In the Novelization of RotJ that is exactly what happens. The Emperor gives an order that if the Shield should fall, they should turn the Death Star around and destroy the Moon. That makes the dive into the Death Star a race against time but the Rebels blow the Station before it turns all the way around.
I don’t know if this was in the original script or the Novel author made it up but it did happen there at least.
I’ve never understood why the Death Star (either one) was supposed to be such a big threat in the first place. Surely it would be way to big to go into “hyperspace” or whatever it was called? Even if it could hit a thousand miles an hour by propulsion systems it would still be impossible to even travel from one solar system to another, let alone across multiple galaxies. How many inhabited worlds are there in SW? Thousands? Millions? It would be very very time consuming and resource intensive to blow up even a few dozen planets.
The Death Star from Star Wars definitely could jump into hyperspace.
“Set your course for Alderaan.”
“With Pleasure.”
Too big or not, it did go into hyperspace. I’m sure you’d need a hellaciously powerful power source for its hyper engines, but then, that’s one thing that we know for sure that it had.
You don’t have to put everything in italics. I think we all get your points and you are clearly a fan of the movie.
And if all you ever wanted is me hanging my head in shame, well, then you won!
Can i ask where you get your info? Is it from a book that the movie was based on, or is this stuff that you’ve come up with on your own?
Because if I were running the Empire, which is to represent EVIL in all its splendor and glory, i would not hesitate to remove the Ewoks from Endor. In fact, I would remove everything and anything that wasn’t an ally of the Empire. Why would the Empire risk the shield on a planet that they didn’t have complete control over? Surely you see the failed logic here. The Empire is capable if building a Death Star, and for some reason, it puts a shield to protect the Death Star on a planet inhabited by Ewoks.
First, the Empire could presumably build the Death Star anywhere inside its realm… Why not put the shield on a dead planet, like our Mars or even our moon? Surely this would be the way to go, as you wouldn’t have to deal with any unforeseen issues with life forms of any kind.
It makes no sense. Pick a dead planet, and there is no drain on resources to deal with the native population.
Thanks,
How do you know this? Is this in the book, or is this part of the movie that I forgot? I don’t remember exactly how big of a realm the empire ruled, but even if it was one part of one galaxy, that is still a pretty big place, with an abundance of planets. At least I would think that to be the case… But I’m guessing based on real-life information and not what was in George Lucas’s mind.
Planets seem to be all over the place, and as the ability to find smaller and smaller planets increases, I am going to guess that we earthlings will find that more stars than not have planetary systems, with moons, very similar to our own solar system. Sure, the planets will be different, but the concept of planets orbiting a star will more than likely be found in abundance. (This is what I think so if you disagree, that’s fine… Just don’t want to clog up this thread with a theoretical debate on what the future will show)
This isn’t true. For the Death Star to have any impact at all, and be a useful device, it HAD to be able to travel from one end of the realm to the other and do it quickly.
Thanks for this info. Was the book written before or after the movie came out, and was it written by Lucas or someone who created it from his own imagination?
“Your overconfidence is your weakness.”
The Empire is arrogant and racist. Some little primitive tribe of non-human bears are of no consequence to their plans.
“Dead” planets mean that people need to work in some sort of environmental suits, why bother with that when you have this place where people can work in normal atmosphere, and hey, free target practice for Stormtroopers on R and R.
Your point about the dead planets is a good one and one I thought about. However, realistically, you wouldn’t be planning on settling the place. Build whatever you need, and then put it on auto pilot.
Maybe that isn’t as easy as it sounds, but building anything on a planet with no technology like Endor meant they would have to being basically everything with them anyway. It’s not like they would find a bunch of outlets to plug their tools into.
But, whatever the choice, dead planet or one like endor with little bears running around, i make it what I want as quickly as possible. If they aren’t part of the empire, then they have to go. But if you are building a Death Star, you are not going to leave anything to chance, and that includes the locating and building of the shield generator. That is going to be an important first phase of the construction.
