The TIE Fighter Pilot who Helped the Rebellion.
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
And the nuttiness of the Star Wars EU creeps back in. The movie never established, showed, or suggested that Vader's TIE-Advanced had shields. There wasn't even a "shield flash" when he was clipped. A random movie goer sitting in the theaters in 1977 would've watched that scene and said, "Gee! Why didn't Han just shoot the lead ship?!" Not say, "Will, in the extended universe novels and tech books that've yet to be written, as well as the Laserdisc commentary to be released in 20 years George Lucas says that Vader's shuttle had shields and Han knew this."
BS. It's the revisionist writing that Lucas has came up with the the decade since to have his movies make more sense. It's right up there with the "parsec isn't a unit of time" line Han makes and the "revisioinst" stuff came up with since to make the line make sense. BS. George Lucas f'd up. Plain and simple. He gets a dose or two of "credit" for trying to correct it but the movie itself doesn't reflect it or show it and a movie goer shouldn't have to read books, webpages, techmanuals, play vuideo-games, watch special editions or watch interviews for a movie to make sense.
Of all the BS he adds into the SE's he could've tried to fix this one by adding a "shield flash" when Vader's TIE is clipped to give us the "suggestion" that Han knew firing on it wouldn't do any good.
Han's aim was off because he'd lost confidence when Greedo shot first. 
What makes even less sense is that Vader gets off a bunch of shots at Luke (after he says "I have you now") and they don't seem to do anything at all.
The shield shimmer is an effect that gives a clue to audience on what is happening.
Well, do it in private. And wash your hands afterwards.
They must've adjusted once the fighters showed up. (Didn't work too well for Biggs and Wedge anyway)
Once they go into the Trench they switch all shields to double-front, no?
"Stabilize your rear deflectors. Watch for enemy fighters!"
A shielded fighter can still be destroyed or damaged by prolonged laser fire; it just can't be taken out by a single burst, which is what Han needed to do.
I don't really see that it needs to be explained why Han shot at any particular ship.
He's coming in at an angle and shoots the first ship he draws a bead on. Nearly instantaneously [it only seems longer because they cut for dialogue and reaction shots] Vader's other surviving wingman freaks out and collides with Vader. This is a two-second event. If the crash hadn't happened, Han would have just kept shooting.
He's coming in at an angle and shoots the first ship he draws a bead on. Nearly instantaneously [it only seems longer because they cut for dialogue and reaction shots] Vader's other surviving wingman freaks out and collides with Vader. This is a two-second event. If the crash hadn't happened, Han would have just kept shooting.
When he takes out the second batch of fighters (IIRC) despite being locked, he fires several shots before actually hitting the fighter on the left. Maybe a firing solution is only so good as the fighter pilot ahead of you trying to avoid you.
Yeah, they show repeatedly that, despite a lock, it will take many shots fanned in the right direction to actually hit and destroy a target.
This is such an exciting scene for leaving those shots in.
This is such an exciting scene for leaving those shots in.
Exactly. If it wasn't established in the movie itself, it doesn't count.
But what I told you was true.....from a certain point of view.
Irrelevant. It wasn't in the movie so it's a legit question. A movie goer shouldn't have to read the book, or read the tech. specs on a website to "get" why things in movies happened a certain way (and most of it is "rewriting history" to cover a mistake anyway.) People watching the movie in 1977 would've thought the same thing, "Why didn't Han shoot the lead, obviously more advanced ship?" It's a legit question.
Han's aim was off because he'd lost confidence when Greedo shot first.
Other way around. Han was overconfident. After shooting Greedo, blowing away all those stormtroopers on the Death Star, and wiping out a bunch of TIE fighters during their escape, he figured he couldn't miss. So he started shooting them down in random order.
Easy enough to answer. We saw that even when Vader had a target lock on Luke's X-Wing, his first few shots missed. Therefore, targeting is not an exact science -- only logical, since a target can move after a bolt is fired, and an energy bolt can't maneuver in flight to compensate for that movement. So it's entirely consistent that Han might've missed Vader's fighter and hit his wingman by mistake.
Although that does raise the question of why he only fired one shot instead of the usual strafing run.
Isn't this why you "lead" the target? That is shoot slightly ahead of it? Shoot where it will be and not where it is.
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