0:29 Did you also see The Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up above The Executor when Ackbar commanded every Rebel Ship in the fleet to destroy The SSD? That should have been mentioned.
@@amysargent4237 I only noticed that when I watched on the special addition...that little detail was not in the original release lol...my dad bought all of the star wars movies on VHS as they came out so I am lucky enough to be able to compare all of them with the newer cuts...it's fun sometimes
Battle of Endor was a masterpiece. Not to mention, it's soundtrack (called "Into The Trap" for anyone wondering) is equally awesome, and goes with just about any suspenseful movie scene you can find
Oh, yeah, Into the Trap is my go-to aerial/space battle music. Back when I used to play War Thunder I always hummed it during the approach phase, when all the planes are sort of flying into enemy airspace from their spawning point.
My favorite detail is that Wedge closed his S-Foils during the narrow part of the Death Star run into the core. Just before the Falcon lost it's Dish, you can see Wedge's X-Wing close it's S-foils when flying through the same narrow gap. A very fine attention to detail scene, something they could of easily ignored and viewers would of likely never noticed, but the fact it's there, for only like 2 seconds is gold.
Nice catch! Many terrific details in this battle (which to this day remains the best space battle scene imo). For me the greatest hard to catch detail was the destruction of the second chasing Tie fighter by the explosion shock wave (?) after the reactor gets hit.
@@kirillzakharov7336 Ya but with CGI it's just less epic. if they didn't already ruin the character's believability in his first X-Wing scene I wouldn't hate the character with a passion.
There are numerous imperial defectors in Canon and Legends who would likely be in the cockpit of a rebel starfighter. In the original N64 Rogue Squadron video game Kasan Moor was a female pilot of the Elite 128th TIE Interceptor Squadron who defected shortly after being captured. According to her Wookiepedia article, however, she was pretty much only created for that game; it isn't much of a stretch to believe that there were others like her though.
@@danielkorladis7869 also Biggs Darklighter and Baron Fel. Han Solo wasn't a defector, though; he was dishonourably discharged for striking a higher-ranking officer that was abusing a certain Wookie slave long before joining the Rebellion.
@@danielkorladis7869 *Crix Madine. Yes, a large core of Rebel officers, advisors, and leaders were Imperial defectors. The story mode of Star Wars Squadrons even starts with an Imperial defection that takes place shortly after the destruction of Alderaan. The destruction of Alderaan was THE major turning point for a lot of Imperials and resulted in the disillusionment of many others. Indeed from a certain point of view, anyone who was part of the original Delegation of 2000 could be considered an Imperial defector.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Wookiepedia. According to that, she retired from Rogue squadron before the Battle of Hoth, but remained an advisor. She did fly at the Battle of Mon Calamari with Rogue Flight during the Dark Empire conflict; that was the final playable mission in the Rogue Squadron game before the unlockable bonus missions. However she was an "unofficial" combatant, which is why there are no records of her being part of Rogue Flight during that conflict.
As for the second detail: At knife fighting range against the trench of the Executor might actually be the safest spot for a bunch of Rebel ships during that battle. They’d be so close that most of the Executor’s guns couldn’t fire on the ships, and any other Imperial ships risk hitting the Executor if they fired on the Rebel cruisers. If you can survive the initial hail of turbolaser fire as you approach, you can stick like flies to the massive ship and just pummel away at it in relative safety.
But firing anti-fighter weaponry at the Executor is unlikely to cause any damage. Like a machine gun against a tank. That said, it might make them difficult to track and would certainly be helpful against the Executor's own weaponry... especially if coverage is poor.
@@pastaaura925 Even better if the shields work like the Raddus’s from episode 8. If you’re close enough to be under the shield bubble, you can shear your way through the armor real fast.
My favorite detail is in the background when Ackbar says they need to give the fighters more time. There is a Mon Cal cruiser and ISD in the space right above Ackbar's eye and above the Executor. If you look closely, there is a split second moment where you can see the two firing at each other, then the ISD explodes. Its the only moment in the original movies where you can clearly see two capital ships engaging each other to the best of my knowledge.
@@kyleruiz7167 it could have been intended to be the Dev. In the Lost Rebels bonus features mention in the video, a good amount of the Mon Cal and Sullustan dialogue could pertain to the cut sequence where b-wings attack and destroy a star destroyer. And both are in B-Wing cockpits. could very well see them cutting from that to the Ackbar shot with the cruiser finishing it off
@@holesintheground38 Would be good to make a fan film that integrates some of this lost footage into a more detailed version of the battle. Those B-Wing squadrons might have been attacking in sequence with that Mon Cal Cruiser to destroy that ship since it was one of the close escorts of Executer. picking off the ISDs around Executer would be required before Executer itself could be forced out of the battle.
I like to think that’s the ship that destroyed an engine or engine cluster or fuel line that later contributed to the executor crashing. And survive the battle because they’re just that batsh*t crazy. “The medical frigate did what?!?” “I don’t understand either, sir”
There are many shield effects present, also. The ISD and the Mon Calamari cruisers (the MC80s), counter turbolaser fire with 'blueish explosions'. There is what looks like to be energy missiles or torpedos, in the background, within some shots. Perhaps concussion missiles. The Battle of Endor is great. My favourite space battle.
This also makes me think of all the small explosions we see going off in other shots of the Endor battle, as well as at the Battle of Yavin. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be stray shots impacting shields, or some kind of 'laser flak' effect, but I prefer to think of them as the former.
@@andymac4883 It's both. A great UA-cam channel deconstructed all these explosions and filtered out the ones were evidently *flak* effects (mostly caused by stray turbolaser and laser canon salvos) and which ones may have been intended to be shield interactions. ua-cam.com/video/8v1J_eaiRWY/v-deo.html
Hats off to the captain and crew with stones large enough to bring a Nebulon into point-blank range of the Executor to trade blows. There must have been many such sacrifices before the Executor was weak enough to be finished off.
I can imagine, in this sort of a scenario, tucking a Nebulon in behind a Mon Calamari cruiser that was also approaching, then getting out from behind cover once you were close enough to the Executor that only a limited number of turbolasers could target the frigate
yeah. Doubt the SSD has too many really powerful guns right along the trench too since most SDs put them along the terraces/in top edges of the dorito shapes.
The weird scaling issues made me pick up a book about model making (albeit for wargamming miniatures) and blueprinting as a kid. Now I spend hours every semester explaining it to college students. It remains an issue.
I always like the idea of the Tector, and it fits in well with the Imperial mindset of creating warships for outgunning the more heavily armed (in relation to the republic) Confederate ships in slugging matches rather than starfighter support like the old Venators. And it does have less weak points for precision starfighter strikes to exploit.
When Wedge and Lando enter the power generator chamber, the pursuing TIE fires one shot. This says so much about the conflicted nature of that pilot. On the one hand he has to try and make one last desperate attempt to destroy the Falcon but on the other hand he could damage the generator himself and should probably stop firing. A great little detail.
the way I read it, the engines were intermittent and they were already having control problems. The loss of the primary bridge combined with other damage prevented the secondary bridge from gaining control of the remaining engines, which had gone to full throttle all of a sudden, before disaster.
My main problem with the crash is much simpler. The Executor wasn't that close to the death star to begin with and its engines were off. They were specifically told to "hold posistion" in a sector a fair distance from the death star (luke looking out of the window proves it was alot further away). They wouldn't have moved closer, and the death star wouldn't have closed on the fleet (would have restricted firing angles for the super laser). So yes drives could have been damaged but they are off, which means damage has no effect. Yes control could have been lost, which would trigger the drives, causing rapid movement, but the movement is then wrong. It turns 90⁰ downwards and goes full throttle, it would have kept turning, not done a neat nose dive, can't claim DS has gravity enough to do it, else it'd have made the surface of the moon a nightmare landscape, also the DS has a tiny mass (it's mostly empty space) compared to basically anything that size and those objects tend to have next to no gravity at all. Also gravity wouldn't make it go "nose down", it would pull it all evenly, if anything the ass would fall faster as that's wefe the majority of the mass is, and would be unbalncing the ships centre of gravity. Basically it's cool how they do it, and it makes some sense. But from the way the fleets were laid out, and the distances involved, it and the entire inperial fleet somehow bypassed the rebel fleet (its between them and the DS) and parked in orbit of the DS dispite having orders not to do it. So it makes no sense, and that just bugs me. Not counting how it alone outgunned the entire rebel fleet nearly 50:1, nothing larger than the falcon would have made it close without been reduced to scrap metal. Also while a cool battle, it's pointless. The idea was "no survivors" so why did the emperor pull his punches to show off the death star. Or bother having his troops take prisoners on the forest moon (or even let them land). But then the "were setting up a trap for the rebels, yet we have a SSD parked here that out guns their entire fleet" logic falls down, they'd have cancelled the attack if it was there. Gah I love SW but hate the stupidity sometimes.
@@cgi2002 I don't care about all that technical stuff and lore-consistency jibberish. The directors were probably thinking, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone kamikaze'd the super star destroyer and then it crashed into the Death Star, and made a giant explosion?" "Yeah, that would be totally badass!" "Alright, let's add that!" And I totally agree with their decisions. It was VERY badass, and I'd prefer that to something that makes 100% sense and is consistent with lore and all that stuff. Always remember, Big explosion cool.
