The thing is, I can look past plot holes in movies if the characters are well developed and the story is fun and makes sense. Lots of movies these days lack even that basic criteria.
Funny how that works. I can look past nearly anything if the characters and general story are good/enjoyable. But if the characters are bad, I'll notice every other little problem with the film.
@@thorskywalker Absolutely. I'd even go as far as to say I actively start looking for reasons to amplify how bad it is. "That shirt's not even pressed!"
It is impressive what George was able to do with what little he had back then. This goes to further demonstrate how creatively bankrupt the Disney trilogy was. They had all the resources, time, money, talent they could ever need and how they squandered all of it so miserably remains a mystery to me.
Leia made a judgment call. She decided that destroying the Death Star as soon as possible was worth risking the rebel base. Tarkin already showed that he was willing to blow up any planet he felt like, so who knows what would have happened if she delayed any longer? And while she assumed they were being tracked, she didn’t know for sure. I don’t know if I would make the same choice, but I wouldn’t call her decision stupid.
Yeah. If they had gone to a random planet to transfer the plans, who is to say that the Empire would not have gone ahead and blown up the planet on general principle? Or if they lost the beacon (i.e. Millenium Falcon just racing from one edge of the galaxy or something), Tarkin might say: "Right then, set the course for Mon Cala. Fried calamari, coming right up." Also, if the weakness had NOT been found, maybe the Rebel Base would have been evacuated at that point, before Death Star would show up. It is a plot hole, but one that you can kind of squint and ignore in the service of the story.
it's actually not a plot hole - she knew the empire needed bait. if they tried to juke the empire they might not be able to rally the fleet in time to destroy it. she had to bring the death star to them.
It was a calculated risk. And Leia's OT personality would NOT let her stand by while innicents suffered. She used the base as bait for a trap. A high stakes gamble that paid off.
And regarding Obi Wan and R2, I always like to refer to the statement: "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Since R2 was never his and R4 most likely was the property of the Jedi Order or GAR, that statement holds true and it is basically hiding the truth while not lying
@@glenn_r_frank_author Well, Luke did ask if he was Obi Wan's droid. Nothing is wrong with just answering the question and not expanding on it. I just love that this is a favourite example and people always tend to forget what he exactly said and that he did say the truth
@@glenn_r_frank_author No he wasn’t ever BSing. In universe everyone considers Anakin Skywalker dead including Vader himself. As for R4-P17 he was Jedi Temple property because the Jedi don’t approve of personal attachments not just love but any similar of attachment so their stuff is often collectively owned.
@@Hendricus56 And not even his certain point of view in Return of the Jedi was false. Even Vader believed Anakin Skywalker was dead as made clear later in the movie when he claims the name means nothing to him.
The exhaust port I never seen it as a plot hold, It was even for shadow in the scene were Vader was in the room with the other generals. He told them that no matter how powerful this technological terror is it is still no match for the power of the force, and what we get is Luke using the force to guide the shot into the port destroying the Death Star. It is a lesson in hubris
If anything, the architect in Rogue One being a Rebel mole who intentionally set up that weakness is the plot hole. Why did Galen Erso design that flaw to have only a one in a million shot that basically needed a Jedi to do it? Why not make the exhaust port even bigger? Like big enough to fit an X-Wing into it? And the walls of the shaft magnetically sealed like the trash compactor so that shots that miss would ricochet and the walls angled so that they would direct the ricocheted blasts into the reactor? If the Empire was full of people who underestimate small ships, that more obvious flaw in the design would slip by them.
@@SeanWheeler100 It actually wouldn't. I am pretty sure someone who wants to cut corners would ask why you need to magnetically seal the exhaust port shaft for this one port instead of doing something that wasn't as expensive.
@@emberfist8347 Okay then. Just make the exhaust port big enough for a small one-man fighter to fly into. A big exhaust port wouldn't be too suspicious. Especially when the Empire is so dumb, they have a computer terminal with security only checking known enemies, allowing Din Djarin's unknown face to get in! Whoever designed that terminal in The Mandalorian Season 2 has got to be a Rebel mole, because what kind of security system lets unknown people in? Seriously. That was even worse than the exhaust port which was competently designed despite the architect being a Rebel.
@@SeanWheeler100 The terminal still required a passcode. Also the Exhaust wasn't that big because as mentioned in the movie it was a secondary exhaust port.
I always figured that Bail had 3PO's memory wiped was because protocol droids (and this one in particular) have a hard time keeping their mouths shut; something was bound to spill. Whereas R2 is not going to be readily translatable by just anyone overhearing him and that he seems to be more discreet with whom he confides in. Of the two, R2 is much more likely to resist interrogation whereas 3PO is likely to sing like a canary.
"If you can't take someone criticizing something you love, you probably shouldn't then criticize things other people love." Thor Skywalker ... My new email signature quote.
Throughout the movie the empire is trying to find the rebel base. Leia knows this since Tarkin interrogates her. Had the rebels just gone and attacked the Death Star, it could have just hyperspaced away. Instead, Leia lead the Death Star to the rebel base to give them an irresistible reason to stay, even with the potential danger of the rebel attack.
But...they went to Dantooine before Yavin. I think the better explanation is that the Rebels WERE on Dantooine and Leia knew that, but also knew they weren’t there anymore
It's an interesting plot hole, which maybe could be justified by Leia not knowing the method by which they would be tracked. Without knowing the method of tracking, she may have considered it impractical to try and throw it off. Another possible out is if there was more than one Rebel base out there, and Leia just didn't bother revealing this fact to anyone. The Rebel base at Yavin was, Leia calculated, big enough to be plausible bait but still ultimately expendable.
No need to invent some other base that might exist. it's much simpler; Leia knew she had enough time to get the attack under way, and that was all that mattered. Could she have lost the Rebel Base and everyone in it including herself: YES. But that was secondary to launching the attack while the opportunity existed. 'All or nothing' moments happen really a lot in war, and time and again heroes go for it, consequences be damned. It's why they become heroes.
I'd go with the second alternative, or that maybe that rebel base was the only actual base with a bigger group of rebels concentrated in one place, but that the rebellion had a lot of other operatives and resources scattered around in small groups or even as individuals in hiding, ready to get together and create another base and fighter group if the one bigger group and base they had got wiped out.
Watching the movie again recently, I was also struck by the stupidity of the rebels fighting when the Empire boards at the beginning. Yes, presumably they'd all be executed if just surrending. But their probability of dying if they fight was 100% anyway. The one path they had was their cover story of escorting Leia on her supposed diplomatic mission, which is the story she herself tried to use. But that story cuts even thinner when upon the ship getting captured they all setup and blast the boarding storm troopers. Let alone that the ship was fighting at all. Again that size cruiser having zero chance against the star destroyer. If they wanted to use the "diplomatic mission" story, the only, albeit slim, path to that working would have been to not fight at all. Even ship to ship, let alone when boarded. Further, if true that, as stated, the Senate would be upset when they found out the empire was holding Leia, by choosing to overtly fight, they gave the empire the excuse they would have needed in her having her ship overtly attack back. And thus a reason to arrest her given all the dead empire army members, etc. Etc. Again, that reaction of attacking when the Empire ostensibly just wanted to search her ship gave them all the excuse they needed to hold her. If the police want to legally search your car, and you start shooting at them, doesn't matter if you're the President of the United States, you're going to get arrested. Further, Leia could not have known the Senate would be disbanded. And resistance was futile anyway. So they should have just acted like nothing was up. (Yes, I know Rogue One makes the above not quite applicable as they were fleeing in the first place. But, again, just talking this movie in isolation with the story at the time.) Of course, the opening scene would have been much less engaging if just Star Destroyer pulling up and storm troopers amiably boarding and beginning a search with no resistance, etc. But, still. :-) -Daven
A friend and I discussed Leia leading the Empire right to the rebel base immediately after saying she knew they were being tracked, on a bus ride home from the theatre, in the summer of 1977. That was always an obvious problem in the story line, but easy to overlook for a couple 14-year-old geeks who ultimately, at least in my case, saw the movie 6 times that summer. The movie was so incredibly overwhelming that we had no problem giving it a break. Now, as for the exhaust port. The Death Star is the size of a small moon, made from scratch. To think that there may not be a single, solitary flaw in its construction is unrealistic. As the General states in the briefing, the Empire never envisioned being attacked by such small fighters, and therefore we can feel certain that all attack scenarios by larger vessels were addressed by the engineers of the Death Star. Imagine there is a way to blow up the United States and you don't know what it is, or where it might be that must be attacked, and you end up finding a 2-meter hole in northeastern Arkansas where natural gas that originates in the Rocky Mountains is venting from. You then realize if you fire a small torpedo at the perfect angle into that hole, it will set off a chain reaction that will initiate eruptions in rapid succession throughout the entire mountain chain, obliterating the entire 48 contiguous states. That's what the Death Star engineers overlooked, and the rebel engineers were able to discover. Like Han said, "One in a million". Here's the thing, if you weren't there in 1977, you CAN NOT understand how that movie effected people, particularly 12-16 year old boys. THERE WAS NOTHING LIKE IT. No other Star Wars movie had the effect that the first one did. There was excitement and anticipation for all of them since, but it's impossible to explain what it was like walking out of that theatre the first time you viewed Star Wars. The visual spectacle was beyond anything ever presented before (even 2001: Space Odyssey) and the story was clean and refreshing with the good guys winning in dramatic fashion. You could forgive ALOT!!
The death star and his exhaust port reminds me of the giant Achilles in the greek literature. He was also nearly invincible, but had a weakness too. Therefore i dont mind the exhaust port in the death star.
And it makes sense. The Death Star needs to vent exhaust somehow. And the thing is defended in the movie but the way weapons in Star Wars work the exhaust port couldn't protected from Proton Torpedoes as then it wouldn't work as an exhaust port.
Seeing as how the internet didn't exist (for all intents and purposes) in 1977, I have no idea how much of a fuss people made about the so-called plot-hole of the Death Star having a design flaw, but I bet it was much less of a fuss. As time goes by, people *want* there to be plotholes and problems in the writing of the original trilogy. Whether to be contrarian, to defend the prequels and sequels, or whatever else, the OT gets held up to a standard thta isn't even valid. In the case of the exhaust port, it's like you say: the achille's heel is a thing. And in this case, Achilles is so big that, if not actually they size of a moon, is at least so big as to be mistaken for one. It is a space ship - a man-made motor vehicle - that is so big it takes fighter jets several minutes to go from one point to another along the surface. It vastly surpasses any mechanical structure we could ever imagine on Earth. The fact that it would have one small, easily defended design flaw in a 2-meter port (out of probably thousands or more) is not a plot hole. Heck, if anything, it's questionable that they couldn't find *more* flaws like it.
Let's not forget George started writing this story in 1973 and released it in 1977. The greatest thing about SW is it is an original story unlike so many of the other big IPs that were taken from the comics or a book. You did a good job of explaining that this was a stand alone movie that George didn't know if he would be able to tell the rest of the story until it was successful and it was written for a 12 year old boy as the audience, a fun space opera movie.
The tracking back to the rebel base is a clear weakness in the script. It could have been improved by adding a bit of dialogue along the lines of: "We must make our final stand now and hope for the best before it targets another innocent world. Urgency is key" Not the best attempt at explaining it away perhaps but it could have helped to make a bit more sense of Leia's decision.
I remember in 1977 when "Star Wars" came out, George Lucas said one of the things he was trying to do was create a story like the old serials ("Flash Gordon", "The Lone Ranger"), and the sense of adventure and excitement he felt as a kid. When you tell a story, there are many branches to go down, each one creating a new plithole. However, to complete the syory the teller wants to tell, suspension of disbalief is required. Coming off "American Graffiti", he was unsure if people would like it. Luke's hero journey is a compelling story, and Lucas made some beloved characters. I still have a place in my heart for the original, and the non-cgi, mat screen error version. I still want Luke's speeder.
That was a hole that I noticed ever since How It Should Have Ended pointed it out. There was a part in that video where they had General Dodonna point out that they could've just transferred the plans to the rebel base instead of landing there. It's definitely a good point and is clearly there so then we could fear for the rebels' safety when they blow up the Death Star. But thankfully, it doesn't really bother me, the climax is still super intense, and just all around great.
I'm going to quote Nerdonymous here, "The Imperials have a homing beacon on the Falcon. The Rebels however do not have a homing beacon on the Death Stat and the Galaxy is a big place. If the Rebels are going to attack the Death Star and destroy it, they need to know where it is. And when they attack, in the event the Imperials analyze their attack and discover there is a danger, the Imperials need a good reason to stick around. Otherwise they would just slip off into hyperspace. A good reason like an irresistible target. The Rebel base for example. So the Rebels make themselves the target to lure the Death Star in and keep it there long enough for there plan to succeed. It does make sense. In fact it makes perfect sense. See coming up with a criticism like this one [HISHE] without thinking it through, it doesn't make you clever. It just makes you look like a fool to the 5% of Star Wars fans who aren't a bunch of gullible idiots. Sorry that was a bit harsh. If you fell for that criticism, don't beat yourself up. I mean you only had 43 years to think about it." History comparison, think how long it took the British to find the Bismarck and how she slipped away from them before getting found one last time and locking her rudder in one direction that allowed the British Navy to arrive and take her out. Now take the Atlantic Ocean, make it a million times bigger, and instead of having the Resources of the British, you had resources more on par with the Polish Resistance. Does having the information in destroying the Death Star even matter if you don't even know where it is? Or even have a Rebel Cell fully prepared to take on the task when it is near them? People are really surface level when it comes tactics and strategy. "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics."
@@strategicperson95 Another example of HISHE not thinking critiques through is that in the same video they have Tarkin blow up Yavin instead of trying to wait for Yavin 4 to be in visual range. The problem with their idea is that Yavin is a gas giant not a rocky planet so they can’t blow it up. Another example is their Captain America First Avenger video joking about how the bombs were labeled in English. They are actually the same spelling in both English and German due to being American cities that have the same root language.
@@strategicperson95 almost a great comment except for the bit of arrogance at the end. I don’t get why many times people with great insight feel the need to reflect poorly on themselves by putting other people down or coming off all high and mighty. Sharing knowledge is its own accolade, what are you trying to accomplish by shaming random strangers you’ve never met? I can tell you what you’re doing in reality, you’re making people less likely to be interested in the stuff you almost hooked them with. Now they’re saying “well I don’t want to come off as a pretentious asshole like that guy”
Vader rolled the dice to let Leia escape and she rolled the dice that they could analyze the plans before the Death Star could get there. Allowing the Empire to follow let them know where the Death Star would be, right where their fleet could do something about it. If they couldn't find a flaw, they could burn the base and run just like the did in the very next movie. Also, all the big ships may have been gone during the battle as we never see them. All we see is Leia and a few staffers on Yavin, where maybe she was willing to die b/c she just saw her whole world blow up. Better than Rey flying the Falcon 10 seconds after showing us she almost wrecked it on takeoff, among a ton of other things.
@@emberfist8347 I have a feeling you're right, but can you name a lot of others? The only ones that spring to mind for me are: Arrival Alien or Aliens E.T. 2001 (I think) Would Gravity count? I'm basing this on the entire 80-90 year history of the Oscars. It doesn't seem like it to me. Plus, some have said Star Wars is more science fantasy than science fiction, that science fiction tries to be closer to reality (like Arrival).
