0:29 Did you also see The Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up above The Executor when Ackbar commanded every Rebel Ship in the fleet to destroy The SSD? That should have been mentioned.
@@amysargent4237 I only noticed that when I watched on the special addition...that little detail was not in the original release lol...my dad bought all of the star wars movies on VHS as they came out so I am lucky enough to be able to compare all of them with the newer cuts...it's fun sometimes
Battle of Endor was a masterpiece. Not to mention, it's soundtrack (called "Into The Trap" for anyone wondering) is equally awesome, and goes with just about any suspenseful movie scene you can find
Oh, yeah, Into the Trap is my go-to aerial/space battle music. Back when I used to play War Thunder I always hummed it during the approach phase, when all the planes are sort of flying into enemy airspace from their spawning point.
There are numerous imperial defectors in Canon and Legends who would likely be in the cockpit of a rebel starfighter. In the original N64 Rogue Squadron video game Kasan Moor was a female pilot of the Elite 128th TIE Interceptor Squadron who defected shortly after being captured. According to her Wookiepedia article, however, she was pretty much only created for that game; it isn't much of a stretch to believe that there were others like her though.
@@danielkorladis7869 also Biggs Darklighter and Baron Fel. Han Solo wasn't a defector, though; he was dishonourably discharged for striking a higher-ranking officer that was abusing a certain Wookie slave long before joining the Rebellion.
@@danielkorladis7869 *Crix Madine. Yes, a large core of Rebel officers, advisors, and leaders were Imperial defectors. The story mode of Star Wars Squadrons even starts with an Imperial defection that takes place shortly after the destruction of Alderaan. The destruction of Alderaan was THE major turning point for a lot of Imperials and resulted in the disillusionment of many others. Indeed from a certain point of view, anyone who was part of the original Delegation of 2000 could be considered an Imperial defector.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Wookiepedia. According to that, she retired from Rogue squadron before the Battle of Hoth, but remained an advisor. She did fly at the Battle of Mon Calamari with Rogue Flight during the Dark Empire conflict; that was the final playable mission in the Rogue Squadron game before the unlockable bonus missions. However she was an "unofficial" combatant, which is why there are no records of her being part of Rogue Flight during that conflict.
My favorite detail is that Wedge closed his S-Foils during the narrow part of the Death Star run into the core. Just before the Falcon lost it's Dish, you can see Wedge's X-Wing close it's S-foils when flying through the same narrow gap. A very fine attention to detail scene, something they could of easily ignored and viewers would of likely never noticed, but the fact it's there, for only like 2 seconds is gold.
Nice catch! Many terrific details in this battle (which to this day remains the best space battle scene imo). For me the greatest hard to catch detail was the destruction of the second chasing Tie fighter by the explosion shock wave (?) after the reactor gets hit.
@@kirillzakharov7336 Ya but with CGI it's just less epic. if they didn't already ruin the character's believability in his first X-Wing scene I wouldn't hate the character with a passion.
I like to think that’s the ship that destroyed an engine or engine cluster or fuel line that later contributed to the executor crashing. And survive the battle because they’re just that batsh*t crazy. “The medical frigate did what?!?” “I don’t understand either, sir”
My favorite detail is in the background when Ackbar says they need to give the fighters more time. There is a Mon Cal cruiser and ISD in the space right above Ackbar's eye and above the Executor. If you look closely, there is a split second moment where you can see the two firing at each other, then the ISD explodes. Its the only moment in the original movies where you can clearly see two capital ships engaging each other to the best of my knowledge.
@@kyleruiz7167 it could have been intended to be the Dev. In the Lost Rebels bonus features mention in the video, a good amount of the Mon Cal and Sullustan dialogue could pertain to the cut sequence where b-wings attack and destroy a star destroyer. And both are in B-Wing cockpits. could very well see them cutting from that to the Ackbar shot with the cruiser finishing it off
@@holesintheground38 Would be good to make a fan film that integrates some of this lost footage into a more detailed version of the battle. Those B-Wing squadrons might have been attacking in sequence with that Mon Cal Cruiser to destroy that ship since it was one of the close escorts of Executer. picking off the ISDs around Executer would be required before Executer itself could be forced out of the battle.
As for the second detail: At knife fighting range against the trench of the Executor might actually be the safest spot for a bunch of Rebel ships during that battle. They’d be so close that most of the Executor’s guns couldn’t fire on the ships, and any other Imperial ships risk hitting the Executor if they fired on the Rebel cruisers. If you can survive the initial hail of turbolaser fire as you approach, you can stick like flies to the massive ship and just pummel away at it in relative safety.
But firing anti-fighter weaponry at the Executor is unlikely to cause any damage. Like a machine gun against a tank. That said, it might make them difficult to track and would certainly be helpful against the Executor's own weaponry... especially if coverage is poor.
@@pastaaura925 Even better if the shields work like the Raddus’s from episode 8. If you’re close enough to be under the shield bubble, you can shear your way through the armor real fast.
There are many shield effects present, also. The ISD and the Mon Calamari cruisers (the MC80s), counter turbolaser fire with 'blueish explosions'. There is what looks like to be energy missiles or torpedos, in the background, within some shots. Perhaps concussion missiles. The Battle of Endor is great. My favourite space battle.
This also makes me think of all the small explosions we see going off in other shots of the Endor battle, as well as at the Battle of Yavin. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be stray shots impacting shields, or some kind of 'laser flak' effect, but I prefer to think of them as the former.
@@andymac4883 It's both. A great TH-cam channel deconstructed all these explosions and filtered out the ones were evidently *flak* effects (mostly caused by stray turbolaser and laser canon salvos) and which ones may have been intended to be shield interactions. th-cam.com/video/8v1J_eaiRWY/w-d-xo.html
yeah. Doubt the SSD has too many really powerful guns right along the trench too since most SDs put them along the terraces/in top edges of the dorito shapes.
Hats off to the captain and crew with stones large enough to bring a Nebulon into point-blank range of the Executor to trade blows. There must have been many such sacrifices before the Executor was weak enough to be finished off.
I can imagine, in this sort of a scenario, tucking a Nebulon in behind a Mon Calamari cruiser that was also approaching, then getting out from behind cover once you were close enough to the Executor that only a limited number of turbolasers could target the frigate
The weird scaling issues made me pick up a book about model making (albeit for wargamming miniatures) and blueprinting as a kid. Now I spend hours every semester explaining it to college students. It remains an issue.
I always like the idea of the Tector, and it fits in well with the Imperial mindset of creating warships for outgunning the more heavily armed (in relation to the republic) Confederate ships in slugging matches rather than starfighter support like the old Venators. And it does have less weak points for precision starfighter strikes to exploit.
The laser defenses on the typical Star Destroyer are very poor on the underside. Having a few roll over to provide more anti-fighter cover is actually a wise tactic.
I would love a video going into all the scale shenanigans of the Original Trilogy and then, to explain to people that perhaps don't take that scale nerd stuff to seriously, what general rules do fans and sources tend to settle on as the "correct" scale. I mean, these are the films themselves, they should have the final say on scale, but where does the final say end up? Differences of a few meters shouldn't matter overmuch, but, like the CR90, that was a hilarious extreme.
I mean, the female pilots line reads were also pretty not great. When she's reading the "there's too many of them" line, it sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. That might have a bit to do with it, as well as the accent. Though with the accent they could have simply given her backstory about being an imperial defector
agreed. one of them - who didn't make it in - sounded like she was totally clueless about where she was, and was scared out of her wits to boot. the concept behind the female pilots was great and all kudos to Lucas for trying to make it work, but there were reasons they (largely) didn't make it into the film. reasons that had nothing to do with sexism.
That’s what takes are for genius. You think all of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamills lines were flawless every single time they did them? Even if that was the reason why did they have her dubbed over by an American man? Lol
When Wedge and Lando enter the power generator chamber, the pursuing TIE fires one shot. This says so much about the conflicted nature of that pilot. On the one hand he has to try and make one last desperate attempt to destroy the Falcon but on the other hand he could damage the generator himself and should probably stop firing. A great little detail.
Nice catch on that Nebulon-B drive-by. Tactics-wise, it makes perfect sense for a frigate like that to get as close as it can to the executor. During that scene its in an optimal position to take as little firepower as possible from the bulk of the Executors weapons. It's out of the firing arc for most of them. In addition, the Executor also blocks every other Star Destroyer on the opposite side of it from firing, and the Star Destroyers on the Nebulon's opposite don't dare fire either, for risk of hitting the Executor.
Worse, if you are under the larger ship's shields, they literally can't fire at you without hitting the larger ship (fighters as well, since they will just pop). As an extra bonus, you can fire directly into the ship and drill towards critical systems or shield projectors. Lastly, your own shields immediately drop as they cancel each other's out, but you create a constant drain on the regenerative ability of the larger ship. It's a win-win scenario since a ship that large can't really dodge. We see this same tactic in Rogue One with the hammerheads - shields are meaningless at point blank range and large ships can't rotate about their axis very efficiently - certainly not quick enough to dodge such an attack.
After watching Templin Institute's Reimagining of the Republic and First Order I would love to see Eckhart do an analysis and vs of the First Order's Indefactable Class Dreadnought and the Republic's Endor Class Super Carrier.
0:54 ehhh only one out of many engines seems outright gone. Oddly enough on the wrong side given how it turns. Unless it's not dead but instead is in a forced over-thrust.
