Star Wars: questions you've always wanted answers for

Father said:

(1) How do you set up a blockade around a planet in space... in a single circle... and why do ships flying off the planet fly directly into it instead of just going over it?

(2) ATATs only seem to have guns on the "head"... Why do the rebel pilots keep flying straight at the ATAT?

(3) Why did R2 not use his rocket legs in the 3 original movies?

(4) How can Luke use the force to flip switches and move stuff around, but has to throw a rock at a button to drop the door on the Rancor?

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1) no idea. someone didn't think this through
2) they were walking toward the base, so they were already facing the ATATS when they launched? Maybe the terrain limited them from going around.
3)Because the rocket legs are retconned into the PT and didn't exist when the OT was shot
4) Out of range, he used the force to aim the rock at the button and its momentum got it the rest of the way

1&2: yup.

3: because the prequels don't exist.

4: Perhaps he was spent. He had just used the Force, I assume, to break his fall from the Rancor's hand and to hit its finger with a rock, and he was quite out of breath at the end of the scene. (Also, what he threw was a skull )

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

The full order of clones from Kamino was one million. Aside from the fact that that's a ludicrously small number to fight even a single battle of even a single war on a single planet...

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"On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy."

Source: http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered#troops

That's a heck of a lot less than a million. And it turned the tide of the war.*

*I am in no way endorsing the nonsense that was the Star Wars prequels. This post is merely about the numbers of troops required to invade a continent and send it's oppressors running.

^ Oh, I have no problem with that being about how many we saw in the "Battle of Geonosis" (really just a brief rescue op), but no way they fought the entire rest of the Clone Wars with only a couple hundred thousand troops. Remember it took ten years to get that many, and in only a couple years of war that means none of those Daniel Logans or embyoes in tanks would have been ready. I hope that this is something addressed in Rebels or new comics or novels -- like the clones were a nucleus around which a recruited Grand Army was formed, or some such. In my headcanon, I still have a Republic Navy with volunteer pilots in orange flight suits, white helmets, and familiar squadron markings flying alongside the clone pilots.

--Jonah

Axlotl said:

"On D-Day, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy."

Source: http://www.ddaymuseum.co.uk/d-day/d-day-and-the-battle-of-normandy-your-questions-answered#troops

That's a heck of a lot less than a million. And it turned the tide of the war.*

*I am in no way endorsing the nonsense that was the Star Wars prequels. This post is merely about the numbers of troops required to invade a continent and send it's oppressors running.

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That figure doesn't seem to include the personnel manning all of the ships that ferried the troops over to Normandy, the pilots, air and ground crew of all the aircraft involved in Overlord, and don't forget all the personnel back in England overseeing the entire operation keeping track of the progress of the landings, making sure that supplies are ready to go over to Normandy, and making sure the troops' pay is being properly accounted for. All said and done that 156,000 probably at least doubles, if not triples when you factor in how many support personnel are required for every rifle toting grunt in the field. Not to mention that this was just one operation of the war, after we secured the beachheads in Normandy we sent follow on troops to continue the push, we didn't rely only the 156,000 that landed on Normandy on D-Day, many more troops continued to pour in after D-Day +1, 2, 3, and on.

In addition to the ground troops slogging it in the fields of France and on into Germany there were also countless numbers of personnel fighting in the skies over Europe, around a dozen men in heavy bomber with formations of dozens of bombers and then there's their fighter escorts. On the ground there's the ground crew that keeps all of those planes fueled, armed, and repaired; then there's people working the airfields themselves, working the control towers, guarding the airfields, cooking and feeding everybody, making sure they get paid on time, and then there's the medical staff to treat sick or injured personnel.

All of the above was just in Europe and the US alone ran 2 major air bases, one in England and one in Italy. You have duplicates of this in France and elsewhere that do the same thing for the ground units and all of this was duplicated over in the Pacific Theater and none of this factoring the Navy which accounts for a lot of people as well. So when you account for everything a million man army isn't really that impressive, especially when you're fighting a war that spans nearly an entire galaxy.

Riceball - Good point. I stand corrected.

Axlotl said:

@Riceball - Good point. I stand corrected.

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No problem. A million is just one of those numbers that sounds really impressive but isn't always as impressive as it sounds when put into perspective.

what do gonk droids actually DO? aside from saying gonk?

I think that the gonk droids were originally called power droids when Kenner first released Star Wars action figures, so my assumption always was that they were essentially walking batteries or generators.

Riceball said:

No problem. A million is just one of those numbers that sounds really impressive but isn't always as impressive as it sounds when put into perspective.

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Yeah. I pointed out a bit ago that four million is just the casualty count for just the Soviet side of just the Battle of Stalingrad, and that if Legion is the Star Wars equivalent of a military division, and going by the mustering yard in AOTC to help figure organizational structure... If they stick with the EU unit designations, to have the minimum of 327 corps means minimum of ~11.4 million troops (Cody's 212th Battalion is from the 3rd Corps, and Appo's 501st Legion is from the 167th corps). If those are all clonetroopers, George seriously misspoke in the script for AOTC. If there are only a few hundred thousand clones, who's filling the rest of those slots on the T.O.?

--Jonah

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

Yeah. I pointed out a bit ago that four million is just the casualty count for just the Soviet side of just the Battle of Stalingrad, and that if Legion is the Star Wars equivalent of a military division, and going by the mustering yard in AOTC to help figure organizational structure... If they stick with the EU unit designations, to have the minimum of 327 corps means minimum of ~11.4 million troops (Cody's 212th Battalion is from the 3rd Corps, and Appo's 501st Legion is from the 167th corps). If those are all clonetroopers, George seriously misspoke in the script for AOTC. If there are only a few hundred thousand clones, who's filling the rest of those slots on the T.O.?

