“It’s a TARP!”
– Admiral Akbar
A golf ball goes into the cup and a basketball goes into the hoop without rockets making them change direction.
But this is a lovely opportunity to confuse ourselves by over thinking it.
Imagine you are on the space station. You have a stream of water that enters the top of a tube. If the angle is a little more then 90 degrees I expect the water will make it’s way down the tube. If the angle is too shallow or it comes too fast it will splash off the rim.
To me it was pretty clear that the force was used to target the exhaust port and why the concern of Luke turning off the targeting computer, considering that the simulations also had the turn, pointed out by Chronos, I would say that it was not the force but the know laws of physics at play here.
Can you think of any significant way in which torpedoes are not like basketballs, golf balls, or water? It might be important.
Well, let’s think: shooting glowing balls of energy down an energy conduit. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t behave the same as a basketball or stream of water.
You must be thinking of some sort of more primitive device.
I don’t remember the movies well enough–is it supposed to be the case that the shields can be tuned in some way as to what they can stop? The Hoth shield DOES prevent small ships from going through.