Star Wars Rebels Season Three (spoilers)

[Ithekro]

The impression I got from the Rebels Recon on this episode is that they have limitations of what they can pull off for these space battles, and thus are more or less forced to limit the scope to an area of the planet or else they might overtax the computers. While it might make sense to have a planet wide blockade, they just don't have the processing ability to show it, so they take the shortcut allowed by the concept of pre-determined hyperspace routes.

There is only a few and sometimes only one safe way in or out of a star system via hyperspace. The Rebel ships can't really outrun the Imperials in Realspace, so they don't bother to attempt a cat and mouse game to try to break orbit and dodge around the star system until they can make a jump to hyperspace from someplace else. Because by the time they get someplace else, the Imperial turbolasers, ion cannons, tractor beams, and TIE Fighters should have managed to destroy the Rebel ships attempting such a thing. Any move the Rebels make from the surface, the Imperials can match, and the Empire almost always has the numerical advantage, especially if it has fully loaded Imperial Star Destroyers full of TIE Fighters.

 

[Christopher]

The impression I got from the Rebels Recon on this episode is that they have limitations of what they can pull off for these space battles, and thus are more or less forced to limit the scope to an area of the planet or else they might overtax the computers. While it might make sense to have a planet wide blockade, they just don't have the processing ability to show it, so they take the shortcut allowed by the concept of pre-determined hyperspace routes.

I don't see that. Surely a more spread-out space battle would be easier to animate, because the ships would be far apart and not in the same shot at the same time. And you wouldn't need that many ships. If the Star Destroyers were able to bombard the surface from space, then their weapons have considerable range. You'd just need enough ships to have line of sight on the entire planet surface/orbital space -- theoretically, as few as four on the vertices of a tetrahedron around the planet could do it, though six or eight would be better -- and they could pick off any ship trying to get away in any direction.

Alternatively, don't have the Interdictors be so short-range. Say their gravity wells are strong enough to prevent hyperspace entry within a million kilometers, or whatever measurement units they use. So the Rebel ships have to get that far away from the planet before they can jump. Same dynamic, but no need to have them fly directly toward the enemy for no reason.

There is only a few and sometimes only one safe way in or out of a star system via hyperspace.

Where was that established?

The Rebel ships can't really outrun the Imperials in Realspace, so they don't bother to attempt a cat and mouse game to try to break orbit and dodge around the star system until they can make a jump to hyperspace from someplace else.

Except that's kind of what they did -- they drew one of the Imperial ships out of position to let Ezra jump away through the gap. They just did it on an implausibly small scale.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Am I the only one that doesn't think the Bendu "died" and is now one with the Force? He wasn't visible the first time Kanaan encountered him, right? He had to become visible. Or am I misremembering? I had the impression that Thrawn was not going to be able to kill him and the Bendu just disappeared.

Tom Baker was heard laughing after Bendu vanished, oh and he just vanished, so yeah.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Except that's kind of what they did -- they drew one of the Imperial ships out of position to let Ezra jump away through the gap. They just did it on an implausibly small scale.

They didn't just draw one ship out of position. They destroyed one of the two Interdictors that prevented hyperspace jumps out of the system.

 

[Ithekro]

I wouldn't imagine the second Interdictor covering the first. Also the Gravity Well Protectors have to be turned on and targeting to an area. That is why they have four projectors. On was covering one side of the fleet with the other one covering the opposite side, with some overlap in the middle. They are fast enough to prevent hyperspace jumps, but because of the confusion and the planning, I can gather Ezra had just enough time to jump out before the other Interdictor compensated for the lose of the first one. As for why just Ezra? Most of the Rebel ship's didn't have fast enough hyperdrives (or most specifically navigation computers fast enough to calculate the jumps in time to compensate for the downed Interdictor, the planets in the system, and the positions of the Imperial ships nearby). The Ghost could have done it, but Hera wasn't going to leave her troops behind. The fighters might have been able to make it, but none of the capital ships would have. Plus they would have to get clear of the Star Destroyers to make the jump (like Hera's group did at the end). Mass shadows even of a Star Destroyer can be a problem.