@@emberfist8347 I think there is a bias against sci-fi, however a few have been nominated for Best Picture other than Star Wars… such as Inception, Dune, Arrival, The Martian…
I think they could have thrown in a line which would have solved the "Leia" issue pretty easily. Like: Han: "If they are tracking us, why are we going back to the main rebel base?" Leia: "If they can't find the base, they will simply destroy planet after planet until someone gives up the rebellion. Hiding will just mean more innocents die. Our best chance is to get to our base, analyze the data, and throw everything we have at them."
@@TheMinskyTerrorist That is a problem I have with modern cinema criticism. People need information spoon-fed to them at least critics do. The Dark Knight Rises faced the exact same type of complaints of people forgetting it is sequel and plot points from the prior films would hold answers they wanted.
I highly recommend EC Henry’s Video abut the exhaust-port. You‘ll notice (even before Roque one) it isn’t a plot hole at all! Luke probably even used the force to direct the missiles into this small port.
Those of us who went to see Star Wars in 1977, over and over again-which no one did for movies before that!-went to be wowed by the spectacle of that huge star destroyer and the villainy of Darth Vader, and of course light sabers! It is hard to look back now and realize how new and exciting those things were; and the striking novelty of a science fiction world that looked real and lived in. That was all. Beyond that it was what George Lucas wanted it to be: a Saturday morning serial movie, intended to thrill and excite, not to make a whole lot of logical sense. Transforming it into serious literature like LOTR was not the intent….
Who is transforming this in this serious literature? It was always, I don’t wanna say silly, but let’s just say science fantasy. Which is inherently silly in terms of technology but not in terms of the characters and the human condition.
There's a legendary niche Star Wars video on TH-cam called *How **_"How Star Wars was saved in the edit"_** was saved in the edit (sort of, but not really)* which explains Leia's decision as a necessary or at least plausible strategic decision instead of a plot hole. Around the timestamps 1:17:00 - 1:20:00 you have the creator explain the choices. I think the crux of the reason Leia lures them to the base is that the longer the Empire is given, the more likely they are to find the weakness in the Death Star and defend it or evade the risk. Tarkin is told about the weakness during the battle, but the lure of the Rebel Base is too good and too close a prize to make him take it seriously and keeps the Death Star in place to be attacked. If they hadn't gone to the Rebel Base, they would've left, found out about the weakness, done something about it, and if the rebels found the Death Star again any time soon, their attack would've failed and the Death Star reigns tyranny across the galaxy. The rebels were against the clock in every aspect, unless there was another way to assemble that fighter squadron to attack the Death Star at the exact same time and keep it around for the length of their attack, they would have failed. The plans they stole basically aged like milk.
I have always had a feeling that R2 is a physical manifestation of the will of the force. He has always pushes the story forward and knows more about everything then anyone else. He is the chosen droid
Was watching A New Hope the other day, and goodness. Firstly, the plot holes some fans point out (and maybe it's my personal bias talking) I just don't see. I think the lore and stories were vague enough but specific enough that what ESB and RotJ added wasn't that much of a deviation. Secondly, it is graphic! They burn jawa bodies, cut off hands, find corpses, among other things. Thirdly, even though, yes the wooden dialogue and quality of the props would be bad by today's standards, the story and world building is cool. Also I like Lukas' effort to find/make cool locations. Fourthly, Leia going straight to the Rebel base after escaping the Death Star rather than going to some other planet first was in my opinion a small price to pay to making the movie an okay length.
So the best option is to lead if directly to the rebel base with no apparent evacuation plan in place and just hope that the plans have a weakness that they don’t actually know for sure exists? That’s less risky?
@@thorskywalker Rebellion isn't dead, this isn't the only base. Mon Mothma and Ackbar are somewhere else collecting numbers. They had their chance to destroy the Death Star (until tractor beam isn't fixed) and they took the risk.
True, but with the empire always looking for the rebellion and likely to send the Death Star once found, they could have leaked the location anytime later once they had a real plan. Not hoping they'd come up with one. Or even had the Falcon continue on while they transfered the plans to another ship. Analyze first, then if they come up with a plan fast enough where it doesn't look suspicious, have it divert to a fake rebel base where the rebel fleet is now waiting, assuming the Falcon was being tracked as she guessed. Doesn't need to be the actual rebel base. Just convince the empire it is. Either way, accomplishes bringing the Death Star. But only after a viable plan developed. And presumably with enough money involved, and considering he didn't think he was being tracked anyway, Han would have gone along with it. The only downside to this is the delay might allow other planets to get blown up. But if no weakness could be immediately found, bringing them to the rebel base immediately would only serve to wipe out the rebels too and those hypothetical other planets destroyed anyway later if the empire wanted. -Daven
And the ray shields. That is litterally the best the Empire could do. They would use anything that blocked proton tropedoes as then you don't have a working exhaust port.
Leia's isn't a plot hole as there CAN be an explanation. It's a plot gap. I know you dismissed it, but I always assumed Leia was trying to draw the Death Star away from further civilians, and into their "turf". I actually have this come up in an RPG story.
The exhaust port had an energy field that was impervious to any kind of attacks except for proton torpedos. That’s why they used them. The general even says exactly that in the movie!
I watched the original trilogy a couple months ago for the first time. It felt... magical, like George Lucas had taken a Fantasy book and put it in Space. I never once thought of it being Campy, I say that it won its praise and while I don't watch many movies the modern ones are sorly missing out on what made these great. A New Hope certainly cemented the feelings of fantasy, Empire Strikes was the high point and wonderfully raised the stakes, Return of the Jedi was a satisfying conclusion that felt awkward at times (You probably know what those moments where). I would have loved to have had the original and not the "Special Edition" but it was close enough and I found all of original scenes. At times I felt like that I could go back to the 70's/80's and see why it became so popular. The music, the pacing, the sutle immersion, the characters, the story never holded your hand, it flowed smoothly enough and gave enough information and time to absorb and know what the stakes were. The preparation for the attack on the 1st Death Star is one such scene, and it contrasts heavily to its modern copy. I have no deluded nostalgia to say that after watching a New Hope that the Force Awakens was a poor imitation that lacked what made the OT special.
The port is a "thermal exhaust port," so unless there is such a thing as the Death Star's reactor being too cold, there's little reason to close it. But even assuming it can be closed, you would not do so while the Death Star is preparing to fire its superlaser, as that is doubtless what places the highest load on the reactor. Leia going directly to Yavin is an issue, yes. I don't know if I'd call it a plothole so much as bad script writing, since it could easily have been explained in dialogue the same as their escape was (say, if Leia was not willing to effectively point the Death Star at some other innocent world). Maybe Yavin was very remote, like Dantooine was, and didn't have any neutral stops/ships nearby anyway. Maybe Yavin was evacuating and couldn't spare anyone to rendezvous. It's entirely possible to explain, but it is true, the movie doesn't really bother to. That's not to say the whole movie is ruined or doesn't hold up. Really, it's just suspension of disbelief so we can move on quickly to the big climactic battle. There's plenty of great movies out there where the protagonist has one or two moments of bad judgement, and the more recent projects that fans criticize are not criticized because one singular moment ruined an otherwise great story, that's an obvious false equivalency.
The Death Star was never a plot hole unlike what people think. The entire plot hole ignores that the Death Star needed these exhaust ports to begin with. A station that would big would generate a crap ton of heat that needed to be vented somehow hence the exhaust ports.
It's likely that the ending changed slightly during production. If I recall correctly, Lucas originally was going to have the Rebel fighters fly to where the Death Star was and attack it that way, but his wife suggested that the attack happen at Yavin for a more dramatic climax. If that is how that went down then it's possible that the tracking aspect was added to explain how the Empire would show up at Yavin. If they had already filmed the other scenes by that point it would have been too costly to film even more scenes to avoid that, and they were already strained budget wise as it was. Now I don't know all the behind-the-scenes stuff about these movies, but I do know that given the restrictions they were dealing with, it's pretty amazing we got as good a film as we did.
No, that's what Rocketjump said happened(from his 'Star Wars Was Saved in the Edit' video), there's hints and implications in the film itself that the Death Star was always going to blow up the base when they found it, and Lucas himself shot the footage involving the countdowns with a second filming unit himself.
the concept that the Death Star was about to fire on the Rebel base on Yavin was created in the editing process to create more tension, wasn’t it? perhaps the there just wasn’t the footage available to create a Rebel evacuation plot… or maybe the scenes about the Empire tracking the Falcon to Yavin was added with reshoots?
No, according to 'The Making of Star Wars' the countdown on the Death Star and Rebel base was created by Lucas filming with the second unit, while Marcia also edited those scenes that were shot by Lucas.
5:20 well, I didn't expected this to be a problem to you, since you've always had quite wide and deep understanding of things many people often miss... I've never considered exhaust port to be neither a huge plot hole nor a plot hole at all. And actually it was a surprise for me when I acknowledged that it's considered as such among the fans. First of all, it not only _could_ have happened in reality, it _would_ happen, and in a much larger scale with a wide spectre of different flaws and imperfections that could be used for its destruction. Reason is: Death Star is an astronomicaly huge project. Here, on Earth, dramatically smaller military projects have a lot of flaws due to their complexity, resource management, and simple impossibility to predict every single attack scenario. The bigger the project is, the more people are involved in it's planning and construction, the more flaws and disadvantages it will _naturally_ have. Secondly, in the movie itself it was heavily stated, that the plan of attack is not just hard: it was considered impossible and suicidal. Hole 2 meters by diameter, full speed of starfighters, f**king who knows how many hundreds of kilometers tunnel to the core, and constant fire from the station and other enemy forces. The attack itself was an act of desperation: either rebels do the impossible or they are all doomed. Also, when officer reported to Tarkin, he said "we analysed their attack, there is a danger", which does not sound as a admittance of a threat at all. "Danger" is not a "Sir, they surely gonna blow us up in a second!" Thirdly, rebels actually failed at making this plan working. No one of them managed to hit this "plot hole" everyone suggests to be huge. And there were bunch of reasons. No one had even a glimpse of believe the plan would work, they were overwhelmed by listed above facts. The _only one_ who managed was Luke, who didn't think would or wouldn't the plan work, he just did what he could, _only_ with the Force by his side, and _only_ because Han saved him in the last moments. All of this is a sequence of happy events, all of this could easily fail. So excuse me everyone, I DO NOT consider exhaust port thing as a plot hole. Too many arguments for me for thinking otherwise. Finally, I was blown away when I realized that people cultivated this made up thingy to have a "Rogue-One" for its explanation. Even though I loved the movie, this fact bugs me. It is stupid, sorry.
The exhaust port being overlooked also makes sense in an organization where superiors kill their subordinates for making mistakes. That is a recipe for coverups. It was also ray shielded.
I neither noticed nor cared about plot holes when I saw these films in theaters as a younger child nor when I WAS Lucas's target 12 year old boy. (STAY ON TARGET) It wasn't until later when VHS was a thing and I was able to watch over and over did they catch my attention. They bothered me a bit, but did not diminish my enjoyment of them.
I think the bigger plothole is actually destroying Alderaan. Ok, they do it so Leia gives up the location of the Rebels, which, as torture goes, she doesn't even - you can't rely on information obtained by torture. But which purpose does it do to keep the population in the Empire in line? Leia was supposed to be dead already since her ship officially got destroyed in an accident over Tatooine, right? So there is no proof she was part of the Rebellion. So they can't even argue it's punishment to the whole planet because they allowed her to go rogue, apart from the fact that this sort of punishment works better with smaller communities (kill every 10th man from the street of an assassin because they knew the perpetrator was up to no good). Killing a whole planet with millions of your own citizens because one was probably up to no good is so obviously overly excessive that this should only invoke Rebellion. And again, they can't even tell anybody that story. So wouldn't the Empire have to cover up Alderaan's destruction in the end?
Rogue One didn't *fix* a plot hole with the exhaust port -- it *created* a plot hole with the exhaust port. In the original Star Wars, this was an accidental design flaw that the Rebels found by looking at the plans. Rogue One has it as a deliberately-introduced flaw that, despite being easy to describe in a single sentence, isn't communicated that way.
The exhaust port was necessary part of the design even back in the original film where it is made clear that they are targeting one of the ancillary exhaust ports below the main one that is visible on the model used in the film and 13 total seem to exist based on the number of polar trenches on the model. So all he did was make one big enough to be targeted by a proton torpedo.
@@emberfist8347 The Rogue One plot hole is that he didn't just say "shoot a photon torpedo into one of these exhaust ports to blow up the station". Instead he told people he'd put a weakness into the design but not what it was.
@@danbongard3226 Because he was being monitored by the Empire and couldn't give too much away in his message. He was likely going to tell the Rebellion in person but that never happened due to outside circumstances.
Yep Rogue One is complete nonsense in this regard, the 'plans' are completly superflous with an intentionaly designed weakness that can be communicated so trivially.
@@emberfist8347 That rationale makes no sense at all, especially given how glaringly obvious the weakness was once someone looked at the plans -- both the Empire and the Rebels quickly find it once they look. But we're expected to believe that, despite knowing there's a critical flaw in the Death Star, the Empire didn't bother looking? Silliness. Rogue One is a fun action movie, but the plot is dumb as a bag of rocks.
I always saw it as a fun adventure film and glad that George made his film and all that came after them, and most films have some kind of plot holes if you watch them often enough you will find them.
Great video. Especially the explanation of the later Death Star Battle and Rebel Base "Plot hole" Yeah I think Lucas just opted for a dramatic story he didn't know any other movie would be made certainly not Rogue One or even the extent to how he'd show the empire in Episode V. Therefore an all or nothing battle made a lot of sense within the context we actually got in the first film. Then later as we are watching Empire and Return of the Jedi and seeing how much more the empire was... It doesn't make sense. I always think the whole thrown room scene is pretty hoaky and always have. IF the empire was still a threat they would have gotten out of dodge not given out medals lol. But still at the time... we had only seen 1 star destroyer... some tie fighters... one Death Star. I mean Lucas might have thought to himself. Oh this is a time of respite for the rebels. This was a super serious setback to the empire and no one could reach them for weeks. If that was the case. Maybe they threw a quick ceremony etc. But we all know now with the Star Wars Galaxy/World built out as it is that it would be unreasonable...
The Death Star was all they had in the area at the time it would take time to redeploy forces as everyone bar Vader was dead he was on his own with no long range communications.
I still don't think the film takes itself very seriously, even if it has more serious moments, but otherwise I completely agree with you, Thor! I actually never thought about the glaring tracker plothole, but I agree it doesn't diminish the film at all. A New Hope isn't even in the Top 3 of my favorite Star Wars films, but it's still a fantastic and iconic piece of cinema and quite an enjoyable movie.
When we look at the greater Star Wars universe, while he is an astromech by design, R2 is practically a special forces operator in the Clone Wars and when helping with the Bespin escape/plan to free Han from Jabba. So I think he recognizes Obi-Wan, just knows to stick to OPSEC around Luke at first. I doubt that Luke would have introduced himself to new droid purchases by his full name, so only when he meets Obi-Wan would R2 realize that is Anakin's son.
I'm so glad you addressed that tracking issue. I always wondered why the hell would they go to Yavin if they suspect the empire is tracking them? It didn't make sense to me. Also; in my opinion, I'd wish the rebel alliance would have built their own version of the Death Star. They have the plans right there.
The Rebel Alliance didn't have the resources or the lack of empathy and common sense to build one. The Death Star is not an effective weapon. Using it is overkill and would only succeed in expanding the number of people who want you dead. Also she went to Yavin as it was worth the risk to get the plans.
This movie absolutely holds up. Just show it to a youngster. Ryan Johnson tried to use the same concept in defending his pile of garbage. He said the empire was not liked contemporarily and would be torn to shreds if it came out today. Completely wrong, in accurate, and a very weak defense for a terrible movie.