Its possible that the engines on the side of the executor controlled the steering and one of them going out makes the steering go in the opposite direction going haywire if you will and diving the executor into the death star
0:29 Did you also notice that one regular Star Destroyer that EXPLODED as Ackbar commanded every Rebel ship to "CONCENTRATE ALL FIRE ON THE SUPER STAR DESTROYER"? Aside from Rogue One, I don't see any Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up like that in The Original Trilogy.
IIRC before that scene, that was supposed to be a sequence with a group of B-Wings making a bombing run and basically ripping apart the Star Destroyer, but as with most of the B-Wing scenes, it was scrapped. It would have looked hella cool though.
@@michaelandreipalon359 It's where the famous art piece of 3 B-Wings flying away from a Star Destroyer comes from. That art piece was supposed to be envisioned in the scene I described above.
the way I read it, the engines were intermittent and they were already having control problems. The loss of the primary bridge combined with other damage prevented the secondary bridge from gaining control of the remaining engines, which had gone to full throttle all of a sudden, before disaster.
My main problem with the crash is much simpler. The Executor wasn't that close to the death star to begin with and its engines were off. They were specifically told to "hold posistion" in a sector a fair distance from the death star (luke looking out of the window proves it was alot further away). They wouldn't have moved closer, and the death star wouldn't have closed on the fleet (would have restricted firing angles for the super laser). So yes drives could have been damaged but they are off, which means damage has no effect. Yes control could have been lost, which would trigger the drives, causing rapid movement, but the movement is then wrong. It turns 90⁰ downwards and goes full throttle, it would have kept turning, not done a neat nose dive, can't claim DS has gravity enough to do it, else it'd have made the surface of the moon a nightmare landscape, also the DS has a tiny mass (it's mostly empty space) compared to basically anything that size and those objects tend to have next to no gravity at all. Also gravity wouldn't make it go "nose down", it would pull it all evenly, if anything the ass would fall faster as that's wefe the majority of the mass is, and would be unbalncing the ships centre of gravity. Basically it's cool how they do it, and it makes some sense. But from the way the fleets were laid out, and the distances involved, it and the entire inperial fleet somehow bypassed the rebel fleet (its between them and the DS) and parked in orbit of the DS dispite having orders not to do it. So it makes no sense, and that just bugs me. Not counting how it alone outgunned the entire rebel fleet nearly 50:1, nothing larger than the falcon would have made it close without been reduced to scrap metal. Also while a cool battle, it's pointless. The idea was "no survivors" so why did the emperor pull his punches to show off the death star. Or bother having his troops take prisoners on the forest moon (or even let them land). But then the "were setting up a trap for the rebels, yet we have a SSD parked here that out guns their entire fleet" logic falls down, they'd have cancelled the attack if it was there. Gah I love SW but hate the stupidity sometimes.
@@cgi2002 I don't care about all that technical stuff and lore-consistency jibberish. The directors were probably thinking, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone kamikaze'd the super star destroyer and then it crashed into the Death Star, and made a giant explosion?" "Yeah, that would be totally badass!" "Alright, let's add that!" And I totally agree with their decisions. It was VERY badass, and I'd prefer that to something that makes 100% sense and is consistent with lore and all that stuff. Always remember, Big explosion cool.
After listening to the female pilot's dialogue, (who, honestly I always thought WAS a dude) I would think that more than accent, it's her inflection. She sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. Granted, that question-like inflection is present in some of the accents of the UK, which, by extension, would make it an accent issue. As far as the British accent being prominent in the empire... true, but considering how many rebels were defectors from the empire, I'd be comfortable with that.
That was an eye opener for me, no clue it was a woman at all, I think the shadows of the helmet didn't help. If any retouches to previous films happen again, I would really appreciate variety like this to be added, not only for woman pilots, officers etc but maybe more alien races. Even small remarks from imperial pilots would be cool, not on the same level as Titan Squadron from Squadrons but a little extra flavour maybe.
Makes sense now. The pilot always had an androgynous look but i accepted the pilot as being male. Is that the kamikaze A wing pilot that takes out the Executor bridge?
@@rhpiggy123 that was a different one, Arvel Crynyd. Sila Kott actually died immediately after the dubbed line (her A-wing is shot by TIE Interceptors).
@@rhpiggy123 yeah, that was how it struck me as a child in the theater. Almost a david bowie in the 70s kind of look, but like you, my young mind saw, heard the dubbed voice and said "man".
That Nebulon was the Antares 6 and that's one of the reasons it was so famous. I can't remember where I read that at to give you a source though I'm sorry. I don't think it's weird scaling so much as point of view creating an optical illusion... That's interesting about the Tector however I know the empire had Tectors at Endor to try and counter most of the larger Calamari ships...as for which side is up, I've read in a lot of novels where they did Barrell rolls as evasive maneuvers in a star destroyer because ships were attacking from the sides top and bottom so it could pepper all of the ships with fire... That really sucks that they cut her voice out because that accent being imperial would point to a defected imperial pilot and that would be really cool to portray....instead of how Disney did it by a stormtrooper stealing a tie fighter and surf boarding it down onto the planets surface in the biggest load of bs I've ever seen lol
Me: that makes sense My brain: or its BECAUSE STAR DESTROYERS CANT TELL WHATS UP, ISNT THAT RIGHT DISNEY, HUH, ISN'T THAT YOUR PLOT POINT FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER! Anyways...
Maybe it's moved to place its undamaged belly toward an enemy after losing the shields topside? I think it was in one of the wraith squadron books where Mon Remonda (possibly) rotates to keep fresh shields toward the enemy. It's been a few years since I read those, though
Another detail I love is that you can see a Y-Wing take out multiple Interceptors in a dogfight. I’ve always hated the misconception that Y-Wings were useless in dogfights. In fact, in the lore that should be said about the B-Wing everyone worships, not the Y-Wing
Yes! Totally agree, I always saw the Y-Wing as more of a fighter bomber, the way they are used at Yavin and the way that guy in Endor taking two interceptors in a row implies there was more fight in them than various video games (and let's face it, it's games that have given Y-Wings a bad rap) would have us believe. I was delighted to see them competently perform their role in Rogue One, massive vindication for fans of the Y.
I always pictured it as equivilant to like an F-4 or F-105 with the Xwings and ties maybe being more equivilant to like F-15s and F-16s performance wise. Not useless but disadvantaged to some extent against newr types. It kinda comes down to the games over simplifying things to try and make the ships "feel" different.
Endor is the greatest space battle ever. Not because it is big or flashy, but because it tells a story, and many small stories, without being too cluttered to keep up with. And the captain of that nebulon b is pretty smart. By being that close to the enemy, he can use his full weapon complement, while they can only use a small amount. Might not do much damage, but the drain on the shields of the SD would be a factor.
The one reason I could see for a ship to invert (assuming it started out in an 'upright' stance along with the rest of its fleet) is either if the hull plating at the bottom of the ship is thicker, or less worn away, or fewer super critical systems were along that segment of ship and they were trying to rotate the bridge away to keep it from being an easy target.
The Bacta War (Book 4 of the X-Wing series, which is now unfortunately classed as Legends) covers pretty much exactly this situation. The Rogue Squadron aligned ISD 2 Freedom went toe to toe with the Xucphra/Isard aligned SSD Lusankya (which was almost entirely without fighter cover). The Freedom was hit hard in the initial exchange of fire, but after collapsing the Freedom's facing shields, then inflicting massive hull damage and knocking out most the armament on the side of Freedom which was facing her, the Lusankya focused on engaging the attacking Rogue Squadron starfighters which were providing targeting data for torpedo/missile armed light freighters instead of finishing off the Freedom. As soon as his crew got the ship back under control, Captain Yonka of the Freedom ordered his helmsman to half roll the ship in order to bring the intact shields and armament on the other side to face the already damaged area of the Lusankya and then re-engaged the SSD. Admittedly in a massed brawl at knife fight range such as the Battle of Endor, that's likely to be a less valuable tactic than in a one on one duel between capital ships - but given the comparatively limited number of Rebel Alliance warships, its not entirely impossible that the Alliance warships were all in roughly the same direction at the time, so if shields were badly weakened or down on the side facing attack it makes sense to half roll the ship and take incoming fire on a shield which is still at full strength. Also gives time for the shields and armament to recharge and to reload munitions launchers on the now unengaged side of the ship before rolling back when the engaged side begins to become vulnerable.
Fun fact: The Rebel Fleet was winning the naval engagement with the Imperial Fleet before the shield protecting the Death Star was neutralized. Thank you Sheev Palpatine for being a better political strategist than a military tactician.
Between the cost of the death star itself and the loss of a sizeable portion of the imeprial fleet (ships, officer corps, etc) even if the Empire had won, economically the rebellion had stabbed an artery. Not immediately fatal but if the emprie were stupid (and they would be) they would yank the knife out rather than seek proper care.
I think of it like the Soviet Red Army at the start of WW2. Most of the competent officers would have been purged in case they got too big for their britches; consider how quickly Vader goes through SD commanders in ESB. This leaves the loyal, rather than the skilled, in command so their actual warfighting capability against the Rebels -- who had to be *good* to survive being outgunned and outnumbered all the time -- was limited.
