Okay, so Poe is obviously Black One, Pava is Blue 3 I think, anyone know any of the rest? Specifically I want to do a Nien Nunb reprint but I'd love the rest for later reference...

Jess and Snap were part of Blue squadron, Nien and Ello were part of Red. Not sure of exact call signs though. Jess and Snap were also members of Poe's handpicked "Black Squadron" prior to the battle of Starkiller Base.

TBH, who the hell is who is a mess in TFA. Trying to keep track of which X-Wing is which and who is flying which is almost impossible. We only know Poe is Poe because he conveniently flies a snappy black X-Wing; for... reasons.

Some random X-Wing gets shot down and the dude with the Irish (or was it Scottish) accent cries "We just lost R1." Who the hell is R1? What does the 'R' stand for?

ANH did it so much better. So did Rogue One. Hell, for a completely different genre; so did Top Gun.

If you're going to have people use callsigns; then make sure the audience know who the callsigns are. Don't just have random extras yell out names as if they mean something.

And make sure through your edits people know which fighters are which and where they are in regards to each other spatially.

In a ANH we know precisely who the Reds and Golds who matter are. So when we hear over the comm system during a shot of the Yavin control room "Have you seen Red 5?" we know they're talking about Luke. When Red Leader tells Luke to fly top cover with "Reds 2 & 3", we know that's Wedge and Biggs because we saw them identify themselves as such.

Black Leader - Poe Dameron

Red 3 - Nien Numb
Red 4 - Bastian
Red 6 - Ello Atsy

Blue 1 - Temmin 'Snap' Wexley
Blue 2 - Yolo Ziff
Blue 3 - Jessika 'Testor' Pava

R1, Furillo, and Niv Lek were also flying, but weren't given callsigns.

Wait R1 was a character's name, not callsign?

3 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Wait R1 was a character's name, not callsign?

yeah, I thought R1 meant Red One... I know I heard it called out.

Maybe the pilot was a ****, but they really liked his astromech?

10 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Maybe the pilot was a ****, but they really liked his astromech?

Unfortunately, an R1 astromech was a early design used by the Empire and way too big to fit in a X-Wing.

I think Arwyn died. So much for a cross-over movie.

4 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Unfortunately, an R1 astromech was a early design used by the Empire and way too big to fit in a X-Wing.

Kinda funny how R2 thru R5 units are all over the place 13 years before the empire was organized but R1 units were used by the 'early empire'. Honestly, that big water heater looking droid in the jawa used car line up needs a better designation. That's one part of 'legends' I wouldn't mind giving a redo.

37 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Unfortunately, an R1 astromech was a early design used by the Empire and way too big to fit in a X-Wing.

I got it. He had been reprogrammed by the rebellion and they replaced the cockpit with an extra large droid socket. And he was only a few weeks from retirement.

2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I got it. He had been reprogrammed by the rebellion and they replaced the cockpit with an extra large droid socket. And he was only a few weeks from retirement.

X-wing with two astromech slots confirmed.

3 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I got it. He had been reprogrammed by the rebellion and they replaced the cockpit with an extra large droid socket. And he was only a few weeks from retirement.

He should have stayed in space. Aerodynamics are a ***** when you're that tall

R1...Are-one...Arwen? Middle Earth confirmed. Starkiller base was the eye of Sauron.

OT Callsigns Red 2 and Red Leader

TFA Callsigns Blue Leader and Blue Ace as well as Blue Veteran.

This is a pretty good read of you haven't seen it yet:

http://www.starwars.com/news/its-the-resistance

It's a short description of each of the pilots in TFA. I found it on www.starwars.com a few weeks ago.

6 hours ago, Talamare said:

Blue 2 - Yolo Ziff

...why ffg missed the opportunity to write this pilot? I want YOLO!

Quote

Furillo was a pilot who got killed in action and whose death was witnessed by Jess Pava, who immediately briefed the other pilots. This pilot might have been a member of Blue Squadron

Haha, even the star wars website has no clue as to who was who in the battle scene.

3 hours ago, BlueSquadronPilot said:

Haha, even the star wars website has no clue as to who was who in the battle scene.

Because the whole thing was cinematically a mess.

13 minutes ago, Dr Zoidberg said:

Because the whole thing was cinematically a mess.

Agreed, but as it's the only film so far with T-70s we must take inspiration where we can...

14 hours ago, BlueSquadronPilot said:

Haha, even the star wars website has no clue as to who was who in the battle scene.

If we assume Furillo was Blue 4
R1 was Red 1
Niv Lek was Red 2

Completely unnamed, unmentioned guy was Red 5

This means that... Poe had no **** business being Black Leader!

Poe being Black Leader when there was no one from Black Squadron even flying!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Leader

"Black Leader was the callsign used by the Resistance X-wing pilot Poe Dameron. He first used the title while leading Black Squadron, but also used it while commanding other units, such as Red and Blue Squadrons."

he was not part of Red or Blue squadron, he was just in charge of the whole Starkiller Base Assualt operation. therefore he used his callsign as the leader of Black Squadron , of which he was the only member present for the operation.

this is normal procedure IRL as well.. even if an airgroup for a mission includes planes from several squadrons or even military branches, they retain their normal callsigns and identifiers.