The only partial explanation I could think of for a lure to Yavin would be for general troop movement. Even with hyperspace, you don't know exactly what you're walking into when you jump. Then again, the fact Leia didn't have the data can only be very loosely said to be attributed to her hope that a weakness can be found in time, but that is a considerable risk for the entire Rebellion, as you've mentioned.
Okay, you’ve got me on why Leia would have Han fly her to Yavin if the thought the Millennium Falcon was being tracked. However with Obi-Wan and R2-D2, he only said that he didn’t remember owning a droid. They were Anakin’s droids. As far as high tailing it off Hoth, the rebels learned their lesson with Yavin and how close they all got to being wiped out so of course they’re being much more cautious now.
I'll repost my comment from one of your other videos. Don't take it personally but it really pisses me off when people say that the death star having a thermal exhaust port is a "plot hole." It has a purpose. Space ships and stations in real life need to be able to vent their heat because they generate a lot. It makes sense that it would be connected to the reactor because that's where most of the heat is coming from. The Empire knows it's there. They have it shielded and guarded by turbolasers and fighters. They wipe out the entire rebel force sent after them except for one person who succeeds using magic, and they would have had no idea that could even happen. They're not stupid or incompetent, but they didn't think the rebels would be dumb/crazy enough to attack using just fighter craft. Rogue One is an unnecessary complication. It's a good movie but that part never needed extra explanation.
The beginning of New Hope is Leia dropping off the plans for another ship to deliver them. It barely worked so Leia would not try it again. And Tarkin is right, once word about Alderaan gets out people will be afraid to support the rebellion. If they don't have the battle of Yavin then the RA just fades away.
I understand that the scenes of the Death Star closing in on the rebel base was added in post production editing, as it was felt that some more urgency and tension needed to be added. So during the writing and shooting of the movie (and as a result in Leia's thinking) they considered they had enough time before the Empire could mount any attack against the base, so the best thing was to keep momentum and press ahead soonest. Which turned out to be the right choice of course. Evacuating a base while at peak strength, and then trying to bring everything together again to mount an attack later is also not without risk and everything can easily fizzle out and a key opportunity is lost.
It is notable that the Battle of Yavin only happened at Yavin because of the brilliant editing. As written, Leia didn't lead the Empire to Yavin since the battle didn't happen there. The film was made vastly better by the edits, not going to argue that, but those edits do explain why it would seem like a mistake on Leia's part.
You need exhaust ports, but they don't have to be straight to whatever you're exhausting. Put a kink in it and anything flying down will hit a wall. You could also put a cover a louver on it that would block small things from getting in and stop at least one shot down it.
I thought it was a fun adventure film. Those kinds of nitpicks are like the ones I could make about Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Something I will add is why did Luke and Han keep the Storm Trooper belts? Remember the Storm Troopers attacked the Millennium Falcon in Mos Isley. I think there were personal shields involved. The Storm Trooper belts had personal force fields that deflected the blasts and that you either had to be good or lucky to hit Storm Troopers. As far as Yavin 4 goes, I don't think that wad the bulk of the Rebel Fleet, but rather a small base, much like the one on Dantooine that Leia mentions. The Rebels may have already been on the move and left a small force on Yavin 4, ready to attack the Death Star. They had lured it there to destroy it. I look at the 3 Y-Wings and Dozen X-Wings they had. They didn't have enough ships. Not like in Return of the Jedi when they had Y-Wings, X-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings in the battle. So... Yeah there was more going on than any of us think.
The belts were done because they had extra ammunition for the E-11s they were using. The fighters was also explained in the movie as the Death Star being designed for use against capital ships but not starfighters. It was a plan crazy enough to work.
I always thought it was a certainty that the plans would reveal a flaw for some reason. Nice catch! Though I agree, this one detail doesn't take away from the movie for me. Given the time and amount of edits that this film went through, who knows what get left on the editing floor.
Really wish people would drop the narrative that the exhaust port is a pothole. The whole point was that the empire had the hubris to think they were all mighty and no little fighters or little pitiful band of rebels would be a threat. Think of it this way. If you jam a fork in a light socket you’ll blow out the fuses for the entire house. Possibly even burn the House down Is that a plot hole in home design? In my opinion Rogue one actually ruined this aspect of a new hope, not fixed it. It took a message of the cocky empire being so bloated that they couldn’t see what was right underneath them to a stupid saboteur doing some thing for his daughter? Yet still building the whole whole thing? It just made it overly convoluted and neutered the message.
He only finished as explained in the movie because if he didn't someone else would replace him and that someone wouldn't try to make a way to destroy the thing.
The thing about calling Star Wars for kids is not the insult people think it is Things that were made for kids in the 70's and 80's... were more adult or at least didn't talk down and hide things from kids, and more layered than media made for kids today where things are overly sanitized thinking kids won't get some things or be too scared by it... you got away with a lot more back in the old days in media for families.
That actually makes sense! Prequels too weren't always child friendly in this day's standards, but I can see aspects in them that were intended for the child audience such as Jar Jar Binks.
This plot hole isn’t one that diminishes the plot of the film. It feels like a human error on the part of the characters rather than a massive oversight by the writing of the film.
Like who would have thought a random X wing could get passed all the trench turrets and fire a protons torpedo perfectly into the exhaust port hitting the right spot to chain reaction explode the entire station? Also if anyone says that Luke shouldn't have been able to make that shot. Two things, someone tried before him, shot it inside yet missed the right spot and failed to do anything, Luke needed to fully himself to the Force and allow it to guide his hands and then he took the shot. If anything he didn't even do it himself if you wanna be technical, the force aimed and he pulled the trigger. if if wasn't for the force he wouldn't have been able to even do it. So who could have even thought about this being a possibly when thinking about weak spots? No one really could have prepared for what happened.
I think a good example of why the OG is liked so much more than the sequels is the fact that in ANH George didn’t have Luke fighting Darth Vader and WINNING after just picking up a light saber for the first time. Without the Rey/Kylo fight, I really liked The Force Awakens and was excited for the rest of the trilogy. Obviously it went downhill from there until it hit rock bottom at “Somehow Palpatine has returned.”
I always thought Leia should have gone to Dantooine and found the tracker, left it there and gone to Yavin. Would have been an epic spit in the face to Tarkin.
As someone in the military, I have to give my two cents. If Leia did suspect the tracker it is extremely difficult to up and move a massive military base. You have personnel, vehicles, comm/ med equipment, spar parts and other supplies. In the film it seemed that the Death Star was closing in at a quick rate plus the rebels desperation to eliminate such a threat to galactic lives. If you want an example of how difficult a military pull out is, look to the US withdrawal of the Middle East. (Still hurts to bring it up.)
I think what you missed out when describing A New Hope was that at the time it was truly groundbreaking. It is so easy to not appreciate that back then there was nothing like this, everything sci-fi that has come out just wasn't on this scale and the special effects, whilst seeing very lame by today's standards, just aren't available back then, so much so that Industrial Light and Magic had to be created to have them in the movie. This and the fact that the characters were well developed, the story was in the most part believable, and the cast had such chemistry acting together that whilst watching it for the first time you were carried along with it and were so pulled into it that you didn't have time to pull it apart. The Last Jedi on the other hand just confused me as I was sat there in the cinema watching it (I haven't watched Rise of Skywalker and have no intention of doing so). Now of the sequel trilogy have us anything groundbreaking that we haven't seen before, the story doesn't have any nuance and I just don't care about the characters enough because you are given any time to really know who they are, and there feels no jeopardy whatsoever, especially with Rey, because you know they will all be fine, extent the legacy characters who you just knew they wanted to get rid of. The only recent movie that did pull me in was Rogue One, and I thought that would never be able to do it because basically you knew they were all going to die, and you knew it led directly into A New Hope. But it did, surprisingly enough, and at least we have that. Every movie if you pick it apart enough will have plot holes, it's impossible not to. There does need to be some suspension of belief, you just can't do this when I've character is an all powerful Mary Sue. Characters have to have flaws, they have to have weaknesses, if they don't no matter what the story is there will be no tension and it's basically paint by numbers.
The exhaust port thing is not a plot hole at all. The X-wing squadron all think it's impossible, "even for a computer." The Rogue One retconning of it as sabotage was totally unnecessary.
Another thing about the exhaust port is that they say right in the film several times that it’s a nearly impossible shot even for a computer add to that the number of trench runs we see in the battle also show how difficult such a thing is that the rebels are trying to pull off. In fact I don’t think Tarkin what is overconfident when refusing to evacuate I mean how could he have known that one of those relatively insignificant XWing‘s is being piloted by the son of the chosen one who has just enough training in the force and he’s being helped by the force ghost of the aforementioned chosen ones master.
I never had a problem with the vent as it wasn't known about without the plans. After all, the Death Star is the size of a small moon, and the vent is quite miniscule in comparison to the rest of the station's volume. You wouldn't be likely to notice it nor would you consider it a target without good reason. I also didn't have a problem with the storm troopers poor aim because as was stated in the video and movie, it was done on purpose. I hadn't thought of Leia's decision to go to the base since she knew they were being tracked nor the rebels premature celebration. I don't care about the prequel issues, they're after the fact, ironically. I still love the movie, and by the way, Chewie should have gotten a medal too.
I work for a church, and one day a couple weeks ago some ladies came and cleaned the gas ovens in our kitchen. The next day, someone started those ovens to preheat them and noticed some smoking. Eventually the smoke stopped in one oven, but the smoke actually got worse in the other. After setting off the fire alarms, they called me to come take a look. After noticing smoke coming from the broiler underneath, I opened the drawer to find that a towel had been left in there, and was now smoldering. On instinct, I grabbed the towel and ran out the back door. As I did, it caught some fresh air and burst into flame. Fortunately, I was able to get the towel out the back door with no damage to myself or the building. Later that evening, someone mentioned that I could have simply dropped the towel in a sink right beside the oven and turned on the water, instead of risking my right arm getting it out the door. In the moment, that thought never even occurred to me. My mind said, "fire bad, need out," and I went with it. The point is: in the heat of an intense moment one does not always have the luxury of thinking one's way through a problem, and one has to just DO something. Leia's decisions while escaping the Death Star, and after, after all the trauma she'd endured at the hands of Tarkin and Vader, could very well fall into this category. She may very well have thought: "However this ends, this ends now." Just my two cents.
Them returning to Yavin 4 with the knowledge they are being tracked is not a plot hole its the plan. She just watched her world destroyed and knew that the Empire would continue to destroy worlds forcing either the alliance to come out of hiding to try and stop it, someone with less nerve then her revealing the bases location to save their world, or the alliance crumble from fear. They had the plans and it was now or never. All she could do is hope they could pull it off.
I feel like the "bad designs" by the bad guys are not always as bad as we make them out to be. If it wasn't for Luke being able to fire that lucky shot using the force, the Death Star may have never been destroyed. How could the Empire actually have planned for that lol? Also, people call plot convenience on the oscillator on Starkiller Base on TFA. But we need to keep in mind that Starkiller Base had basically no weaknesses. Literally the only way to infiltrate it was to make a landing approach at lightspeed. And the Resistance had the one person crazy enough to attempt that in the rebel hero Han Solo. These types of "plot holes" are not so much plot holes. They're just cases of incredibly talented heroes exploiting a superweapons one and only weakness.
My issue with Starkiller Base was the entire concept was stupid for other reasons. Namely how wasteful it is. Just devour the sun of the system you want to destroy.
@@emberfist8347 Agreed. I'm not a big fan of the concept either. The sequels should've focused more on developing villains that could be intimidating without relying on superweapons.
I've known about the plot hole with the tracking device for a long time. Like others have said you could argue that Leia took a gamble of leading the Death Star straight to the Rebel base rather than disappearing because the Empire could have used the Death Star at other locations before the Rebels could launch an attack on it. A bit of extra dialogue in the scene where Leia says they let them get away would have fixed it though. Personally I don't really see it as a big issue. Leia used the Rebel base as too tempting of a bait to draw the Death Star out. Of course there's other discussions to be had like why didn't the Death Star have any Star Destroyer's acting as escorts? Having the Death Star without any escorts would be like leaving a air craft carrier all by itself which no navy would ever do.
Not really it isn't it just uses low hanging fruit that often misses how the movie explains things. Like from the same video having Tarkin order the Death Star to blow up a gas giant when the design only works on rocky planets. Or how their Lord of the Rings video does the Eagles thing that is quite clearly explained to anyone who has read the books or pays attention. Sauron's forces has archers they would be shooting down the Eagles before they got close.
It's a plot hole due to the film being re-edited to make it more exciting. In the original version the death start doesn't know where the base is and isn't threatening it when they attack the death Star. It was changed in the edit to make the empire find them and threaten the base to make it more exciting as a film.
A real world design flaw in the WW2 B-29 Superfortress was that inadequate engine cooling would result in engine fires--and engine fires downed most of the B-29's lost.
Having seen ANH in 1977, I can say that most everyone in the theater was too engrossed in the story to think of plot holes. Honestly, you can see holes in most movies after years of watching them. To address your plot holes: 1. I'm sure there are a lot of R2 units that are blue and silver color. He had not see R2 in probably 20 years, and we know that Kenobi was not really a 'droid guy' from what he's said in other shows. He may have simply been cautious as R2 could have been captured and have been a trap to find him as well. R2 tends to know when to keep his mouth (or speaker?) shut, but he certainly knew where Kenobi was living when he set off alone. Obi-Wan assuming Organa had wiped R2-D2's memory is quite logical as well. 2. The exhaust port was the ONLY ONE leading to the main reactor. Death Star One was 99 Miles wide at its equator. That is a lot of real estate and it only had ONE exhaust port. Think about that and you'll see the proverbial needle in a haystack. The port was only a bit over 6 and a half feet wide. Armed with thousands of laser turrets, TIE Fighters protecting it and shields as well, a single 6 and a half foot wide exhaust port could be overlooked. It didn't have any grate over it, but we learn later that was probably defect by design, but even not factoring that in, it clearly was no big plot hole. The rebels had to pour over the plans for the DS to even find it. It seems logical. 3. Now the tracker is indeed a tougher nut to crack. Leia suspected they were being tracked, and they were. So why didn't the Falcon just go someplace else ? Well, first, the DS could travel in hyperspace -- we tend to forget that-- though its hyperdrive (class 4) was not as effective as the Falcon's, there is the possibility that the DS could have simply jumped out of hyperspace while the Falcon was waiting for a rendezvous with a rebel ship and started firing. There are thousands of Imperial ships and only one Millennium Falcon trying to avoid them with a tracker on it. Leia had just seen her home planet destroyed before her eyes, so she knew the DS could keep it up, taking out other planets that favored the rebellion. If they'd rerouted the plans and waited, whole other planets and maybe even star systems could have been destroyed. They didn't know until the plans were analyzed if there was indeed a way to destroy it, but let's face it, if they didn't stop it, there would not be a rebellion in a matter of days. I think they had to risk it and perhaps it was actually part of a plan -- the DS would probably go after the rebel base and that would pull it away from attacking other worlds. The rebel base was the bait. They knew that it was all over if they failed to stop it, so they played it out right then. They just had to take the risk or other worlds would be destroyed. As to why they didn't evacuate Yavin 4 immediately following the destruction of the DS could be because they had not scouted out a suitable replacement base yet. They could of course have just roamed in space, but maybe they figured the shock of the loss of the DS would take a few days to get a response from Palpatine.