@@matthewbeale5083 Actually, Vader was chewing through the incompetent officers. Ozzel was a jackass with connections rather than merit, and Captain Needa just gave up the second that the Falcon 'disappeared' and then wasted everyone's time taking a shuttle rather than report over the radio. But Admiral Piett was spared. So the loss of the Executor with all hands meant that the Empire lost the absolute cream of the cream of the crop of their officer corps.
fun info about Sila Kott, in some international dubbing of the movie its still a woman doing her voice instead of being dubbed over by a male for green leader
I think that Nebulon-B took advantage of the SSD targetting other, bigger threat ships like the Home-1 class ships, and snuck in for a quick and dirty broadside. There were probably individual turrets on the Executor that realized what was at point-blank range, but because of the scale differences between the two ships, the weapons commanders on the bridge didn't, and had already ordered the gunnery crews and the automated heavy turrets or whatever to target a bigger ship. So only smaller turrets in the Oreo trench that noticed would have fired back at the Nebulon-B, which just 'quickly' skimmed as close as it could (preventing easy lock-on by upper hull and lower hull turrets of the Executor that weren't in the trench), and tried to gut the trench. It still would have taken a lot of fire, but not nearly as much as if it tried to engage at a more respectable range (where the Executor could turn all its really BIG guns on it). It'd be like, in a pushing match between two Hulk sized dudes, suddenly noticing a 3 foot tall dude with a butcher knife had run up beside one of them while they were distracted pushing, and already gotten a couple of stabs in before anyone could react, and ran away.
Good points. Guess the Empire should have taken a hint from Karen S'jet of Homeworld. When your ship and crew is too large, you suffer command-paralysis.
@@DrownedInExile I would think on any ship that big, or even SD size, while the big guns would still be commanded from the bridge, unless there's an overriding order from the bridge, the smaller turrets and in-close weapons should be free to engage targets of their choice. Just to cut down on the back-and-forth of command dictates, especially when there's a reaction lag involved. If it takes 30 seconds to notice a ship is really close, 30 seconds to set the order, 30 seconds for the order to arrive, be understood, and for retasking to start, and another say, 15 seconds before proper return fire happens, that's nearly 2 minutes of basically dithering and deciding. LoL. And a ship SSD sized would DEFINITELY have a lag between command deck and the gunnery decks down in the Oreo. Or even standing on the bridge and spotting the ship that's half way down your hull, already putting fire into your forward decks.
@@Kalebfenoir As a bonus, their own fighters wouldn't be able to reach it, either. But you would have to be within feet of the other ship and it would have to be almost immobile. I would have loved if they added a line like this: "Sir, the enemy Nebulons ( or Frigates) are under our shields - our own fighters can't reach them!" ( followed by the lines leading up to the bridge's destruction )
@@plektosgaming I'd bet anything that the bridge crew of the Executor didn't even realize the Nebulon was there. A ship that size with a bridge that far away... by the time they got the in-ship comm from the Oreo stations, the damage would have been done and the Nebulon would have passed by. And it really did look like they were close enough to rub hull plates. Fighters absolutely would have been worthless there unless you had aces, and they'd have to weave between whatever fire was crisscrossing that little gap.
I can imagine the sheer horror and disbelief of imperial pilots, crewmen and officers as the flagship and pride of the fleet crashes uncontroled through the Death Star. No matter how improved the second Death Star was, no construction technique or damage control could've contained such a catastrophic explosion. I don't know if its lore but it wouldn't be surprising if more than one imperial captain would desperatly order his vessel to retreat without looking back.
Aha! I *knew* something was off about that A-Wing pilot! All these years I wondered why the eyelashes seemed just a little too long and mascara-y for a male pilot. 😀
Lol, it's amazing what shadows can do to your perspective. When the first pic of her came up in this video, I could clearly tell it was a woman and then 5 seconds later the shadows moved and I thought it was a man again 😆
For the Executor, I believe in the Thrawn trilogy, they talk about how Palpatine was also using the Force to have some control/coordination with his fleet. Then, when he died, that control broke and caused some confusion, leading to the rebels to more easily destroy the SSD
There was even a grand admiral who was a force user that used it a little bit during the fight but nowhere near the level of the emperor. I always figure Palpatine was so focused on Luke that if Luke never was there to distract him the fighters may have never made it into the death star.
I never realized that shot was the under belly of a star destroyer! That’s awesome. They probably couldn’t get the shot with the camera with the bridge and everything attached so they had to turn the star destroyer around.
Factor 5 did an amazing job of recreating the space battle of Endor in the two Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube. You even got to play as the A Wing pilot who ends up crashing into the command bridge of The Executor.
Vs matchup Sgt. Johnson(Halo) vs Captain Rex(Star Wars) Johnson gets Br 55, 1 m6 sidearm and marine BDU Rex gets DC 15 rifle his pistols and phase 2 clone armor
All the fascinating details about the battle of Endor. I could watch it,discuss it and analyze it forever. In comparison to the space battles in the prequels or sequels which I couldn't give a shit about🤨🤣😁
9:08 Hadn't really thought about it before, but that ship near the Nebulon-B definitely matched the Executor's edge profile far better than any other ship in the Star Wars movies. I think it could very well be the same model of the side of the Executor that was used in The Empire Strikes Back when the Falcon is fleeing Bespin City.
Oh I forgot I saw this on another TH-cam channel...if you zoom in really close on that supposed CR90 you will see that I stead of 4 upper engine pods there are 2 oval pods...meaning it only has 4 or maybe 5 engines and the nose is smaller like it's a scout ship of some sort... And that would make perfect sense to go with the scale as well as the rebellion needing to use every ship in it's arsenal... I think it may have been EC Henry who pointed it out? Don't quote me on that
I remember some part of an old SW lore book I have, that the Mon Calamari don't have real "classes" on their capital ships, because there don't exist two ships of the same type. Everyone of their ships is a unicum in design. Those ships were more like artworks, each unique to its own and were only later refitted for combat, when the MonCal joined the Rebellion.
Really wish they would give that A-wing pilot back her female voice. Just use a voice actress with a more American accent. Would that have been really that hard? If they do another re-release of ROTJ I'd like to see that happen.
@@danielkorladis7869 I'm okay with this as well. In fact, I think it would be even better since it really drives home that this is a civil war and the rebels really are from everywhere.
Just use her original voice track. Imperial defectors were actually pretty common within the Rebellion, so it's not hard to say "oh yeah, she quit after a crisis of conscience".
As a kid ROTJ was my favorite movie exactly for this space battle. It was so visually gripping, exciting and surprisingly coherent narrative wise and well choreographed. Something that was sorely missing from the new movies in my opinion, save for maybe Rogue One. The name of the series is Star Wars and there was hardly any space battles in the Disney trilogy. Ep 7: probably the best battle of the trilogy battle spectacle wise, but really short (3 minutes total) and just an aimless repackaged Death Star trench run which was 15 minutes by comparison Ep 8: a few small skirmishes during the space chase, again really short Ep 9: a collage of re-used CGI assets fights another collage of re-used CGI assets for a few minutes, mostly with interior cockpit shots of actors Most of from what we know now of the development, this seems to stem from the breakneck pace of development and lack of time to really hammer out a plot that allowed for a coherent vision for effects artists to create a big battle on the scale of Endor. Incredibly disappointing in my opinion. I hope that changes in future movies.
My favourite detail in the battle was Wedge closing the wings a split second before the tight section in the Death Star 2 just as the scene transitions to the Falcon. Very subtle. A nice touch as it adds reason as to why Lando and NN express shock at how tight this section is going to be (losing the radar dish in the process).
Little detail that's always kinda bugged me. Wedge is briefly followed by a Tie that crashes into a Rebel ship. Was it a kamikaze run or was it going too fast to get clear?
I dunno. Strange because a TIE interceptor can fly circles around an X-wing. The pilot literally crashed for no reason. His turning is superior to an X-Wing in every way.
One thing that always bugged me about Star Wars has been the tendency not to portray the Empire as a skilled and competent military force. Like that TIE fighter crashing that you mentioned, stormtroopers with poor aim, the 2 TIE fighters in The Empire Strikes Back crashing into an asteroid canyon wall while chasing the Falcon, and so on.
@@blockmasterscott In the OT most of the time stormtroopers were ordered not to kill or harm the heroes. You're nitpicking if you have a problem with TIE pilots. Han, Lando and Wedge are supposed to outsmart them so the story can move forward. Otherwise the films would be twice as long.
The section you mention at roughly 6:16 is the forward shuttle bay, not a tractor beam bay, earlier in ROTJ we see Vader's shuttle departing from that same section on an Imperial-II while two TIEs depart from the main hangar behind it.
Is it possible that the frigate was flying at the back of the SSD, firing at the engines when off screen? Would explain the damage to the Executor's engines and the fact that the frigate survived that particular encounter since SDs don't have that many weapons facing their backs
8:32 In Legends, the accent of the Imperials is first referenced in the video game, Star Wars The Old Republic, as being from the Sith Empire capital world of Dromund Kaas.
Being an anti-capital ship focused destroyer my thought always has been that the tector rolled over to get a better firing solution with the man batteries, maybe the bulk of the rebel fleet or some high priority target were below it and the captain made a call to roll over rather than wasting their potential firepower and stay in perfect formation.
