4 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

Lol well thanks Phoenix squadron for making the A-wing rare.

Also RIP Arvel.

20 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Wedge is Snoop 2.

I guess the top dog has to be Snoop Dogg in Snoop 1, then. Nice flight goggles, Dogg.

He only flies his own personal craft, which is a heavily modified HWK-420.

46 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Also RIP Arvel.

Yea, I guess that "single A-Wing took out an SSD" story overlooks the fact that Green Squadron's A-Wings had been tasked with taking out it's port deflector/sensor array, while Blue Squadron's B-Wings were tasked with it's aft array. This was in conjunction with General Nadine's Liberty-class MC80 and his task force of seven other MC80s that had been pummeling the Executor's dorsal shields and targeting its sensor and comm arrays, dorsal batteries, and power-regulators.

Some of the deleted and unfinished scenes in RotJ were establishing the battle with the Executor as a much larger plot point to be explored in the film after Ackbar orders the fleet to "concentrate firepower on that super star destroyer!" The scenes of Nadine swiveling around in his MC80 bridge chair trying to orchestrate the fight was to be included, and the deleted scenes of the Sullustan and Mon Cal in B-Wing cockpits would have followed Blue Squadron's efforts to destroy the aft deflector/array dish (and the scenes of Green Squadron's A-Wings destroying the port side one would have been more than just two A-Wings zipping in, unloading concussion missiles, and blasting it. You can still see the 8 or so Mon Cals cruising in on and firing upon the Executor from the view out the Executor's bridge, though. Ultimately, though, do to time and complexity, the sub-plot which was going to explore the coordinate offensive required to bring the Executor down was cut (though some remains in the novelization and original storyboards).

So, Arvel's sacrifice was a piece of the Executor's demise, but hardly a solo operation. Minimally, it was the culmination of multiple calculated efforts between eight Mon Calamari cruisers and two entire fighter squadrons which made Arvel's suicidal run even possible. Also, it's not clear (to me at least) in the film if Arvel's attack run was intentional or if, after on a strafing run to take out dorsal targets and missile the bridge, his A-Wing was hit and sent into a spiral that he managed to direct into the bridge as a Plan B.

12 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

• We don't know, precisely.
  • it's long been canon that non-combat 'flight mode' is S-foils closed.
  • S-foils are deployed (immediately) prior to combat
  • This appears to have been standard practice, even for ships which didn't have engines or weapons on the 'foils - like the ARC-170 or Jedi interceptor.
  • This is usually explained as being somehow related to heat dispersal (essentially exposing panels which act as heat-sinks, like I always assumed the TIE fighter's panels did until I first got a cross-sections book),
• Which raises the question "why would you ever have them closed"?
  • We have now seen someone close their wings in a combat situation. Hera Syndulla closes her S-foils prior to pulling an inertial snap turn in an X-wing at Lothal, so presumably this made her more capable of doing so.
  • In the case of the move, increased engine power would make sense as the reason she'd do it, but I don't understand why covering up your heat sinks could help you go faster.
  • As an aside, she was clearly able to fire with S-foils closed. Whether that fire was less effective than it otherwise would have been can be handwaved away with "maybe it was but Hera is amazing protagonist pilot +1 and therefore she hit anyway"

Sorry to go off topic, but I too have wondered this. According to my research in the new canon material, closing S-foils isn't to make the ships fly faster by taking energy from the laser cannons. It makes no sense to close the wings to transfer power when you can do that with a switch or something. Instead, they open up to spread apart the ships firing coverage, and let heat out from the weapons more efficiently. This is why it is still possible to fire your laser cannons with the S-foils closed, but it is not done often, because it is better for the ship to have the S-foils spread apart. When closed, the ship saves power because the energy because you does not need to use its laser cannons, so the energy that would be lost in space is instead recycled into the ship to conserve power, hence the term "flight mode." By closing the S-foils, the ships silhouette is also narrowed, allowing it to land in more places, and fit in tight areas (Hera uses this to her advantage in Rebel Assault).