There was more than exhaust port General Dodonna says their target is right below the main port and there are 12 trenches similar to the one the Rebels enter in the movie. That is 13 ports and only one they target. There wasn't a grate but only because that defeats the point of an exhaust port. You don't put a grate on the end of the tailpipe of your car.
I thought the plot hole in Star Wars is how the Millennium Falcon surprised everyone involved in the trench run on the Death Star. Nobody from Luke, Darth Vader, Yavin Base, or the Death Star saw the Falcon approaching on radar?
This is another case where watch order certainly helps. Assuming that a viewer watches A New Hope first, they probably don't question the decision not to evacuate immediately after destroying the Death Star too much because they don't know anything about the logistics and plausibility of such an evacuation (how many people and ships would need to be moved, how much time and effort that would take, if there's another friendly planet where the rebels could go, etc.) since they don't see such an operation until the next movie. The audience is very much still learning as they go how the show's universe (or galaxy in the case of Star Wars) operates at that point.
And why evacuate when there is no immediate threat? You have time as the Death Star was the only Imperial presence in the system. Vader would take time get to Imperial territory and come back with a fleet to attack.
Also people have become acustomed (due to a lot of recent lazy writing) to thinking hyperspace is WAY faster then it's ever actually shown to be in the OT. Yavin is remote and it's reasonable to conclude that the nearest Imperials might be days away from reaching it after the DeathStar was destroyed so long as Tarkin did not send any other ships to follow the Falcon which is reasonable as Takin wants to destroy the Rebel base personally with the DeathStar, nor is it even established that other Imerial ships are even capable of following the tracker on the Falcon.
There are also some plot holes in ESB: Luke on Dagobah training with Yoda suddenly feels his friends Han & Leia are in grave danger in the hands of the Empires and decides to go and save them although his training is not over. So far all seems good, he's force sensitive, he can feel the suffering of the people he cares about (such as Anakin did towards his mother and Padme). But the plot hole lies here: how on Earth could he guess where in the Galaxy Han & Leia were after the battle of Hoth where all the fleeing rebels were scattered all around? I mean the force told him that they were on Bespin and that he should set for this place? That's not how the force work! (Or else Vador would have been able to track just by using the force all the jedis that escaped order 66, Yoda included, without have to mount an Inquisitor division, not to say he could have tracked Luke throughout the Galaxy without having to set a plan to lure him on Bespin...) That was a plot hole I noticed way back in the 90's and I really was expecting that for the special reeditions of 97, Lucas would fix this issue, having lets say, the Empire broadcast a holographic message on a rebel frequency telling them that General Leia and Captain Solo were held prisonner on Bespin, and that if Captain Skywalker wasn't willing to surrender ASAP, they would be executed. R2 would have received the message while Luke was training on Dagobah just as he was feeling his friends in suffering. He would then show the holographic message to Luke just before the scen where he 'd decide to leave his training to save his friends. That's what kinds of baffles me with the special editions: Lucas seemed to want and rectify some minor effects when he had the possibility to implement way more content in his movies in order to rectify plot holes, or even expand the general plots.
My favorite plot hole (or inconsistency at least) is the Anoat system. Leia asks Han where they are, while hiding on the hull of an ISD, and he answers "Anoat system". Question is, how did they get there? They were in the Hoth system, and had a broken hyperdrive. Getting to another system would take ages. So they shouldn't even have to ask the question.
He actually Anoat Sector which was region in the galaxy Hoth is located in as is Bespin. The ship had a back-up hyperdrive but only one good for short trips not good when you want to escape the Empire.
That exhaust shaft? Any attack at the Death Star would usually be answered by drowning the attack in TIE Fighters. Only Tarkin's pride in his toy made him not to do that. Only the few TIE's under the command of the one officer Vader gave the command to were launched. Going to Yavin/not evacuating The Empire knows that the Rebellion has the plans. They could give the Death Star a fleet of Star Destroyers and other ships as an escort, making an attack impossible even with the entire Rebel fleet attacking. Additionally the Empire would treat any inviting target as a possible attack. They don't need the Death Star to wipe out the Rebellion if they provide the Empire with a target. Which brings up my last point. The Death Star would be a moving target which can move at the whim of it's commander. Good luck finding it in time to mount an attack. Not to mention that it could simply run away if none of the options above apply. Meanwhile the Empire could demand that all Rebel cells surrender or the Death Star would blow up their planet. They demonstrated the willingness to do so at Alderaan (they can spin those news). Face it, as long as the Death Star was operational the Rebellion was finished. Sure, more people would probably love to rebel than before after Alderaan, but what do you do if you see the Death Star over your planet? Yavin was a risky move, but chances are it was the only chance they got. If they hadn't found a weakness in time they would have had time to at least evacuate the personal, even if they had to leave the equipment behind.
The Exaust port is an issue in that 1) their is not a simple grading that would let gass out but prevent a warhead from penetrating, and 2) That Dodona find the flaw in such a short time. Insertion of easy hand-held ubiquitous super-luminal communication in the expanded universe and prequels makes Leia's actions worse, the OT and particularly RotJ actually imply that their is no means of communication faster then simply traveling to a location atleast for normal people who don't have a Super Star Destroyer. Palpatine and Vader are the only ones seen to use true long distance communication. And the fact that Leia is actually physically carrying the plans means that even the CR-90 lacks this kind of long range communication thus it's out of the question for the Falcon. Still it's dumb of her to go to Yavin rather then a lower priority rebel location where a quick change of ship could be made. A possible resolution might be what Han was willing to do (He not Leia decides where they go, a key point most poeple fail to take into account), did he insist on going to a place where he would get his reward and be done with the whole affair? I can certainly see him refusing to let Leia just move to another ship while he gets persued and recaptured by the Imerials due to the tracker being in the Falcon. Did Han search the Falcon and think he had found/disabled the tracker and then reassure Leia only to be wrong? If Leia wants the Imperials to follow her so as to ambush them, why even tell Han about the tracking device, she already clearly holds him in contempt at this point and he might do something stupid or rash to try to eliminate the tracker.
There are a few problems with your claims. 1. Having a grating on an exhaust port defeats the purpose. You don't put grating on a tailpipe for a reason. 2. Dodonna had time to look over the plans the Death Star is slow through hyperspace. 3. The Empire had a monopoly on long-range communications in the OT. 4. The reason Leia was carrying the plan was that she had to give them to R2-D2. She took them from the main computer when they were boarded. And the mission she was on was also to get Obi-Wan's help. It was the entire reason she was over Tatootine. 5. Han wouldn't change ships.
I actually have a theory about this I call "Leia's Gambit". With her home planet destroyed she didn't want the same to happen to other worlds, so she focused the empire's attention on the rebels instead. I think she probably believed they had the best fighting chance against the Death Star, and being the same age as Luke he wasn't the only one who may have felt a little more invincible than he actually was. But then again, being the daughter of Annakin her actions could also have been influenced by the will of the Force. It seems pretty interesting that she unknowingly meets her father and then her brother on the Death Star, immediately after which she and Luke devise and execute a strategy to blow it up. Maybe the Death Star was just too much of a threat to the Force so it was destined to be destroyed, one way or another. I'm not sure where Yavin IV is in comparison to Alderaan (which is thereabouts where the Death Star was at the time of capturing the Millennium Falcon), but if it didn't have lightspeed capability it'd have to slog over to the Yavin system instead of potentially destroying other worlds.
Trying to make sense of plot gaps/inconsistencies is fun but can also be a bit unhealthy for nerdom. We want to defend the things we love but call similar shit out for missing things of things we don't like. Makes us seem hypocritical, we can do all these mental gymnastics to create semi-plausible explanations but we refuse to do the same for things we don't care for as much, but we blast the fans of those properties for things we would do for overjustifying clearly oversights in writing.
Except the things that are don't have plot holes only thing people who have second hand knowledge think are plot holes due to cultural osmosis. A more recent example is The Dark Knight Rises where everyone claimed it was a plot hole that Bruce Wayne made it back to Gotham in time despite having no money and no resources. Except that assumes the movie takes place in a vaccum and he never been anywhere without his wealth before. We are introduced to Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins in a Chinese prision as he is walking the Earth with nobody knowing he is Bruce Wayne at all and in The Dark Knight, he calls in favors from a man in Arizona for a Fulton STARS and South Korean Smugglers to get in and out of Hong Kong undetected. So he has done it before in two movies it is easy to deduce he did again for the third movie.
Some people are hypocritical that way. But that doesn't mean we should not care about consistency in writing. It just means we should accept valid explanations for all franchises and not be hypocrites. Where does Thor Skywalker mock others for caring or finding legitimate explanations? Simply refusing to turn one's brain of and thinking about the writing beyond shallow "well it seems off to me so it must be a contradiction" is not the same as mental gymnastics.
I still like my own head conon theory for the oddities we see in episodes 456789... That is... They are technically a different timeline from the story Disney is telling. And it happened the moment Ezra stepped into the world between worlds. So, while 4-9 are still in the Star Wars Universe, the timeline is slightly different.
Maybe The Empire is just incompetent? That's a good enough excuse for me. How else could a group of a few thousand people topple a galactic-wide empire?
By taking out the head. Palpatine was smart but like all dictators his big flaw is he clings to power. He left no plans in case he died so the Empire fell apart. Also by Return of the Jedi and even before the Rebel Alliance was faction that was almost as big as the Empire or at least it well within the billions.
Well this movie is still my favorit. Probably cause it was the first one I saw and got to see it 100 of times since. There are things aa you mention that are a bit "plot holie" But when Obi-Wan first see R2 he says something like "Hello my friend, don't be afraid" and R2 beeps. I have decided that they say hi and don't want the others to know. Obi-Wan wasn't that attached to droids as Anakin or Ahsoka. Next the bad shooting/aiming from the stormtroopers. Already as a kid I understood that they missed on purpose. So they could track them. Today it feels only Taika Waititi hasn't understood that. So he had to put it in his episode of Mando. When it comes to this decision of going back to Yavin 4. First I believed it was because that they would fight the deathstar with all they got. But that is a big miss since they had no plan yet. But the great thing is that the story is timeless and it's so well made, and of course the music. So the small flaws doesn't matter. This movie is my to go movie to get the Star wars feeling back. After I watched or hear anything about TLJ for example
Great arguments, Thor. I've argued these points in the past. I agree about Leia heading straight to the rebel base...bad idea, bad idea. I think a lot of people expect too much out of these films in the modern day. I like Flash Gordon...it's fun, flashy and enjoyable to watch. But what makes it great is it has a great moral message. And that's what is lost in modern film, the moral messaging. We are being handed a shitty nihilistic message in most of modern Star Wars. And most of the characters are highly unlikeable. I think one of the greatest successes of The Mandalorian is the relationship between Mando and baby Yoda. The failure of Kenobi was what they did to his character. They made him into a loser. Disney Star Wars does not understand the heart and soul of Star Wars. th-cam.com/video/ToOwALsME1A/w-d-xo.html . Disney Star Wars has no soul.
i think she simply didnt expect that the Death Star would be able to jump to hyperspace and keep up with them. at best she expected that a few ships would follow, not the entire station, and that they could fight their way out if need be. as for not escaping you can explain it in many ways, maybe they didnt have any transport ships on stand by. or maybe most of the people were already on board and evacuating off screen while a few volunteered to stay behind to monitor the situation and when the Death Star blew up they got back on the planet. all in all its not a plot hole too big that you can't come up with a theory on why things went that way. unlike the holes in the Disney trilogy where no matter how hard you may squeeze your brain you can't find a rational justification for any of it.
Well, perhaps she is weighing the risks. She hopes a weakness can be found to destroy the Death Star. If they can get back to the base and analyze the plans before the Death Star shows up on their doorstep, they have a chance of destroying it. If they can't destroy it, then well, the galaxy is doomed anyway, so the Rebel base being destroyed won't matter much at that point. The exhaust port. . .go back and listen to the two guys arguing in the conference room just before Tarkin and Vader walk in. That explains it all. I'm reminded of that argument every time someone complains about the lack of security at any Imperial base. I don't know why Imperial warships would be coming out of hyperspace any minute during the celebration ceremony. Did the rest of the fleet even know where the Death Star was? How would they have known it was blown up? Remember Tarkin's reaction when the subordinate tells him that a weakness has been found and suggested they evacuate? "Evacuate, in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances." So, I doubt Tarkin let anyone else know where they were or what was going on in case the Rebels managed to blow up the Death Star. And remember it was brand new. Tarkin tells Leia that she has inadvertently determined the first planet that it would blow up. So, how many Imperials even know about it to LOOK for it or wonder what happened to it?
One thing about A New Hope is that it was the first movie, so there was lots of world building, from Luke's POV. He and others should have remembered Jedi and the Force, but the first movie had to explain that to the audience.
Luke was living on a backwater planet and the only Jedi he knew was a crazy hermit his aunt and uncle didn’t want him to hang out with. He was born the day after the order was destroyed by Vader. Han also didn’t meet any Jedi and at best heard some stories that a cynical person like him would dismiss as tall tales told by spacers in the dark corners of a Cantina to impress each other or stories from crazy hobos in dark alleyways hiding from the Empire.
The thing is, I can look past plot holes in movies if the characters are well developed and the story is fun and makes sense. Lots of movies these days lack even that basic criteria.
Funny how that works. I can look past nearly anything if the characters and general story are good/enjoyable. But if the characters are bad, I'll notice every other little problem with the film.
@@thorskywalker Absolutely. I'd even go as far as to say I actively start looking for reasons to amplify how bad it is. "That shirt's not even pressed!"
@@PixelKatana lol
To be fair, so did a lot of movies back then; we tend to forget about them with time (because they were - literally - forgettable)
@@lhiugtk Got the message, too. I didn't respond. So that's what you 'get'?
It is impressive what George was able to do with what little he had back then. This goes to further demonstrate how creatively bankrupt the Disney trilogy was. They had all the resources, time, money, talent they could ever need and how they squandered all of it so miserably remains a mystery to me.
Did you say they had talent? I don't think so.
Leia made a judgment call. She decided that destroying the Death Star as soon as possible was worth risking the rebel base. Tarkin already showed that he was willing to blow up any planet he felt like, so who knows what would have happened if she delayed any longer? And while she assumed they were being tracked, she didn’t know for sure. I don’t know if I would make the same choice, but I wouldn’t call her decision stupid.
Yeah. If they had gone to a random planet to transfer the plans, who is to say that the Empire would not have gone ahead and blown up the planet on general principle? Or if they lost the beacon (i.e. Millenium Falcon just racing from one edge of the galaxy or something), Tarkin might say: "Right then, set the course for Mon Cala. Fried calamari, coming right up."
Also, if the weakness had NOT been found, maybe the Rebel Base would have been evacuated at that point, before Death Star would show up.
It is a plot hole, but one that you can kind of squint and ignore in the service of the story.
it's actually not a plot hole - she knew the empire needed bait. if they tried to juke the empire they might not be able to rally the fleet in time to destroy it. she had to bring the death star to them.
It was a calculated risk. And Leia's OT personality would NOT let her stand by while innicents suffered. She used the base as bait for a trap. A high stakes gamble that paid off.
And regarding Obi Wan and R2, I always like to refer to the statement: "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Since R2 was never his and R4 most likely was the property of the Jedi Order or GAR, that statement holds true and it is basically hiding the truth while not lying
Follows the "from a certain point of view" idea. ;-) He was just BSing Luke mostly.
@@glenn_r_frank_author Well, Luke did ask if he was Obi Wan's droid. Nothing is wrong with just answering the question and not expanding on it. I just love that this is a favourite example and people always tend to forget what he exactly said and that he did say the truth
@@glenn_r_frank_author No he wasn’t ever BSing. In universe everyone considers Anakin Skywalker dead including Vader himself. As for R4-P17 he was Jedi Temple property because the Jedi don’t approve of personal attachments not just love but any similar of attachment so their stuff is often collectively owned.