There is another point in the films where you see capital ships at different angles than "up". In Revenge of the Sith you can see more Venators and Recusant ships entering the space battle nearly perpendicular to the horizon line. Same thing happened in the Genndy clone wars show
It also occurs in The Empire Strikes Back when the fleet breaks up once the Empire loses track of the Millennium Falcon. When Han points it out, the scene out the cockpit window shows Star Destroyers headed off in several different vectors not in the same plane.
The upside-down Tector probably was doing a tactical maneuver. If it's trading out hanger space (at the bottom of the ship) for additional anti-capital ship weapons, then it stands to reason that those weapons are also hanging off the bottom. So to use them against a ship "above" the Tector, the Tector would have to either move "above" that ship and fire "down", or simply barrel roll (and given how much the three Star Destroyers that nearly hit each other in Empire are able to rotate in the brief time we see them do so, it's probably the latter).
I know that empire isn’t the favorite on many fan lists but… I love tatooine/underworld stuff, love emperor stuff… and I love space battle stuff… and this movie has the three things on it !
Regarding 'that British accent more appropriate for an Imperial' thing, many rebels were ex-imperials tho, so why wouldn't it work? Maybe she was just more upper class than most?
8:18 I don't think it was her accent, but her sub-par line reading. I also heard that they were concerned about showing women being blown to smithereens as well.
I think the small CR-90 is a compositing error, I think it is meant to be layered behind the Nebulon-B not in front. Such things of course can happen with complex compositing shots with miniature models.
Watch closely as Wedge is leading the Falcon into the Death Star and the "service passage" (or whatever you call it) gets narrow. Wedge closes the wings on his X-Wing to fit. Awesome detail often missed.
Remember that this was early 80's, home video was brand new, the creators of this movie didn't take in a court for that or this detailed analysises 40 years later. George made this FX with a mindset that it's so fast no one would really notice the mistakes. - Of coz we noticed George 😂
2:10 yout criticism makes sense, in fact the scene where the 19 km executor plummets into the death star, that shot shows the death star so much larger than the executor, in fact in that shots ratios, the death star would be probably around 450 to 500 km in diameter which is far more than the 120 km it is said to be in other sources
Which points to the fact 19km is a dumb and incorrect size for her. For years ssds were 8km. Then some random person in Lucasfilm said 19 with NOTHING to back it up
Battle of Endor is great because it's one of the few space battles that you can tell the tactics being used. Usually it's just a scrum of stuff on screen.
There were also Interdictor cruisers in the battle keeping the Rebel fleet pinned. If Thrawn hadn't been sent into the Unknown Regions, he would have been in command of the battle instead of Piett.
Doesn't that Nebulon get a mention in Wraith Squadron? I could swear that Tonn (spelling?) says he was on the medical frigate when it went toe to toe with an ISD. Great video!
It honestly makes allot of sense that she was revoiced because they most certainly wanted the british accent to be imperial which for the most part has continued on throughout the franchise
I’m surprised no one’s yet mentioned the tie fighters that appear out of nowhere in the back when Lando says “fighters coming in”. One of the useless pieces of knowledge I retained from going frame by frame on VHS as a kid
For the Nebulon B squaring off with the executor, if we use the the CR90 for scale, maybe it is just it's own class of ship is just a massively upsized Nebulon :P Having that be the case would be no different than the star destroyer with the extra large command tower or the upside down one they changed slightly being turned into separate classes.
ECKHART, I hope you see this comment: The voice of Poppy Hands was edited possibly for the reason you mentioned, but another reason was that she WAS a woman. I'm a bit older than you guys, but in '82 or '83 Lucas mentioned that he filmed a few female Rebel pilots, but realised that seeing women die on screen would be "too dramatic" for a family space opera like Star Wars. It was a different time, but you have to recall that Lucas already turned different expectations on their head with Princess Leia not being a screaming damsel in distress. In the late 70s/early 80s, family films didn't have women casually dying like that
The upside down star destroyer is probably only a practical thing, when filming real models stuff from the models tend to get in the way. In this case we have a Dolly shot going over the top of the star destroyer. The only way to do that would be to remove the command bridge part of the ship. I guess they didnt want to do that, or didnt have the time. But they came up with this crative solution. It can also just have been a shot intended to show a fight shot under the belly of the star destroyed. But they decided that it would work as a top deck shot aswell. - no way anyone will spot this, people can't have that much spare time in the future!.. Well spotted, as always😀
Hey, I was wondering what your thoughts are on Halo: Infinite? The games obviously coming out soon and there’s hasn’t been much halo content recently. I personally enjoy both the Star Wars and Halo content, nice to a good mix of both.
Did anyone notice the somewhat odd disconnect between some of the in cockpit sequences and the exterior battle scenes? At 8:06 you can see the dubbed over female A-Wing pilot - with 2 TIE Interceptors closing fast from behind! At 8:09 2 TIE Interceptors destroy an A-Wing above a Mon Cal cruiser, and are then immediately destroyed by laser fire from a Y-Wing closing from behind them (as much as I am a massive Y-Wing fan, how on Corellia did a Y-Wing manage to catch up with an A-Wing and 2 TIE Interceptors?!). At 8:11 you can see that same A-Wing pilot calling out a warning to Red Leader (Wedge) of Imperial fighters closing on him. Its not even as if the cockpits of A-Wings and Y-Wings are at all similar - A-Wing has half a bubble canopy and is quite form fitting around the pilot, Y-Wing is a much more rectangular, blocky design.
*Return of the Jedi* novelization, nerds ;)
Video idea: 5 subjugator class cruisers vs the Malevolence
That was quite an insane detail
0:29 Did you also see The Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up above The Executor when Ackbar commanded every Rebel Ship in the fleet to destroy The SSD? That should have been mentioned.
#AskEckOctober Do you think Darth Caedus could stand up to Darth Sidious himself? I would think so.
@@amysargent4237 I only noticed that when I watched on the special addition...that little detail was not in the original release lol...my dad bought all of the star wars movies on VHS as they came out so I am lucky enough to be able to compare all of them with the newer cuts...it's fun sometimes
Battle of Endor was a masterpiece. Not to mention, it's soundtrack (called "Into The Trap" for anyone wondering) is equally awesome, and goes with just about any suspenseful movie scene you can find
Ive been trying to look for that track thank you
@@adorimable9690 I'm more than happy to help, my fellow John Williams music enthusiast
The soundtrack really is amazing in RotJ, especially in the Battle of Endor. It really conveys that it's the climactic battle of a long struggle.
Oh, yeah, Into the Trap is my go-to aerial/space battle music. Back when I used to play War Thunder I always hummed it during the approach phase, when all the planes are sort of flying into enemy airspace from their spawning point.
Actually the track is just Battle of Endor Part I, II and III.
There are numerous imperial defectors in Canon and Legends who would likely be in the cockpit of a rebel starfighter. In the original N64 Rogue Squadron video game Kasan Moor was a female pilot of the Elite 128th TIE Interceptor Squadron who defected shortly after being captured. According to her Wookiepedia article, however, she was pretty much only created for that game; it isn't much of a stretch to believe that there were others like her though.
Crix Madine was a defector as well, and so was Wedge Antilles.
@@danielkorladis7869 also Biggs Darklighter and Baron Fel. Han Solo wasn't a defector, though; he was dishonourably discharged for striking a higher-ranking officer that was abusing a certain Wookie slave long before joining the Rebellion.
@@danielkorladis7869 *Crix Madine. Yes, a large core of Rebel officers, advisors, and leaders were Imperial defectors. The story mode of Star Wars Squadrons even starts with an Imperial defection that takes place shortly after the destruction of Alderaan. The destruction of Alderaan was THE major turning point for a lot of Imperials and resulted in the disillusionment of many others. Indeed from a certain point of view, anyone who was part of the original Delegation of 2000 could be considered an Imperial defector.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Wookiepedia. According to that, she retired from Rogue squadron before the Battle of Hoth, but remained an advisor. She did fly at the Battle of Mon Calamari with Rogue Flight during the Dark Empire conflict; that was the final playable mission in the Rogue Squadron game before the unlockable bonus missions. However she was an "unofficial" combatant, which is why there are no records of her being part of Rogue Flight during that conflict.
I loved Kasan Moor. I thought her voice actress was great.
My favorite detail is that Wedge closed his S-Foils during the narrow part of the Death Star run into the core. Just before the Falcon lost it's Dish, you can see Wedge's X-Wing close it's S-foils when flying through the same narrow gap. A very fine attention to detail scene, something they could of easily ignored and viewers would of likely never noticed, but the fact it's there, for only like 2 seconds is gold.
Nice catch! Many terrific details in this battle (which to this day remains the best space battle scene imo). For me the greatest hard to catch detail was the destruction of the second chasing Tie fighter by the explosion shock wave (?) after the reactor gets hit.
Blink and you miss it A Wings.
Poe Dameron did that with his X Wing as well when he went into the Starkiller interior.
@@kirillzakharov7336 Ya but with CGI it's just less epic. if they didn't already ruin the character's believability in his first X-Wing scene I wouldn't hate the character with a passion.
“Attack the Executor”
“Sir we are a medical frigate”
“We got guns don’t we?”
"If I can heal you I know how to take you apart!"
I like to think that’s the ship that destroyed an engine or engine cluster or fuel line that later contributed to the executor crashing. And survive the battle because they’re just that batsh*t crazy.