0:29 Did you also notice that one regular Star Destroyer that EXPLODED as Ackbar commanded every Rebel ship to "CONCENTRATE ALL FIRE ON THE SUPER STAR DESTROYER"? Aside from Rogue One, I don't see any Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up like that in The Original Trilogy.
IIRC before that scene, that was supposed to be a sequence with a group of B-Wings making a bombing run and basically ripping apart the Star Destroyer, but as with most of the B-Wing scenes, it was scrapped. It would have looked hella cool though.
@@michaelandreipalon359 It's where the famous art piece of 3 B-Wings flying away from a Star Destroyer comes from. That art piece was supposed to be envisioned in the scene I described above.
I would love a video going into all the scale shenanigans of the Original Trilogy and then, to explain to people that perhaps don't take that scale nerd stuff to seriously, what general rules do fans and sources tend to settle on as the "correct" scale. I mean, these are the films themselves, they should have the final say on scale, but where does the final say end up? Differences of a few meters shouldn't matter overmuch, but, like the CR90, that was a hilarious extreme.
Another detail I love is that you can see a Y-Wing take out multiple Interceptors in a dogfight. I’ve always hated the misconception that Y-Wings were useless in dogfights. In fact, in the lore that should be said about the B-Wing everyone worships, not the Y-Wing
Yes! Totally agree, I always saw the Y-Wing as more of a fighter bomber, the way they are used at Yavin and the way that guy in Endor taking two interceptors in a row implies there was more fight in them than various video games (and let's face it, it's games that have given Y-Wings a bad rap) would have us believe. I was delighted to see them competently perform their role in Rogue One, massive vindication for fans of the Y.
I always pictured it as equivilant to like an F-4 or F-105 with the Xwings and ties maybe being more equivilant to like F-15s and F-16s performance wise. Not useless but disadvantaged to some extent against newr types. It kinda comes down to the games over simplifying things to try and make the ships "feel" different.
The one reason I could see for a ship to invert (assuming it started out in an 'upright' stance along with the rest of its fleet) is either if the hull plating at the bottom of the ship is thicker, or less worn away, or fewer super critical systems were along that segment of ship and they were trying to rotate the bridge away to keep it from being an easy target.
The Bacta War (Book 4 of the X-Wing series, which is now unfortunately classed as Legends) covers pretty much exactly this situation. The Rogue Squadron aligned ISD 2 Freedom went toe to toe with the Xucphra/Isard aligned SSD Lusankya (which was almost entirely without fighter cover). The Freedom was hit hard in the initial exchange of fire, but after collapsing the Freedom's facing shields, then inflicting massive hull damage and knocking out most the armament on the side of Freedom which was facing her, the Lusankya focused on engaging the attacking Rogue Squadron starfighters which were providing targeting data for torpedo/missile armed light freighters instead of finishing off the Freedom. As soon as his crew got the ship back under control, Captain Yonka of the Freedom ordered his helmsman to half roll the ship in order to bring the intact shields and armament on the other side to face the already damaged area of the Lusankya and then re-engaged the SSD. Admittedly in a massed brawl at knife fight range such as the Battle of Endor, that's likely to be a less valuable tactic than in a one on one duel between capital ships - but given the comparatively limited number of Rebel Alliance warships, its not entirely impossible that the Alliance warships were all in roughly the same direction at the time, so if shields were badly weakened or down on the side facing attack it makes sense to half roll the ship and take incoming fire on a shield which is still at full strength. Also gives time for the shields and armament to recharge and to reload munitions launchers on the now unengaged side of the ship before rolling back when the engaged side begins to become vulnerable.
I mean, the female pilots line reads were also pretty not great. When she's reading the "there's too many of them" line, it sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. That might have a bit to do with it, as well as the accent. Though with the accent they could have simply given her backstory about being an imperial defector
agreed. one of them - who didn't make it in - sounded like she was totally clueless about where she was, and was scared out of her wits to boot. the concept behind the female pilots was great and all kudos to Lucas for trying to make it work, but there were reasons they (largely) didn't make it into the film. reasons that had nothing to do with sexism.
That’s what takes are for genius. You think all of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamills lines were flawless every single time they did them? Even if that was the reason why did they have her dubbed over by an American man? Lol
0:54 ehhh only one out of many engines seems outright gone. Oddly enough on the wrong side given how it turns. Unless it's not dead but instead is in a forced over-thrust.
Its possible that the engines on the side of the executor controlled the steering and one of them going out makes the steering go in the opposite direction going haywire if you will and diving the executor into the death star
My favourite detail in the battle was Wedge closing the wings a split second before the tight section in the Death Star 2 just as the scene transitions to the Falcon. Very subtle. A nice touch as it adds reason as to why Lando and NN express shock at how tight this section is going to be (losing the radar dish in the process).
Nice catch on that Nebulon-B drive-by. Tactics-wise, it makes perfect sense for a frigate like that to get as close as it can to the executor. During that scene its in an optimal position to take as little firepower as possible from the bulk of the Executors weapons. It's out of the firing arc for most of them. In addition, the Executor also blocks every other Star Destroyer on the opposite side of it from firing, and the Star Destroyers on the Nebulon's opposite don't dare fire either, for risk of hitting the Executor.
Worse, if you are under the larger ship's shields, they literally can't fire at you without hitting the larger ship (fighters as well, since they will just pop). As an extra bonus, you can fire directly into the ship and drill towards critical systems or shield projectors. Lastly, your own shields immediately drop as they cancel each other's out, but you create a constant drain on the regenerative ability of the larger ship. It's a win-win scenario since a ship that large can't really dodge. We see this same tactic in Rogue One with the hammerheads - shields are meaningless at point blank range and large ships can't rotate about their axis very efficiently - certainly not quick enough to dodge such an attack.
I remember some part of an old SW lore book I have, that the Mon Calamari don't have real "classes" on their capital ships, because there don't exist two ships of the same type. Everyone of their ships is a unicum in design. Those ships were more like artworks, each unique to its own and were only later refitted for combat, when the MonCal joined the Rebellion.
The whole scene when they are flying through the super structure of the death star. The scene when the Xwing gets shot by the Tie fighter and Lando says, "Head back to the surface and see if you can get a few of those Tie fighters to follow". Right after that moment the details of how the ships split into 2 different tunnel's. The Millennium Falcon to the left and the other to the right and the one tunnel is glowing a bright read as if it were some kind of heating element. Very cool details! Always loved that.
The laser defenses on the typical Star Destroyer are very poor on the underside. Having a few roll over to provide more anti-fighter cover is actually a wise tactic.
9:08 Hadn't really thought about it before, but that ship near the Nebulon-B definitely matched the Executor's edge profile far better than any other ship in the Star Wars movies. I think it could very well be the same model of the side of the Executor that was used in The Empire Strikes Back when the Falcon is fleeing Bespin City.
After watching Templin Institute's Reimagining of the Republic and First Order I would love to see Eckhart do an analysis and vs of the First Order's Indefactable Class Dreadnought and the Republic's Endor Class Super Carrier.
I can imagine the sheer horror and disbelief of imperial pilots, crewmen and officers as the flagship and pride of the fleet crashes uncontroled through the Death Star. No matter how improved the second Death Star was, no construction technique or damage control could've contained such a catastrophic explosion. I don't know if its lore but it wouldn't be surprising if more than one imperial captain would desperatly order his vessel to retreat without looking back.
Me: that makes sense My brain: or its BECAUSE STAR DESTROYERS CANT TELL WHATS UP, ISNT THAT RIGHT DISNEY, HUH, ISN'T THAT YOUR PLOT POINT FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER! Anyways...
Maybe it's moved to place its undamaged belly toward an enemy after losing the shields topside? I think it was in one of the wraith squadron books where Mon Remonda (possibly) rotates to keep fresh shields toward the enemy. It's been a few years since I read those, though
fun info about Sila Kott, in some international dubbing of the movie its still a woman doing her voice instead of being dubbed over by a male for green leader
I think that Nebulon-B took advantage of the SSD targetting other, bigger threat ships like the Home-1 class ships, and snuck in for a quick and dirty broadside. There were probably individual turrets on the Executor that realized what was at point-blank range, but because of the scale differences between the two ships, the weapons commanders on the bridge didn't, and had already ordered the gunnery crews and the automated heavy turrets or whatever to target a bigger ship. So only smaller turrets in the Oreo trench that noticed would have fired back at the Nebulon-B, which just 'quickly' skimmed as close as it could (preventing easy lock-on by upper hull and lower hull turrets of the Executor that weren't in the trench), and tried to gut the trench. It still would have taken a lot of fire, but not nearly as much as if it tried to engage at a more respectable range (where the Executor could turn all its really BIG guns on it). It'd be like, in a pushing match between two Hulk sized dudes, suddenly noticing a 3 foot tall dude with a butcher knife had run up beside one of them while they were distracted pushing, and already gotten a couple of stabs in before anyone could react, and ran away.
Good points. Guess the Empire should have taken a hint from Karen S'jet of Homeworld. When your ship and crew is too large, you suffer command-paralysis.
