A few tweaks here and there could solve those problems without removing Vader. Have the Tantive IV already in the system, watching from afar. There are a dozen ways it could be made to work better than what we got.
Spoilers Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Grading & Discussion
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
^^^^
Yeah, I thought that was the type of scene we were going to get - IE Leia's Corvette in space receiving a transmission that someone realizes are the Deathstar plans; and them mentioning to jump to Lightspeed for Tantooine; and then maybe Vader's Comm officer on his destroyer mentioning that a ship in the system received the transmission and jumped to Lightspeed... or something along those lines.
When they had a scene basically intimating Leia's Corvette had either docked in the Rebel cruiser's hangar (or had actually fully participated in the battle - and then docked) and then took off pretty much in front of Vader's eyes; I was like -- WTF?
One silly little nitpick I just thought of: Why didn't the shield around the Second Death Star in ROTJ have the same pretty blue glow that the shield around Scarif did, since it presumably did the same thing?
And I know this is an old complaint, but while watching it did kind of bug me how massively huge the first Death Star suddenly appeared to be in this movie, with Star Destroyers being just tiny little specs in front of it. I realize it might have been a bit undersized in ANH, but this seemed to be going way too far in the other direction.
And I know this is an old complaint, but while watching it did kind of bug me how massively huge the first Death Star suddenly appeared to be in this movie, with Star Destroyers being just tiny little specs in front of it. I realize it might have been a bit undersized in ANH, but this seemed to be going way too far in the other direction.
Real reason: 1983 visual effects limitations. In-universe reason: the Scarif shield only glowed blue when it was impacted by objects & weapons fire or interrupted by the gateway and we never saw anything impact the Endor shield.
We just never saw a Star Destroyer get that close to it in ANH. But we did see the size of the Falcon compared to the docking bay and the equatorial trench and it looked bloody massive. Also remember, it was big enough that it was mistaken for a small moon at a distance.
To put that in perspective: Star Destroyers are supposedly about a mile long, while one of the *smallest* spherical bodies in our solar system is ironically Mimas (if you don't get the irony, google image it!) which has a diameter of about about 240 miles. That's 240 Star Destroyers end-to-end...and that's one of the smallest ones! So yeah, small for a moon is still fecking giganamous for a space station.
Just because that is how large a planetary body has to be to have gravity turn it into a sphere doesn't mean that the Death Star is at a minimum that big. What else would Luke assume it is? He's never left Tatooine as far as we know. He hasn't studied the physics of planetary bodies. He sees a small grey sphere in the distance. It is the obvious conclusion to jump to.
I don't have a clip, but isn't there a scene of a destroyer appeaching the death star in the first movie where it get's smaller snd smaller in the distance until it almost vanishes before the cut away?
That gave a pretty good idea of scale I thought.
That gave a pretty good idea of scale I thought.
Lovely theory except everyone accepts the comment until Kenobi comes to the dawning realisation that it's a space station. To wit Han responds "It's too big to be a space station."
I think Han is well travelled enough to know what's more usual for moons and less usual for space stations.
ETA: OK fine, let's get pedantic about this!
Yeah, there's a shot of the Devastator approaching the Death Star but the scene cuts off before it gets close enough to really give a sense of scale. (Note the SD is still in the key-light and is not having the DS's shadow cast over it at this distance.)
The only time we really get a sense of scale is when the Falcon approaches.
The second one is the most helpful for scale as it gives a good view of the docking trench and the inset alcove where the smaller docking bays are.
Now to put that in the context of what they were thinking at the time, here is a scale chart drawn up by Joe Johnson during production.
Now, here's that information applied to the second shot.
The red silhouette is Johnson's rough scale, while the blue is a more accurate profile, scaled to the official length of about 1600m, all scaled to the Falcon's official length of about 34m. For clarity I highlighted the geometry of the docking trench, with the hanger bay marked as the centre line.
As you can see, even at the much larger official scale, an ISD can easily clear the outer trench. Now go back up and look at that first image and see how thin that trench looks compared to the overall size of the thing. I think it's safe to say the SD's & Rebel ships in Rogue One looked suitably dwarfed by the Death Star.
For anyone who still think they got the scale wrong, I direct you here for an in depth technical explanation on the concept of perspective.
Last edited:
Han is a little busy flying the ship and probably not the sort of guy who bothers with considering those sorts of details. Spherical grey thing of that magnitude is probably a moon, because what else could it be? Apparently moon-sized space-stations are pretty rare 'round the GFFA. The scale is far from consistent, even in the old films, but it is just especially bad in Rogue One. However, if a Star Destroyer is a little less than a mile (and I rarely see disagreement on that front) I see no reason not to assume the ~90 mile figure most often cited for the first Death Star is more or less accurate. This would be pretty close to the size of Saturn's moon Janus. Janus may be more of an uneven ovoid up close, but the first instinct -from a considerable distance- being that the Death Star is a moon at that size is perfectly reasonable.
