As seen in Rogue One. Doesn't that make the whole "waiting for Yavin 5 to be in range" moment at the end of Star Wars kinda stupid? They could have simply traveled in an instant to the right spot and fired.
I always believed it travelled at light speed and thought that the part was a problem...still my favorite movie.
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It could clearly travel at Light Speed or it would have taken far longer for them to get to Yavin.
I'm sure someone out there has a gravity or mass explanation for why the Death Star slowed down where it did. Possibly this is why Vader was so pissed about where the fleet slowed down in ESB.
Or, they didn't want to mayerialize in the middle of a potential fleet floating around that moon ready to destroy them.
I would imagine when firing a weapon of that size you want to be a certain distance away from your target.....Like they were at the end of a new hope.
From what I remember at the end of ANH, they are waiting for the moon/planet that is in their way to move out of the way giving them clear line of sight.....
Exactly.
shareWhere are the engines? There are no visible engines on the Death Star. Look at the size of them on Star Destroyers - they are huge engines. The propulsion system required to move the DS at lightspeed would be immense, yet nothing is seen. Huge plot hole.
I'm an atheist. I point and laugh at religious people.
maybe instead of having a few big engines (which would be vulnerable to attack) there are numerous tiny engines all over the station, and so they are not visible. and it makes the station much safer since it's much harder to disable the engines and prevent it from being mobile, because there are so many tiny engines spread all over the hull.
as for the hyperspace engines, maybe they are not safe to use while inside a solar system (only in between solar systems)
and so it can reach the solar system fast but when inside it would take time to navigate in between planets and moons
Now that you mention it... maybe the reason Galen Erso only had a few guys working for him, was that the weapon was the least complicated part of the ship?
Imagine trying to work out the propulsion systems, or the air distribution or the artificial gravity, or even the plumbing! Yeah, the team that worked out the air systems that allowed for massive hangar bays that were open to deep space except for a shield must have had hundreds of scientists, and a lab the size of a university.
“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!
Like many things, I believe this was added or thought about later. I'm pretty sure when they made the original Star Wars, the Death Star wasn't travelling as fast as any other ship.
shareI'm pretty sure when they made the original Star Wars, the Death Star wasn't travelling as fast as any other ship.
I assume to get such a large vessel to hyperspace would have taken longer (to charge up) than going at sub-light orbit around Yavin. I wonder if shooting the gas giant first would have been a better option? the resulting explosion would have wiped out the rebel base.
There are no visible engines on the Death Star
it was probably impossible to blow up the gas giant (since it's too.. "soft")
or that it would take longer to re-charge than to just go around it
The propulsion system required to move the DS at lightspeed would be immense, yet nothing is seen. Huge plot hole.
The engines are in the trench. The Death Star spins as it travels through space....
https://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/propulsion.html
Interesting.
shareits gets towed by a couple of Star Destroyers
shareWell there's the chance that they didnt know exactly where on Yavin 4 the rebel base was. They might have just used to the hyperdrive to get into the system and then figure out the exact location after that.
We also don't know how long it takes to start up the engines for hyperspace jumps in that station. If it takes awhile to warm up the hyperdrive to transport the Death Star, it might have just been quicker to wait for the base to come into range.
I think its very certain that the Death Star has hyperdrive capability though. It would take a long time to travel between Alderaan and Yavin. The Death Star probably wasnt built right next to Alderaan. Also, it wouldnt be a very effective intimidation weapon if it didn't have hyperdrive capability.
'Now'? It's always been able to. Most everything travelling in that galaxy must to get anywhere long distance.
...my essential 50 http://www.imdb.com/list/ls056413299/
Of course the Death Star MUST have hyperspace speed capabilities. In an empire spanning thousands of light years, a superweapon capable of crushing all rebellions would be useless and pathetic if it couldn't reach rebel strongholds for thousands of years after it was needed!
"Oh No!"
"What is it?"
"It's the Death Star!"
"What's that?"
"The planet destroying super battle station of the First Galactic Empire."
"What? The First Galactic Empire was thousands and thousands of years ago, before even the Second Galactic Empire. Why would their forces attack us after all those millennia?"
"Did you sleep during ancient history class? Our planet was the first to revolt against the First Galactic Empire. And now the Death Star has finally reached us after millennia of travel to destroy our world!"
So the Death Star must travel by hyperspace. And it takes less than a day to go from the Alderaan System to the Yavin system:
"This day has seen the end of Kenobie and it will see the end of the rebellion."
Apparently the Death Star didn't have much ability to choose here in the Yavin system it came out of hyperspace. And maybe it couldn't make a small jump to get in range of Yavin IV but traveled in normal space to go around Yavin and blast the rebel moon.
KingCobra686 said:
Well there's the chance that they didnt know exactly where on Yavin 4 the rebel base was. They might have just used to the hyperdrive to get into the system and then figure out the exact location after that.