Ah, this doesn’t really matter to me. I’m interested where people have found their information, but I’m not so into it that I want to debate the pros and cons of bears on Endor.
Except to say that the idea of Ewoks… Or better yet, the execution of that idea, was bad for the film, and took away some of the enjoyment factor for me.
But that’s ok. I’ll live. I have!
The novelization came out at the same time as the movie. It was written by someone named James Kahn. Often movie novelizations are based on early drafts of scripts so it’s possible this detail came from that but it’s also possible the writer made it up.
Because they didn’t care. They didn’t think the Ewoks could possibly be a threat to them.
Because its a lot easier (and cheaper) to work on a planet that has a breathable atmosphere. And, again, the Empire didn’t view the Ewoks as any possible sort of threat.
Well, since the universe far, far too large to be ruled by a single human government, and the movies never claim that the Empire rules the universe, it would be unfair to hang that particular bit of ridiculousness on a movie that, in fairness, already has more than its fair share of ridiculousness.
In the prequel trilogy, IIRC, specifically mentions that Tatooine is ruled by Hutts, and not the Republic, and they refer to the Galactic Senate.
Good thing they cut the Vader/Luke elevator scene: Star Wars: Deleted Elevator Fart Scene From Return Of The Jedi - YouTube
Stink Fish Pot, why do you imagine that it is standard practice for an Empire, however evil, to just go about killing everybody? You kill everybody, you’ve got no one to rule.
What would England have been able to do with India if they had killed every Indian?
It would have been impossible to exploit India’s resources without a local population. You conquer, you suppress, then in the long term you hope the locals just come to accept the new order of things and serve your purposes with little resistance.
Rebellions, you squash. Kill insurgents. Kill rabble-rousers. Those who hate you but are of broken spirit and continue to go work the mine everyday? You let them live, you need them.
The other reason you don’t kill everybody is because it is a drain on resources. Your laser blaster ammunition costs money. Mass extermination is a money pit, it’s pretty much impossible to break even let alone turn a profit.
If the Ewoks were of no threat, there was no reason to engage them.
It is plausible that the Empire would not view them as a threat, that is why cute teddy bears serve an important role in the plot. If they were Wookies, or anything more advanced or fearsome than Ewoks, then it would have been a plot hole for the Empire to have not suppressed the population before constructing the shield generator. The fact that they were cute teddy bears is what makes the story work.
The Death Star shows the galaxy that the Empire has the capability to destroy a planet so that they won’t have to. The fact that the Empire could destroy your entire planet will keep most people pretty well suppressed. Hate the Empire all you want but you’ll keep going to work in the mine every day because you know the Empire could blow up your entire planet- even if it would take them three years to bring the Death Star to your planet. Then, in a generation or two, it is hoped that the suppressed peoples of the Empire will just accept the order of things.
Actually blowing up every planet would be a horrible idea- the Empire would immediately lose all that planet’s resources. They only need to blow up one: Alderon was blown up as a demonstration of the Death Star’s power so that the rest of the galaxy would never again dream of rebellion (when Leia told Tarkin the Rebel base was on Dantooine, he continued with the destruction of Alderan because “Dantooine is far too remote for an effective demonstration”).
I recently rewatched the series in Machete order, and I feel that ROTJ was greatly strengthened by watching Episodes 2 and 3 directly before hand, amazingly. It’s difficult to list all the reasons why, but I sincerely believe that ROTJ is an above decent film in the context of the prequels.
That being said, the Ewoks were carnivorous bears. I never thought they were cute. I thought they were terrifying. The group almost got eaten for Og’s sake!
Sorry but you don’t get to use this fanwank.
You cannot claim that they had to be Ewoks for story reasons when the films creator has already stated that the only reason they were Ewoks and not Wookies was because Chewbacca was in the first film.