@@DrownedInExile I would think on any ship that big, or even SD size, while the big guns would still be commanded from the bridge, unless there's an overriding order from the bridge, the smaller turrets and in-close weapons should be free to engage targets of their choice. Just to cut down on the back-and-forth of command dictates, especially when there's a reaction lag involved. If it takes 30 seconds to notice a ship is really close, 30 seconds to set the order, 30 seconds for the order to arrive, be understood, and for retasking to start, and another say, 15 seconds before proper return fire happens, that's nearly 2 minutes of basically dithering and deciding. LoL. And a ship SSD sized would DEFINITELY have a lag between command deck and the gunnery decks down in the Oreo. Or even standing on the bridge and spotting the ship that's half way down your hull, already putting fire into your forward decks.
@@Kalebfenoir As a bonus, their own fighters wouldn't be able to reach it, either. But you would have to be within feet of the other ship and it would have to be almost immobile. I would have loved if they added a line like this: "Sir, the enemy Nebulons ( or Frigates) are under our shields - our own fighters can't reach them!" ( followed by the lines leading up to the bridge's destruction )
@@plektosgaming I'd bet anything that the bridge crew of the Executor didn't even realize the Nebulon was there. A ship that size with a bridge that far away... by the time they got the in-ship comm from the Oreo stations, the damage would have been done and the Nebulon would have passed by. And it really did look like they were close enough to rub hull plates. Fighters absolutely would have been worthless there unless you had aces, and they'd have to weave between whatever fire was crisscrossing that little gap.
For the Executor, I believe in the Thrawn trilogy, they talk about how Palpatine was also using the Force to have some control/coordination with his fleet. Then, when he died, that control broke and caused some confusion, leading to the rebels to more easily destroy the SSD
There was even a grand admiral who was a force user that used it a little bit during the fight but nowhere near the level of the emperor. I always figure Palpatine was so focused on Luke that if Luke never was there to distract him the fighters may have never made it into the death star.
Endor is the greatest space battle ever. Not because it is big or flashy, but because it tells a story, and many small stories, without being too cluttered to keep up with. And the captain of that nebulon b is pretty smart. By being that close to the enemy, he can use his full weapon complement, while they can only use a small amount. Might not do much damage, but the drain on the shields of the SD would be a factor.
That Nebulon was the Antares 6 and that's one of the reasons it was so famous. I can't remember where I read that at to give you a source though I'm sorry. I don't think it's weird scaling so much as point of view creating an optical illusion... That's interesting about the Tector however I know the empire had Tectors at Endor to try and counter most of the larger Calamari ships...as for which side is up, I've read in a lot of novels where they did Barrell rolls as evasive maneuvers in a star destroyer because ships were attacking from the sides top and bottom so it could pepper all of the ships with fire... That really sucks that they cut her voice out because that accent being imperial would point to a defected imperial pilot and that would be really cool to portray....instead of how Disney did it by a stormtrooper stealing a tie fighter and surf boarding it down onto the planets surface in the biggest load of bs I've ever seen lol
As a kid ROTJ was my favorite movie exactly for this space battle. It was so visually gripping, exciting and surprisingly coherent narrative wise and well choreographed. Something that was sorely missing from the new movies in my opinion, save for maybe Rogue One. The name of the series is Star Wars and there was hardly any space battles in the Disney trilogy. Ep 7: probably the best battle of the trilogy battle spectacle wise, but really short (3 minutes total) and just an aimless repackaged Death Star trench run which was 15 minutes by comparison Ep 8: a few small skirmishes during the space chase, again really short Ep 9: a collage of re-used CGI assets fights another collage of re-used CGI assets for a few minutes, mostly with interior cockpit shots of actors Most of from what we know now of the development, this seems to stem from the breakneck pace of development and lack of time to really hammer out a plot that allowed for a coherent vision for effects artists to create a big battle on the scale of Endor. Incredibly disappointing in my opinion. I hope that changes in future movies.
Battle of Endor is great because it's one of the few space battles that you can tell the tactics being used. Usually it's just a scrum of stuff on screen.
There is another point in the films where you see capital ships at different angles than "up". In Revenge of the Sith you can see more Venators and Recusant ships entering the space battle nearly perpendicular to the horizon line. Same thing happened in the Genndy clone wars show
It also occurs in The Empire Strikes Back when the fleet breaks up once the Empire loses track of the Millennium Falcon. When Han points it out, the scene out the cockpit window shows Star Destroyers headed off in several different vectors not in the same plane.
Fun fact: The Rebel Fleet was winning the naval engagement with the Imperial Fleet before the shield protecting the Death Star was neutralized. Thank you Sheev Palpatine for being a better political strategist than a military tactician.
Between the cost of the death star itself and the loss of a sizeable portion of the imeprial fleet (ships, officer corps, etc) even if the Empire had won, economically the rebellion had stabbed an artery. Not immediately fatal but if the emprie were stupid (and they would be) they would yank the knife out rather than seek proper care.
I think of it like the Soviet Red Army at the start of WW2. Most of the competent officers would have been purged in case they got too big for their britches; consider how quickly Vader goes through SD commanders in ESB. This leaves the loyal, rather than the skilled, in command so their actual warfighting capability against the Rebels -- who had to be *good* to survive being outgunned and outnumbered all the time -- was limited.
@@matthewbeale5083 Actually, Vader was chewing through the incompetent officers. Ozzel was a jackass with connections rather than merit, and Captain Needa just gave up the second that the Falcon 'disappeared' and then wasted everyone's time taking a shuttle rather than report over the radio. But Admiral Piett was spared. So the loss of the Executor with all hands meant that the Empire lost the absolute cream of the cream of the crop of their officer corps.
After listening to the female pilot's dialogue, (who, honestly I always thought WAS a dude) I would think that more than accent, it's her inflection. She sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. Granted, that question-like inflection is present in some of the accents of the UK, which, by extension, would make it an accent issue. As far as the British accent being prominent in the empire... true, but considering how many rebels were defectors from the empire, I'd be comfortable with that.
That was an eye opener for me, no clue it was a woman at all, I think the shadows of the helmet didn't help. If any retouches to previous films happen again, I would really appreciate variety like this to be added, not only for woman pilots, officers etc but maybe more alien races. Even small remarks from imperial pilots would be cool, not on the same level as Titan Squadron from Squadrons but a little extra flavour maybe.
Makes sense now. The pilot always had an androgynous look but i accepted the pilot as being male. Is that the kamikaze A wing pilot that takes out the Executor bridge?
@@rhpiggy123 that was a different one, Arvel Crynyd. Sila Kott actually died immediately after the dubbed line (her A-wing is shot by TIE Interceptors).
@@rhpiggy123 yeah, that was how it struck me as a child in the theater. Almost a david bowie in the 70s kind of look, but like you, my young mind saw, heard the dubbed voice and said "man".
Excellent clip! I love that lineup of black & white B.T.S. footage of all the Rebel pilots - Stellar! I wish they kept her original voice in too, along with some of the other pilots they had takes of. Perhaps yet another re-edit is in order?
2:10 yout criticism makes sense, in fact the scene where the 19 km executor plummets into the death star, that shot shows the death star so much larger than the executor, in fact in that shots ratios, the death star would be probably around 450 to 500 km in diameter which is far more than the 120 km it is said to be in other sources
Which points to the fact 19km is a dumb and incorrect size for her. For years ssds were 8km. Then some random person in Lucasfilm said 19 with NOTHING to back it up
"I can't think of another occasion where a single ship in the middle of a larger battle is oriented differently unless there's some big tactical thing going on." I suggest the simplest explaination- that's exactly what's happening and the captain of the ship is either doing, or has been ordered to do "an Anakin special" and thus is executing an unorthadox manuver, heck it could even have been Vader's idea as that's the type of thing he was pretty well known for in the clone wars. All you have to do is just tack on some extra lore as to what they were trying to acomplish and you've got plenty of options
One that I always like is that Vaders previous Flagship, the Devastator, is stated to have been destroyed by B-Wings in canon, and we actually see the ship blowing up when the order to concentrate all fire on the Executor was being given.
Good stuff. My favorite detail isn't so much an in-universe bit, but more a movie editing bit. Right after Lando says "Fighters coming in" and we look through the Falcon's cockpit and watch the merge. If you look closely they added in some TIE Fighters mid scene and makes it look like they come out of nowhere.
Aha! I *knew* something was off about that A-Wing pilot! All these years I wondered why the eyelashes seemed just a little too long and mascara-y for a male pilot. 😀
Lol, it's amazing what shadows can do to your perspective. When the first pic of her came up in this video, I could clearly tell it was a woman and then 5 seconds later the shadows moved and I thought it was a man again 😆
Really cool details Eck honestly only ever noticed/knew about the Tector, mainly since you've done a video about that vessel before but did notice before how odd it looked compared to other ISDs. Also the Nebulon-B vs Executor definitely feels right to me since the scale always seemed kinda off but I hadn't realized the lighting difference till now!
I think some of the coolest cut scenes were the ones involving the B-Wings. There are all kinds of cockpits shots involving them that, had they and the associated model work been completed, would have shown just how awesome and powerful they were. Then there are the General Madine scenes, where he basically fills the roll of Ackbar, Lucas hedging his bets as to how well Ackbar would look and be recieved.
The tector class flying upside down makes some sence if its doing a marg sable maneuver. They're trying to protect their bridge and main weapon systems on the dorsal side of the ship and maybe even something behind the destroyer like a battlecruiser or a secondary wave of tie's
Factor 5 did an amazing job of recreating the space battle of Endor in the two Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube. You even got to play as the A Wing pilot who ends up crashing into the command bridge of The Executor.