Yavin 4 was the jungle-covered fourth moon in orbit around the red gas giant Yavin. At some point during the Galactic Civil War, it hosted the headquarters of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, a group of resistance fighters that opposed the dominant Galactic Empire.[2] Following a major battle that took place around Yavin,[4] the Alliance relocated its headquarters to Hoth.[7]
To OP and others. That's what's called a plot hole. Either way you're looking at it it doesn't make sense from what we've learned in A New Hope, and if what we on the other hand use what we learned in Rogue: One then that makes the actions of the Empire appear just crazy in ANH.
Listen. You rabid fans can try and come up with any far-fetched and convoluted explanation you want. The bottom line is that it's a plot hole. A PLOT HOLE. Almost every single movie has it. Even Star Wars no matter how much you try to rationalize that.
The mere idea that such a massive object would be able to travel at more than the speed of light is just ridiculous on its own. It's never showed to have that capability.
As for the immense distances in a galaxy. Well I'm afraid the ability to travel at light speed won't make much difference. Han Solo says the Millennium Falcon can do 1,5 the speed of light and he outruns all the Imperial ships. With a space ship able to reach the speed of light you'd need 4,2 years to reach Proxima Centauri - the star closest to our own sun. If you could go 10 times the speed of light you'd still need 155 days to reach Proxima Centauri. With a 100 times the speed of light it would take 15 full days.
This means that either all the planets in Star Wars are fairly close to each other since Han Solo's 1,5 lightspeed won't do him much good. Now you can go on an apply some Star Trek warp factor nonsense to rationalize that statement too but it too remains a plot hole.
If the Death Star could reach any planet in almost an instant through hyperspace why didn't Tarkin just set course on Dantoine since Leia told him that's where the rebel base is located? "Dantoine is too far away for an effective demonstration..." Well, so it still was close enough to be hit by the Deathstar's laser? Sounds to me Tarkin was willing to blow up Dantoine in an instant had he had the ability to do so. Unless of course the Death Star is akin to a gargantuan battleship and needs some time to actually get there, which is why imperial scout ships were sent out first to see if the long trip wasn't a serious waste of time the empire didn't have at that time with the plans yet not in their possession.
It's a plot hole. Simple as that. And guess what? Nobody cares but you nitpickers and you silly fanatical Star Wars fools who see it as some utterly perfect and infallible movie series which cannot be criticized in any way, shape or form since it's a religion. Tell me: What's the difference between you rabid fans and religious fanatics like for instance Muslims who claim that the Quran is utterly perfect and infallible too and if you see flaws and mistakes in it then it's simply because you don't "get it". At least none of you go out on a Star Wars jihad - yet. It's make believe you weirdos. Enjoy and don't nitpick minor details.
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A couple of points here:
First a plot hole is something that contradicts the internal logic of a film. Not something that contradicts the real world.
You say:
>>>The mere idea that such a massive object would be able to travel at more than the speed of light is just ridiculous on its own. It's never showed to have that capability.<<<
From what we know about real world physics its just ridiculous for a microgram of material to travel at more than the speed of light. If any ship in Star Wars can travel faster than light, then your argument is that there is an upper limit of mass that can move at that speed. Nothing is said about that anywhere, so the argument is specious. There is no reason why the Death Star cannot travel faster than light. <<<
You say:
>>>Han Solo says the Millennium Falcon can do 1,5 the speed of light and he outruns all the Imperial ships.<<<
You have no idea what the number 1.5 past light speed means. It is never explained. For all we know a point past light speed could mean light year per hour, or light year per minute or even light year per second. Given stellar distances, and what little time information we are given, I would say one of the last two is most likely. To be conservative, lets say 1 light year per minute. So for each point past light speed it would mean a ship could travel 1440 light years in a day.
Of course, it could be something else again. We don't know. If I am interpreting your remarks correctly (and correct me if I'm not) you are assuming 1.5 past light speed means 150% of the speed of light. So a light year would take 8 months. Again, given typical stars that seems unlikely.
I agree about your first point , microgram vs big mass thing, but the second...
Its plain as day that 1.5 "past light speed" means 150% of the speed of light. Thats the English language.
Which *is* pretty speedy and would certainy help if travelling around our solar system - but it is an error in George's script, a plothole in fact unless you want to imagine that that far far away galaxy is teeny tiny
Its just like his "Parsec" fckup , that they had to go out of their way to rectify in "Solo"
I guess George just wasnt up on his Astronomy!
It certainly is not. You have not idea what scale it is using: geometric, logarithmic, exponential? None at all. We only know it is fast, at least according to Han Solo. Since the stars look normal in every shot we see we have to assume that they are normally distributed; so the nearest star to any star is likely to be 2 -5 light years away. That is simply not going to work.