If you don't understand the above, my main points summarized below in the pictures and captions below. The people's arms are to represent how we use our arms in a manner similar to how ships use S-foils.

• S-foils closed:

By closing a ship's S-foils that ship can conserve energy and power and land in smaller spaces.

•S-foils open:

By opening a ship's S-foils that ship can let out excess energy to prevent overheating and increase firing coverage as well as improve accuracy.

3 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Also, it's not clear (to me at least) in the film if Arvel's attack run was intentional or if, after on a strafing run to take out dorsal targets and missile the bridge, his A-Wing was hit and sent into a spiral that he managed to direct into the bridge as a Plan B.

I thought Arvel initially entered the DS2 behind Lando, but broke off from the core run to try and draw off some of the tie interceptors, got hit by a turbo laser upon exiting the DS2 access shaft, then headed to the Executor while semi out of control.

6 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yea, I guess that "single A-Wing took out an SSD" story overlooks the fact that Green Squadron's A-Wings had been tasked with taking out it's port deflector/sensor array, while Blue Squadron's B-Wings were tasked with it's aft array. This was in conjunction with General Nadine's Liberty-class MC80 and his task force of seven other MC80s that had been pummeling the Executor's dorsal shields and targeting its sensor and comm arrays, dorsal batteries, and power-regulators.

Some of the deleted and unfinished scenes in RotJ were establishing the battle with the Executor as a much larger plot point to be explored in the film after Ackbar orders the fleet to "concentrate firepower on that super star destroyer!" The scenes of Nadine swiveling around in his MC80 bridge chair trying to orchestrate the fight was to be included, and the deleted scenes of the Sullustan and Mon Cal in B-Wing cockpits would have followed Blue Squadron's efforts to destroy the aft deflector/array dish (and the scenes of Green Squadron's A-Wings destroying the port side one would have been more than just two A-Wings zipping in, unloading concussion missiles, and blasting it. You can still see the 8 or so Mon Cals cruising in on and firing upon the Executor from the view out the Executor's bridge, though. Ultimately, though, do to time and complexity, the sub-plot which was going to explore the coordinate offensive required to bring the Executor down was cut (though some remains in the novelization and original storyboards).

So, Arvel's sacrifice was a piece of the Executor's demise, but hardly a solo operation. Minimally, it was the culmination of multiple calculated efforts between eight Mon Calamari cruisers and two entire fighter squadrons which made Arvel's suicidal run even possible. Also, it's not clear (to me at least) in the film if Arvel's attack run was intentional or if, after on a strafing run to take out dorsal targets and missile the bridge, his A-Wing was hit and sent into a spiral that he managed to direct into the bridge as a Plan B.

Luke and Lando get credit for the Death Stars because they delivered the killing blows but of course it takes a team. Arvel is in the same boat. He delivered the killing blow. The executor could have potentially blown up a couple or all of those Mc80s, but arvels unintentional sacrifice probably saved most of their lives. I mean mc80s are big behemoths but the SSD is just huge.

2 hours ago, Cap116 said:

I thought Arvel initially entered the DS2 behind Lando, but broke off from the core run to try and draw off some of the tie interceptors, got hit by a turbo laser upon exiting the DS2 access shaft, then headed to the Executor while semi out of control.

Thats jake farrel (in legends, canon now who knows, I think it will potentially change because that’s a female actor whose voice was dubbed over.) we see in the DS2 breakoff. We see arvel in role call as green leader and then a couple times through out the battle and then when he has his crash.

54 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Thats jake farrel (in legends, canon now who knows, I think it will potentially change because that’s a female actor whose voice was dubbed over.) we see in the DS2 breakoff. We see arvel in role call as green leader and then a couple times through out the battle and then when he has his crash.

Not quite.