Vs matchup Sgt. Johnson(Halo) vs Captain Rex(Star Wars) Johnson gets Br 55, 1 m6 sidearm and marine BDU Rex gets DC 15 rifle his pistols and phase 2 clone armor
My rational for the executor ending the way it did was that, as the bridge shield was pounded by the rebel fleet it became less and less consistent, permitting some fighters to go through. Two A-wing sneak up behind the tower and manage to destroy one of the dome sensor, impeding AA fire around the area of the bridge (or at least accurate fire). Most fighters who made it are still shot down but not Arvel Crynyd who shoves his damaged A-wing into the command module before anyone has time to react. The ship loses control of it’s thrusters and dives into the death star perforating 3-4km into its surface. It eventually hits something important, causing a massive explosion that engulfs the ship (notice that in the movie it’s not the executor itself exploding. The flames clearly come from the death star). Wether the ship is damaged or not by that is kind of a moot point, since the entire station blows up shortly after.
I think the voice for point 5 would have been better kept because of the accent. From what I remember in school, and I could be wrong here, accent is tied to where you grow up. Thus keeping her would show that even in the areas where a lot of upper class Imperials come from there are some people willing to fight them.
All the fascinating details about the battle of Endor. I could watch it,discuss it and analyze it forever. In comparison to the space battles in the prequels or sequels which I couldn't give a shit about🤨🤣😁
The section you mention at roughly 6:16 is the forward shuttle bay, not a tractor beam bay, earlier in ROTJ we see Vader's shuttle departing from that same section on an Imperial-II while two TIEs depart from the main hangar behind it.
I never understood the confusion and frustration over the Executor's crash. But I think it may come from most people seeing it on the small screen. Seeing it in theaters, the damaged engine always stood out to me. The damage is in the right spot to steer it the way it did when Navigation is down.
OMG, i just love seeing that dog at the end. Makes my cat want watch your videos lol. I like to know if there is any tech manuals on the decks of Star Destroyers and why does it needs so many crews to operate? With a lot space taken by the engines, landing bay, and ground unit storage bays, it seem too many. Also, the space for large ship storage for supplies, foods, damage control parts, manufacturing, and others. Unless the crew are stacked 6 to a room, I always found it hard to believe a crew of over 7,000 on ISD I or II.
With the Executor engine damage you mentioned, you can even see smoke billowing from roughly the engine area on the SSD when Ackbar makes the order to concentrate firepower, (in this video, 0:28; roughly 1:59 in the movie)
Little detail that's always kinda bugged me. Wedge is briefly followed by a Tie that crashes into a Rebel ship. Was it a kamikaze run or was it going too fast to get clear?
I dunno. Strange because a TIE interceptor can fly circles around an X-wing. The pilot literally crashed for no reason. His turning is superior to an X-Wing in every way.
One thing that always bugged me about Star Wars has been the tendency not to portray the Empire as a skilled and competent military force. Like that TIE fighter crashing that you mentioned, stormtroopers with poor aim, the 2 TIE fighters in The Empire Strikes Back crashing into an asteroid canyon wall while chasing the Falcon, and so on.
@@blockmasterscott In the OT most of the time stormtroopers were ordered not to kill or harm the heroes. You're nitpicking if you have a problem with TIE pilots. Han, Lando and Wedge are supposed to outsmart them so the story can move forward. Otherwise the films would be twice as long.
I never realized that shot was the under belly of a star destroyer! That’s awesome. They probably couldn’t get the shot with the camera with the bridge and everything attached so they had to turn the star destroyer around.
Really wish they would give that A-wing pilot back her female voice. Just use a voice actress with a more American accent. Would that have been really that hard? If they do another re-release of ROTJ I'd like to see that happen.
@@danielkorladis7869 I'm okay with this as well. In fact, I think it would be even better since it really drives home that this is a civil war and the rebels really are from everywhere.
Just use her original voice track. Imperial defectors were actually pretty common within the Rebellion, so it's not hard to say "oh yeah, she quit after a crisis of conscience".
I have never thought of this before, but watching the first part with the SSD I can't help but think that the death star had its own gravity. That it got too close and with damaged engines that it got pulled in which is why it went and curved down? I can't remember seeing a discussion on this before, so I hope I am not mentioning the obvious.
Is it possible that the frigate was flying at the back of the SSD, firing at the engines when off screen? Would explain the damage to the Executor's engines and the fact that the frigate survived that particular encounter since SDs don't have that many weapons facing their backs
Oh I forgot I saw this on another UA-cam channel...if you zoom in really close on that supposed CR90 you will see that I stead of 4 upper engine pods there are 2 oval pods...meaning it only has 4 or maybe 5 engines and the nose is smaller like it's a scout ship of some sort... And that would make perfect sense to go with the scale as well as the rebellion needing to use every ship in it's arsenal... I think it may have been EC Henry who pointed it out? Don't quote me on that
8:32 In Legends, the accent of the Imperials is first referenced in the video game, Star Wars The Old Republic, as being from the Sith Empire capital world of Dromund Kaas.
I miss nerding over details in the original trilogy. In the 90's nerding out over scant actual material and a few video games WAS "Star Wars" and I think that's more fun than most of the additional movies actually wound up being.
*Return of the Jedi* novelization, nerds ;)
Video idea: 5 subjugator class cruisers vs the Malevolence
That was quite an insane detail
0:29 Did you also see The Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up above The Executor when Ackbar commanded every Rebel Ship in the fleet to destroy The SSD? That should have been mentioned.
#AskEckOctober Do you think Darth Caedus could stand up to Darth Sidious himself? I would think so.
@@amysargent4237 I only noticed that when I watched on the special addition...that little detail was not in the original release lol...my dad bought all of the star wars movies on VHS as they came out so I am lucky enough to be able to compare all of them with the newer cuts...it's fun sometimes
Battle of Endor was a masterpiece. Not to mention, it's soundtrack (called "Into The Trap" for anyone wondering) is equally awesome, and goes with just about any suspenseful movie scene you can find
Ive been trying to look for that track thank you
@@adorimirable I'm more than happy to help, my fellow John Williams music enthusiast
The soundtrack really is amazing in RotJ, especially in the Battle of Endor. It really conveys that it's the climactic battle of a long struggle.
Oh, yeah, Into the Trap is my go-to aerial/space battle music. Back when I used to play War Thunder I always hummed it during the approach phase, when all the planes are sort of flying into enemy airspace from their spawning point.
Actually the track is just Battle of Endor Part I, II and III.
My favorite detail is that Wedge closed his S-Foils during the narrow part of the Death Star run into the core. Just before the Falcon lost it's Dish, you can see Wedge's X-Wing close it's S-foils when flying through the same narrow gap. A very fine attention to detail scene, something they could of easily ignored and viewers would of likely never noticed, but the fact it's there, for only like 2 seconds is gold.
Nice catch! Many terrific details in this battle (which to this day remains the best space battle scene imo). For me the greatest hard to catch detail was the destruction of the second chasing Tie fighter by the explosion shock wave (?) after the reactor gets hit.
Blink and you miss it A Wings.
Poe Dameron did that with his X Wing as well when he went into the Starkiller interior.
@@kirillzakharov7336 Ya but with CGI it's just less epic. if they didn't already ruin the character's believability in his first X-Wing scene I wouldn't hate the character with a passion.
There are numerous imperial defectors in Canon and Legends who would likely be in the cockpit of a rebel starfighter. In the original N64 Rogue Squadron video game Kasan Moor was a female pilot of the Elite 128th TIE Interceptor Squadron who defected shortly after being captured. According to her Wookiepedia article, however, she was pretty much only created for that game; it isn't much of a stretch to believe that there were others like her though.
Crix Madine was a defector as well, and so was Wedge Antilles.
@@danielkorladis7869 also Biggs Darklighter and Baron Fel. Han Solo wasn't a defector, though; he was dishonourably discharged for striking a higher-ranking officer that was abusing a certain Wookie slave long before joining the Rebellion.
@@danielkorladis7869 *Crix Madine. Yes, a large core of Rebel officers, advisors, and leaders were Imperial defectors. The story mode of Star Wars Squadrons even starts with an Imperial defection that takes place shortly after the destruction of Alderaan. The destruction of Alderaan was THE major turning point for a lot of Imperials and resulted in the disillusionment of many others. Indeed from a certain point of view, anyone who was part of the original Delegation of 2000 could be considered an Imperial defector.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Wookiepedia. According to that, she retired from Rogue squadron before the Battle of Hoth, but remained an advisor. She did fly at the Battle of Mon Calamari with Rogue Flight during the Dark Empire conflict; that was the final playable mission in the Rogue Squadron game before the unlockable bonus missions. However she was an "unofficial" combatant, which is why there are no records of her being part of Rogue Flight during that conflict.
I loved Kasan Moor. I thought her voice actress was great.
As for the second detail:
At knife fighting range against the trench of the Executor might actually be the safest spot for a bunch of Rebel ships during that battle. They’d be so close that most of the Executor’s guns couldn’t fire on the ships, and any other Imperial ships risk hitting the Executor if they fired on the Rebel cruisers. If you can survive the initial hail of turbolaser fire as you approach, you can stick like flies to the massive ship and just pummel away at it in relative safety.
had the same thought. I didn't think of them using the executor like a hostage though, nice.