“The medical frigate did what?!?”
“I don’t understand either, sir”
IT'S BETTER THEN BEING OUT IN THE OPEN! NOW GET ME CLOSER, I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY LIGHTSABER!!!
@@K9TheFirst1 FULL POWER TO THE TURBO SCALPELS!
Admiral Raddus: "Call up a hammerhead Corvette, I have an idea!"
Admiral Ackbar: "Call up a medical Frigate, I have an idea!"
My favorite detail is in the background when Ackbar says they need to give the fighters more time. There is a Mon Cal cruiser and ISD in the space right above Ackbar's eye and above the Executor. If you look closely, there is a split second moment where you can see the two firing at each other, then the ISD explodes. Its the only moment in the original movies where you can clearly see two capital ships engaging each other to the best of my knowledge.
You can actually see it here at around 0:26
You're right, I've always noticed the Star Destroyer exploding, but I never saw the Calamari Cruiser broadsiding it!
@@koopanique I swear in a few articles I've read online say that it was the devistator
@@kyleruiz7167 it could have been intended to be the Dev. In the Lost Rebels bonus features mention in the video, a good amount of the Mon Cal and Sullustan dialogue could pertain to the cut sequence where b-wings attack and destroy a star destroyer. And both are in B-Wing cockpits.
could very well see them cutting from that to the Ackbar shot with the cruiser finishing it off
@@holesintheground38 Would be good to make a fan film that integrates some of this lost footage into a more detailed version of the battle. Those B-Wing squadrons might have been attacking in sequence with that Mon Cal Cruiser to destroy that ship since it was one of the close escorts of Executer. picking off the ISDs around Executer would be required before Executer itself could be forced out of the battle.
As for the second detail:
At knife fighting range against the trench of the Executor might actually be the safest spot for a bunch of Rebel ships during that battle. They’d be so close that most of the Executor’s guns couldn’t fire on the ships, and any other Imperial ships risk hitting the Executor if they fired on the Rebel cruisers. If you can survive the initial hail of turbolaser fire as you approach, you can stick like flies to the massive ship and just pummel away at it in relative safety.
had the same thought. I didn't think of them using the executor like a hostage though, nice.
But firing anti-fighter weaponry at the Executor is unlikely to cause any damage. Like a machine gun against a tank. That said, it might make them difficult to track and would certainly be helpful against the Executor's own weaponry... especially if coverage is poor.
@@basedeltazero714 Well nebulon-bs have a couple turbolasers and every bit of rebel firepower counts
@@pastaaura925 Even better if the shields work like the Raddus’s from episode 8. If you’re close enough to be under the shield bubble, you can shear your way through the armor real fast.
That’s a great point OP!
2:22 plus with that scene in motion the CR90 either grows or shrinks without actually getting closer to the camera.
Maybe, in that scene CR90 supposed to be behind Nebulon-B, and it was error in compositing layers with ships?
@@aresnir2725 yeah, that's what seems to be the case
There are many shield effects present, also. The ISD and the Mon Calamari cruisers (the MC80s), counter turbolaser fire with 'blueish explosions'. There is what looks like to be energy missiles or torpedos, in the background, within some shots. Perhaps concussion missiles.
The Battle of Endor is great.
My favourite space battle.
This also makes me think of all the small explosions we see going off in other shots of the Endor battle, as well as at the Battle of Yavin. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be stray shots impacting shields, or some kind of 'laser flak' effect, but I prefer to think of them as the former.
@@andymac4883 It's both. A great TH-cam channel deconstructed all these explosions and filtered out the ones were evidently *flak* effects (mostly caused by stray turbolaser and laser canon salvos) and which ones may have been intended to be shield interactions.
th-cam.com/video/8v1J_eaiRWY/w-d-xo.html
That Nebula probably just got as close as it could to the SSD to not get shot at by the other SD's around it.
Yeah, the entire battle became a brutal, close-in knife fight after the Death Star started shooting.
Getting under the guns is also a valid tactic.
yeah. Doubt the SSD has too many really powerful guns right along the trench too since most SDs put them along the terraces/in top edges of the dorito shapes.
HUG THE BIG BIGGER SO THE SMALLER ONES CAN'T SHOT YOU😎
Shocked and disappointed that no EU author has explained that weird scaling with a Nebulon Dreadnought
Clearly it's the same class of ship as the _Salvation_ from The Force Unleashed II.
It's not even that big a stretch--the Providence Class from the prequels had a scaled-up variant.
far easier to add the starfighter-sized Corvette into the discussion (though for preference I'd have to add both ideas into the discussion)
it's a composition error like many others in the ROTJ space battles... they placed the blockade runner over the frigate and not behind...
@@andymac4883 That's actually a nice headcanon
Hats off to the captain and crew with stones large enough to bring a Nebulon into point-blank range of the Executor to trade blows. There must have been many such sacrifices before the Executor was weak enough to be finished off.
I can imagine, in this sort of a scenario, tucking a Nebulon in behind a Mon Calamari cruiser that was also approaching, then getting out from behind cover once you were close enough to the Executor that only a limited number of turbolasers could target the frigate
That’s the ship that took out some of its engines. The crew probably underestimated it and let it get a critical hit.
The weird scaling issues made me pick up a book about model making (albeit for wargamming miniatures) and blueprinting as a kid. Now I spend hours every semester explaining it to college students. It remains an issue.
That’s crazy man that things that small make so much of a big difference
I always like the idea of the Tector, and it fits in well with the Imperial mindset of creating warships for outgunning the more heavily armed (in relation to the republic) Confederate ships in slugging matches rather than starfighter support like the old Venators. And it does have less weak points for precision starfighter strikes to exploit.
"Right the ship"
"Wadda mean right the ship?"
"We're upside down stupid!!"
The laser defenses on the typical Star Destroyer are very poor on the underside. Having a few roll over to provide more anti-fighter cover is actually a wise tactic.
I would love a video going into all the scale shenanigans of the Original Trilogy and then, to explain to people that perhaps don't take that scale nerd stuff to seriously, what general rules do fans and sources tend to settle on as the "correct" scale.
I mean, these are the films themselves, they should have the final say on scale, but where does the final say end up? Differences of a few meters shouldn't matter overmuch, but, like the CR90, that was a hilarious extreme.
I mean, the female pilots line reads were also pretty not great. When she's reading the "there's too many of them" line, it sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. That might have a bit to do with it, as well as the accent. Though with the accent they could have simply given her backstory about being an imperial defector
agreed. one of them - who didn't make it in - sounded like she was totally clueless about where she was, and was scared out of her wits to boot. the concept behind the female pilots was great and all kudos to Lucas for trying to make it work, but there were reasons they (largely) didn't make it into the film. reasons that had nothing to do with sexism.
Star wars rebels did it quite well with the female pilots of Phoenix squadron, maybe one with a British accent too if I remember correctly
THey could have got carrier Fisher to dubbed her ?
I vaguely remember that they removed her voice because her scream was a bit too traumatic when she crashes into the bridge
That’s what takes are for genius.
You think all of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamills lines were flawless every single time they did them?
Even if that was the reason why did they have her dubbed over by an American man? Lol
When Wedge and Lando enter the power generator chamber, the pursuing TIE fires one shot. This says so much about the conflicted nature of that pilot. On the one hand he has to try and make one last desperate attempt to destroy the Falcon but on the other hand he could damage the generator himself and should probably stop firing. A great little detail.
this is the content youtube needs
Only when the film is broken down frame by frame do the fascinating details reveal themselves.
Wonder why the Revenge of the Sith novelization would talk about a future battle???lol
illuminati confirm lol
Nice catch on that Nebulon-B drive-by. Tactics-wise, it makes perfect sense for a frigate like that to get as close as it can to the executor. During that scene its in an optimal position to take as little firepower as possible from the bulk of the Executors weapons. It's out of the firing arc for most of them. In addition, the Executor also blocks every other Star Destroyer on the opposite side of it from firing, and the Star Destroyers on the Nebulon's opposite don't dare fire either, for risk of hitting the Executor.
Worse, if you are under the larger ship's shields, they literally can't fire at you without hitting the larger ship (fighters as well, since they will just pop). As an extra bonus, you can fire directly into the ship and drill towards critical systems or shield projectors. Lastly, your own shields immediately drop as they cancel each other's out, but you create a constant drain on the regenerative ability of the larger ship. It's a win-win scenario since a ship that large can't really dodge. We see this same tactic in Rogue One with the hammerheads - shields are meaningless at point blank range and large ships can't rotate about their axis very efficiently - certainly not quick enough to dodge such an attack.
After watching Templin Institute's Reimagining of the Republic and First Order I would love to see Eckhart do an analysis and vs of the First Order's Indefactable Class Dreadnought and the Republic's Endor Class Super Carrier.
0:54 ehhh only one out of many engines seems outright gone. Oddly enough on the wrong side given how it turns. Unless it's not dead but instead is in a forced over-thrust.
Actually that's what I thought it was that with the bridge gone it was like a dead man's foot slamming the gas.
Its possible that the engines on the side of the executor controlled the steering and one of them going out makes the steering go in the opposite direction going haywire if you will and diving the executor into the death star
0:29 Did you also notice that one regular Star Destroyer that EXPLODED as Ackbar commanded every Rebel ship to "CONCENTRATE ALL FIRE ON THE SUPER STAR DESTROYER"? Aside from Rogue One, I don't see any Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up like that in The Original Trilogy.
