It fires a straight beam across light years, right? It’s built into the planet, right? How the hell do they aim such a thing?
I figured they were homing missiles. Or something.
The Wiki sez:
I.e., SKB shot a beam of light. Which has to be aimed, right? So how did they aim the planet?
It could be hand-waved away by arguing “well, since they’re shooting through Hyperspace, they don’t have to aim because of special physics, yadda blah yadda.” But if that’s the case, why bother designing it so it can be moved? Also, it seems to me that, in SW, hyperspace is co-directional in real space, which is why they lock onto coordinates and start flying to the target prior to making the jump.
The follow up question is then: how does the beam split into multiple beams?
Disputes over royalties.
Well, it only appears to get two shots per star, so it has to move to get to a new star every other shot.
It really is a stupid weapon, isn’t it? The Death Star is a perfectly fine weapon in comparison.
I hope when I’m watching the movie again in 5,10 years, its stupidity doesn’t overwhelm the movie.
Well, yes, but you still have to *aim *the damned thing. 
If it has interstellar travel capability, I have to assume it can turn…
I would think it may take more energy to overcome the inertia and turn the thing than what is stored in the… chamber of star energy… or whatever. Planets are heavy and inertia-ful things…
So, let’s figure this out:
…It needs energy to start to move from one star to another.
…It needs energy to stop the planet at the destination star. (Just how long does this trip take, anyway?)
… It needs energy to steer planet through space, dodging stuff.
… It needs energy to orient the SK so that it’s aimed correctly
… And it only gets two shots per star.
Is that about right? Did anybody @ Disney think about this one?
It has the entire energy potential of a star to play around with. You’re confused that it can turn? What do you think it is, a locomotive?
John, you’re trying to apply the laws of Physics to Star Wars…think about that a second.
Star Trek at least mentions the laws of physics before cheerfully ignoring them; Star Wars couldn’t spell physics if you spotted them the p,h. and y.
IMHO as always; YMMV.
I call bullshit.
You can’t spell “physics” with EITHER of those letter combinations; spotted p, h, and y notwithstanding.
Maybe they use the Force.
That’s not how the Force works!
Like phase array radar: the multiple beams interfere/reinforce each other to create an aiming point at some angle away from directly above it.
(We can actually do this!)
Too late.
Either nope, or they didn’t give a damn. Either way, the movie is dumber because of it.
Or like the half-dozen beams fired by the original Death Star, which combined & deflected to hit Alderaan.
But a star only gets you two shots, right? So if you use up the star as a weapon, where does the energy come from to move the planet?