But firing anti-fighter weaponry at the Executor is unlikely to cause any damage. Like a machine gun against a tank. That said, it might make them difficult to track and would certainly be helpful against the Executor's own weaponry... especially if coverage is poor.
@@basedeltazero714 Well nebulon-bs have a couple turbolasers and every bit of rebel firepower counts
@@pastaaura925 Even better if the shields work like the Raddus’s from episode 8. If you’re close enough to be under the shield bubble, you can shear your way through the armor real fast.
That’s a great point OP!
My favorite detail is in the background when Ackbar says they need to give the fighters more time. There is a Mon Cal cruiser and ISD in the space right above Ackbar's eye and above the Executor. If you look closely, there is a split second moment where you can see the two firing at each other, then the ISD explodes. Its the only moment in the original movies where you can clearly see two capital ships engaging each other to the best of my knowledge.
You can actually see it here at around 0:26
You're right, I've always noticed the Star Destroyer exploding, but I never saw the Calamari Cruiser broadsiding it!
@@koopanique I swear in a few articles I've read online say that it was the devistator
@@kyleruiz7167 it could have been intended to be the Dev. In the Lost Rebels bonus features mention in the video, a good amount of the Mon Cal and Sullustan dialogue could pertain to the cut sequence where b-wings attack and destroy a star destroyer. And both are in B-Wing cockpits.
could very well see them cutting from that to the Ackbar shot with the cruiser finishing it off
@@holesintheground38 Would be good to make a fan film that integrates some of this lost footage into a more detailed version of the battle. Those B-Wing squadrons might have been attacking in sequence with that Mon Cal Cruiser to destroy that ship since it was one of the close escorts of Executer. picking off the ISDs around Executer would be required before Executer itself could be forced out of the battle.
“Attack the Executor”
“Sir we are a medical frigate”
“We got guns don’t we?”
"If I can heal you I know how to take you apart!"
I like to think that’s the ship that destroyed an engine or engine cluster or fuel line that later contributed to the executor crashing. And survive the battle because they’re just that batsh*t crazy.
“The medical frigate did what?!?”
“I don’t understand either, sir”
IT'S BETTER THEN BEING OUT IN THE OPEN! NOW GET ME CLOSER, I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY LIGHTSABER!!!
@@K9TheFirst1 FULL POWER TO THE TURBO SCALPELS!
Admiral Raddus: "Call up a hammerhead Corvette, I have an idea!"
Admiral Ackbar: "Call up a medical Frigate, I have an idea!"
There are many shield effects present, also. The ISD and the Mon Calamari cruisers (the MC80s), counter turbolaser fire with 'blueish explosions'. There is what looks like to be energy missiles or torpedos, in the background, within some shots. Perhaps concussion missiles.
The Battle of Endor is great.
My favourite space battle.
This also makes me think of all the small explosions we see going off in other shots of the Endor battle, as well as at the Battle of Yavin. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be stray shots impacting shields, or some kind of 'laser flak' effect, but I prefer to think of them as the former.
@@andymac4883 It's both. A great UA-cam channel deconstructed all these explosions and filtered out the ones were evidently *flak* effects (mostly caused by stray turbolaser and laser canon salvos) and which ones may have been intended to be shield interactions.
ua-cam.com/video/8v1J_eaiRWY/v-deo.html
this is the content youtube needs
2:22 plus with that scene in motion the CR90 either grows or shrinks without actually getting closer to the camera.
Maybe, in that scene CR90 supposed to be behind Nebulon-B, and it was error in compositing layers with ships?
@@aresnir2725 yeah, that's what seems to be the case
Shocked and disappointed that no EU author has explained that weird scaling with a Nebulon Dreadnought
Clearly it's the same class of ship as the _Salvation_ from The Force Unleashed II.
It's not even that big a stretch--the Providence Class from the prequels had a scaled-up variant.
far easier to add the starfighter-sized Corvette into the discussion (though for preference I'd have to add both ideas into the discussion)
it's a composition error like many others in the ROTJ space battles... they placed the blockade runner over the frigate and not behind...
@@andymac4883 That's actually a nice headcanon
Hats off to the captain and crew with stones large enough to bring a Nebulon into point-blank range of the Executor to trade blows. There must have been many such sacrifices before the Executor was weak enough to be finished off.
I can imagine, in this sort of a scenario, tucking a Nebulon in behind a Mon Calamari cruiser that was also approaching, then getting out from behind cover once you were close enough to the Executor that only a limited number of turbolasers could target the frigate
That’s the ship that took out some of its engines. The crew probably underestimated it and let it get a critical hit.
That Nebula probably just got as close as it could to the SSD to not get shot at by the other SD's around it.
Yeah, the entire battle became a brutal, close-in knife fight after the Death Star started shooting.
Getting under the guns is also a valid tactic.
yeah. Doubt the SSD has too many really powerful guns right along the trench too since most SDs put them along the terraces/in top edges of the dorito shapes.
HUG THE BIG BIGGER SO THE SMALLER ONES CAN'T SHOT YOU😎
The weird scaling issues made me pick up a book about model making (albeit for wargamming miniatures) and blueprinting as a kid. Now I spend hours every semester explaining it to college students. It remains an issue.
That’s crazy man that things that small make so much of a big difference
I always like the idea of the Tector, and it fits in well with the Imperial mindset of creating warships for outgunning the more heavily armed (in relation to the republic) Confederate ships in slugging matches rather than starfighter support like the old Venators. And it does have less weak points for precision starfighter strikes to exploit.
When Wedge and Lando enter the power generator chamber, the pursuing TIE fires one shot. This says so much about the conflicted nature of that pilot. On the one hand he has to try and make one last desperate attempt to destroy the Falcon but on the other hand he could damage the generator himself and should probably stop firing. A great little detail.
the way I read it, the engines were intermittent and they were already having control problems. The loss of the primary bridge combined with other damage prevented the secondary bridge from gaining control of the remaining engines, which had gone to full throttle all of a sudden, before disaster.
My main problem with the crash is much simpler. The Executor wasn't that close to the death star to begin with and its engines were off. They were specifically told to "hold posistion" in a sector a fair distance from the death star (luke looking out of the window proves it was alot further away). They wouldn't have moved closer, and the death star wouldn't have closed on the fleet (would have restricted firing angles for the super laser).
So yes drives could have been damaged but they are off, which means damage has no effect. Yes control could have been lost, which would trigger the drives, causing rapid movement, but the movement is then wrong. It turns 90⁰ downwards and goes full throttle, it would have kept turning, not done a neat nose dive, can't claim DS has gravity enough to do it, else it'd have made the surface of the moon a nightmare landscape, also the DS has a tiny mass (it's mostly empty space) compared to basically anything that size and those objects tend to have next to no gravity at all. Also gravity wouldn't make it go "nose down", it would pull it all evenly, if anything the ass would fall faster as that's wefe the majority of the mass is, and would be unbalncing the ships centre of gravity.
Basically it's cool how they do it, and it makes some sense. But from the way the fleets were laid out, and the distances involved, it and the entire inperial fleet somehow bypassed the rebel fleet (its between them and the DS) and parked in orbit of the DS dispite having orders not to do it. So it makes no sense, and that just bugs me.
Not counting how it alone outgunned the entire rebel fleet nearly 50:1, nothing larger than the falcon would have made it close without been reduced to scrap metal.
Also while a cool battle, it's pointless. The idea was "no survivors" so why did the emperor pull his punches to show off the death star. Or bother having his troops take prisoners on the forest moon (or even let them land). But then the "were setting up a trap for the rebels, yet we have a SSD parked here that out guns their entire fleet" logic falls down, they'd have cancelled the attack if it was there.
Gah I love SW but hate the stupidity sometimes.
@@cgi2002 I don't care about all that technical stuff and lore-consistency jibberish. The directors were probably thinking,
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone kamikaze'd the super star destroyer and then it crashed into the Death Star, and made a giant explosion?"
"Yeah, that would be totally badass!"
"Alright, let's add that!"
And I totally agree with their decisions. It was VERY badass, and I'd prefer that to something that makes 100% sense and is consistent with lore and all that stuff. Always remember,
Big explosion cool.
0:29 Did you also notice that one regular Star Destroyer that EXPLODED as Ackbar commanded every Rebel ship to "CONCENTRATE ALL FIRE ON THE SUPER STAR DESTROYER"? Aside from Rogue One, I don't see any Imperial Star Destroyer get completely blown up like that in The Original Trilogy.
Something must have blown its reactor.
IIRC before that scene, that was supposed to be a sequence with a group of B-Wings making a bombing run and basically ripping apart the Star Destroyer, but as with most of the B-Wing scenes, it was scrapped. It would have looked hella cool though.
It was my favorite scene. An ISD finally goes boom completely. Solar ionization reactor was destroyed.
@@michaelandreipalon359 It's where the famous art piece of 3 B-Wings flying away from a Star Destroyer comes from. That art piece was supposed to be envisioned in the scene I described above.
That was like the first thing I noticed when I watched RotJ for the first time.
I would love a video going into all the scale shenanigans of the Original Trilogy and then, to explain to people that perhaps don't take that scale nerd stuff to seriously, what general rules do fans and sources tend to settle on as the "correct" scale.