@@Hendricus56 And not even his certain point of view in Return of the Jedi was false. Even Vader believed Anakin Skywalker was dead as made clear later in the movie when he claims the name means nothing to him.
I dunno, would Kenobi recognize a particular mech droid his friend used 20 years ago, just because it was the same shape, and color scheme?
The exhaust port I never seen it as a plot hold, It was even for shadow in the scene were Vader was in the room with the other generals. He told them that no matter how powerful this technological terror is it is still no match for the power of the force, and what we get is Luke using the force to guide the shot into the port destroying the Death Star. It is a lesson in hubris
And it makes sense. You need to dissipate waste heat somehow. An exhaust port is something on most cars not a thing made for the movie.
If anything, the architect in Rogue One being a Rebel mole who intentionally set up that weakness is the plot hole. Why did Galen Erso design that flaw to have only a one in a million shot that basically needed a Jedi to do it? Why not make the exhaust port even bigger? Like big enough to fit an X-Wing into it? And the walls of the shaft magnetically sealed like the trash compactor so that shots that miss would ricochet and the walls angled so that they would direct the ricocheted blasts into the reactor? If the Empire was full of people who underestimate small ships, that more obvious flaw in the design would slip by them.
@@SeanWheeler100 It actually wouldn't. I am pretty sure someone who wants to cut corners would ask why you need to magnetically seal the exhaust port shaft for this one port instead of doing something that wasn't as expensive.
@@emberfist8347 Okay then. Just make the exhaust port big enough for a small one-man fighter to fly into. A big exhaust port wouldn't be too suspicious. Especially when the Empire is so dumb, they have a computer terminal with security only checking known enemies, allowing Din Djarin's unknown face to get in! Whoever designed that terminal in The Mandalorian Season 2 has got to be a Rebel mole, because what kind of security system lets unknown people in? Seriously. That was even worse than the exhaust port which was competently designed despite the architect being a Rebel.
@@SeanWheeler100 The terminal still required a passcode. Also the Exhaust wasn't that big because as mentioned in the movie it was a secondary exhaust port.
I always figured that Bail had 3PO's memory wiped was because protocol droids (and this one in particular) have a hard time keeping their mouths shut; something was bound to spill. Whereas R2 is not going to be readily translatable by just anyone overhearing him and that he seems to be more discreet with whom he confides in. Of the two, R2 is much more likely to resist interrogation whereas 3PO is likely to sing like a canary.
Yep that is how the characters are painted in the EU. C-3P0 is a neurotic and flighty droid while R2-D2 is a silent snarky little foul-mouthed droid.
3P0 is a talker and a complainer, whereas R2 is "ride or die"
"If you can't take someone criticizing something you love, you probably shouldn't then criticize things other people love." Thor Skywalker ... My new email signature quote.
Throughout the movie the empire is trying to find the rebel base. Leia knows this since Tarkin interrogates her. Had the rebels just gone and attacked the Death Star, it could have just hyperspaced away. Instead, Leia lead the Death Star to the rebel base to give them an irresistible reason to stay, even with the potential danger of the rebel attack.
But...they went to Dantooine before Yavin.
I think the better explanation is that the Rebels WERE on Dantooine and Leia knew that, but also knew they weren’t there anymore
It's an interesting plot hole, which maybe could be justified by Leia not knowing the method by which they would be tracked. Without knowing the method of tracking, she may have considered it impractical to try and throw it off.
Another possible out is if there was more than one Rebel base out there, and Leia just didn't bother revealing this fact to anyone. The Rebel base at Yavin was, Leia calculated, big enough to be plausible bait but still ultimately expendable.
And the thing that was tracking them was a very stealthy droid not a static beacon.
No need to invent some other base that might exist. it's much simpler; Leia knew she had enough time to get the attack under way, and that was all that mattered. Could she have lost the Rebel Base and everyone in it including herself: YES. But that was secondary to launching the attack while the opportunity existed. 'All or nothing' moments happen really a lot in war, and time and again heroes go for it, consequences be damned. It's why they become heroes.
I'd go with the second alternative, or that maybe that rebel base was the only actual base with a bigger group of rebels concentrated in one place, but that the rebellion had a lot of other operatives and resources scattered around in small groups or even as individuals in hiding, ready to get together and create another base and fighter group if the one bigger group and base they had got wiped out.
Watching the movie again recently, I was also struck by the stupidity of the rebels fighting when the Empire boards at the beginning. Yes, presumably they'd all be executed if just surrending. But their probability of dying if they fight was 100% anyway. The one path they had was their cover story of escorting Leia on her supposed diplomatic mission, which is the story she herself tried to use. But that story cuts even thinner when upon the ship getting captured they all setup and blast the boarding storm troopers. Let alone that the ship was fighting at all. Again that size cruiser having zero chance against the star destroyer. If they wanted to use the "diplomatic mission" story, the only, albeit slim, path to that working would have been to not fight at all. Even ship to ship, let alone when boarded. Further, if true that, as stated, the Senate would be upset when they found out the empire was holding Leia, by choosing to overtly fight, they gave the empire the excuse they would have needed in her having her ship overtly attack back. And thus a reason to arrest her given all the dead empire army members, etc. Etc. Again, that reaction of attacking when the Empire ostensibly just wanted to search her ship gave them all the excuse they needed to hold her. If the police want to legally search your car, and you start shooting at them, doesn't matter if you're the President of the United States, you're going to get arrested.
Further, Leia could not have known the Senate would be disbanded. And resistance was futile anyway. So they should have just acted like nothing was up. (Yes, I know Rogue One makes the above not quite applicable as they were fleeing in the first place. But, again, just talking this movie in isolation with the story at the time.)
Of course, the opening scene would have been much less engaging if just Star Destroyer pulling up and storm troopers amiably boarding and beginning a search with no resistance, etc. But, still. :-) -Daven
A friend and I discussed Leia leading the Empire right to the rebel base immediately after saying she knew they were being tracked, on a bus ride home from the theatre, in the summer of 1977. That was always an obvious problem in the story line, but easy to overlook for a couple 14-year-old geeks who ultimately, at least in my case, saw the movie 6 times that summer. The movie was so incredibly overwhelming that we had no problem giving it a break.
Now, as for the exhaust port. The Death Star is the size of a small moon, made from scratch. To think that there may not be a single, solitary flaw in its construction is unrealistic. As the General states in the briefing, the Empire never envisioned being attacked by such small fighters, and therefore we can feel certain that all attack scenarios by larger vessels were addressed by the engineers of the Death Star. Imagine there is a way to blow up the United States and you don't know what it is, or where it might be that must be attacked, and you end up finding a 2-meter hole in northeastern Arkansas where natural gas that originates in the Rocky Mountains is venting from. You then realize if you fire a small torpedo at the perfect angle into that hole, it will set off a chain reaction that will initiate eruptions in rapid succession throughout the entire mountain chain, obliterating the entire 48 contiguous states. That's what the Death Star engineers overlooked, and the rebel engineers were able to discover. Like Han said, "One in a million".
Here's the thing, if you weren't there in 1977, you CAN NOT understand how that movie effected people, particularly 12-16 year old boys. THERE WAS NOTHING LIKE IT. No other Star Wars movie had the effect that the first one did. There was excitement and anticipation for all of them since, but it's impossible to explain what it was like walking out of that theatre the first time you viewed Star Wars. The visual spectacle was beyond anything ever presented before (even 2001: Space Odyssey) and the story was clean and refreshing with the good guys winning in dramatic fashion. You could forgive ALOT!!
Agreed, nothing like it existed before. Those that weren't there will never understand the magnificence of this movie
The death star and his exhaust port reminds me of the giant Achilles in the greek literature. He was also nearly invincible, but had a weakness too. Therefore i dont mind the exhaust port in the death star.
And it makes sense. The Death Star needs to vent exhaust somehow. And the thing is defended in the movie but the way weapons in Star Wars work the exhaust port couldn't protected from Proton Torpedoes as then it wouldn't work as an exhaust port.
Seeing as how the internet didn't exist (for all intents and purposes) in 1977, I have no idea how much of a fuss people made about the so-called plot-hole of the Death Star having a design flaw, but I bet it was much less of a fuss. As time goes by, people *want* there to be plotholes and problems in the writing of the original trilogy. Whether to be contrarian, to defend the prequels and sequels, or whatever else, the OT gets held up to a standard thta isn't even valid.
In the case of the exhaust port, it's like you say: the achille's heel is a thing. And in this case, Achilles is so big that, if not actually they size of a moon, is at least so big as to be mistaken for one. It is a space ship - a man-made motor vehicle - that is so big it takes fighter jets several minutes to go from one point to another along the surface. It vastly surpasses any mechanical structure we could ever imagine on Earth.
The fact that it would have one small, easily defended design flaw in a 2-meter port (out of probably thousands or more) is not a plot hole. Heck, if anything, it's questionable that they couldn't find *more* flaws like it.
It reminds me of beverly hills cop when he puts the bananas in the tailpipe.
BINGO
Achiles was not a giant, he was a normal sized man just invincible except for his heel.
"This is an awful risk Vader, this had better work." Vader has always been one to take risks to get things done. Leia is Vader's daughter.
Let's not forget George started writing this story in 1973 and released it in 1977. The greatest thing about SW is it is an original story unlike so many of the other big IPs that were taken from the comics or a book. You did a good job of explaining that this was a stand alone movie that George didn't know if he would be able to tell the rest of the story until it was successful and it was written for a 12 year old boy as the audience, a fun space opera movie.
The tracking back to the rebel base is a clear weakness in the script. It could have been improved by adding a bit of dialogue along the lines of: "We must make our final stand now and hope for the best before it targets another innocent world. Urgency is key"
Not the best attempt at explaining it away perhaps but it could have helped to make a bit more sense of Leia's decision.
No it isn't lol
Have you tried evacuating a major city? It isn't easy.
th-cam.com/video/olqVGz6mOVE/w-d-xo.html
I remember in 1977 when "Star Wars" came out, George Lucas said one of the things he was trying to do was create a story like the old serials ("Flash Gordon", "The Lone Ranger"), and the sense of adventure and excitement he felt as a kid.
When you tell a story, there are many branches to go down, each one creating a new plithole. However, to complete the syory the teller wants to tell, suspension of disbalief is required.
Coming off "American Graffiti", he was unsure if people would like it. Luke's hero journey is a compelling story, and Lucas made some beloved characters. I still have a place in my heart for the original, and the non-cgi, mat screen error version. I still want Luke's speeder.
That was a hole that I noticed ever since How It Should Have Ended pointed it out. There was a part in that video where they had General Dodonna point out that they could've just transferred the plans to the rebel base instead of landing there. It's definitely a good point and is clearly there so then we could fear for the rebels' safety when they blow up the Death Star. But thankfully, it doesn't really bother me, the climax is still super intense, and just all around great.
We don't know that they could have done that.
I'm going to quote Nerdonymous here, "The Imperials have a homing beacon on the Falcon. The Rebels however do not have a homing beacon on the Death Stat and the Galaxy is a big place. If the Rebels are going to attack the Death Star and destroy it, they need to know where it is. And when they attack, in the event the Imperials analyze their attack and discover there is a danger, the Imperials need a good reason to stick around. Otherwise they would just slip off into hyperspace. A good reason like an irresistible target. The Rebel base for example. So the Rebels make themselves the target to lure the Death Star in and keep it there long enough for there plan to succeed.
It does make sense. In fact it makes perfect sense. See coming up with a criticism like this one [HISHE] without thinking it through, it doesn't make you clever. It just makes you look like a fool to the 5% of Star Wars fans who aren't a bunch of gullible idiots.
Sorry that was a bit harsh. If you fell for that criticism, don't beat yourself up. I mean you only had 43 years to think about it."
History comparison, think how long it took the British to find the Bismarck and how she slipped away from them before getting found one last time and locking her rudder in one direction that allowed the British Navy to arrive and take her out.
Now take the Atlantic Ocean, make it a million times bigger, and instead of having the Resources of the British, you had resources more on par with the Polish Resistance.
Does having the information in destroying the Death Star even matter if you don't even know where it is? Or even have a Rebel Cell fully prepared to take on the task when it is near them?
People are really surface level when it comes tactics and strategy.
"Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics."
@@strategicperson95 Another example of HISHE not thinking critiques through is that in the same video they have Tarkin blow up Yavin instead of trying to wait for Yavin 4 to be in visual range. The problem with their idea is that Yavin is a gas giant not a rocky planet so they can’t blow it up. Another example is their Captain America First Avenger video joking about how the bombs were labeled in English. They are actually the same spelling in both English and German due to being American cities that have the same root language.
@@strategicperson95 almost a great comment except for the bit of arrogance at the end. I don’t get why many times people with great insight feel the need to reflect poorly on themselves by putting other people down or coming off all high and mighty. Sharing knowledge is its own accolade, what are you trying to accomplish by shaming random strangers you’ve never met? I can tell you what you’re doing in reality, you’re making people less likely to be interested in the stuff you almost hooked them with. Now they’re saying “well I don’t want to come off as a pretentious asshole like that guy”
@@bigblue207 My reaction to Nerdnonymous: "I want to come off like a pretentious asshole like that guy"
Vader rolled the dice to let Leia escape and she rolled the dice that they could analyze the plans before the Death Star could get there. Allowing the Empire to follow let them know where the Death Star would be, right where their fleet could do something about it. If they couldn't find a flaw, they could burn the base and run just like the did in the very next movie. Also, all the big ships may have been gone during the battle as we never see them. All we see is Leia and a few staffers on Yavin, where maybe she was willing to die b/c she just saw her whole world blow up.
Better than Rey flying the Falcon 10 seconds after showing us she almost wrecked it on takeoff, among a ton of other things.
Just rewatched it. Enjoyed it just as much, perhaps even more, because of everything that followed from it.
The only Star Wars movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
Only because the Oscars have a science fiction bias
@@emberfist8347 I have a feeling you're right, but can you name a lot of others?
The only ones that spring to mind for me are:
Arrival
Alien or Aliens
E.T.
2001 (I think)
Would Gravity count?
I'm basing this on the entire 80-90 year history of the Oscars. It doesn't seem like it to me.
Plus, some have said Star Wars is more science fantasy than science fiction, that science fiction tries to be closer to reality (like Arrival).
@@emberfist8347 I think there is a bias against sci-fi, however a few have been nominated for Best Picture other than Star Wars… such as Inception, Dune, Arrival, The Martian…
Wasn't Empire nominated as well?
@@Сайтамен Nope.
I think they could have thrown in a line which would have solved the "Leia" issue pretty easily. Like: Han: "If they are tracking us, why are we going back to the main rebel base?" Leia: "If they can't find the base, they will simply destroy planet after planet until someone gives up the rebellion. Hiding will just mean more innocents die. Our best chance is to get to our base, analyze the data, and throw everything we have at them."
They don't have to. The audience should be smart enough to figure out things like this because it's really very simple.
@@Ruylopez778 Sure, but I'm an internet doofus, not a screen-writer.
@@TheMinskyTerrorist That is a problem I have with modern cinema criticism. People need information spoon-fed to them at least critics do. The Dark Knight Rises faced the exact same type of complaints of people forgetting it is sequel and plot points from the prior films would hold answers they wanted.
I highly recommend EC Henry’s Video abut the exhaust-port. You‘ll notice (even before Roque one) it isn’t a plot hole at all! Luke probably even used the force to direct the missiles into this small port.