Something must have blown its reactor.
IIRC before that scene, that was supposed to be a sequence with a group of B-Wings making a bombing run and basically ripping apart the Star Destroyer, but as with most of the B-Wing scenes, it was scrapped. It would have looked hella cool though.
It was my favorite scene. An ISD finally goes boom completely. Solar ionization reactor was destroyed.
@@michaelandreipalon359 It's where the famous art piece of 3 B-Wings flying away from a Star Destroyer comes from. That art piece was supposed to be envisioned in the scene I described above.
That was like the first thing I noticed when I watched RotJ for the first time.
The blue light and slightly darker coloration gives it away. I always thought that was the executor.
the way I read it, the engines were intermittent and they were already having control problems. The loss of the primary bridge combined with other damage prevented the secondary bridge from gaining control of the remaining engines, which had gone to full throttle all of a sudden, before disaster.
My main problem with the crash is much simpler. The Executor wasn't that close to the death star to begin with and its engines were off. They were specifically told to "hold posistion" in a sector a fair distance from the death star (luke looking out of the window proves it was alot further away). They wouldn't have moved closer, and the death star wouldn't have closed on the fleet (would have restricted firing angles for the super laser).
So yes drives could have been damaged but they are off, which means damage has no effect. Yes control could have been lost, which would trigger the drives, causing rapid movement, but the movement is then wrong. It turns 90⁰ downwards and goes full throttle, it would have kept turning, not done a neat nose dive, can't claim DS has gravity enough to do it, else it'd have made the surface of the moon a nightmare landscape, also the DS has a tiny mass (it's mostly empty space) compared to basically anything that size and those objects tend to have next to no gravity at all. Also gravity wouldn't make it go "nose down", it would pull it all evenly, if anything the ass would fall faster as that's wefe the majority of the mass is, and would be unbalncing the ships centre of gravity.
Basically it's cool how they do it, and it makes some sense. But from the way the fleets were laid out, and the distances involved, it and the entire inperial fleet somehow bypassed the rebel fleet (its between them and the DS) and parked in orbit of the DS dispite having orders not to do it. So it makes no sense, and that just bugs me.
Not counting how it alone outgunned the entire rebel fleet nearly 50:1, nothing larger than the falcon would have made it close without been reduced to scrap metal.
Also while a cool battle, it's pointless. The idea was "no survivors" so why did the emperor pull his punches to show off the death star. Or bother having his troops take prisoners on the forest moon (or even let them land). But then the "were setting up a trap for the rebels, yet we have a SSD parked here that out guns their entire fleet" logic falls down, they'd have cancelled the attack if it was there.
Gah I love SW but hate the stupidity sometimes.
@@cgi2002 I don't care about all that technical stuff and lore-consistency jibberish. The directors were probably thinking,
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone kamikaze'd the super star destroyer and then it crashed into the Death Star, and made a giant explosion?"
"Yeah, that would be totally badass!"
"Alright, let's add that!"
And I totally agree with their decisions. It was VERY badass, and I'd prefer that to something that makes 100% sense and is consistent with lore and all that stuff. Always remember,
Big explosion cool.
After listening to the female pilot's dialogue, (who, honestly I always thought WAS a dude) I would think that more than accent, it's her inflection. She sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. Granted, that question-like inflection is present in some of the accents of the UK, which, by extension, would make it an accent issue. As far as the British accent being prominent in the empire... true, but considering how many rebels were defectors from the empire, I'd be comfortable with that.
That was an eye opener for me, no clue it was a woman at all, I think the shadows of the helmet didn't help.
If any retouches to previous films happen again, I would really appreciate variety like this to be added, not only for woman pilots, officers etc but maybe more alien races.
Even small remarks from imperial pilots would be cool, not on the same level as Titan Squadron from Squadrons but a little extra flavour maybe.
Yeah I watched those deleted scenes and none of them were particularly great. That's probably why they were cut.
Makes sense now. The pilot always had an androgynous look but i accepted the pilot as being male. Is that the kamikaze A wing pilot that takes out the Executor bridge?
@@rhpiggy123 that was a different one, Arvel Crynyd.
Sila Kott actually died immediately after the dubbed line (her A-wing is shot by TIE Interceptors).
@@rhpiggy123 yeah, that was how it struck me as a child in the theater. Almost a david bowie in the 70s kind of look, but like you, my young mind saw, heard the dubbed voice and said "man".
I love playing this battle on the X-Wing Alliance game!
That Nebulon was the Antares 6 and that's one of the reasons it was so famous. I can't remember where I read that at to give you a source though I'm sorry.
I don't think it's weird scaling so much as point of view creating an optical illusion...
That's interesting about the Tector however I know the empire had Tectors at Endor to try and counter most of the larger Calamari ships...as for which side is up, I've read in a lot of novels where they did Barrell rolls as evasive maneuvers in a star destroyer because ships were attacking from the sides top and bottom so it could pepper all of the ships with fire...
That really sucks that they cut her voice out because that accent being imperial would point to a defected imperial pilot and that would be really cool to portray....instead of how Disney did it by a stormtrooper stealing a tie fighter and surf boarding it down onto the planets surface in the biggest load of bs I've ever seen lol
Maybe we could headcanon the Tector being upside down because it's out of control after getting it's command bridge destroyed?
Me: that makes sense
My brain: or its BECAUSE STAR DESTROYERS CANT TELL WHATS UP, ISNT THAT RIGHT DISNEY, HUH, ISN'T THAT YOUR PLOT POINT FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER! Anyways...
@@tariffictypist7372 STAR DE'STRAYANS
Maybe it's moved to place its undamaged belly toward an enemy after losing the shields topside? I think it was in one of the wraith squadron books where Mon Remonda (possibly) rotates to keep fresh shields toward the enemy. It's been a few years since I read those, though
It’s space, there’s no up or down.
@Liam’s Lego In Star Wars there is. ;P
Another detail I love is that you can see a Y-Wing take out multiple Interceptors in a dogfight. I’ve always hated the misconception that Y-Wings were useless in dogfights. In fact, in the lore that should be said about the B-Wing everyone worships, not the Y-Wing
The Y-Wing stats in the old WEG books and the X-Wing game series shows that they were not useless in a dog fight.
Yes! Totally agree, I always saw the Y-Wing as more of a fighter bomber, the way they are used at Yavin and the way that guy in Endor taking two interceptors in a row implies there was more fight in them than various video games (and let's face it, it's games that have given Y-Wings a bad rap) would have us believe.
I was delighted to see them competently perform their role in Rogue One, massive vindication for fans of the Y.
I always pictured it as equivilant to like an F-4 or F-105 with the Xwings and ties maybe being more equivilant to like F-15s and F-16s performance wise. Not useless but disadvantaged to some extent against newr types. It kinda comes down to the games over simplifying things to try and make the ships "feel" different.
Endor is the greatest space battle ever. Not because it is big or flashy, but because it tells a story, and many small stories, without being too cluttered to keep up with.
And the captain of that nebulon b is pretty smart. By being that close to the enemy, he can use his full weapon complement, while they can only use a small amount. Might not do much damage, but the drain on the shields of the SD would be a factor.
The one reason I could see for a ship to invert (assuming it started out in an 'upright' stance along with the rest of its fleet) is either if the hull plating at the bottom of the ship is thicker, or less worn away, or fewer super critical systems were along that segment of ship and they were trying to rotate the bridge away to keep it from being an easy target.
The Bacta War (Book 4 of the X-Wing series, which is now unfortunately classed as Legends) covers pretty much exactly this situation. The Rogue Squadron aligned ISD 2 Freedom went toe to toe with the Xucphra/Isard aligned SSD Lusankya (which was almost entirely without fighter cover). The Freedom was hit hard in the initial exchange of fire, but after collapsing the Freedom's facing shields, then inflicting massive hull damage and knocking out most the armament on the side of Freedom which was facing her, the Lusankya focused on engaging the attacking Rogue Squadron starfighters which were providing targeting data for torpedo/missile armed light freighters instead of finishing off the Freedom. As soon as his crew got the ship back under control, Captain Yonka of the Freedom ordered his helmsman to half roll the ship in order to bring the intact shields and armament on the other side to face the already damaged area of the Lusankya and then re-engaged the SSD.
Admittedly in a massed brawl at knife fight range such as the Battle of Endor, that's likely to be a less valuable tactic than in a one on one duel between capital ships - but given the comparatively limited number of Rebel Alliance warships, its not entirely impossible that the Alliance warships were all in roughly the same direction at the time, so if shields were badly weakened or down on the side facing attack it makes sense to half roll the ship and take incoming fire on a shield which is still at full strength. Also gives time for the shields and armament to recharge and to reload munitions launchers on the now unengaged side of the ship before rolling back when the engaged side begins to become vulnerable.
Could also be a Marg Sabl offshoot or to present undamaged shields when a portion has fallen
As far as the accent, there were a *lot* of rebels who had defected from the imperial military.
Fun fact: The Rebel Fleet was winning the naval engagement with the Imperial Fleet before the shield protecting the Death Star was neutralized. Thank you Sheev Palpatine for being a better political strategist than a military tactician.