There was unused footage of an older woman in an A-Wing cockpit, often referred to as "Granny A-Wing," and black and white takes can be found. Her shots were never used, with or without dubbing:

There was another female actress (who looks a lot like Arvel) that had scenes filmed, but her voice was dubbed over with a male voice. She was identified in Legends as Sila Kott, and was flying "Red 3" (Red Squadron at Endor was clearly a mixed-fighter squad, like Gold Squadron). In several battle scenes, we see Wedge flying with and communicating with an A-Wing (Sila Kott's Red 3) and a Y-Wing (unidentified Red 3). After Sila is killed, a Y-Wing shoots down her killer and Wedge exclaims "Good shot, Red 2!" Sila Kott:


Jake Farrel is the older male who we see and hear in DS2 say "Copy, Gold Leader" before turning out from the attack to lead some fighters to the surface (followed by another A-Wing (Tycho in Legends) and a Y-Wing (Horton in Legends, now Norra Wexley in canon). Jake Farell appeared in Star Wars PC games as your player character's flight instructor.



Side note: there were also deleted scenes of a female X-Wing pilot:

I've heard that the reason Sila was dubbed over with a male voice and why Granny A-Wing and the female X-Wing pilot were not used in the final film is that because LucasFilms was told that if they had female pilots serving in military roles and dying onscreen the film would receive a higher MPAA Rating, which they obviously wanted to avoid to keep it accessible to younger audiences. I am not sure if this is true or not, though. It certainly wouldn't have warranted an R rating, I wouldn't think, especially with kid-eating gore fests like Jaws being PG, and PG-13 didn't come out until 1984 (Red Dawn was the first film with this rating). Maybe RotJ would have gotten the first PG13 rating if it didn't edit the female deaths out? Who knows, ultimately it's a mystery.

1 hour ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Luke and Lando get credit for the Death Stars because they delivered the killing blows but of course it takes a team. Arvel is in the same boat. He delivered the killing blow. The executor could have potentially blown up a couple or all of those Mc80s, but arvels unintentional sacrifice probably saved most of their lives. I mean mc80s are big behemoths but the SSD is just huge.

Well, the difference is that a single Proton Torpedo or pair of concussion missiles was capable of killing the DS/DSII. In the case of an SSD, you had to drop it's shields, which required far more firepower than any lone A-Wing (or even an entire squadron of A-Wings) could hope to accomplish.

In Arvel's case, an A-Wing careening toward the bridge of an SSD is only able to do damage it if the SSD's shields were destroyed. Taking the bridge shields down was required, since ships couldn't penetrate those defensive shields while they were up (think of the X-Wings that shatter on the shield gate at Scarif -- this is how, at least pre-TFA , large shields worked in Star Wars, as otherwise you'd just have a droid kamikaze a GR-75 into every Star Destroyer bridge). This is why we hear Piett sream in a panic "Intensify forward firepower, I don't want anything to get through!" after a helmsmen notes that they'd lost their bridge deflectors (which is noted after we see A-Wings destroy a sensor array). Fun fact: those big hexagonal domes on the top of Star Destroyers are not the shield generators, but are (or at least initially were intended to be) sensor arrays (which is why the hexagonal pattern represented real world sensor-arrays). The A-Wings are only able to destroy that array after the turbolaser barrages from Nadine's MC80 task force dropped the SSD's dorsal and bridge shields. But, because Green and Blue Squadron had destroyed the sensor arrays (aka shield generators) and Nadine's task force had been plucking away at dorsal batteries, power relays, and scopes, the Executor was unable to target and shoot down Green Leader's A-Wing in time (which would have otherwise been a trivial task for its plethor of point-defense anti-fighter hardpoints).

So, in theory a lone X-Wing or Falcon did have the firepower to kill a DS. But a lone A-Wing would never possess the firepower needed to drop an SSD's shields, let alone pluck away at enough of its batteries and scopes to get through it's anti-fighter hardpoints. That's why two entire fighter groups (Blue and Green) and a task force of MC80s was needed to even make Arvel's sacrifice a possibility.