I mean, these are the films themselves, they should have the final say on scale, but where does the final say end up? Differences of a few meters shouldn't matter overmuch, but, like the CR90, that was a hilarious extreme.
Only when the film is broken down frame by frame do the fascinating details reveal themselves.
Another detail I love is that you can see a Y-Wing take out multiple Interceptors in a dogfight. I’ve always hated the misconception that Y-Wings were useless in dogfights. In fact, in the lore that should be said about the B-Wing everyone worships, not the Y-Wing
The Y-Wing stats in the old WEG books and the X-Wing game series shows that they were not useless in a dog fight.
Yes! Totally agree, I always saw the Y-Wing as more of a fighter bomber, the way they are used at Yavin and the way that guy in Endor taking two interceptors in a row implies there was more fight in them than various video games (and let's face it, it's games that have given Y-Wings a bad rap) would have us believe.
I was delighted to see them competently perform their role in Rogue One, massive vindication for fans of the Y.
I always pictured it as equivilant to like an F-4 or F-105 with the Xwings and ties maybe being more equivilant to like F-15s and F-16s performance wise. Not useless but disadvantaged to some extent against newr types. It kinda comes down to the games over simplifying things to try and make the ships "feel" different.
The one reason I could see for a ship to invert (assuming it started out in an 'upright' stance along with the rest of its fleet) is either if the hull plating at the bottom of the ship is thicker, or less worn away, or fewer super critical systems were along that segment of ship and they were trying to rotate the bridge away to keep it from being an easy target.
The Bacta War (Book 4 of the X-Wing series, which is now unfortunately classed as Legends) covers pretty much exactly this situation. The Rogue Squadron aligned ISD 2 Freedom went toe to toe with the Xucphra/Isard aligned SSD Lusankya (which was almost entirely without fighter cover). The Freedom was hit hard in the initial exchange of fire, but after collapsing the Freedom's facing shields, then inflicting massive hull damage and knocking out most the armament on the side of Freedom which was facing her, the Lusankya focused on engaging the attacking Rogue Squadron starfighters which were providing targeting data for torpedo/missile armed light freighters instead of finishing off the Freedom. As soon as his crew got the ship back under control, Captain Yonka of the Freedom ordered his helmsman to half roll the ship in order to bring the intact shields and armament on the other side to face the already damaged area of the Lusankya and then re-engaged the SSD.
Admittedly in a massed brawl at knife fight range such as the Battle of Endor, that's likely to be a less valuable tactic than in a one on one duel between capital ships - but given the comparatively limited number of Rebel Alliance warships, its not entirely impossible that the Alliance warships were all in roughly the same direction at the time, so if shields were badly weakened or down on the side facing attack it makes sense to half roll the ship and take incoming fire on a shield which is still at full strength. Also gives time for the shields and armament to recharge and to reload munitions launchers on the now unengaged side of the ship before rolling back when the engaged side begins to become vulnerable.
Could also be a Marg Sabl offshoot or to present undamaged shields when a portion has fallen
I mean, the female pilots line reads were also pretty not great. When she's reading the "there's too many of them" line, it sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. That might have a bit to do with it, as well as the accent. Though with the accent they could have simply given her backstory about being an imperial defector
agreed. one of them - who didn't make it in - sounded like she was totally clueless about where she was, and was scared out of her wits to boot. the concept behind the female pilots was great and all kudos to Lucas for trying to make it work, but there were reasons they (largely) didn't make it into the film. reasons that had nothing to do with sexism.
Star wars rebels did it quite well with the female pilots of Phoenix squadron, maybe one with a British accent too if I remember correctly
THey could have got carrier Fisher to dubbed her ?
I vaguely remember that they removed her voice because her scream was a bit too traumatic when she crashes into the bridge
That’s what takes are for genius.
You think all of Harrison Ford or Mark Hamills lines were flawless every single time they did them?
Even if that was the reason why did they have her dubbed over by an American man? Lol
The blue light and slightly darker coloration gives it away. I always thought that was the executor.
Wonder why the Revenge of the Sith novelization would talk about a future battle???lol
illuminati confirm lol
0:54 ehhh only one out of many engines seems outright gone. Oddly enough on the wrong side given how it turns. Unless it's not dead but instead is in a forced over-thrust.
Actually that's what I thought it was that with the bridge gone it was like a dead man's foot slamming the gas.
Its possible that the engines on the side of the executor controlled the steering and one of them going out makes the steering go in the opposite direction going haywire if you will and diving the executor into the death star
My favourite detail in the battle was Wedge closing the wings a split second before the tight section in the Death Star 2 just as the scene transitions to the Falcon. Very subtle. A nice touch as it adds reason as to why Lando and NN express shock at how tight this section is going to be (losing the radar dish in the process).
Nice catch on that Nebulon-B drive-by. Tactics-wise, it makes perfect sense for a frigate like that to get as close as it can to the executor. During that scene its in an optimal position to take as little firepower as possible from the bulk of the Executors weapons. It's out of the firing arc for most of them. In addition, the Executor also blocks every other Star Destroyer on the opposite side of it from firing, and the Star Destroyers on the Nebulon's opposite don't dare fire either, for risk of hitting the Executor.
Worse, if you are under the larger ship's shields, they literally can't fire at you without hitting the larger ship (fighters as well, since they will just pop). As an extra bonus, you can fire directly into the ship and drill towards critical systems or shield projectors. Lastly, your own shields immediately drop as they cancel each other's out, but you create a constant drain on the regenerative ability of the larger ship. It's a win-win scenario since a ship that large can't really dodge. We see this same tactic in Rogue One with the hammerheads - shields are meaningless at point blank range and large ships can't rotate about their axis very efficiently - certainly not quick enough to dodge such an attack.
I remember some part of an old SW lore book I have, that the Mon Calamari don't have real "classes" on their capital ships, because there don't exist two ships of the same type. Everyone of their ships is a unicum in design. Those ships were more like artworks, each unique to its own and were only later refitted for combat, when the MonCal joined the Rebellion.
The whole scene when they are flying through the super structure of the death star. The scene when the Xwing gets shot by the Tie fighter and Lando says, "Head back to the surface and see if you can get a few of those Tie fighters to follow". Right after that moment the details of how the ships split into 2 different tunnel's. The Millennium Falcon to the left and the other to the right and the one tunnel is glowing a bright read as if it were some kind of heating element. Very cool details! Always loved that.
"Right the ship"
"Wadda mean right the ship?"
"We're upside down stupid!!"
The laser defenses on the typical Star Destroyer are very poor on the underside. Having a few roll over to provide more anti-fighter cover is actually a wise tactic.
9:08 Hadn't really thought about it before, but that ship near the Nebulon-B definitely matched the Executor's edge profile far better than any other ship in the Star Wars movies. I think it could very well be the same model of the side of the Executor that was used in The Empire Strikes Back when the Falcon is fleeing Bespin City.
After watching Templin Institute's Reimagining of the Republic and First Order I would love to see Eckhart do an analysis and vs of the First Order's Indefactable Class Dreadnought and the Republic's Endor Class Super Carrier.
I can imagine the sheer horror and disbelief of imperial pilots, crewmen and officers as the flagship and pride of the fleet crashes uncontroled through the Death Star. No matter how improved the second Death Star was, no construction technique or damage control could've contained such a catastrophic explosion. I don't know if its lore but it wouldn't be surprising if more than one imperial captain would desperatly order his vessel to retreat without looking back.
Maybe we could headcanon the Tector being upside down because it's out of control after getting it's command bridge destroyed?
Me: that makes sense
My brain: or its BECAUSE STAR DESTROYERS CANT TELL WHATS UP, ISNT THAT RIGHT DISNEY, HUH, ISN'T THAT YOUR PLOT POINT FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER! Anyways...
@@tariffictypist7372 STAR DE'STRAYANS
Maybe it's moved to place its undamaged belly toward an enemy after losing the shields topside? I think it was in one of the wraith squadron books where Mon Remonda (possibly) rotates to keep fresh shields toward the enemy. It's been a few years since I read those, though
It’s space, there’s no up or down.
@Liam’s Lego In Star Wars there is. ;P
fun info about Sila Kott, in some international dubbing of the movie its still a woman doing her voice instead of being dubbed over by a male for green leader
that is fun info!
I think that Nebulon-B took advantage of the SSD targetting other, bigger threat ships like the Home-1 class ships, and snuck in for a quick and dirty broadside. There were probably individual turrets on the Executor that realized what was at point-blank range, but because of the scale differences between the two ships, the weapons commanders on the bridge didn't, and had already ordered the gunnery crews and the automated heavy turrets or whatever to target a bigger ship. So only smaller turrets in the Oreo trench that noticed would have fired back at the Nebulon-B, which just 'quickly' skimmed as close as it could (preventing easy lock-on by upper hull and lower hull turrets of the Executor that weren't in the trench), and tried to gut the trench. It still would have taken a lot of fire, but not nearly as much as if it tried to engage at a more respectable range (where the Executor could turn all its really BIG guns on it).
It'd be like, in a pushing match between two Hulk sized dudes, suddenly noticing a 3 foot tall dude with a butcher knife had run up beside one of them while they were distracted pushing, and already gotten a couple of stabs in before anyone could react, and ran away.
