MovieChat Forums > Rogue One (2016) Discussion > Was a "planned weakness in the Death Sta...

Was a "planned weakness in the Death Star" story really necessary?


There's been a lot of criticism over the years about how the Death Star had a very stupid design flaw, and so to solve this, they made Rogue One to explain that away (and to make money). But seriously though. lets just think about this so-called flaw/trap.

A small one-man fighter needs to travel miles down a trench (considering the traffic beam is turned off), while guns shoot at them and enemy fighters likely attack them, then fire a proton torpedo into a tiny hole only 3 meters, somehow making a shot that causes the missiles to curve 90 degrees, and then have them travel literally miles in a perfectly straight line down a narrow shaft while exhaust is pouring out (which should push the missiles away, or even into the wall), and then hit the main reactor.

Ok, seriously, what kind of "trap" is that? The target is like impossible to hit UNLESS you're a Jedi, and even then, come on. Was there really an explanation needed? This so-called trap is so astronomically impossible that making it a "flaw" in the design actually makes more sense than Jyn's father putting this impossible to exploit weakness.

For a funny video of this, click the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agcRwGDKulw

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It worked didn't it?

Why would it be a simple and obvious flaw that they could easily identify?

I actually think that was the most interesting element of the film.

Not like it matters since these comments will only live for a few days.

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Actually once the Empire was looking for it, they found the flaw. An officer tells Tarkin the Imperials have analyzed the Rebel attack and found a potential danger. Of course Tarkin ignores his aide and dies for his hubris.

Personally I don't really mind the "intentional design flaw" angle, but I do consider it a case of overwriting. I think it would have been more effective had the Rebels just stumbled across the Death Star plans and worked feverishly to analyze them for a way to destroy the station as stated in Star Wars.

Requiescat in pace, Krystle Papile. I'll always miss you. Justice was finally served.

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True they did discover a potential danger only after analyzing the Rebel attack, though they also raised the notion earlier in the film which was also dismissed.

Not that these comments count for much though ...

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Well it also serves the plot to make Galen Erso and his daughter heroes that were crucial to the destruction of the Death Star.

The Shroud of the Disney has fallen. Begun the Jar Jar Abrahams Wars have.

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no. no, it was not.

imo

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No, it wasn't necessary. Just good to have.

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Is any movie really necessary?

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You are 100# right. The concept that the weakness was planned is PURE STUPID. I'll never watch a movie that craps on the trilogy.

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No, it wasn't necessary. It doesn't hurt or change anything, but no.

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It absolutely wasn't necessary. I've never heard the criticism about the "stupid design flaw" before this movie came out.

Besides the difficulties you point out, the rebels didn't know about the exhaust port as a weakness in the Death Star's design until they were able to steal the top-secret plans to the station and analyze them. It's not as if that relatively tiny opening was lit with a large neon bulls eye target and sign saying "Destroy Death Star Here".

If anything, all the explanation in Rogue One does is compound the "plot hole" (again, I don't see it as such). We're to believe that a rogue designer placed this flaw into the plans and it got past scores of committees and reviews and that it was built into the station by thousands of workers and overseers without any question? If it's such an "obvious and stupid design flaw", how did it get built into the station without anyone questioning and correcting it? And then the guy who puts it in doesn't directly inform the rebels, but rather just hopes they will steal the plans and quickly find this "obvious, stupid weakness" that thousands of designers and builders for the Empire somehow missed for over a decade?

Then we have the further complication that the presence of this "weakness" as a purposeful design flaw that is made such a big deal of in Rogue One is (obviously) never even hinted at in A New Hope. In fact, In New Hope, they adequately explain the situation away by saying the "Empire doesn't consider a squadron of small fighters to be a serious threat", which is totally reasonable given the size of the station and that it is bristling with all manner of laser guns and is protected by fleets of support vessels and small fighters of their own. (This can be correlated to the inherent weaknesses of large, lumbering U.S. aircraft carriers necessitating the various support vessels and rings of defensive assets surrounding them for hundreds of miles to protect them.) So the planned designed flaw idea doesn't even work with the continuity of the saga as a whole. To me, the whole thing was satisfactorily explained as a failure of strategy rather than a purposeful design flaw by a rogue designer.

This plot point is just a dumb design flaw in the script.

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I agree that it wasn't necessary, but it is explained in the film that Erso planted a "fuse," as it were, so deeply into the main reactor that no one could possibly find it. The flaw is that an explosion or hit on the reactor would cause the entire station to blow. The thermal exhaust port is not the flaw. It's just a way of getting to the reactor.

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Do we really need a planted fuse to know an explosion in the main power core can destroy the Death Star?

Logic dictates an explosion in the hub of the Death Star's power is going to at least render the station useless, if not destroy it.

Requiescat in pace, Krystle Papile. I'll always miss you. Justice was finally served.

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Exactly. Like I said, it wasn't necessary. But it still doesn't change or confuse anything.

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I agree.

The premise that the design flaw was purposeful messed with canon in a negative way that created more logic holes than it resolved.

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