Now, keep in mind, Lucas probably didn't think about this at all. It is very much like Star Trek where the original canon answer to warp speed was the cube of the rating. So Warp 1 is the speed of light. Warp 2 is 8 times the speed of light (2 cubed), warp 3 is 27 times the speed of light and so forth. The top common speed by TNG would be warp 8 or 512 times the speed of light. So at warp 2 the time to travel from Earth to Alpha Centauri would be about 45 days. At warp 8 it would be 0.7 days. Very impressive, but it often doesn't match up to travel times listed in episodes.
Checking around a bit it seems the most common explanation is that light speed is a reverse scale where the higher the number the slower the ship. The scale is asymptotic. So a ship that can travel .5 beyond light speed is twice as fast as a ship that travels 1.0 beyond light speed. And so forth.
Yes, this is a retcon. But the simple fact is that, in universe, ships can travel between stars in reasonable amounts of time: that is hours or, at most, days; and not many of those.
Regardless of what Lucas was thinking, or not thinking, .5 past light speed (and he never says 1.5 times the speed of light or .5 past the speed of light), Star Wars ships, if they are capable of hyperdrive flight, travel far faster than the speed of light.
Continuing since MovieChat wouldn't let me add anything else.
You say:
>>>f the Death Star could reach any planet in almost an instant through hyperspace why didn't Tarkin just set course on Dantoine since Leia told him that's where the rebel base is located? "Dantoine is too far away for an effective demonstration..." <<<
I don't believe it is ever said anywhere that the Death Star can travel to any planet in an instant. Indeed, it is implied it can't. The rebels have time to examine the plans and prepare a defense.
The only indication of time is Tarkin's comment that the day had seen the end of Kenobi and would see the end of the rebellion. So, if his statement is literal, than some proportion of a day had passed since Kenobi's death and the Death Star's arrival at Yavin 4. That could be as much as 23 hours, though likely it would be shorter. Of course, Tarkin could have speaking more figuratively.
The issue of the Death Star's ability to travel faster than light is NOT a plothole. Given what we know, from just this film, FTL flight is common and relatively easy. Its limitation seems to be that you have to calculate where you are going. There is no implication that it can't travel that fast.
Yes, I am a Star Wars fan. No, I'm not a fanatical fan. I don't live and breath it. But I do try to pay enough attention to any film I watch, especially SF and Fantasy, to confirm internal consistency.
I'm going to make one other comment regarding Tarkin's saying Dantoine is too far away to make an effective demonstration. I never interpreted that as too far away to reach. I interpreted as too far from the "center" of the Empire for its destruction to be an effective lesson.
Assume for a moment an American Empire. (Please, no references to current politics). The runners of this Empire want to impress on its citizens that it has a weapon which can destroy any rebels.
So, is it effective to go out and destroy a small island somewhere in the South Pacific where no one can see it. Or does it make more sense to destroy New York, or Kansas City or some other major city in the Empire proper. The latter of course.
^ Funny!
I do love this kind of unnecessary mental gymnastics...
Not at all. Some of us consider it fun to figure out the logistics and implications of what an author or filmmaker creates. Most (and I repeat most) don't take it too seriously, though we can argue (in the good and proper sense of argue) about it for hours. We don't take it as some horribly important, life or death issue. We don't slip away from reality and believe it is real. What we can do, for the fun of it, slide into the universe that has been created and examine it in its own frame of reference and by its own rules.
shareAnd re-examining your post, you may be coming from the same place I do.
shareI'm going to make one other comment regarding Tarkin's saying Dantoine is too far away to make an effective demonstration. I never interpreted that as too far away to reach.Of course he didn't mean that. That doesn't even make sense in the context of "to be an effective demonstration"
What? So Luke is actually 38 or 40 when the Death Star reaches Yavin? After all, it only takes hours, maybe a day for the Falcon to reach it. That makes no sense at all. It becomes a useless weapon to terrorize anyone.
I've never hear anyone ever say the Death Stars travel through hyperspace for decades.
Lol. Edited to make sense.
shareLet me apologize. Looking back at your comment I replied to: I misread it. I thought you said that it was understood that the Death Star traveled in hyperspace for decades; not, as you obviously meant, that for decades it has been understood that the Death Star travels in Hyperspace.
I was quite tired when I read your comment; it had been a long day and obviously I flipped your meaning.
Sorry.
"It's a plot hole. Simple as that. And guess what? Nobody cares but you nitpickers and you silly fanatical Star Wars fools who see it as some utterly perfect and infallible movie series which cannot be criticized in any way, shape or form since it's a religion."
Are you kidding me?
All the Star wars fans do is shit all over their movies, especially the new ones
The Death Star has to be able to travel above light speed, otherwise it'd take years or centuries to travel from planet to planet.
Of course, it's sluggish and hard to maneuver on "impulse drive", I have no idea how they make the thing move when it's traveling within a solar system. It's got no visible external engines.
The same reason the First Order fleet in TLJ couldn't catch up with the fleeing Resistance ships? (whatever that reason is - something to do with microjumps or hyperspace lanes..)
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