Good points.
Guess the Empire should have taken a hint from Karen S'jet of Homeworld. When your ship and crew is too large, you suffer command-paralysis.
@@DrownedInExile I would think on any ship that big, or even SD size, while the big guns would still be commanded from the bridge, unless there's an overriding order from the bridge, the smaller turrets and in-close weapons should be free to engage targets of their choice. Just to cut down on the back-and-forth of command dictates, especially when there's a reaction lag involved. If it takes 30 seconds to notice a ship is really close, 30 seconds to set the order, 30 seconds for the order to arrive, be understood, and for retasking to start, and another say, 15 seconds before proper return fire happens, that's nearly 2 minutes of basically dithering and deciding. LoL.
And a ship SSD sized would DEFINITELY have a lag between command deck and the gunnery decks down in the Oreo. Or even standing on the bridge and spotting the ship that's half way down your hull, already putting fire into your forward decks.
@@plektosgaming that's actually a neat idea I'd never thought of. I'm gonna have to remember that one!
@@Kalebfenoir As a bonus, their own fighters wouldn't be able to reach it, either. But you would have to be within feet of the other ship and it would have to be almost immobile. I would have loved if they added a line like this: "Sir, the enemy Nebulons ( or Frigates) are under our shields - our own fighters can't reach them!" ( followed by the lines leading up to the bridge's destruction )
@@plektosgaming I'd bet anything that the bridge crew of the Executor didn't even realize the Nebulon was there. A ship that size with a bridge that far away... by the time they got the in-ship comm from the Oreo stations, the damage would have been done and the Nebulon would have passed by. And it really did look like they were close enough to rub hull plates. Fighters absolutely would have been worthless there unless you had aces, and they'd have to weave between whatever fire was crisscrossing that little gap.
I never even noticed the CR-90 in that awesome Nebulon-B shot. . .gotta love the OT for compositing errors
For the Executor, I believe in the Thrawn trilogy, they talk about how Palpatine was also using the Force to have some control/coordination with his fleet. Then, when he died, that control broke and caused some confusion, leading to the rebels to more easily destroy the SSD
There was even a grand admiral who was a force user that used it a little bit during the fight but nowhere near the level of the emperor. I always figure Palpatine was so focused on Luke that if Luke never was there to distract him the fighters may have never made it into the death star.
Thanks for the cool details!
As far as the accent, there were a *lot* of rebels who had defected from the imperial military.
Battle of Endor had the best soundtrack out of all space battles. Just my opinion.
I agree
I don't think many people realize that the Executor also lost control because the Death Star's gravity was already pulling it towards its surface.
Endor is the greatest space battle ever. Not because it is big or flashy, but because it tells a story, and many small stories, without being too cluttered to keep up with.
And the captain of that nebulon b is pretty smart. By being that close to the enemy, he can use his full weapon complement, while they can only use a small amount. Might not do much damage, but the drain on the shields of the SD would be a factor.
That Nebulon was the Antares 6 and that's one of the reasons it was so famous. I can't remember where I read that at to give you a source though I'm sorry.
I don't think it's weird scaling so much as point of view creating an optical illusion...
That's interesting about the Tector however I know the empire had Tectors at Endor to try and counter most of the larger Calamari ships...as for which side is up, I've read in a lot of novels where they did Barrell rolls as evasive maneuvers in a star destroyer because ships were attacking from the sides top and bottom so it could pepper all of the ships with fire...
That really sucks that they cut her voice out because that accent being imperial would point to a defected imperial pilot and that would be really cool to portray....instead of how Disney did it by a stormtrooper stealing a tie fighter and surf boarding it down onto the planets surface in the biggest load of bs I've ever seen lol
As a kid ROTJ was my favorite movie exactly for this space battle. It was so visually gripping, exciting and surprisingly coherent narrative wise and well choreographed. Something that was sorely missing from the new movies in my opinion, save for maybe Rogue One.
The name of the series is Star Wars and there was hardly any space battles in the Disney trilogy.
Ep 7: probably the best battle of the trilogy battle spectacle wise, but really short (3 minutes total) and just an aimless repackaged Death Star trench run which was 15 minutes by comparison
Ep 8: a few small skirmishes during the space chase, again really short
Ep 9: a collage of re-used CGI assets fights another collage of re-used CGI assets for a few minutes, mostly with interior cockpit shots of actors
Most of from what we know now of the development, this seems to stem from the breakneck pace of development and lack of time to really hammer out a plot that allowed for a coherent vision for effects artists to create a big battle on the scale of Endor. Incredibly disappointing in my opinion. I hope that changes in future movies.
I love playing this battle on the X-Wing Alliance game!
Battle of Endor is great because it's one of the few space battles that you can tell the tactics being used.
Usually it's just a scrum of stuff on screen.
There is another point in the films where you see capital ships at different angles than "up". In Revenge of the Sith you can see more Venators and Recusant ships entering the space battle nearly perpendicular to the horizon line. Same thing happened in the Genndy clone wars show
It also occurs in The Empire Strikes Back when the fleet breaks up once the Empire loses track of the Millennium Falcon. When Han points it out, the scene out the cockpit window shows Star Destroyers headed off in several different vectors not in the same plane.
Fun fact: The Rebel Fleet was winning the naval engagement with the Imperial Fleet before the shield protecting the Death Star was neutralized. Thank you Sheev Palpatine for being a better political strategist than a military tactician.
Between the cost of the death star itself and the loss of a sizeable portion of the imeprial fleet (ships, officer corps, etc) even if the Empire had won, economically the rebellion had stabbed an artery. Not immediately fatal but if the emprie were stupid (and they would be) they would yank the knife out rather than seek proper care.
I think of it like the Soviet Red Army at the start of WW2. Most of the competent officers would have been purged in case they got too big for their britches; consider how quickly Vader goes through SD commanders in ESB. This leaves the loyal, rather than the skilled, in command so their actual warfighting capability against the Rebels -- who had to be *good* to survive being outgunned and outnumbered all the time -- was limited.
@@matthewbeale5083 Actually, Vader was chewing through the incompetent officers. Ozzel was a jackass with connections rather than merit, and Captain Needa just gave up the second that the Falcon 'disappeared' and then wasted everyone's time taking a shuttle rather than report over the radio.
But Admiral Piett was spared.
So the loss of the Executor with all hands meant that the Empire lost the absolute cream of the cream of the crop of their officer corps.
After listening to the female pilot's dialogue, (who, honestly I always thought WAS a dude) I would think that more than accent, it's her inflection. She sounds more like she's asking a question than making a statement. Granted, that question-like inflection is present in some of the accents of the UK, which, by extension, would make it an accent issue. As far as the British accent being prominent in the empire... true, but considering how many rebels were defectors from the empire, I'd be comfortable with that.
That was an eye opener for me, no clue it was a woman at all, I think the shadows of the helmet didn't help.
If any retouches to previous films happen again, I would really appreciate variety like this to be added, not only for woman pilots, officers etc but maybe more alien races.
Even small remarks from imperial pilots would be cool, not on the same level as Titan Squadron from Squadrons but a little extra flavour maybe.
Yeah I watched those deleted scenes and none of them were particularly great. That's probably why they were cut.
Makes sense now. The pilot always had an androgynous look but i accepted the pilot as being male. Is that the kamikaze A wing pilot that takes out the Executor bridge?
@@rhpiggy123 that was a different one, Arvel Crynyd.
Sila Kott actually died immediately after the dubbed line (her A-wing is shot by TIE Interceptors).
@@rhpiggy123 yeah, that was how it struck me as a child in the theater. Almost a david bowie in the 70s kind of look, but like you, my young mind saw, heard the dubbed voice and said "man".
This is the kind of video that brought me to this channel and made me love it so much!
Excellent clip! I love that lineup of black & white B.T.S. footage of all the Rebel pilots - Stellar! I wish they kept her original voice in too, along with some of the other pilots they had takes of. Perhaps yet another re-edit is in order?
2:10 yout criticism makes sense, in fact the scene where the 19 km executor plummets into the death star, that shot shows the death star so much larger than the executor, in fact in that shots ratios, the death star would be probably around 450 to 500 km in diameter which is far more than the 120 km it is said to be in other sources
Which points to the fact 19km is a dumb and incorrect size for her. For years ssds were 8km. Then some random person in Lucasfilm said 19 with NOTHING to back it up
i find it so hilarious imagining a single star destroyer just chillin' "upside down" during battle
My guess a nearby mon called is below her so she oriented to bring main guns to bare
"I can't think of another occasion where a single ship in the middle of a larger battle is oriented differently unless there's some big tactical thing going on." I suggest the simplest explaination- that's exactly what's happening and the captain of the ship is either doing, or has been ordered to do "an Anakin special" and thus is executing an unorthadox manuver, heck it could even have been Vader's idea as that's the type of thing he was pretty well known for in the clone wars. All you have to do is just tack on some extra lore as to what they were trying to acomplish and you've got plenty of options
One that I always like is that Vaders previous Flagship, the Devastator, is stated to have been destroyed by B-Wings in canon, and we actually see the ship blowing up when the order to concentrate all fire on the Executor was being given.
Thanks for the insightful video buddy. I appreciate your hardwork.
I love this style of video keep up the good work
"BRING US INTO POINT-BALNK RANGE OF THE SUPER STAR DISTROYER, I WANNA PUNCH THEM."