I thought Star Wars 3.5 was a good movie. 
Here is a question, are we to assume the Death Star was hanging around near Jedha while it was getting the dish installed and loading up on the Kyber crystals from the surface? If that was the case, why would the Rebels just be finding out about the Death Star now. Seems like there is free passage back and forth from Jedha (Dr Evanzan, etc..) surly people would have seen it and word gotten out by now? Also wouldn't Jyn, K2SO and Captain notice it when they flew to the planet?
Here is a question, are we to assume the Death Star was hanging around near Jedha while it was getting the dish installed and loading up on the Kyber crystals from the surface? If that was the case, why would the Rebels just be finding out about the Death Star now. Seems like there is free passage back and forth from Jedha (Dr Evanzan, etc..) surly people would have seen it and word gotten out by now? Also wouldn't Jyn, K2SO and Captain notice it when they flew to the planet?
The irony here is that whoever drew this, probably spent more time on it than the 2 mins it took me to throw that simple diagram together.
I thought Star Wars 3.5 was a good movie.
I think the implication is that it was out in deep space with the fleet during that scene and only jumped in when Tarkin decided to destroy the city. Remember Bodhi wasn't flying up to the station, he was going back and forth from Jedah to Eadu with his kyber shipments.
It was built at another location, seemingly from Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One, not above a planet but surronded by Imperial forces constantly.
It jumped to both Jedha and Scarif when needed, the hyperdrive might actually have been finished a long while before the superlaser, given that the ring of engines is embedded under the inner ring.
What was more impressive is that something that big could de-space into a low orbit instantly without causing serious issues to itself or the planet. When it appeared at Scarif they were able to pick it up from over the horizon it's deceleration was significant enough. But both times it would have been barely more than a few hundred miles up at most.
The Imperial shuttles taking the Kyber were designed for hauling loads through hyperspace, when Rogue One lies about being re-directed, no one disagrees. The crystals were probably shipped from Jedha to the building site.
I thought Return of the Jedi kind of hinted that the construction of Death Star II was different partly because of building it over a gravitational well like Endor, using that and the shield as one of the new security considerations after the first one blew up.
It jumped to both Jedha and Scarif when needed, the hyperdrive might actually have been finished a long while before the superlaser, given that the ring of engines is embedded under the inner ring.
What was more impressive is that something that big could de-space into a low orbit instantly without causing serious issues to itself or the planet. When it appeared at Scarif they were able to pick it up from over the horizon it's deceleration was significant enough. But both times it would have been barely more than a few hundred miles up at most.
The Imperial shuttles taking the Kyber were designed for hauling loads through hyperspace, when Rogue One lies about being re-directed, no one disagrees. The crystals were probably shipped from Jedha to the building site.
I thought Return of the Jedi kind of hinted that the construction of Death Star II was different partly because of building it over a gravitational well like Endor, using that and the shield as one of the new security considerations after the first one blew up.
We know the first Death Star was at least started to be built over Geonosis during the Clone Wars. At some point in the fifteen years or so after the Clone Wars, the Death Star was moved, possibly to Scariff or Eadu. It seems like the main construction of the Death Star didn't take all that time, but the superlaser is what delayed the completion of the station. Thus when the Empire built a second Death Star, it didn't take nearly as long to make it operational, as they had the knowledge to complete the superlaser early and work out the rest of the station as they went. It would probably still take them another several years to complete the entire station had it survived Endor, and likely didn't have its hyperdrive complete yet, but that wasn't the Emperor's plan. Wipe out the Alliance, rumors get out that the Death Star is back, and even if it doesn't show up to blow away Mon Cala for four or five years, the rumors and destruction of the Rebel Fleet in detail will be enough for Palpatine. Especially if he could either turn the Last Jedi to the Dark Side (or at the very least kill him).
Is hyperspace really a matter of speed though?
In any case, at somewhere in the realm of 1/1000-1/25000 the mass of our moon, I doubt it has a significant enough gravitational force to threaten any world it approaches.
Also, I think it is mostly hollow, judging by the huge open reactor area in the Death Star II and the bit of the socket behind the laser dish we saw in this movie.
Should still generate a bot of it's own gravity but not as much as an actual small moon.
Should still generate a bot of it's own gravity but not as much as an actual small moon.
Similar threads
- Sticky
- Poll
