with all the worldbuilding that was going to happen in between.

 

It's not really a window they're looking out of. It's a big computer screen. The galaxy image is a screen saver.

 

They didn't have screen savers until 1981.

 

I just watched the scene again. The Millennium Falcon flies away from the object, so I don't think it's the SW galaxy itself.

 

I do like to think that’s the galaxy, mainly because it gives us a look at what these characters are fighting for. Like another poster mentioned, that’s the Empire they’re looking at; but more importantly, that’s their world, what they are fighting for. It’s their Pale Blue Dot.

Beyond that, whether it’s their galaxy or another, I do like the idea that sometimes slips in that the story is not necessarily limited to only that single galaxy. Yes, it’s in the opening titles. And yes it’s supported in many lines of dialogue. But is there a real reason to think the characters are limited to a single galaxy?

The EU and new canon doubled down on the notion and created a reason why the stories cannot explore other galaxies, with some exceptions. But I do appreciate the vague impression—which makes me think of pulplier, less scientific science fiction—that there’s no actual limit to how far their ships can take our characters. Sure, there’s the Galaxy. But does that mean they can’t travel to other galaxies beyond, even though the focus is still on the main Galaxy?

 

http://www.agraphafx.com/vfx-archaeology-the-lost-empire-strikes-back/

https://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.com/2012/01/deleted-scene-and-re-shoot-medical.html

The images of galaxies that Joe Johnston would have had access to would be ground based. I have a copy of a 1978 textbook that would have the most recent, state-of-the-art photograph of Andromeda, which is the obvious analog for anyone to work from. It's a color plate and the blue periphery is noticeable and subtle. The warm gold glow of the nucleus is obvious. An exact photometric and chromatic analogue is hard to find, but this is about a visual match, except for being significantly higher resolution:

From:

If you can blur your eye and obscure those red emission regions in the rim, that's kinda sort what Joe Johnston had to work with. You can decide for yourself how much the proportion of bulge to disk is unlike the proportion of bulge to disk in the disk structure at the end of ESB.

The arguments made in the vfx-archeology blog center on Lucas making a chromatic choice, away from the Triffid Nebula type 'red sunset' and towards the rotating disk structure we know.

Triffid Nebula:

From: https://www.allaboutastro.com/m20---trifid-nebula.html

This would have been a close seed value analogue for Brian Johnson painting the original closing red nebula that Lucas decided against.

If one elects to not stand on principle concerning the rotational rate of the rim, and allows that the rotational movement was implemented in service to the emotional momentum of the piece...

One can entertain that the star field that surrounds the disk structure is the indication that the Medical Frigate occupies a position in the outer rim of a neighboring dwarf galaxy. It can be entertained that the said dwarf galaxy, whatever its name is, is hiding in plain sight in the scene where Obi-Wan checks the Jedi Archives. Luke and Leia are looking back on GFFA, from the safety of being just inside the edge of the adjacent dwarf galaxy.

The story boards mentioned in the VFX blog from November 1979 reshoots unarguably have a bona fide spherical object in the middle of a disk structure. It's hard for me to imagine a story board artist, especially if that was Joe Johnston, and it looks like it is his hand, being daft to what is a nebula versus a galaxy versus an accretion disk. Because I am (dead) sure that is Joe Johnston's work, and because I hold Joe Johnston to a high standard, I am in no way able to claim that the final structure was always a galactic disk, during what tenure it had when it was not a (red emission) nebula (like Triffid Nebula). It is possible that it evolved through a number of disk structures, that included, but did not end upon, a protostellar disk.

A personal impression on the matter is that a protostar is a more hard sci-fi leaning object than a galaxy. The ideation, during a denouement, that you are looking at a protostar, an object you do not know, that holds promise, is more in keeping with Star Trek Wrath of Khan than the ideation, during a denouement, that you are looking at the entire world you know, that is showing all the bad signs. A protostar activates different parts of the cosmic knowledge database. A protostar is a more immediate promise of new planets, new life, new evolution, fresh start, clean slate, tabula rasa. The tone we have now at the end of ESB is: a long way from home, remote, cold, huddling; there are some gothic debts coming due, but time in the world is still passing (by visible indicator), there is more work to do, and not all hope is lost.

As for Curtis Saxton making photometric and chromatic arguments. Leveraging expertise should keep in mind what is the emotional cinematic function. The star field of the OT is not populated with red and blue stars. Someone comparing a Hubble image to the blue purplish stars in ROTJ would not in any way be mistaken for what they are. Exposures of different lengths can be composited to provide a final presentation that is intuitive to the human eye's photometric and chromatic dynamic range. Every argument, no matter how factual, needs to be given a weight. What is the weight of the argument that the disk structure at the end has no obvious color gradients? What is the weight of the argument that the disk structure at the end has a bright core? Is it spherical? (Cassian Andor: Did I?)

 

It is unlikely that ships would his individual stars, as the distances between them are extremely large.

A companion galaxy would not appear so clear due to cosmic dust.

I have not read the books, but Wookieepedia says it took the Yuuzhan Vong "several millennia" to travel from their neighboring galaxy to theirs.

 

I'm 99% sure the actual filmakers intended it to the galaxy of the Star Wars stories as viewed from a distance. It looks like a galaxy and it makes thematic sense. Now obviously people have pointed out 'scientific' and logistical problems with that imagery since the film came out, which has in turn lead to a variety of alternative explanations, but ultimately Lucas/Kershner set out to depict a galaxy.

 

While in the Alan Dean Foster novelization it was a "bright red star" they were looking at. It seems that final scene went through several different stages before they decided on the galaxy. Yes, to me it was always a galaxy, or rather the core of the galaxy seen from some distance, maybe the outer rim or something. I never considered any other option.

You do know there is something called "hyperspace" in SW? So physical distance would not affect traveling time very much.

To me that's the only option that makes sense. The Rebels are simply at a point further out, looking at the core, but still inside the galaxy.

Exactly!

I agree. In fact that's the only issue I have with the galaxy theory. No movement at all would be noticeable from that distance. It would have to be a time-lapse shot of maybe one frame every 100000 years, if not much more. But obviously that's not the case since Luke and Leia are still standing there all the time. I don't think it's that likely they were standing there for millions of years.
No, my theory is that they did that just for effect, disregarding all logic. It's basically the same problem with space in sound. They did it for "artistic" or "aesthetic" reasons, not logical ones. I'm not even sure if Lucas' and Kershner's crew had an astronomy advisor. It would have helped make much of SW more plausible.

The Falcon is not really moving away from the core, just sort of seems to bypass it. Maybe in order to avoid detection, or maybe because Tatooine is on the other side or a different sector of the galaxy from the Rebel fleet. Also we see only a few seconds. We don't see which direction it is headed in when that final route has been calculated.

 

I always wondered if it's actually supposed to be looking in the other direction; the characters are standing with their own galaxy behind them (and they're on the far outer rim), and looking out beyond their galaxy at a different one that lies nearby. IMO that is an explanation that makes a lot of sense to me.

I also thought it could just be a gravity well, or some type of small black hole or something, drawing in dust particles and whatnot.

 

Why make things so complicated? They are looking at the core of their own galaxy from some distance. Is there any need to bring another galaxy in? Why?