10 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Luke and Lando get credit for the Death Stars because they delivered the killing blows but of course it takes a team. Arvel is in the same boat. He delivered the killing blow. The executor could have potentially blown up a couple or all of those Mc80s, but arvels unintentional sacrifice probably saved most of their lives. I mean mc80s are big behemoths but the SSD is just huge.

I thought Wedge delivered the kill shot on the DSII? I may need to watch the scene again.

9 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Well, the difference is that a single Proton Torpedo or pair of concussion missiles was capable of killing the DS/DSII. In the case of an SSD, you had to drop it's shields, which required far more firepower than any lone A-Wing (or even an entire squadron of A-Wings) could hope to accomplish.

In Arvel's case, an A-Wing careening toward the bridge of an SSD is only able to do damage it if the SSD's shields were destroyed. Taking the bridge shields down was required, since ships couldn't penetrate those defensive shields while they were up (think of the X-Wings that shatter on the shield gate at Scarif -- this is how, at least pre-TFA , large shields worked in Star Wars, as otherwise you'd just have a droid kamikaze a GR-75 into every Star Destroyer bridge). This is why we hear Piett sream in a panic "Intensify forward firepower, I don't want anything to get through!" after a helmsmen notes that they'd lost their bridge deflectors (which is noted after we see A-Wings destroy a sensor array). Fun fact: those big hexagonal domes on the top of Star Destroyers are not the shield generators, but are (or at least initially were intended to be) sensor arrays (which is why the hexagonal pattern represented real world sensor-arrays). The A-Wings are only able to destroy that array after the turbolaser barrages from Nadine's MC80 task force dropped the SSD's dorsal and bridge shields. But, because Green and Blue Squadron had destroyed the sensor arrays (aka shield generators) and Nadine's task force had been plucking away at dorsal batteries, power relays, and scopes, the Executor was unable to target and shoot down Green Leader's A-Wing in time (which would have otherwise been a trivial task for its plethor of point-defense anti-fighter hardpoints).

So, in theory a lone X-Wing or Falcon did have the firepower to kill a DS. But a lone A-Wing would never possess the firepower needed to drop an SSD's shields, let alone pluck away at enough of its batteries and scopes to get through it's anti-fighter hardpoints. That's why two entire fighter groups (Blue and Green) and a task force of MC80s was needed to even make Arvel's sacrifice a possibility.

Exactly. The Executor got bombarded by at least 8 Mon Cal Cruisers (there were around 11 of them at the battle at the beginning; Liberty and another one beeing destroyed by DSII), upt to 100 lesser capital ships, kamikaze transports and upt to 1200 fighters for 15-30 minutes.
And then she lost her shields.
Note: The Home One is no normal MC80. She is an upscaled Battlecruiser version ranging somewhere between 2500-3500m.

Btw: It's Madine

18 minutes ago, sf1raptor said:

I thought Wedge delivered the kill shot on the DSII? I may need to watch the scene again.

You are correct. Wedge and Lando get the kill credits.

11 minutes ago, sf1raptor said:

I thought Wedge delivered the kill shot on the DSII? I may need to watch the scene again.

The Greatest 8 Minutes of Star Wars

Everyone should watch the Battle of Endor at least once during each Holiday Season. If for no other reason so that we can be continually underwhelmed by the "space battles" of TFA.

***

Lando: "All right, Wedge, go for the power regulator on the north tower."

Wedge: "Copy, Gold Leader, I'm already on my way out."

*Wedge fires two proton torpedoes into the north tower*
*Lando fires a barrage of concussion missiles into the reactor's main structure*

Presumably Wedge had the assist, knocking out the power regulator which then facilitated the catastrophic chain reaction after the core was destroyed. I think both ships' attacks were necessary for the result, and I suppose had either gotten there alone they would have had to swing around for a second pass after taking out the power regulator?

42 minutes ago, sf1raptor said:

I thought Wedge delivered the kill shot on the DSII? I may need to watch the scene again.