Between the cost of the death star itself and the loss of a sizeable portion of the imeprial fleet (ships, officer corps, etc) even if the Empire had won, economically the rebellion had stabbed an artery. Not immediately fatal but if the emprie were stupid (and they would be) they would yank the knife out rather than seek proper care.
I think of it like the Soviet Red Army at the start of WW2. Most of the competent officers would have been purged in case they got too big for their britches; consider how quickly Vader goes through SD commanders in ESB. This leaves the loyal, rather than the skilled, in command so their actual warfighting capability against the Rebels -- who had to be *good* to survive being outgunned and outnumbered all the time -- was limited.
@@matthewbeale5083 Actually, Vader was chewing through the incompetent officers. Ozzel was a jackass with connections rather than merit, and Captain Needa just gave up the second that the Falcon 'disappeared' and then wasted everyone's time taking a shuttle rather than report over the radio.
But Admiral Piett was spared.
So the loss of the Executor with all hands meant that the Empire lost the absolute cream of the cream of the crop of their officer corps.
fun info about Sila Kott, in some international dubbing of the movie its still a woman doing her voice instead of being dubbed over by a male for green leader
that is fun info!
Battle of Endor had the best soundtrack out of all space battles. Just my opinion.
I agree
"BRING US INTO POINT-BALNK RANGE OF THE SUPER STAR DISTROYER, I WANNA PUNCH THEM."
PRAISE THE EMPEROR AND GET ME CLOSE ENOUGH TO SPIT IN THEIR CAPTAIN'S FACE!
I think that Nebulon-B took advantage of the SSD targetting other, bigger threat ships like the Home-1 class ships, and snuck in for a quick and dirty broadside. There were probably individual turrets on the Executor that realized what was at point-blank range, but because of the scale differences between the two ships, the weapons commanders on the bridge didn't, and had already ordered the gunnery crews and the automated heavy turrets or whatever to target a bigger ship. So only smaller turrets in the Oreo trench that noticed would have fired back at the Nebulon-B, which just 'quickly' skimmed as close as it could (preventing easy lock-on by upper hull and lower hull turrets of the Executor that weren't in the trench), and tried to gut the trench. It still would have taken a lot of fire, but not nearly as much as if it tried to engage at a more respectable range (where the Executor could turn all its really BIG guns on it).
It'd be like, in a pushing match between two Hulk sized dudes, suddenly noticing a 3 foot tall dude with a butcher knife had run up beside one of them while they were distracted pushing, and already gotten a couple of stabs in before anyone could react, and ran away.
Good points.
Guess the Empire should have taken a hint from Karen S'jet of Homeworld. When your ship and crew is too large, you suffer command-paralysis.
@@DrownedInExile I would think on any ship that big, or even SD size, while the big guns would still be commanded from the bridge, unless there's an overriding order from the bridge, the smaller turrets and in-close weapons should be free to engage targets of their choice. Just to cut down on the back-and-forth of command dictates, especially when there's a reaction lag involved. If it takes 30 seconds to notice a ship is really close, 30 seconds to set the order, 30 seconds for the order to arrive, be understood, and for retasking to start, and another say, 15 seconds before proper return fire happens, that's nearly 2 minutes of basically dithering and deciding. LoL.
And a ship SSD sized would DEFINITELY have a lag between command deck and the gunnery decks down in the Oreo. Or even standing on the bridge and spotting the ship that's half way down your hull, already putting fire into your forward decks.
@@plektosgaming that's actually a neat idea I'd never thought of. I'm gonna have to remember that one!
@@Kalebfenoir As a bonus, their own fighters wouldn't be able to reach it, either. But you would have to be within feet of the other ship and it would have to be almost immobile. I would have loved if they added a line like this: "Sir, the enemy Nebulons ( or Frigates) are under our shields - our own fighters can't reach them!" ( followed by the lines leading up to the bridge's destruction )
@@plektosgaming I'd bet anything that the bridge crew of the Executor didn't even realize the Nebulon was there. A ship that size with a bridge that far away... by the time they got the in-ship comm from the Oreo stations, the damage would have been done and the Nebulon would have passed by. And it really did look like they were close enough to rub hull plates. Fighters absolutely would have been worthless there unless you had aces, and they'd have to weave between whatever fire was crisscrossing that little gap.
0:25 i see no curve #FlatDeathStar
I can imagine the sheer horror and disbelief of imperial pilots, crewmen and officers as the flagship and pride of the fleet crashes uncontroled through the Death Star. No matter how improved the second Death Star was, no construction technique or damage control could've contained such a catastrophic explosion. I don't know if its lore but it wouldn't be surprising if more than one imperial captain would desperatly order his vessel to retreat without looking back.
Aha! I *knew* something was off about that A-Wing pilot! All these years I wondered why the eyelashes seemed just a little too long and mascara-y for a male pilot. 😀
Lol, it's amazing what shadows can do to your perspective. When the first pic of her came up in this video, I could clearly tell it was a woman and then 5 seconds later the shadows moved and I thought it was a man again 😆
For the Executor, I believe in the Thrawn trilogy, they talk about how Palpatine was also using the Force to have some control/coordination with his fleet. Then, when he died, that control broke and caused some confusion, leading to the rebels to more easily destroy the SSD
There was even a grand admiral who was a force user that used it a little bit during the fight but nowhere near the level of the emperor. I always figure Palpatine was so focused on Luke that if Luke never was there to distract him the fighters may have never made it into the death star.
Video Idea: Which Sci-Fi Faction has the best Dropship | Phantom(Halo), Cheyenne UD-4L(Aliens), Puddle Jumper(StarGate), UT-47 Kodiak(Mass Effect)
Don't forget the ISSCV from Space: Above and Beyond, and the DR-4 Viking dropship from Starship Troopers.
Mech Warrior Hrothgar dropship
I never realized that shot was the under belly of a star destroyer! That’s awesome. They probably couldn’t get the shot with the camera with the bridge and everything attached so they had to turn the star destroyer around.
Factor 5 did an amazing job of recreating the space battle of Endor in the two Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube. You even got to play as the A Wing pilot who ends up crashing into the command bridge of The Executor.
Vs matchup Sgt. Johnson(Halo) vs Captain Rex(Star Wars)
Johnson gets Br 55, 1 m6 sidearm and marine BDU
Rex gets DC 15 rifle his pistols and phase 2 clone armor
All the fascinating details about the battle of Endor. I could watch it,discuss it and analyze it forever. In comparison to the space battles in the prequels or sequels which I couldn't give a shit about🤨🤣😁
9:08 Hadn't really thought about it before, but that ship near the Nebulon-B definitely matched the Executor's edge profile far better than any other ship in the Star Wars movies. I think it could very well be the same model of the side of the Executor that was used in The Empire Strikes Back when the Falcon is fleeing Bespin City.
Oh I forgot I saw this on another TH-cam channel...if you zoom in really close on that supposed CR90 you will see that I stead of 4 upper engine pods there are 2 oval pods...meaning it only has 4 or maybe 5 engines and the nose is smaller like it's a scout ship of some sort... And that would make perfect sense to go with the scale as well as the rebellion needing to use every ship in it's arsenal... I think it may have been EC Henry who pointed it out? Don't quote me on that
I remember some part of an old SW lore book I have, that the Mon Calamari don't have real "classes" on their capital ships, because there don't exist two ships of the same type. Everyone of their ships is a unicum in design. Those ships were more like artworks, each unique to its own and were only later refitted for combat, when the MonCal joined the Rebellion.
I don't think many people realize that the Executor also lost control because the Death Star's gravity was already pulling it towards its surface.
Thanks for the insightful video buddy. I appreciate your hardwork.
Really wish they would give that A-wing pilot back her female voice. Just use a voice actress with a more American accent. Would that have been really that hard? If they do another re-release of ROTJ I'd like to see that happen.
IMO there's no reason not to use the original voice. There are several Alliance characters who have English/Scottish/Irish actors.
@@danielkorladis7869 I'm okay with this as well. In fact, I think it would be even better since it really drives home that this is a civil war and the rebels really are from everywhere.
Ahh, yes. The _American_ accent.
Just use her original voice track. Imperial defectors were actually pretty common within the Rebellion, so it's not hard to say "oh yeah, she quit after a crisis of conscience".
@@nicholasfarrell5981 Exactly. There were characters who did just that.
As a kid ROTJ was my favorite movie exactly for this space battle. It was so visually gripping, exciting and surprisingly coherent narrative wise and well choreographed. Something that was sorely missing from the new movies in my opinion, save for maybe Rogue One.
The name of the series is Star Wars and there was hardly any space battles in the Disney trilogy.
Ep 7: probably the best battle of the trilogy battle spectacle wise, but really short (3 minutes total) and just an aimless repackaged Death Star trench run which was 15 minutes by comparison
Ep 8: a few small skirmishes during the space chase, again really short
Ep 9: a collage of re-used CGI assets fights another collage of re-used CGI assets for a few minutes, mostly with interior cockpit shots of actors
Most of from what we know now of the development, this seems to stem from the breakneck pace of development and lack of time to really hammer out a plot that allowed for a coherent vision for effects artists to create a big battle on the scale of Endor. Incredibly disappointing in my opinion. I hope that changes in future movies.
Thanks for the cool details!
My favourite detail in the battle was Wedge closing the wings a split second before the tight section in the Death Star 2 just as the scene transitions to the Falcon. Very subtle. A nice touch as it adds reason as to why Lando and NN express shock at how tight this section is going to be (losing the radar dish in the process).