--Jonah

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I suppose that all of the POG troops could be human recruits/conscripts, but it would take forever to recruit and train some 11 million troops from nothing. But if the Clone Wars is anything to go by, they did have non-clone troops serving aboard ships so it stands to reason that the Grand Army consisted of more than just clones and that maybe the Old Republic actually had a bare bones military prior to the Clone Wars, something so small and pitifully equipped that it would be like trying to patrol the Earth with nothing more than the US Coast Guard.

Depending on how much of the stuff in Episodes I and II that the EU elaborated on is still considered canon by the Story Group (I'm going to guess most), the Republic demilitarized a thousand years prior to the films. The only "troops" they had were the Judicial Forces, who were the pilots of the diplomatic courier in TPM (royal blue jackets, air force blue trousers -- and my pick for where Han served prior to being drummed out) and the Senate Guards and Senate Commandos. Enough to handle security in peacetime, and the occasional special investigation, but not a military or even paramilitary force until the Clone Wars.

I'm just ongoingly miffed at the lost opportunity/dropped ball of the Prequels. There was a lot of really cool stuff in there, and with a minimum of effort could have led smoothly into ANH -- the blue uniforms we saw in TPM giving way to gray (Force Unleashed and Leia's Senate Guard contingent's garrison uniforms), and light and dark browns for the Republic Navy (i.e., Captain Antilles, Luke's celebration uniform, Luke's ESB fatigues...) giving way to the steingrau uniforms we recognize as Imperial Starfleet around the time of ANH as part of the increasing militarization going on at that time. Et cetera ad very much nauseum.

--Jonah

Father said:

(1)
(3) Why did R2 not use his rocket legs in the 3 original movies?

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I am in the process of building a r2 and on astromech I asked that same exact question. They said canon wise, the company that made his rockets went out of business...

I understand that the OT artoo was in quite bad shape

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Father said:

(1) How do you set up a blockade around a planet in space... in a single circle... and why do ships flying off the planet fly directly into it instead of just going over it?

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Well unless the new EU s̶c̶r̶e̶w̶s̶ ̶u̶p̶ changes this, most planets only have certain safe hyperspace routes leading to the planet so the blockade is setup to block them. Then I imagine you'd encircle the planet to stop anything from coming off of it.

(2) ATATs only seem to have guns on the "head"... Why do the rebel pilots keep flying straight at the ATAT?

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They make fun of any pilot who doesn't do the manly thing and carelessly attack the shooty end. I dunno. BTW, IF a new AT-AT shows up in the new movie, they better have wire cutters on the legs along with a belly mounted laser turret. I would imagine they would put some kind of defenses on a new version.

(3) Why did R2 not use his rocket legs in the 3 original movies?

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The lame old EU answer was the warranty ran out on the rockets and they couldn't be repaired. Seriously.

(4) How can Luke use the force to flip switches and move stuff around, but has to throw a rock at a button to drop the door on the Rancor?

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He just saw his sister in a bikini and had to keep thinking of other things other than how hot she looked! So he was having trouble concentrating enough to use the Force on a switch.

Sluis Van Shipyards said:

The lame old EU answer was the warranty ran out on the rockets and they couldn't be repaired. Seriously.

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Not nearly as bad as killing off characters on twitter. I remember how Lucas almost gave R2 rockets back in Episode One. There was a deleted scene with R2 falling off the landing platform on Coruscant and he used the rockets to get back on it. There's a still shot of Anakin standing next to R2 with his rockets out and the first figure made of R2 featured those rockets. Difference was that there were four rockets instead of two and they came out of his main body instead of his legs. Lucas seemed pretty intent on giving R2 rockets for some reason despite the OT.

Jeyl said:

Not nearly as bad as killing off characters on twitter. I remember how Lucas almost gave R2 rockets back in Episode One. There was a deleted scene with R2 falling off the landing platform on Coruscant and he used the rockets to get back on it. There's a still shot of Anakin standing next to R2 with his rockets out and the first figure made of R2 featured those rockets. Difference was that there were four rockets instead of two and they came out of his main body instead of his legs. Lucas seemed pretty intent on giving R2 rockets for some reason despite the OT.

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i never heard of this but it now makes sense. i remember seeing r2 standing on the edge of the landing platform when quigon sends anikan with padme... i honestly think i remember a scene with him falling, it almost looked like he was jumping to his death

Lord Boron said:

Once Luke became a big shot Commander, he could afford to have his wires straightened out. Speaking of rank, why is Lando a General. He help save Han and they make him a freak' General for it (and don't give me any EU nonsense!)

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Didn't they attribute his being promoted to general with something he did at the battle of Tenab?

The lame old EU answer was the warranty ran out on the rockets and they couldn't be repaired. Seriously.

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Having messed with classic cars, I can tell you there is NOTHING phony about this. Some of the early electronic stuff from 30-40 years ago is shockingly problematic. And that is just stuff to keep the vehicle operational, never mind dealing with obsolete bells & whistles that have worn out.



When it comes to R2's rockets:

Cross out: "couldn't be repaired."
Insert: "weren't worth the cost and/or PITA of repairing, given that it had become unsupported stuff."

Simple answer of R2 rocket packs. Jawa's stole / removed them when they took the droids. Droids can't fly away from jawa used bot lot or their new masters with no rockets.