 

[Tallguy]

Tom Baker was heard laughing after Bendu vanished, oh and he just vanished, so yeah.

Well it was the end. But the moment had been prepared for.

 

[Christopher]

There was a bit in the ground assault where Kanan just sliced through an AT-AT's legs with his lightsaber, and my first thought was, "Why didn't Luke do that on Hoth?" Well, I guess Luke hadn't really had much Jedi training at that point, beyond what little Obi-Wan gave him on the Falcon, so maybe he couldn't do those Force jumps yet.

 

[Ithekro]

Luke, as far as I remember, didn't have the Force jump training until Yoda.

The other possibility is that the Empire started to strengthen their AT-AT's legs because of these repeated slicings by Kanan and Ezra. Maybe even Luke, as the walkers on Hoth are of a different variant than the ones we see in Rebels. Possibly an upgraded model (it is five years after this episode that Hoth happens) or those were the cold weather variant, to go with their Snow Troopers.

 

[Marc]

Luke, as far as I remember, didn't have the Force jump training until Yoda.

The other possibility is that the Empire started to strengthen their AT-AT's legs because of these repeated slicings by Kanan and Ezra. Maybe even Luke, as the walkers on Hoth are of a different variant than the ones we see in Rebels. Possibly an upgraded model (it is five years after this episode that Hoth happens) or those were the cold weather variant, to go with their Snow Troopers.

Kanan and Ezra also have had more exposure to the AT-AT's.

Hoth was probably the first time Luke and many of the rebels had come up against them.

 

[JD]

CBR has an article with some small Season 4 teases Finloni gave during the finale's Rebels Recon.

• More connections to Rogue One
• More Saw and Mon Mothma, including stuff about how the relationship went bad.
• Maybe an X-Wing
• More Mandalore

 

[Ithekro]

Since they are going to Yavin, they have to get X-wings at some point prior to Rogue One, were they have lots of X-wings.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Well it was the end. But the moment had been prepared for.

For the win.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Also the Gravity Well Projectors have to be turned on and targeting to an area.

Yeah, that was basically stated in dialog, by Admiral Konstantine when he was engaging Sato's carrier.

 

[Marc]

Yeah, that was basically stated in dialog, by Admiral Konstantine when he was engaging Sato's carrier.

I'm surprised Thrawn let him anywhere near a commanding officer position after his previous screw ups.

Also didn't realise that his his first name was Kassius which is rather appropriate.

 

[Ithekro]

Thrawn basically put him in a position to follow orders or die. He chose to die it seems.

 

[Christopher]

Thrawn basically put him in a position to follow orders or die.

Isn't that pretty much normally the case for any Imperial officer? Except that usually the death would come at the hands of their own superiors rather than the enemy.

 

[Tuskin38]

Back to the last page, apparently they set the battle of coruscant in the upper atmosphere to justify all the fire and smoke and falling ships. I remember reading that somewhere.

The AT-ATs in Rebels are an older model, I think the legs are thinner too.

According to Rebels Recon the space battle was too much to render like they normally do, they had several plates/layers done

 

[Shawnster]

You can really go back to RotJ with the Super Star Destroyer falling "down" into the Death Star.

 

[Christopher]

Back to the last page, apparently they set the battle of coruscant in the upper atmosphere to justify all the fire and smoke and falling ships. I remember reading that somewhere.

I was about to go off on one of my "Why does everyone assume gravity is caused by atmosphere?" rants, but I realized that what you probably mean is that, since the ships were in atmosphere, the drag would've slowed them down below orbital velocity and so they wouldn't have been in free fall. So they would've been using antigravs (is that what they call them in SW?) to hover, and when those were knocked out, they would fall. That actually kinda makes sense.

At least, more sense than in TCW and Rebels where the ships fall "down" relative to the camera angle even when in open space.

You can really go back to RotJ with the Super Star Destroyer falling "down" into the Death Star.

That too. Though maybe the DS was massive enough to generate its own gravitational pull?

 

[Tosk]

I just figure that when a ship is damaged, some thrusters go offline before others. Any subsequent movement is due to that.