They did not have to be Ewoks because if Chewie had not been an existing character then they would not have been Ewoks, story reasons or not.
They have to be Ewoks for the story to work. As Wookies, it’s completely ridiculous for the Empire to be working amidst such a threat without first suppressing the threat.
Yes, Lucas originally intended to make them Wookies but the story would have been worse off for it.
A writer’s ideas from his first draft are always possible, but the later drafts often come up with something better.
The trilogy wasn’t written when he started work on the first film. He had basic ideas about the overall arc, but the fleshed out stories evolved over time.
For about half the first act. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t like the film. Luke gets all his training done and he’s supposed to have become some calm, controlled, wise warrior with Special Powers. He uses them for a short while and I thought it was great. Then by less than about a third of the way through the first act, it was as if the director just couldn’t restrain himself any longer, and just had to allow Luke’s character to drop straight back into the wild shootin’ scramblin’ standard action hero stereotype. Specially trained Jedi with gravitas be fucked, we’re back to bein a good ol’ space cowboy.
Well, that’s what you call him. Others call him the gangster of love.
Maybe they do need to be Ewoks for the story to work, but you shouldn’t present this as anything but after the fact fanwanking.
You are trying to say that for story reasons they needed to be cuddly Ewoks, but the guy who wrote the story wasn’t thinking that, we know this because he said so.
He also calls them “laser swords” instead of lightsabers.
He really and truly doesn’t give half a fucked rat’s ass about the things his fans obsess over. By all accounts he HATES the original trilogy. Squirming in his chair as if in physical pain hates, not just, “meh, I could do better now.” I think that’s a big part of why he sold the rights to Disney. He’s tired of backlash from fans harping on about things that he vehemently disagrees with. He’s objectively wrong about most of this, which is obvious from how shitty by any standard the Prequels (particularly 2) were, but I’m pretty sure that’s the way he feels about it.
Unless Richard Marquand and Lawrence Kasdan slipped Ewoks into the movie only to surprise Lucas at the premiere , then the guy who wrote the story did think the primitive creatures of Endor should be the diminutive Ewoks- it’s just that it wasn’t what he was thinking originally.
The guy who wrote the story also thought that Greedo should shoot first, it’s just that it wasn’t what he was thinking originally.
I don’t know where anyone would get the idea that George Lucas values his original concepts more highly than his later revisions.
I agree with you that the Ewoks were unnecessary. I really don’t even understand the argument, other than for the movie to have something to interact with Luke and gang on the planet. And yes, marketing was a big driver behind the Ewoks.
But there was no reason the planet had to be populated by anything that intelligent. If you took an earth that was in the Dinosaur period, that was a planet teeming with life, and as far as i know, there was nothing as intelligent as the Ewoks running around (or running for their lives) while the Dinosaurs ruled the planet.
In the case of a planet full of aggressive animals, the empire would have killed them, or found another place to locate the base. Ewoks were just a vehicle to help tell the story, and even then, I wouldn’t say it was exactly necessary. The rebels could have fought the Empire with stones and logs and rope.
If you are speaking of Lucas, selling the rights had nothing to do with fans and everything to do with money. He doesn’t care what fans think, and he never has.
In many ways, Star Wars was the Flappy Bird of movies. It hit a note that no one was prepared for, and we know this because the studios wanted little to do with Lucas or his movie, and even let him keep the marketing rights to every character in the brand. That decision led the way for Lucas to create a bunch of things he never would have otherwise, including the next two movies of the first series…
To say he doesn’t care may be quoting him, but I doubt it’s exactly true. Star Wars was and his his baby. It made him. It also led the way for a whole genre of film making. The impact that one movie had is arguably the single biggest impact that any one movie had on movies and movie making. Special effects, for example, were taken to a new level in Star Wars and they’ve never looked back.
If he truly doesn’t care, I would be surprised. He will always be connected to Star Wars and Star Wars to him.