Those of us who went to see Star Wars in 1977, over and over again-which no one did for movies before that!-went to be wowed by the spectacle of that huge star destroyer and the villainy of Darth Vader, and of course light sabers! It is hard to look back now and realize how new and exciting those things were; and the striking novelty of a science fiction world that looked real and lived in. That was all. Beyond that it was what George Lucas wanted it to be: a Saturday morning serial movie, intended to thrill and excite, not to make a whole lot of logical sense. Transforming it into serious literature like LOTR was not the intent….
Who is transforming this in this serious literature?
It was always, I don’t wanna say silly, but let’s just say science fantasy. Which is inherently silly in terms of technology but not in terms of the characters and the human condition.
Lucas had 12 yr old boys in mind as his target audience - I was 13 yrs old when I saw Star Wars in '77. I LOVED THAT MOVIE!
I can almost hear patrick Willems: "This is a movie about space wizards intended for children"
There's a legendary niche Star Wars video on TH-cam called *How **_"How Star Wars was saved in the edit"_** was saved in the edit (sort of, but not really)* which explains Leia's decision as a necessary or at least plausible strategic decision instead of a plot hole.
Around the timestamps 1:17:00 - 1:20:00 you have the creator explain the choices. I think the crux of the reason Leia lures them to the base is that the longer the Empire is given, the more likely they are to find the weakness in the Death Star and defend it or evade the risk. Tarkin is told about the weakness during the battle, but the lure of the Rebel Base is too good and too close a prize to make him take it seriously and keeps the Death Star in place to be attacked.
If they hadn't gone to the Rebel Base, they would've left, found out about the weakness, done something about it, and if the rebels found the Death Star again any time soon, their attack would've failed and the Death Star reigns tyranny across the galaxy. The rebels were against the clock in every aspect, unless there was another way to assemble that fighter squadron to attack the Death Star at the exact same time and keep it around for the length of their attack, they would have failed. The plans they stole basically aged like milk.
I have always had a feeling that R2 is a physical manifestation of the will of the force. He has always pushes the story forward and knows more about everything then anyone else. He is the chosen droid
Was watching A New Hope the other day, and goodness. Firstly, the plot holes some fans point out (and maybe it's my personal bias talking) I just don't see.
I think the lore and stories were vague enough but specific enough that what ESB and RotJ added wasn't that much of a deviation.
Secondly, it is graphic! They burn jawa bodies, cut off hands, find corpses, among other things.
Thirdly, even though, yes the wooden dialogue and quality of the props would be bad by today's standards, the story and world building is cool. Also I like Lukas' effort to find/make cool locations.
Fourthly, Leia going straight to the Rebel base after escaping the Death Star rather than going to some other planet first was in my opinion a small price to pay to making the movie an okay length.
If they don’t get tracked, the Death Star will be likely moved to a place where they wouldn’t know
(A dangerous risk)
So the best option is to lead if directly to the rebel base with no apparent evacuation plan in place and just hope that the plans have a weakness that they don’t actually know for sure exists? That’s less risky?
@@roberthesser6402 a lot of hope
Maybe. But it doesn't matter where the Death Star is if the Rebellion is dead.
@@thorskywalker Rebellion isn't dead, this isn't the only base. Mon Mothma and Ackbar are somewhere else collecting numbers. They had their chance to destroy the Death Star (until tractor beam isn't fixed) and they took the risk.
True, but with the empire always looking for the rebellion and likely to send the Death Star once found, they could have leaked the location anytime later once they had a real plan. Not hoping they'd come up with one. Or even had the Falcon continue on while they transfered the plans to another ship. Analyze first, then if they come up with a plan fast enough where it doesn't look suspicious, have it divert to a fake rebel base where the rebel fleet is now waiting, assuming the Falcon was being tracked as she guessed. Doesn't need to be the actual rebel base. Just convince the empire it is. Either way, accomplishes bringing the Death Star. But only after a viable plan developed. And presumably with enough money involved, and considering he didn't think he was being tracked anyway, Han would have gone along with it.
The only downside to this is the delay might allow other planets to get blown up. But if no weakness could be immediately found, bringing them to the rebel base immediately would only serve to wipe out the rebels too and those hypothetical other planets destroyed anyway later if the empire wanted. -Daven
People also seem to forget how well protected the exhaust port was too, look at all those turbolasers, for example.
And the ray shields. That is litterally the best the Empire could do. They would use anything that blocked proton tropedoes as then you don't have a working exhaust port.
@@emberfist8347 Ah, I forgot about those, thanks.
Leia's isn't a plot hole as there CAN be an explanation. It's a plot gap.
I know you dismissed it, but I always assumed Leia was trying to draw the Death Star away from further civilians, and into their "turf". I actually have this come up in an RPG story.
The exhaust port had an energy field that was impervious to any kind of attacks except for proton torpedos. That’s why they used them. The general even says exactly that in the movie!
I watched the original trilogy a couple months ago for the first time. It felt... magical, like George Lucas had taken a Fantasy book and put it in Space. I never once thought of it being Campy, I say that it won its praise and while I don't watch many movies the modern ones are sorly missing out on what made these great. A New Hope certainly cemented the feelings of fantasy, Empire Strikes was the high point and wonderfully raised the stakes, Return of the Jedi was a satisfying conclusion that felt awkward at times (You probably know what those moments where).
I would have loved to have had the original and not the "Special Edition" but it was close enough and I found all of original scenes. At times I felt like that I could go back to the 70's/80's and see why it became so popular. The music, the pacing, the sutle immersion, the characters, the story never holded your hand, it flowed smoothly enough and gave enough information and time to absorb and know what the stakes were. The preparation for the attack on the 1st Death Star is one such scene, and it contrasts heavily to its modern copy. I have no deluded nostalgia to say that after watching a New Hope that the Force Awakens was a poor imitation that lacked what made the OT special.
The port is a "thermal exhaust port," so unless there is such a thing as the Death Star's reactor being too cold, there's little reason to close it. But even assuming it can be closed, you would not do so while the Death Star is preparing to fire its superlaser, as that is doubtless what places the highest load on the reactor.
Leia going directly to Yavin is an issue, yes. I don't know if I'd call it a plothole so much as bad script writing, since it could easily have been explained in dialogue the same as their escape was (say, if Leia was not willing to effectively point the Death Star at some other innocent world). Maybe Yavin was very remote, like Dantooine was, and didn't have any neutral stops/ships nearby anyway. Maybe Yavin was evacuating and couldn't spare anyone to rendezvous. It's entirely possible to explain, but it is true, the movie doesn't really bother to.
That's not to say the whole movie is ruined or doesn't hold up. Really, it's just suspension of disbelief so we can move on quickly to the big climactic battle. There's plenty of great movies out there where the protagonist has one or two moments of bad judgement, and the more recent projects that fans criticize are not criticized because one singular moment ruined an otherwise great story, that's an obvious false equivalency.
The Death Star was never a plot hole unlike what people think. The entire plot hole ignores that the Death Star needed these exhaust ports to begin with. A station that would big would generate a crap ton of heat that needed to be vented somehow hence the exhaust ports.
It's likely that the ending changed slightly during production. If I recall correctly, Lucas originally was going to have the Rebel fighters fly to where the Death Star was and attack it that way, but his wife suggested that the attack happen at Yavin for a more dramatic climax. If that is how that went down then it's possible that the tracking aspect was added to explain how the Empire would show up at Yavin. If they had already filmed the other scenes by that point it would have been too costly to film even more scenes to avoid that, and they were already strained budget wise as it was.
Now I don't know all the behind-the-scenes stuff about these movies, but I do know that given the restrictions they were dealing with, it's pretty amazing we got as good a film as we did.
No, that's what Rocketjump said happened(from his 'Star Wars Was Saved in the Edit' video), there's hints and implications in the film itself that the Death Star was always going to blow up the base when they found it, and Lucas himself shot the footage involving the countdowns with a second filming unit himself.
the concept that the Death Star was about to fire on the Rebel base on Yavin was created in the editing process to create more tension, wasn’t it? perhaps the there just wasn’t the footage available to create a Rebel evacuation plot… or maybe the scenes about the Empire tracking the Falcon to Yavin was added with reshoots?
No, according to 'The Making of Star Wars' the countdown on the Death Star and Rebel base was created by Lucas filming with the second unit, while Marcia also edited those scenes that were shot by Lucas.
It makes sense why they wouldn't think to wipe R2's memory, since Astromech droids can't speak.
5:20 well, I didn't expected this to be a problem to you, since you've always had quite wide and deep understanding of things many people often miss...
I've never considered exhaust port to be neither a huge plot hole nor a plot hole at all. And actually it was a surprise for me when I acknowledged that it's considered as such among the fans.
First of all, it not only _could_ have happened in reality, it _would_ happen, and in a much larger scale with a wide spectre of different flaws and imperfections that could be used for its destruction. Reason is: Death Star is an astronomicaly huge project. Here, on Earth, dramatically smaller military projects have a lot of flaws due to their complexity, resource management, and simple impossibility to predict every single attack scenario. The bigger the project is, the more people are involved in it's planning and construction, the more flaws and disadvantages it will _naturally_ have.
Secondly, in the movie itself it was heavily stated, that the plan of attack is not just hard: it was considered impossible and suicidal. Hole 2 meters by diameter, full speed of starfighters, f**king who knows how many hundreds of kilometers tunnel to the core, and constant fire from the station and other enemy forces. The attack itself was an act of desperation: either rebels do the impossible or they are all doomed. Also, when officer reported to Tarkin, he said "we analysed their attack, there is a danger", which does not sound as a admittance of a threat at all. "Danger" is not a "Sir, they surely gonna blow us up in a second!"
Thirdly, rebels actually failed at making this plan working. No one of them managed to hit this "plot hole" everyone suggests to be huge. And there were bunch of reasons. No one had even a glimpse of believe the plan would work, they were overwhelmed by listed above facts. The _only one_ who managed was Luke, who didn't think would or wouldn't the plan work, he just did what he could, _only_ with the Force by his side, and _only_ because Han saved him in the last moments. All of this is a sequence of happy events, all of this could easily fail.
So excuse me everyone, I DO NOT consider exhaust port thing as a plot hole. Too many arguments for me for thinking otherwise.
Finally, I was blown away when I realized that people cultivated this made up thingy to have a "Rogue-One" for its explanation. Even though I loved the movie, this fact bugs me. It is stupid, sorry.
The exhaust port being overlooked also makes sense in an organization where superiors kill their subordinates for making mistakes. That is a recipe for coverups.
It was also ray shielded.
I neither noticed nor cared about plot holes when I saw these films in theaters as a younger child nor when I WAS Lucas's target 12 year old boy. (STAY ON TARGET) It wasn't until later when VHS was a thing and I was able to watch over and over did they catch my attention. They bothered me a bit, but did not diminish my enjoyment of them.
I think the bigger plothole is actually destroying Alderaan. Ok, they do it so Leia gives up the location of the Rebels, which, as torture goes, she doesn't even - you can't rely on information obtained by torture.
But which purpose does it do to keep the population in the Empire in line? Leia was supposed to be dead already since her ship officially got destroyed in an accident over Tatooine, right? So there is no proof she was part of the Rebellion. So they can't even argue it's punishment to the whole planet because they allowed her to go rogue, apart from the fact that this sort of punishment works better with smaller communities (kill every 10th man from the street of an assassin because they knew the perpetrator was up to no good). Killing a whole planet with millions of your own citizens because one was probably up to no good is so obviously overly excessive that this should only invoke Rebellion. And again, they can't even tell anybody that story.
So wouldn't the Empire have to cover up Alderaan's destruction in the end?
It's too late, Disney killed it.
Rogue One didn't *fix* a plot hole with the exhaust port -- it *created* a plot hole with the exhaust port.
In the original Star Wars, this was an accidental design flaw that the Rebels found by looking at the plans. Rogue One has it as a deliberately-introduced flaw that, despite being easy to describe in a single sentence, isn't communicated that way.
The exhaust port was necessary part of the design even back in the original film where it is made clear that they are targeting one of the ancillary exhaust ports below the main one that is visible on the model used in the film and 13 total seem to exist based on the number of polar trenches on the model. So all he did was make one big enough to be targeted by a proton torpedo.
@@emberfist8347 The Rogue One plot hole is that he didn't just say "shoot a photon torpedo into one of these exhaust ports to blow up the station". Instead he told people he'd put a weakness into the design but not what it was.
@@danbongard3226 Because he was being monitored by the Empire and couldn't give too much away in his message. He was likely going to tell the Rebellion in person but that never happened due to outside circumstances.
Yep Rogue One is complete nonsense in this regard, the 'plans' are completly superflous with an intentionaly designed weakness that can be communicated so trivially.
@@emberfist8347 That rationale makes no sense at all, especially given how glaringly obvious the weakness was once someone looked at the plans -- both the Empire and the Rebels quickly find it once they look.
But we're expected to believe that, despite knowing there's a critical flaw in the Death Star, the Empire didn't bother looking? Silliness.
Rogue One is a fun action movie, but the plot is dumb as a bag of rocks.
I always saw it as a fun adventure film and glad that George made his film and all that came after them, and most films have some kind of plot holes if you watch them often enough you will find them.
One thing I would have liked is a bit more pain from losing Une Owen and Aunt Beru
Great video. Especially the explanation of the later Death Star Battle and Rebel Base "Plot hole" Yeah I think Lucas just opted for a dramatic story he didn't know any other movie would be made certainly not Rogue One or even the extent to how he'd show the empire in Episode V. Therefore an all or nothing battle made a lot of sense within the context we actually got in the first film. Then later as we are watching Empire and Return of the Jedi and seeing how much more the empire was... It doesn't make sense. I always think the whole thrown room scene is pretty hoaky and always have. IF the empire was still a threat they would have gotten out of dodge not given out medals lol. But still at the time... we had only seen 1 star destroyer... some tie fighters... one Death Star. I mean Lucas might have thought to himself. Oh this is a time of respite for the rebels. This was a super serious setback to the empire and no one could reach them for weeks. If that was the case. Maybe they threw a quick ceremony etc. But we all know now with the Star Wars Galaxy/World built out as it is that it would be unreasonable...
The Death Star was all they had in the area at the time it would take time to redeploy forces as everyone bar Vader was dead he was on his own with no long range communications.
This is one of my favorite movies, and I did notice the plotholes, but it didn't really distract from my enjoyment of the movie. Great video, Thor!
Great video, one of my favourite movies of all time, but the going straight to Yavin plot hole is one that has always bugged me!
I still don't think the film takes itself very seriously, even if it has more serious moments, but otherwise I completely agree with you, Thor! I actually never thought about the glaring tracker plothole, but I agree it doesn't diminish the film at all. A New Hope isn't even in the Top 3 of my favorite Star Wars films, but it's still a fantastic and iconic piece of cinema and quite an enjoyable movie.
When we look at the greater Star Wars universe, while he is an astromech by design, R2 is practically a special forces operator in the Clone Wars and when helping with the Bespin escape/plan to free Han from Jabba. So I think he recognizes Obi-Wan, just knows to stick to OPSEC around Luke at first. I doubt that Luke would have introduced himself to new droid purchases by his full name, so only when he meets Obi-Wan would R2 realize that is Anakin's son.
No I think R2 would know but as he has been to the Lars Homestead before and witnessed Luke's birth. He just had other things to worry about.
I'm so glad you addressed that tracking issue. I always wondered why the hell would they go to Yavin if they suspect the empire is tracking them? It didn't make sense to me.