Wedge took out the power station... that’s why they were a one hit wonder. (okay actually it was the power regulator on the north tower but...)

9 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Not quite.

There was unused footage of an older woman in an A-Wing cockpit, often referred to as "Granny A-Wing," and black and white takes can be found. Her shots were never used, with or without dubbing:

There was another female actress (who looks a lot like Arvel) that had scenes filmed, but her voice was dubbed over with a male voice. She was identified in Legends as Sila Kott, and was flying "Red 3" (Red Squadron at Endor was clearly a mixed-fighter squad, like Gold Squadron). In several battle scenes, we see Wedge flying with and communicating with an A-Wing (Sila Kott's Red 3) and a Y-Wing (unidentified Red 3). After Sila is killed, a Y-Wing shoots down her killer and Wedge exclaims "Good shot, Red 2!" Sila Kott:


Jake Farrel is the older male who we see and hear in DS2 say "Copy, Gold Leader" before turning out from the attack to lead some fighters to the surface (followed by another A-Wing (Tycho in Legends) and a Y-Wing (Horton in Legends, now Norra Wexley in canon). Jake Farell appeared in Star Wars PC games as your player character's flight instructor.



Side note: there were also deleted scenes of a female X-Wing pilot:

I've heard that the reason Sila was dubbed over with a male voice and why Granny A-Wing and the female X-Wing pilot were not used in the final film is that because LucasFilms was told that if they had female pilots serving in military roles and dying onscreen the film would receive a higher MPAA Rating, which they obviously wanted to avoid to keep it accessible to younger audiences. I am not sure if this is true or not, though. It certainly wouldn't have warranted an R rating, I wouldn't think, especially with kid-eating gore fests like Jaws being PG, and PG-13 didn't come out until 1984 (Red Dawn was the first film with this rating). Maybe RotJ would have gotten the first PG13 rating if it didn't edit the female deaths out? Who knows, ultimately it's a mystery.

As a kid I always wondered how ROTJ didn’t get a PG-13 rating.

As a kid felt Jabbas palace was a little to seedy for the rating. Probably why Lucas added the musical number in later.

Although ROTJ is definitely tamer by far compared to other movies at the time (you mentioned jaws which is a perfect example).

36 minutes ago, Mackaywarrior said:

You are correct. Wedge and Lando get the kill credits.

34 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

The Greatest 8 Minutes of Star Wars

Everyone should watch the Battle of Endor at least once during each Holiday Season. If for no other reason so that we can be continually underwhelmed by the "space battles" of TFA.

***

Lando: "All right, Wedge, go for the power regulator on the north tower."

Wedge: "Copy, Gold Leader, I'm already on my way out."

*Wedge fires two proton torpedoes into the north tower*
*Lando fires a barrage of concussion missiles into the reactor's main structure*

Presumably Wedge had the assist, knocking out the power regulator which then facilitated the catastrophic chain reaction after the core was destroyed. I think both ships' attacks were necessary for the result, and I suppose had either gotten there alone they would have had to swing around for a second pass after taking out the power regulator?

12 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

Wedge took out the power station... that’s why they were a one hit wonder. (okay actually it was the power regulator on the north tower but...)

Oh. Thanks for the comments and video.

58 minutes ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Exactly. The Executor got bombarded by at least 8 Mon Cal Cruisers (there were around 11 of them at the battle at the beginning; Liberty and another one beeing destroyed by DSII), upt to 100 lesser capital ships, kamikaze transports and upt to 1200 fighters for 15-30 minutes.
And then she lost her shields.
Note: The Home One is no normal MC80. She is an upscaled Battlecruiser version ranging somewhere between 2500-3500m.

Btw: It's Madine

Heh, as an Armada player who has flown him multiple times as my commander, you'd think I get that right...