Little detail that's always kinda bugged me. Wedge is briefly followed by a Tie that crashes into a Rebel ship. Was it a kamikaze run or was it going too fast to get clear?
I dunno. Strange because a TIE interceptor can fly circles around an X-wing. The pilot literally crashed for no reason. His turning is superior to an X-Wing in every way.
One thing that always bugged me about Star Wars has been the tendency not to portray the Empire as a skilled and competent military force. Like that TIE fighter crashing that you mentioned, stormtroopers with poor aim, the 2 TIE fighters in The Empire Strikes Back crashing into an asteroid canyon wall while chasing the Falcon, and so on.
Maybe the Tie pilot got tunnel vision, too focus on the X-Wing and forgot his surrounding until at the last moment .
I always saw that as pilot error
@@blockmasterscott In the OT most of the time stormtroopers were ordered not to kill or harm the heroes. You're nitpicking if you have a problem with TIE pilots. Han, Lando and Wedge are supposed to outsmart them so the story can move forward. Otherwise the films would be twice as long.
That upside down Star Destroyer was crewed by us Newfies, we always have to be different lol.
my dad's a newf so I see it
The section you mention at roughly 6:16 is the forward shuttle bay, not a tractor beam bay, earlier in ROTJ we see Vader's shuttle departing from that same section on an Imperial-II while two TIEs depart from the main hangar behind it.
Is it possible that the frigate was flying at the back of the SSD, firing at the engines when off screen? Would explain the damage to the Executor's engines and the fact that the frigate survived that particular encounter since SDs don't have that many weapons facing their backs
8:32 In Legends, the accent of the Imperials is first referenced in the video game, Star Wars The Old Republic, as being from the Sith Empire capital world of Dromund Kaas.
The Nebulon B taking on the SD is my favourite moment in all of Star Wars, until now I never thought of it as a SSD.
Being an anti-capital ship focused destroyer my thought always has been that the tector rolled over to get a better firing solution with the man batteries, maybe the bulk of the rebel fleet or some high priority target were below it and the captain made a call to roll over rather than wasting their potential firepower and stay in perfect formation.
Yep I've always said it was the Executor that the Nebulon was next to.
Fleet battle
Rebel fleet at Endor vs. Cole’s fleet at Cole’s last stand
There is another point in the films where you see capital ships at different angles than "up". In Revenge of the Sith you can see more Venators and Recusant ships entering the space battle nearly perpendicular to the horizon line. Same thing happened in the Genndy clone wars show
It also occurs in The Empire Strikes Back when the fleet breaks up once the Empire loses track of the Millennium Falcon. When Han points it out, the scene out the cockpit window shows Star Destroyers headed off in several different vectors not in the same plane.
The upside-down Tector probably was doing a tactical maneuver. If it's trading out hanger space (at the bottom of the ship) for additional anti-capital ship weapons, then it stands to reason that those weapons are also hanging off the bottom. So to use them against a ship "above" the Tector, the Tector would have to either move "above" that ship and fire "down", or simply barrel roll (and given how much the three Star Destroyers that nearly hit each other in Empire are able to rotate in the brief time we see them do so, it's probably the latter).
I know that empire isn’t the favorite on many fan lists but… I love tatooine/underworld stuff, love emperor stuff… and I love space battle stuff… and this movie has the three things on it !
Cool detail about the deleted scene for the A-wing pilot.
Regarding 'that British accent more appropriate for an Imperial' thing, many rebels were ex-imperials tho, so why wouldn't it work? Maybe she was just more upper class than most?
8:18 I don't think it was her accent, but her sub-par line reading. I also heard that they were concerned about showing women being blown to smithereens as well.
I think the small CR-90 is a compositing error, I think it is meant to be layered behind the Nebulon-B not in front. Such things of course can happen with complex compositing shots with miniature models.
Watch closely as Wedge is leading the Falcon into the Death Star and the "service passage" (or whatever you call it) gets narrow. Wedge closes the wings on his X-Wing to fit. Awesome detail often missed.
5:32 another detail to this scene: according to legends this battle was won by the star destroyer and this were the last moments of the cruiser
Remember that this was early 80's, home video was brand new, the creators of this movie didn't take in a court for that or this detailed analysises 40 years later. George made this FX with a mindset that it's so fast no one would really notice the mistakes. - Of coz we noticed George 😂
2:10 yout criticism makes sense, in fact the scene where the 19 km executor plummets into the death star, that shot shows the death star so much larger than the executor, in fact in that shots ratios, the death star would be probably around 450 to 500 km in diameter which is far more than the 120 km it is said to be in other sources
Which points to the fact 19km is a dumb and incorrect size for her. For years ssds were 8km. Then some random person in Lucasfilm said 19 with NOTHING to back it up
Battle of Endor is great because it's one of the few space battles that you can tell the tactics being used.
Usually it's just a scrum of stuff on screen.
(6:30) i think its a star destroyer, from its underside which has a sealed hangar, maybe because theres nothing left on the ship to launch.
Yea no that’s a different class of Star destroyer
@@tbphillips9649 in canon, yes.
There were also Interdictor cruisers in the battle keeping the Rebel fleet pinned. If Thrawn hadn't been sent into the Unknown Regions, he would have been in command of the battle instead of Piett.
Doesn't that Nebulon get a mention in Wraith Squadron? I could swear that Tonn (spelling?) says he was on the medical frigate when it went toe to toe with an ISD. Great video!
I love The Battle of Yavin but I would like to see it reimagined. When Wedge goes to save Luke you can see more of a battle in the background.
3:02 I never noticed that star destroyers look like crocodiles before.
5:50, I've always thought that was the underside of a star destroyer. After all, there is no up and down in space.
The poor lady A-wing pilot didn't just have her voice changed, she gets blown up by TIE Interceptors right afterwards.
The Tector-class Star Destroyer was upside-down because, as we learned from The Rise of Skywalker: "They don't know which way is up out there." 🙃🙃🙃
I never even noticed the CR-90 in that awesome Nebulon-B shot. . .gotta love the OT for compositing errors
That Nebulon B pulled a USS Johnston. 😂
I believe the negative space might be a private bay for a lambda shuttle, but idk I haven't looked at the book I thought I saw it in in a while
It honestly makes allot of sense that she was revoiced because they most certainly wanted the british accent to be imperial which for the most part has continued on throughout the franchise
I’m surprised no one’s yet mentioned the tie fighters that appear out of nowhere in the back when Lando says “fighters coming in”.
One of the useless pieces of knowledge I retained from going frame by frame on VHS as a kid
So the Tector is canon? That’s epic
For the Nebulon B squaring off with the executor, if we use the the CR90 for scale, maybe it is just it's own class of ship is just a massively upsized Nebulon :P Having that be the case would be no different than the star destroyer with the extra large command tower or the upside down one they changed slightly being turned into separate classes.
the extra large command tower could be Executor.
ECKHART, I hope you see this comment: The voice of Poppy Hands was edited possibly for the reason you mentioned, but another reason was that she WAS a woman. I'm a bit older than you guys, but in '82 or '83 Lucas mentioned that he filmed a few female Rebel pilots, but realised that seeing women die on screen would be "too dramatic" for a family space opera like Star Wars.
It was a different time, but you have to recall that Lucas already turned different expectations on their head with Princess Leia not being a screaming damsel in distress. In the late 70s/early 80s, family films didn't have women casually dying like that
Fascinating.
@@TheNobleFive It was a different time. Movies have gotten a lot more violent in the past 4 decades
The upside down star destroyer is probably only a practical thing, when filming real models stuff from the models tend to get in the way. In this case we have a Dolly shot going over the top of the star destroyer. The only way to do that would be to remove the command bridge part of the ship. I guess they didnt want to do that, or didnt have the time. But they came up with this crative solution. It can also just have been a shot intended to show a fight shot under the belly of the star destroyed. But they decided that it would work as a top deck shot aswell. - no way anyone will spot this, people can't have that much spare time in the future!..
Well spotted, as always😀
Hey, I was wondering what your thoughts are on Halo: Infinite? The games obviously coming out soon and there’s hasn’t been much halo content recently. I personally enjoy both the Star Wars and Halo content, nice to a good mix of both.
i find it so hilarious imagining a single star destroyer just chillin' "upside down" during battle
My guess a nearby mon called is below her so she oriented to bring main guns to bare
The VFX guys really saved Lucas from himself
Did anyone notice the somewhat odd disconnect between some of the in cockpit sequences and the exterior battle scenes?
At 8:06 you can see the dubbed over female A-Wing pilot - with 2 TIE Interceptors closing fast from behind!
At 8:09 2 TIE Interceptors destroy an A-Wing above a Mon Cal cruiser, and are then immediately destroyed by laser fire from a Y-Wing closing from behind them (as much as I am a massive Y-Wing fan, how on Corellia did a Y-Wing manage to catch up with an A-Wing and 2 TIE Interceptors?!).
At 8:11 you can see that same A-Wing pilot calling out a warning to Red Leader (Wedge) of Imperial fighters closing on him.
Its not even as if the cockpits of A-Wings and Y-Wings are at all similar - A-Wing has half a bubble canopy and is quite form fitting around the pilot, Y-Wing is a much more rectangular, blocky design.