Also; in my opinion, I'd wish the rebel alliance would have built their own version of the Death Star. They have the plans right there.
$ is 1 reason, also supplies and Materials & time. Wanting to try to keep the moral "high ground" is another.
The Rebel Alliance didn't have the resources or the lack of empathy and common sense to build one. The Death Star is not an effective weapon. Using it is overkill and would only succeed in expanding the number of people who want you dead. Also she went to Yavin as it was worth the risk to get the plans.
To lure Death Star there into battle.
This movie absolutely holds up. Just show it to a youngster. Ryan Johnson tried to use the same concept in defending his pile of garbage. He said the empire was not liked contemporarily and would be torn to shreds if it came out today. Completely wrong, in accurate, and a very weak defense for a terrible movie.
The only partial explanation I could think of for a lure to Yavin would be for general troop movement. Even with hyperspace, you don't know exactly what you're walking into when you jump. Then again, the fact Leia didn't have the data can only be very loosely said to be attributed to her hope that a weakness can be found in time, but that is a considerable risk for the entire Rebellion, as you've mentioned.
Okay, you’ve got me on why Leia would have Han fly her to Yavin if the thought the Millennium Falcon was being tracked. However with Obi-Wan and R2-D2, he only said that he didn’t remember owning a droid. They were Anakin’s droids. As far as high tailing it off Hoth, the rebels learned their lesson with Yavin and how close they all got to being wiped out so of course they’re being much more cautious now.
This is a great video that further shows proof that disneys rogue one isn’t canon to George Lucas’s Star Wars A New Hope. 👍
From what I read, yavin was evacuated including mon mothma and only a few people stood by for the attack but im not sure how clear it is in the movie
I'll repost my comment from one of your other videos.
Don't take it personally but it really pisses me off when people say that the death star having a thermal exhaust port is a "plot hole." It has a purpose. Space ships and stations in real life need to be able to vent their heat because they generate a lot. It makes sense that it would be connected to the reactor because that's where most of the heat is coming from. The Empire knows it's there. They have it shielded and guarded by turbolasers and fighters. They wipe out the entire rebel force sent after them except for one person who succeeds using magic, and they would have had no idea that could even happen. They're not stupid or incompetent, but they didn't think the rebels would be dumb/crazy enough to attack using just fighter craft.
Rogue One is an unnecessary complication. It's a good movie but that part never needed extra explanation.
The beginning of New Hope is Leia dropping off the plans for another ship to deliver them. It barely worked so Leia would not try it again. And Tarkin is right, once word about Alderaan gets out people will be afraid to support the rebellion. If they don't have the battle of Yavin then the RA just fades away.
I understand that the scenes of the Death Star closing in on the rebel base was added in post production editing, as it was felt that some more urgency and tension needed to be added. So during the writing and shooting of the movie (and as a result in Leia's thinking) they considered they had enough time before the Empire could mount any attack against the base, so the best thing was to keep momentum and press ahead soonest. Which turned out to be the right choice of course. Evacuating a base while at peak strength, and then trying to bring everything together again to mount an attack later is also not without risk and everything can easily fizzle out and a key opportunity is lost.
It is notable that the Battle of Yavin only happened at Yavin because of the brilliant editing. As written, Leia didn't lead the Empire to Yavin since the battle didn't happen there. The film was made vastly better by the edits, not going to argue that, but those edits do explain why it would seem like a mistake on Leia's part.
You need exhaust ports, but they don't have to be straight to whatever you're exhausting. Put a kink in it and anything flying down will hit a wall. You could also put a cover a louver on it that would block small things from getting in and stop at least one shot down it.
I thought it was a fun adventure film. Those kinds of nitpicks are like the ones I could make about Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Something I will add is why did Luke and Han keep the Storm Trooper belts? Remember the Storm Troopers attacked the Millennium Falcon in Mos Isley. I think there were personal shields involved. The Storm Trooper belts had personal force fields that deflected the blasts and that you either had to be good or lucky to hit Storm Troopers.
As far as Yavin 4 goes, I don't think that wad the bulk of the Rebel Fleet, but rather a small base, much like the one on Dantooine that Leia mentions. The Rebels may have already been on the move and left a small force on Yavin 4, ready to attack the Death Star. They had lured it there to destroy it. I look at the 3 Y-Wings and Dozen X-Wings they had. They didn't have enough ships. Not like in Return of the Jedi when they had Y-Wings, X-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings in the battle. So... Yeah there was more going on than any of us think.
The belts were done because they had extra ammunition for the E-11s they were using. The fighters was also explained in the movie as the Death Star being designed for use against capital ships but not starfighters. It was a plan crazy enough to work.
I always thought it was a certainty that the plans would reveal a flaw for some reason. Nice catch!
Though I agree, this one detail doesn't take away from the movie for me. Given the time and amount of edits that this film went through, who knows what get left on the editing floor.
Rogue One established that Rebels, including Bail Organa, knew about the weakness from Jyn Erso. New Hope sort of implies it in opening scroll.
Really wish people would drop the narrative that the exhaust port is a pothole. The whole point was that the empire had the hubris to think they were all mighty and no little fighters or little pitiful band of rebels would be a threat. Think of it this way. If you jam a fork in a light socket you’ll blow out the fuses for the entire house. Possibly even burn the House down
Is that a plot hole in home design?
In my opinion Rogue one actually ruined this aspect of a new hope, not fixed it. It took a message of the cocky empire being so bloated that they couldn’t see what was right underneath them to a stupid saboteur doing some thing for his daughter? Yet still building the whole whole thing? It just made it overly convoluted and neutered the message.
He only finished as explained in the movie because if he didn't someone else would replace him and that someone wouldn't try to make a way to destroy the thing.
@@emberfist8347 yeah. I get that. It just cheapens / dilutes the message in ANH.
The thing about calling Star Wars for kids is not the insult people think it is
Things that were made for kids in the 70's and 80's... were more adult or at least didn't talk down and hide things from kids, and more layered than media made for kids today where things are overly sanitized thinking kids won't get some things or be too scared by it... you got away with a lot more back in the old days in media for families.
That actually makes sense! Prequels too weren't always child friendly in this day's standards, but I can see aspects in them that were intended for the child audience such as Jar Jar Binks.
This plot hole isn’t one that diminishes the plot of the film. It feels like a human error on the part of the characters rather than a massive oversight by the writing of the film.
Like who would have thought a random X wing could get passed all the trench turrets and fire a protons torpedo perfectly into the exhaust port hitting the right spot to chain reaction explode the entire station? Also if anyone says that Luke shouldn't have been able to make that shot. Two things, someone tried before him, shot it inside yet missed the right spot and failed to do anything, Luke needed to fully himself to the Force and allow it to guide his hands and then he took the shot. If anything he didn't even do it himself if you wanna be technical, the force aimed and he pulled the trigger. if if wasn't for the force he wouldn't have been able to even do it.
So who could have even thought about this being a possibly when thinking about weak spots? No one really could have prepared for what happened.
@@zelithfang2365 The entire idea was the attack was so insane the Empire never considered a legitimate thing to defend against.
There's a way to destroy the Death Star... With the Holdo maneuver 🤣🤣🤣
I think a good example of why the OG is liked so much more than the sequels is the fact that in ANH George didn’t have Luke fighting Darth Vader and WINNING after just picking up a light saber for the first time. Without the Rey/Kylo fight, I really liked The Force Awakens and was excited for the rest of the trilogy. Obviously it went downhill from there until it hit rock bottom at “Somehow Palpatine has returned.”
I always thought Leia should have gone to Dantooine and found the tracker, left it there and gone to Yavin. Would have been an epic spit in the face to Tarkin.
You wouldn't find the tracker. The thing was a droid and damn stealthy one too.
As someone in the military, I have to give my two cents. If Leia did suspect the tracker it is extremely difficult to up and move a massive military base. You have personnel, vehicles, comm/ med equipment, spar parts and other supplies. In the film it seemed that the Death Star was closing in at a quick rate plus the rebels desperation to eliminate such a threat to galactic lives. If you want an example of how difficult a military pull out is, look to the US withdrawal of the Middle East. (Still hurts to bring it up.)
I think what you missed out when describing A New Hope was that at the time it was truly groundbreaking. It is so easy to not appreciate that back then there was nothing like this, everything sci-fi that has come out just wasn't on this scale and the special effects, whilst seeing very lame by today's standards, just aren't available back then, so much so that Industrial Light and Magic had to be created to have them in the movie. This and the fact that the characters were well developed, the story was in the most part believable, and the cast had such chemistry acting together that whilst watching it for the first time you were carried along with it and were so pulled into it that you didn't have time to pull it apart.
The Last Jedi on the other hand just confused me as I was sat there in the cinema watching it (I haven't watched Rise of Skywalker and have no intention of doing so). Now of the sequel trilogy have us anything groundbreaking that we haven't seen before, the story doesn't have any nuance and I just don't care about the characters enough because you are given any time to really know who they are, and there feels no jeopardy whatsoever, especially with Rey, because you know they will all be fine, extent the legacy characters who you just knew they wanted to get rid of. The only recent movie that did pull me in was Rogue One, and I thought that would never be able to do it because basically you knew they were all going to die, and you knew it led directly into A New Hope. But it did, surprisingly enough, and at least we have that.
Every movie if you pick it apart enough will have plot holes, it's impossible not to. There does need to be some suspension of belief, you just can't do this when I've character is an all powerful Mary Sue. Characters have to have flaws, they have to have weaknesses, if they don't no matter what the story is there will be no tension and it's basically paint by numbers.
The exhaust port thing is not a plot hole at all. The X-wing squadron all think it's impossible, "even for a computer." The Rogue One retconning of it as sabotage was totally unnecessary.
Really appreciate this video. Criticism across the boards brings balance
Another thing about the exhaust port is that they say right in the film several times that it’s a nearly impossible shot even for a computer add to that the number of trench runs we see in the battle also show how difficult such a thing is that the rebels are trying to pull off. In fact I don’t think Tarkin what is overconfident when refusing to evacuate I mean how could he have known that one of those relatively insignificant XWing‘s is being piloted by the son of the chosen one who has just enough training in the force and he’s being helped by the force ghost of the aforementioned chosen ones master.
I never had a problem with the vent as it wasn't known about without the plans. After all, the Death Star is the size of a small moon, and the vent is quite miniscule in comparison to the rest of the station's volume. You wouldn't be likely to notice it nor would you consider it a target without good reason. I also didn't have a problem with the storm troopers poor aim because as was stated in the video and movie, it was done on purpose. I hadn't thought of Leia's decision to go to the base since she knew they were being tracked nor the rebels premature celebration. I don't care about the prequel issues, they're after the fact, ironically. I still love the movie, and by the way, Chewie should have gotten a medal too.
I work for a church, and one day a couple weeks ago some ladies came and cleaned the gas ovens in our kitchen. The next day, someone started those ovens to preheat them and noticed some smoking. Eventually the smoke stopped in one oven, but the smoke actually got worse in the other. After setting off the fire alarms, they called me to come take a look. After noticing smoke coming from the broiler underneath, I opened the drawer to find that a towel had been left in there, and was now smoldering. On instinct, I grabbed the towel and ran out the back door. As I did, it caught some fresh air and burst into flame.
Fortunately, I was able to get the towel out the back door with no damage to myself or the building. Later that evening, someone mentioned that I could have simply dropped the towel in a sink right beside the oven and turned on the water, instead of risking my right arm getting it out the door.
In the moment, that thought never even occurred to me. My mind said, "fire bad, need out," and I went with it.
The point is: in the heat of an intense moment one does not always have the luxury of thinking one's way through a problem, and one has to just DO something. Leia's decisions while escaping the Death Star, and after, after all the trauma she'd endured at the hands of Tarkin and Vader, could very well fall into this category. She may very well have thought: "However this ends, this ends now."
Just my two cents.
Them returning to Yavin 4 with the knowledge they are being tracked is not a plot hole its the plan. She just watched her world destroyed and knew that the Empire would continue to destroy worlds forcing either the alliance to come out of hiding to try and stop it, someone with less nerve then her revealing the bases location to save their world, or the alliance crumble from fear. They had the plans and it was now or never. All she could do is hope they could pull it off.
I feel like the "bad designs" by the bad guys are not always as bad as we make them out to be. If it wasn't for Luke being able to fire that lucky shot using the force, the Death Star may have never been destroyed. How could the Empire actually have planned for that lol?
Also, people call plot convenience on the oscillator on Starkiller Base on TFA. But we need to keep in mind that Starkiller Base had basically no weaknesses. Literally the only way to infiltrate it was to make a landing approach at lightspeed. And the Resistance had the one person crazy enough to attempt that in the rebel hero Han Solo.
These types of "plot holes" are not so much plot holes. They're just cases of incredibly talented heroes exploiting a superweapons one and only weakness.
My issue with Starkiller Base was the entire concept was stupid for other reasons. Namely how wasteful it is. Just devour the sun of the system you want to destroy.
@@emberfist8347 Agreed. I'm not a big fan of the concept either. The sequels should've focused more on developing villains that could be intimidating without relying on superweapons.
Landing at the spped of light is impossible. You will crash into the planet at the first millisecond.
@@Сайтамен No you would crash into the shield because the gravity well would pull you out of hyperspace before you past it.
I've known about the plot hole with the tracking device for a long time. Like others have said you could argue that Leia took a gamble of leading the Death Star straight to the Rebel base rather than disappearing because the Empire could have used the Death Star at other locations before the Rebels could launch an attack on it. A bit of extra dialogue in the scene where Leia says they let them get away would have fixed it though. Personally I don't really see it as a big issue. Leia used the Rebel base as too tempting of a bait to draw the Death Star out. Of course there's other discussions to be had like why didn't the Death Star have any Star Destroyer's acting as escorts? Having the Death Star without any escorts would be like leaving a air craft carrier all by itself which no navy would ever do.
Oh, How It Should Have Ended pointed out the flaw of flying a tracked ship right to the hidden Rebel base. It’s a great series!
Not really it isn't it just uses low hanging fruit that often misses how the movie explains things. Like from the same video having Tarkin order the Death Star to blow up a gas giant when the design only works on rocky planets. Or how their Lord of the Rings video does the Eagles thing that is quite clearly explained to anyone who has read the books or pays attention. Sauron's forces has archers they would be shooting down the Eagles before they got close.
@@emberfist8347 If it was presented as a serious analysis and critique I’d totally agree with you, but it’s just for fun, a comedy.
It's a plot hole due to the film being re-edited to make it more exciting. In the original version the death start doesn't know where the base is and isn't threatening it when they attack the death Star. It was changed in the edit to make the empire find them and threaten the base to make it more exciting as a film.
I even as a kid thought the same thing about the end of the movie the things that you brought up
A real world design flaw in the WW2 B-29 Superfortress was that inadequate engine cooling would result in engine fires--and engine fires downed most of the B-29's lost.
Almost forgot to mention that the B-29 armed with atomic bombs was the 1945 Death Star
Having seen ANH in 1977, I can say that most everyone in the theater was too engrossed in the story to think of plot holes. Honestly, you can see holes in most movies after years of watching them.
To address your plot holes:
1. I'm sure there are a lot of R2 units that are blue and silver color. He had not see R2 in probably 20 years, and we know that Kenobi was not really a 'droid guy' from what he's said in other shows. He may have simply been cautious as R2 could have been captured and have been a trap to find him as well. R2 tends to know when to keep his mouth (or speaker?) shut, but he certainly knew where Kenobi was living when he set off alone. Obi-Wan assuming Organa had wiped R2-D2's memory is quite logical as well.