I think there were at least 14 Mon Calamari cruisers at the Battle of Endor, but probably far more. In the scene when Wedge is flying to regroup with the Rebel fleet after exiting DSII, we see 12 Mon Cals. This is certainly not the entirety of the surviving Rebel fleet, because we only see two CR90s but there are presumably far, far more CR90 survivors offscreen. We know two MC80s were destroyed on screen by the superlaser, and more may have been destroyed by the Death Star offscreen until the fleet manages to nestle up point blank with the Star Destroyers. We can also safely assume that several (though probably many) Mon Calamari cruisers are destroyed by the Imperial navy (I think we see one blowing up in the background of a scene). I wouldn't be surprised if there were 30-40 battle cruisers present.

Because the movie focuses on the heroic acts a few individual pilots, it doesn't really showcase the scale of the fleet operation that was the Battle of Endor. I believe the Rebels actually had a ship advantage during the battle, just based on the Imperial craft we see on screen when Ackbar screams "It's a Trap!" This would explain why the remaining Imperial fleet retreats after the Death Star is destroyed (and the Emperor lost). If the Imperial fleet stationed at Endor had an advantage over the Rebel fleet, they would have stuck around and driven the Rebels off, rather than allowing them to party on the forest moon all night. Palpatine didn't need a fleet that could crush the Rebel fleet, since he was planning on the Death Star accomplishing that task while the Imperial ships present blocked the Rebels' escape route. When the Death Star was lost, the Imperial advantage went with it, and the remaining Star Destroyers withdrew.


The (space) Battle of Endor had so many interesting storylines that were, sadly, ultimately cut or dropped. The aforementioned battle with the Executor was much longer and involved lots of scenes with Madine and other pilots (including the B-Wings). During the battle, there were more scenes with Blount and Cracken manning the guns of the Falcon while other Rebel techs ran around doing repairs and damage control aboard the ship. The approach over the Death Star's surface was going to be much more complex, and was going to include other groups/pilots (e.g. "Blue Wing," presumably "Blue Leader and Blue Squadron" were going to be trying to clear a path for Red and Gold group to find an entrance shaft. Once the Rebel fighters are inside the superstructure, Moff Jerjerrod had a more active defensive role. As he tracked the progress of the Rebel incursion, he had his technicians flooding various portions of the station with radiation and energy overloads to try and (1) disrupt the scopes of the Rebel craft and (2) create other dummy power sources for them to get confused with the main reactor. This is presumably what the blue arcs of lightning we see in some scenes with Wedge and Lando flying through the superstructure was intended to be. Jerjerrod, like Madine, also had a much more interesting role in the film, including a deleted scene where he stands up to Vader and orders him to leave (with the Emperor's Royal Guard backing up Jerjerrod, implying Vader was falling out of the Emperor's favor even more, since Palpatine had his eyes set on Luke at this point) and a scene where Jerjerrod struggles with an order from Palpatine to fire the Death Star upon the forest moon of Endor, killing the Rebel team that had knocked out shield generator (and punishing all the Imperials garrisoned there who let it happen). Jerjerrod stalls on this order, and is clearly conflicted by it, and ends up taking so long to commence ignition that the Death Star is destroyed before the superlaser is charged up and discharged.

Presumably all this really cool stuff still happened at the Battle of Endor, it just didn't make it onto the screen as the movie tells the story.

I love RotJ, and it's by far my favorite Star Wars film. I wish the Endor surface scenes had been much shorter, and the space battle and Death Star politics had been finished and included. I guess the worry was that most of the main cast were on Endor's surface (5 of the 6), so it needed to have the primary focus, since only Luke was on the Death Star and Lando at the space battle. It was probably also an issue of practicality, as the space scenes in RotJ were notoriously complicated (which is why one frustrated person stuck the infamous shoe into one of the scenes, because he felt they were sticking too much meaningless detail onto the screen). And you've got to feel for the film crew, since the most complicated scene ever put to film was in RotJ, which required overlaying elements from over two hundred rolls of film for one scene (when the Falcon is flying through of cloud of TIE Interceptors as it rolls past a CR90, with the DSII and Endor in the background).

RotJ Female Pilots Unused Takes