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The TIE Fighter Pilot who Helped the Rebellion.

Yeah, I know that happened.

When you consider that TIE Fighters do not have shields, but Vader's TIE Advanced does, then it makes sense. Han wouldn't pick as his first target a ship he couldn't destroy instantly; that would waste the element of surprise. And the wingman would know that giving Vader a nudge out of the line of fire wouldn't destroy Vader. (He either sacrificed himself or miscalculated his own craft's capabilities.)
 
One of the comments:

I watched the replay over a few times... when the pilot says "watch out", he's veres over to dodge an incoming pilar or turret tower looking structure. Vader didn't look out in time... and POW RIGHT IN THE KISSER!!!
 

I liked this line from that article; "Felth's discovery effectively died with Veers, who kept the AT-AT design flaw a secret rather than allowing it to threaten his career".

Yes, the idea that a vehicle with tall legs and many tens of tonnes sitting above them might be liable to trip and collapse is pretty far out there.

It's not the first time the Empire has helped the Rebellion though, what about the gunnery officer who decided not to blast R2D2's escape pod in ANH?
 
Isn't there a similar bit in Spaced where Pegg or Frost goes on about the gunner chief bloke at the beginning and his deciding not to fire on the escape pod?
 
Yeah, I know that happened.

When you consider that TIE Fighters do not have shields, but Vader's TIE Advanced does, then it makes sense. Han wouldn't pick as his first target a ship he couldn't destroy instantly; that would waste the element of surprise. And the wingman would know that giving Vader a nudge out of the line of fire wouldn't destroy Vader. (He either sacrificed himself or miscalculated his own craft's capabilities.)

When did the movie establish that Vader's TIE Fighter had sheilds but the others didn't?
 
I'm surprised the guy doesn't have a name and EU backstory already. I'm sure he'll get one now that he's had attention drawn to him.
 
I'm surprised the guy doesn't have a name and EU backstory already. I'm sure he'll get one now that he's had attention drawn to him.
And it'll include him punching-out at the last second, surviving the blast, being rescued by Han* and going on to be best pals with Luke and Leia and being a pilot in Rogue Squadron, and all kinds of super-spy-cool in the New Republic era.






* - Han is the Spider-Man of the Star Wars franchise: Everybody gets one.
 
Yeah, I know that happened.

When you consider that TIE Fighters do not have shields, but Vader's TIE Advanced does, then it makes sense. Han wouldn't pick as his first target a ship he couldn't destroy instantly; that would waste the element of surprise. And the wingman would know that giving Vader a nudge out of the line of fire wouldn't destroy Vader. (He either sacrificed himself or miscalculated his own craft's capabilities.)

When did the movie establish that Vader's TIE Fighter had sheilds but the others didn't?

The movie didn't establish much of anything about TIE technology, but the idea of the T/A mark 1 having shields is well-known. I don't recall where it was first introduced, but I know it was featured in the game X-Wing (1993).
 
It's possible it comes from Lucas's background notes for the first film. The big Making of Star Wars book published this, and it's where some of the Expanded Universe stuff comes from, such as Han being an ex-imperial officer/pilot and Threepio being 100(As was kind of contradicted by the prequels.) Of course some of the stuff was later contradicted by the sequels.

From the film we do know that the regular TIEs are short-range, and probably don't have FTL/Lightspeed, but Vader's probably does as he wasn't captured by the rebels (unless of course an Imperial ship went to Yavin to pick him up or something). Also it's implied that there's no air in them, as the pilots seem totally enclosed in their suits and have breathing apparatus (Which Vader has built-in of course), whereas the rebel pilots did have air.

In particular the Imperial design philosophy for the fighters at least was cheap mass-production, producing as many basic TIES as possible without shields and hyperdrive. Of course, there were variations-including Vader's-which presumabely had these.
 
As shown in the game TIE Fighter, there was a brief flirtation with more expensive TIE designs in the TIE Avenger and TIE Defender. Those had superior handling, shields, hyperdrives, and even limited tractor beams. However, they were very expensive to produce, and only used by elite units for a short time.
 
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