2. The exhaust port was the ONLY ONE leading to the main reactor. Death Star One was 99 Miles wide at its equator. That is a lot of real estate and it only had ONE exhaust port. Think about that and you'll see the proverbial needle in a haystack. The port was only a bit over 6 and a half feet wide. Armed with thousands of laser turrets, TIE Fighters protecting it and shields as well, a single 6 and a half foot wide exhaust port could be overlooked. It didn't have any grate over it, but we learn later that was probably defect by design, but even not factoring that in, it clearly was no big plot hole. The rebels had to pour over the plans for the DS to even find it. It seems logical.
3. Now the tracker is indeed a tougher nut to crack. Leia suspected they were being tracked, and they were. So why didn't the Falcon just go someplace else ? Well, first, the DS could travel in hyperspace -- we tend to forget that-- though its hyperdrive (class 4) was not as effective as the Falcon's, there is the possibility that the DS could have simply jumped out of hyperspace while the Falcon was waiting for a rendezvous with a rebel ship and started firing. There are thousands of Imperial ships and only one Millennium Falcon trying to avoid them with a tracker on it. Leia had just seen her home planet destroyed before her eyes, so she knew the DS could keep it up, taking out other planets that favored the rebellion. If they'd rerouted the plans and waited, whole other planets and maybe even star systems could have been destroyed. They didn't know until the plans were analyzed if there was indeed a way to destroy it, but let's face it, if they didn't stop it, there would not be a rebellion in a matter of days. I think they had to risk it and perhaps it was actually part of a plan -- the DS would probably go after the rebel base and that would pull it away from attacking other worlds. The rebel base was the bait. They knew that it was all over if they failed to stop it, so they played it out right then. They just had to take the risk or other worlds would be destroyed. As to why they didn't evacuate Yavin 4 immediately following the destruction of the DS could be because they had not scouted out a suitable replacement base yet. They could of course have just roamed in space, but maybe they figured the shock of the loss of the DS would take a few days to get a response from Palpatine.
There was more than exhaust port General Dodonna says their target is right below the main port and there are 12 trenches similar to the one the Rebels enter in the movie. That is 13 ports and only one they target. There wasn't a grate but only because that defeats the point of an exhaust port. You don't put a grate on the end of the tailpipe of your car.
I thought the plot hole in Star Wars is how the Millennium Falcon surprised everyone involved in the trench run on the Death Star. Nobody from Luke, Darth Vader, Yavin Base, or the Death Star saw the Falcon approaching on radar?
The Falcon is a smuggler's vessel that was prieviously established to have a jamming capabilities.
This is another case where watch order certainly helps. Assuming that a viewer watches A New Hope first, they probably don't question the decision not to evacuate immediately after destroying the Death Star too much because they don't know anything about the logistics and plausibility of such an evacuation (how many people and ships would need to be moved, how much time and effort that would take, if there's another friendly planet where the rebels could go, etc.) since they don't see such an operation until the next movie. The audience is very much still learning as they go how the show's universe (or galaxy in the case of Star Wars) operates at that point.
We have no way of knowing what the logistics are either way. Yavin 4 was a completely different time and location from Hoth.
And why evacuate when there is no immediate threat? You have time as the Death Star was the only Imperial presence in the system. Vader would take time get to Imperial territory and come back with a fleet to attack.
Also people have become acustomed (due to a lot of recent lazy writing) to thinking hyperspace is WAY faster then it's ever actually shown to be in the OT. Yavin is remote and it's reasonable to conclude that the nearest Imperials might be days away from reaching it after the DeathStar was destroyed so long as Tarkin did not send any other ships to follow the Falcon which is reasonable as Takin wants to destroy the Rebel base personally with the DeathStar, nor is it even established that other Imerial ships are even capable of following the tracker on the Falcon.
There are also some plot holes in ESB: Luke on Dagobah training with Yoda suddenly feels his friends Han & Leia are in grave danger in the hands of the Empires and decides to go and save them although his training is not over.
So far all seems good, he's force sensitive, he can feel the suffering of the people he cares about (such as Anakin did towards his mother and Padme). But the plot hole lies here: how on Earth could he guess where in the Galaxy Han & Leia were after the battle of Hoth where all the fleeing rebels were scattered all around?
I mean the force told him that they were on Bespin and that he should set for this place? That's not how the force work! (Or else Vador would have been able to track just by using the force all the jedis that escaped order 66, Yoda included, without have to mount an Inquisitor division, not to say he could have tracked Luke throughout the Galaxy without having to set a plan to lure him on Bespin...)
That was a plot hole I noticed way back in the 90's and I really was expecting that for the special reeditions of 97, Lucas would fix this issue, having lets say, the Empire broadcast a holographic message on a rebel frequency telling them that General Leia and Captain Solo were held prisonner on Bespin, and that if Captain Skywalker wasn't willing to surrender ASAP, they would be executed. R2 would have received the message while Luke was training on Dagobah just as he was feeling his friends in suffering. He would then show the holographic message to Luke just before the scen where he 'd decide to leave his training to save his friends.
That's what kinds of baffles me with the special editions: Lucas seemed to want and rectify some minor effects when he had the possibility to implement way more content in his movies in order to rectify plot holes, or even expand the general plots.
My favorite plot hole (or inconsistency at least) is the Anoat system. Leia asks Han where they are, while hiding on the hull of an ISD, and he answers "Anoat system". Question is, how did they get there? They were in the Hoth system, and had a broken hyperdrive. Getting to another system would take ages. So they shouldn't even have to ask the question.
He actually Anoat Sector which was region in the galaxy Hoth is located in as is Bespin. The ship had a back-up hyperdrive but only one good for short trips not good when you want to escape the Empire.
That exhaust shaft?
Any attack at the Death Star would usually be answered by drowning the attack in TIE Fighters. Only Tarkin's pride in his toy made him not to do that. Only the few TIE's under the command of the one officer Vader gave the command to were launched.
Going to Yavin/not evacuating
The Empire knows that the Rebellion has the plans. They could give the Death Star a fleet of Star Destroyers and other ships as an escort, making an attack impossible even with the entire Rebel fleet attacking.
Additionally the Empire would treat any inviting target as a possible attack. They don't need the Death Star to wipe out the Rebellion if they provide the Empire with a target.
Which brings up my last point. The Death Star would be a moving target which can move at the whim of it's commander. Good luck finding it in time to mount an attack. Not to mention that it could simply run away if none of the options above apply.
Meanwhile the Empire could demand that all Rebel cells surrender or the Death Star would blow up their planet. They demonstrated the willingness to do so at Alderaan (they can spin those news). Face it, as long as the Death Star was operational the Rebellion was finished. Sure, more people would probably love to rebel than before after Alderaan, but what do you do if you see the Death Star over your planet?
Yavin was a risky move, but chances are it was the only chance they got.
If they hadn't found a weakness in time they would have had time to at least evacuate the personal, even if they had to leave the equipment behind.
The Exaust port is an issue in that 1) their is not a simple grading that would let gass out but prevent a warhead from penetrating, and 2) That Dodona find the flaw in such a short time.
Insertion of easy hand-held ubiquitous super-luminal communication in the expanded universe and prequels makes Leia's actions worse, the OT and particularly RotJ actually imply that their is no means of communication faster then simply traveling to a location atleast for normal people who don't have a Super Star Destroyer. Palpatine and Vader are the only ones seen to use true long distance communication. And the fact that Leia is actually physically carrying the plans means that even the CR-90 lacks this kind of long range communication thus it's out of the question for the Falcon. Still it's dumb of her to go to Yavin rather then a lower priority rebel location where a quick change of ship could be made.
A possible resolution might be what Han was willing to do (He not Leia decides where they go, a key point most poeple fail to take into account), did he insist on going to a place where he would get his reward and be done with the whole affair? I can certainly see him refusing to let Leia just move to another ship while he gets persued and recaptured by the Imerials due to the tracker being in the Falcon. Did Han search the Falcon and think he had found/disabled the tracker and then reassure Leia only to be wrong? If Leia wants the Imperials to follow her so as to ambush them, why even tell Han about the tracking device, she already clearly holds him in contempt at this point and he might do something stupid or rash to try to eliminate the tracker.
There are a few problems with your claims.
1. Having a grating on an exhaust port defeats the purpose. You don't put grating on a tailpipe for a reason.
2. Dodonna had time to look over the plans the Death Star is slow through hyperspace.
3. The Empire had a monopoly on long-range communications in the OT.
4. The reason Leia was carrying the plan was that she had to give them to R2-D2. She took them from the main computer when they were boarded. And the mission she was on was also to get Obi-Wan's help. It was the entire reason she was over Tatootine.
5. Han wouldn't change ships.
I actually have a theory about this I call "Leia's Gambit". With her home planet destroyed she didn't want the same to happen to other worlds, so she focused the empire's attention on the rebels instead. I think she probably believed they had the best fighting chance against the Death Star, and being the same age as Luke he wasn't the only one who may have felt a little more invincible than he actually was. But then again, being the daughter of Annakin her actions could also have been influenced by the will of the Force. It seems pretty interesting that she unknowingly meets her father and then her brother on the Death Star, immediately after which she and Luke devise and execute a strategy to blow it up. Maybe the Death Star was just too much of a threat to the Force so it was destined to be destroyed, one way or another.
I'm not sure where Yavin IV is in comparison to Alderaan (which is thereabouts where the Death Star was at the time of capturing the Millennium Falcon), but if it didn't have lightspeed capability it'd have to slog over to the Yavin system instead of potentially destroying other worlds.
Trying to make sense of plot gaps/inconsistencies is fun but can also be a bit unhealthy for nerdom. We want to defend the things we love but call similar shit out for missing things of things we don't like. Makes us seem hypocritical, we can do all these mental gymnastics to create semi-plausible explanations but we refuse to do the same for things we don't care for as much, but we blast the fans of those properties for things we would do for overjustifying clearly oversights in writing.
Except the things that are don't have plot holes only thing people who have second hand knowledge think are plot holes due to cultural osmosis. A more recent example is The Dark Knight Rises where everyone claimed it was a plot hole that Bruce Wayne made it back to Gotham in time despite having no money and no resources. Except that assumes the movie takes place in a vaccum and he never been anywhere without his wealth before. We are introduced to Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins in a Chinese prision as he is walking the Earth with nobody knowing he is Bruce Wayne at all and in The Dark Knight, he calls in favors from a man in Arizona for a Fulton STARS and South Korean Smugglers to get in and out of Hong Kong undetected. So he has done it before in two movies it is easy to deduce he did again for the third movie.
Some people are hypocritical that way. But that doesn't mean we should not care about consistency in writing. It just means we should accept valid explanations for all franchises and not be hypocrites. Where does Thor Skywalker mock others for caring or finding legitimate explanations? Simply refusing to turn one's brain of and thinking about the writing beyond shallow "well it seems off to me so it must be a contradiction" is not the same as mental gymnastics.
@@MetalSandman999 I never said he did, I am talking in general.
That's stupid
I still like my own head conon theory for the oddities we see in episodes 456789... That is... They are technically a different timeline from the story Disney is telling. And it happened the moment Ezra stepped into the world between worlds.
So, while 4-9 are still in the Star Wars Universe, the timeline is slightly different.
Maybe The Empire is just incompetent? That's a good enough excuse for me. How else could a group of a few thousand people topple a galactic-wide empire?
By taking out the head. Palpatine was smart but like all dictators his big flaw is he clings to power. He left no plans in case he died so the Empire fell apart. Also by Return of the Jedi and even before the Rebel Alliance was faction that was almost as big as the Empire or at least it well within the billions.
@@emberfist8347 That's a fair point. Palpatine has always been full of himself.
Well this movie is still my favorit. Probably cause it was the first one I saw and got to see it 100 of times since.
There are things aa you mention that are a bit "plot holie" But when Obi-Wan first see R2 he says something like "Hello my friend, don't be afraid" and R2 beeps. I have decided that they say hi and don't want the others to know. Obi-Wan wasn't that attached to droids as Anakin or Ahsoka.
Next the bad shooting/aiming from the stormtroopers. Already as a kid I understood that they missed on purpose. So they could track them. Today it feels only Taika Waititi hasn't understood that. So he had to put it in his episode of Mando.
When it comes to this decision of going back to Yavin 4. First I believed it was because that they would fight the deathstar with all they got. But that is a big miss since they had no plan yet.
But the great thing is that the story is timeless and it's so well made, and of course the music. So the small flaws doesn't matter. This movie is my to go movie to get the Star wars feeling back. After I watched or hear anything about TLJ for example
I didn't notice the tracking device problem till How it Should’ve Ended pointed it out.
Because it was never a problem.
Great arguments, Thor. I've argued these points in the past. I agree about Leia heading straight to the rebel base...bad idea, bad idea. I think a lot of people expect too much out of these films in the modern day. I like Flash Gordon...it's fun, flashy and enjoyable to watch. But what makes it great is it has a great moral message. And that's what is lost in modern film, the moral messaging. We are being handed a shitty nihilistic message in most of modern Star Wars. And most of the characters are highly unlikeable. I think one of the greatest successes of The Mandalorian is the relationship between Mando and baby Yoda. The failure of Kenobi was what they did to his character. They made him into a loser. Disney Star Wars does not understand the heart and soul of Star Wars. th-cam.com/video/ToOwALsME1A/w-d-xo.html . Disney Star Wars has no soul.
i think she simply didnt expect that the Death Star would be able to jump to hyperspace and keep up with them. at best she expected that a few ships would follow, not the entire station, and that they could fight their way out if need be. as for not escaping you can explain it in many ways, maybe they didnt have any transport ships on stand by. or maybe most of the people were already on board and evacuating off screen while a few volunteered to stay behind to monitor the situation and when the Death Star blew up they got back on the planet. all in all its not a plot hole too big that you can't come up with a theory on why things went that way. unlike the holes in the Disney trilogy where no matter how hard you may squeeze your brain you can't find a rational justification for any of it.
Well, perhaps she is weighing the risks. She hopes a weakness can be found to destroy the Death Star. If they can get back to the base and analyze the plans before the Death Star shows up on their doorstep, they have a chance of destroying it. If they can't destroy it, then well, the galaxy is doomed anyway, so the Rebel base being destroyed won't matter much at that point.
The exhaust port. . .go back and listen to the two guys arguing in the conference room just before Tarkin and Vader walk in. That explains it all. I'm reminded of that argument every time someone complains about the lack of security at any Imperial base.
I don't know why Imperial warships would be coming out of hyperspace any minute during the celebration ceremony. Did the rest of the fleet even know where the Death Star was? How would they have known it was blown up? Remember Tarkin's reaction when the subordinate tells him that a weakness has been found and suggested they evacuate? "Evacuate, in our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances." So, I doubt Tarkin let anyone else know where they were or what was going on in case the Rebels managed to blow up the Death Star. And remember it was brand new. Tarkin tells Leia that she has inadvertently determined the first planet that it would blow up. So, how many Imperials even know about it to LOOK for it or wonder what happened to it?
One thing about A New Hope is that it was the first movie, so there was lots of world building, from Luke's POV. He and others should have remembered Jedi and the Force, but the first movie had to explain that to the audience.
Luke was living on a backwater planet and the only Jedi he knew was a crazy hermit his aunt and uncle didn’t want him to hang out with. He was born the day after the order was destroyed by Vader. Han also didn’t meet any Jedi and at best heard some stories that a cynical person like him would dismiss as tall tales told by spacers in the dark corners of a Cantina to impress each other or stories from crazy hobos in dark alleyways hiding from the Empire.
No complaints here!