PRAISE THE EMPEROR AND GET ME CLOSE ENOUGH TO SPIT IN THEIR CAPTAIN'S FACE!
Love these videos
It would be cool to see a remaster where they show a brief shot of Hera Syndulla in an X-Wing.
According to canon Hera was on the Ghost. I would equally have loved to have seen that too.
Good stuff.
My favorite detail isn't so much an in-universe bit, but more a movie editing bit. Right after Lando says "Fighters coming in" and we look through the Falcon's cockpit and watch the merge. If you look closely they added in some TIE Fighters mid scene and makes it look like they come out of nowhere.
Aha! I *knew* something was off about that A-Wing pilot! All these years I wondered why the eyelashes seemed just a little too long and mascara-y for a male pilot. 😀
Lol, it's amazing what shadows can do to your perspective. When the first pic of her came up in this video, I could clearly tell it was a woman and then 5 seconds later the shadows moved and I thought it was a man again 😆
Video Idea: Which Sci-Fi Faction has the best Dropship | Phantom(Halo), Cheyenne UD-4L(Aliens), Puddle Jumper(StarGate), UT-47 Kodiak(Mass Effect)
Don't forget the ISSCV from Space: Above and Beyond, and the DR-4 Viking dropship from Starship Troopers.
Mech Warrior Hrothgar dropship
Really cool details Eck honestly only ever noticed/knew about the Tector, mainly since you've done a video about that vessel before but did notice before how odd it looked compared to other ISDs. Also the Nebulon-B vs Executor definitely feels right to me since the scale always seemed kinda off but I hadn't realized the lighting difference till now!
Love these vids and the star wars universe
Eck videos own my Saturday evening
I think some of the coolest cut scenes were the ones involving the B-Wings. There are all kinds of cockpits shots involving them that, had they and the associated model work been completed, would have shown just how awesome and powerful they were. Then there are the General Madine scenes, where he basically fills the roll of Ackbar, Lucas hedging his bets as to how well Ackbar would look and be recieved.
Hey man. This is Awesome. I remember seeing this for the first time as a kid. And let me tell you, I could never describe the experience otherwise.
Yep I've always said it was the Executor that the Nebulon was next to.
The tector class flying upside down makes some sence if its doing a marg sable maneuver. They're trying to protect their bridge and main weapon systems on the dorsal side of the ship and maybe even something behind the destroyer like a battlecruiser or a secondary wave of tie's
Factor 5 did an amazing job of recreating the space battle of Endor in the two Rogue Squadron games on the GameCube. You even got to play as the A Wing pilot who ends up crashing into the command bridge of The Executor.
Vs matchup Sgt. Johnson(Halo) vs Captain Rex(Star Wars)
Johnson gets Br 55, 1 m6 sidearm and marine BDU
Rex gets DC 15 rifle his pistols and phase 2 clone armor
1:26 I love that the OG Battlefront 2 used this shot in it's title screen.
My rational for the executor ending the way it did was that, as the bridge shield was pounded by the rebel fleet it became less and less consistent, permitting some fighters to go through. Two A-wing sneak up behind the tower and manage to destroy one of the dome sensor, impeding AA fire around the area of the bridge (or at least accurate fire). Most fighters who made it are still shot down but not Arvel Crynyd who shoves his damaged A-wing into the command module before anyone has time to react. The ship loses control of it’s thrusters and dives into the death star perforating 3-4km into its surface. It eventually hits something important, causing a massive explosion that engulfs the ship (notice that in the movie it’s not the executor itself exploding. The flames clearly come from the death star).
Wether the ship is damaged or not by that is kind of a moot point, since the entire station blows up shortly after.
I think the voice for point 5 would have been better kept because of the accent. From what I remember in school, and I could be wrong here, accent is tied to where you grow up. Thus keeping her would show that even in the areas where a lot of upper class Imperials come from there are some people willing to fight them.
Great video! Keep up the great work!
All the fascinating details about the battle of Endor. I could watch it,discuss it and analyze it forever. In comparison to the space battles in the prequels or sequels which I couldn't give a shit about🤨🤣😁
The section you mention at roughly 6:16 is the forward shuttle bay, not a tractor beam bay, earlier in ROTJ we see Vader's shuttle departing from that same section on an Imperial-II while two TIEs depart from the main hangar behind it.
I never understood the confusion and frustration over the Executor's crash. But I think it may come from most people seeing it on the small screen. Seeing it in theaters, the damaged engine always stood out to me. The damage is in the right spot to steer it the way it did when Navigation is down.
OMG, i just love seeing that dog at the end. Makes my cat want watch your videos lol. I like to know if there is any tech manuals on the decks of Star Destroyers and why does it needs so many crews to operate? With a lot space taken by the engines, landing bay, and ground unit storage bays, it seem too many. Also, the space for large ship storage for supplies, foods, damage control parts, manufacturing, and others. Unless the crew are stacked 6 to a room, I always found it hard to believe a crew of over 7,000 on ISD I or II.
The Nebulon B taking on the SD is my favourite moment in all of Star Wars, until now I never thought of it as a SSD.
With the Executor engine damage you mentioned, you can even see smoke billowing from roughly the engine area on the SSD when Ackbar makes the order to concentrate firepower, (in this video, 0:28; roughly 1:59 in the movie)
Would love a video game where you could be one of the gunners on the Falcon during the battle of Endor. You could choose upper or lower cannon.
X-wing Alliance
@@peterkrochmalni673 No shit??? Gotta check it out.
@@peterkrochmalni673 Not quite what I meant. Close though.
@@Chrisdrumz did you actually play it?
@@peterkrochmalni673 Watched a walkthrough. Didn't see any part where you mount the upper and lower cannons on the Falcon.
Little detail that's always kinda bugged me. Wedge is briefly followed by a Tie that crashes into a Rebel ship. Was it a kamikaze run or was it going too fast to get clear?
I dunno. Strange because a TIE interceptor can fly circles around an X-wing. The pilot literally crashed for no reason. His turning is superior to an X-Wing in every way.
One thing that always bugged me about Star Wars has been the tendency not to portray the Empire as a skilled and competent military force. Like that TIE fighter crashing that you mentioned, stormtroopers with poor aim, the 2 TIE fighters in The Empire Strikes Back crashing into an asteroid canyon wall while chasing the Falcon, and so on.
Maybe the Tie pilot got tunnel vision, too focus on the X-Wing and forgot his surrounding until at the last moment .
I always saw that as pilot error
@@blockmasterscott In the OT most of the time stormtroopers were ordered not to kill or harm the heroes. You're nitpicking if you have a problem with TIE pilots. Han, Lando and Wedge are supposed to outsmart them so the story can move forward. Otherwise the films would be twice as long.
Really loved this video. Always thought that mon cala ship was just another home one type as a kid.
I never realized that shot was the under belly of a star destroyer! That’s awesome. They probably couldn’t get the shot with the camera with the bridge and everything attached so they had to turn the star destroyer around.
Really wish they would give that A-wing pilot back her female voice. Just use a voice actress with a more American accent. Would that have been really that hard? If they do another re-release of ROTJ I'd like to see that happen.
IMO there's no reason not to use the original voice. There are several Alliance characters who have English/Scottish/Irish actors.
@@danielkorladis7869 I'm okay with this as well. In fact, I think it would be even better since it really drives home that this is a civil war and the rebels really are from everywhere.
Ahh, yes. The _American_ accent.
Just use her original voice track. Imperial defectors were actually pretty common within the Rebellion, so it's not hard to say "oh yeah, she quit after a crisis of conscience".
@@nicholasfarrell5981 Exactly. There were characters who did just that.
Haha I never noticed the Nebulon B Frigate going against the Executor. That crew got BALLS!
Ecks - best video you’ve ever done.
I have never thought of this before, but watching the first part with the SSD I can't help but think that the death star had its own gravity. That it got too close and with damaged engines that it got pulled in which is why it went and curved down? I can't remember seeing a discussion on this before, so I hope I am not mentioning the obvious.
Is it possible that the frigate was flying at the back of the SSD, firing at the engines when off screen? Would explain the damage to the Executor's engines and the fact that the frigate survived that particular encounter since SDs don't have that many weapons facing their backs
Oh I forgot I saw this on another UA-cam channel...if you zoom in really close on that supposed CR90 you will see that I stead of 4 upper engine pods there are 2 oval pods...meaning it only has 4 or maybe 5 engines and the nose is smaller like it's a scout ship of some sort... And that would make perfect sense to go with the scale as well as the rebellion needing to use every ship in it's arsenal... I think it may have been EC Henry who pointed it out? Don't quote me on that
Not that it’s changed for years anyways, but I hope that outro never changes.
Amazing control of star wars concepts congratulations 👌
8:32 In Legends, the accent of the Imperials is first referenced in the video game, Star Wars The Old Republic, as being from the Sith Empire capital world of Dromund Kaas.
0:25 i see no curve #FlatDeathStar
For all the wide shots they used a fisheye lens
That upside down Star Destroyer was crewed by us Newfies, we always have to be different lol.
my dad's a newf so I see it
I miss nerding over details in the original trilogy. In the 90's nerding out over scant actual material and a few video games WAS "Star Wars" and I think that's more fun than most of the additional movies actually wound up being.