[QUOTE=Miller]
Yes, it is. It seems to have morphed into cannon that those two big balls are the shield generators, and that you can blow them up even when the shields are still up. Which I think is dumb, and isn’t actually supported by the movie.
Those aren’t generators. Judging by the fireball, I’d say they were oxygen tanks. Again, I’m not using any material from outside the movie to make this judgement call. I’m not interested in what the novels/comics/video games say, I’m just talking about the movie.
[QUOTE]
I disagree. If an ISD required external oxygen tanks, other ships would follow the same design for whatever reason the tanks were exposed in the first place.
Nothing would benefit from being sitting on top of the super structure. You might argue “sensor domes” but sensors would be better placed non-centrally (it’s a war ship after all). as well, those sensors would have a huge blind spot “under” the ship (yes, there’s another dome under the ship but it’s been stated to be some sort of power-related bump).
Whatever they are, it doesn’t really make sense to have a “weak spot” like that sitting on top of where all the important people are going to be. If I was going to be placing shield generators I’d have at least 4 in different segments of the ship. That way you couldn’t take down everything with one volley.
(Yes, I know it’s fiction but still, it should make some sense!)
Well, I don’t know what the hell they really are. O2 was just a guess. I don’t think they’re necessarily shield generators, although they could be that: it still doesn’t necessarily follow that the shields went down after they blew it up. Clearly, the shields had to have failed first, otherwise the fighter’s blasts wouldn’t have been able to penetrate.
Here’s an idea: they are shield generators, and the reason they exploded like that is that they were overloaded trying to keep up shield strength after being pounded on by the combined firepower of the Rebel fleet. The strafing run that set it off was just the straw that broke the camel’s back: a couple more direct hits from a Calamari Cruiser anywhere else on the ship would have overloaded it and blown the globe just the same.
As for why they’d put such an obvious weak spot right above the inexplicably exposed command bridge… I guess the Empire likes to give its military contracts to the lowest bidder, with predictable results.
Oh, and according to one of the video game series (I know, I said I don’t care what the video games say…) the bump underneath the SD is another shield generator, like the two on top of the bridge. But I don’t really buy anything the video games say, especially the crappy ones like Rogue Squadron.
Those big spheres are the officers’ holodecks and rec centers, which were put in that location so that relaxing command staff could be recalled to the bridge quickly in an emergency. They exploded they way they did because of all the alcohol stored in the officers’ lounge.
Actually, those are none of the above. See, the Emporor has a bit of an inferirity complex because he has only a single testicle. In an attempt to show everyone that he does have balls, he ordered that all star destoryers have a big pair of balls prominatly displayed atop the bridge.
The final piece of the puzzle now falls into place, the Emperor is in fact comedian Richard Belzer. Joseph Campbell said Star Wars was ultimately about man vs. machine, now I recognise it was actually about sarcasm (the Dark side) vs. genuine emotion (the Light side).
When the Emperor pulls back his hood in Ep. III, he will be wearing heavily tinted glasses and saying “Yeah, right babe…” to his fellow Senators.
Thanks, HPL, you just saved me the price of a ticket.
Lucas has just publically condemned colourisation of old movies because he doesn’t believe they should be altered. He doesn’t need an editor - he needs a shrink.
The shields work by absorbing the energy from incoming attacks, right?
Well, something has to be done with that absorbed energy. It can’t just disappear. Perhaps the spheres are energy dispersal systems. Sorta like the cooling towers at power plants, but since these are spaceships they’d have to use radiation to get rid of the energy.
When the Rebels concentrated their fire on the Executor, the dispersal systems couldn’t keep up and overloaded. Since these systems can explode if overloaded, they are placed on little towers and located such that important systems (engines, guns) won’t be damaged if they blow. The strafing run was the last little nudge that maxed out the shields, and since it was hitting the sphere, the sphere was damaged, and instead of releasing the energy in a controlled manor, it was released in a big blast.
While undoubtedly Lucas could use with a better editor (its a lost art in Hollywood, and he’s hardly the worst in that regard Phantom menace or no [and I liked that movie!])its a wee bit silly to agonize over a minor editing decision made 20 years ago. Too many fanboys, not enough time.
Yeah. They were his movies. Especially the first one, since he directed it himself. Colorized black-and-white movies are being altered without input from anyone involved in the original creative process, so despite his controversial tinkering with the original movies (I actually like some of the changes, and dislike others…) the man has a point.
And this time it’s not the kind a hat will cover up.
First things first, the A-Wing’s pilot’s name was Arvel Crynyd.
Ok, now on to this ‘shield generator’ arguement. In the Star Wars universe, there are two types of shields; ray (energy) and matter. This is why in Episode 4 they had to use a proton torpedo to go to the Death Star’s core, and not just blast a bunch of lasers down the hole. It’s said that the exhaust port is ray shielded.
Now, I propose that the shield generators on top of the bridge of the are ray shield generators, and that the fighters, being matter, can pass directly through the shields, to then fire upon the generators themselves. Meanwhile, the matter shields had been removed to facilitate the use of Imperial fighters for fighter-on-fighter combat.
You guys all keep on arguing about the movie version. Since this all happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away and since somebody has the original story that Lucas based the films on. Can anyone provide a cite to the original sources? I know this is CS not GQ but in the SDMB we can do this in all the forums, right? My WAG is that Luke placed a small but very powerful tractor beam on the Death Star and a Rebel spy placed in the 4th backup control station(SDBS4) set the steering on the ship to turn towards the Death Star when an collision was detected near the main bridge control station(SDMBCS), causing the main collision. The explosion was just to make it look cool.