Rogue One (Spoilers)

[Gandalf]

Well you can always hand wave that away as the interaction with the shield would blow the cloak or something. But couldn't a cloaked ship simply go through the open gate anyway (assuming it's not too large)?

Perhaps the gate isn't like flying through open space, and has some sort of effect on the hull of the ship that might render a cloak pointless.

[Lord Revan]

we don't even know how common cloaks are, for all we know they could be this high end military stuff that are relatively speaking so rare that worrying about anyone up the imperial military having true cloaks is pointless. Not meantion that cloaks might have interactions with shield barriers we don't know of.

IIRC the Ghost doesn't have true cloaking device but rather a way to suppress their sensor signature so that normally they'd go undetected.

[Shroom Man 777]

Or it's just good until you're right there in their faces.

[Kojiro]

Perhaps the gate isn't like flying through open space, and has some sort of effect on the hull of the ship that might render a cloak pointless.

Unless that's true (and hey it might be) I think we can reasonably infer that cloaks are not at all common from the existence of a shield gate to protect a high value target. There has to be something to prevent a cloaked ship passing through or cloaked ships are so rare as to be tactically not worth worrying about.

[Galvatron]

There was a prototype "stealth ship" in TCW that was invisible to the naked eye when the cloak was activated. So, yes, they're not common (as of the Clone Wars), but they exist.

[GuppyShark]

"Destroyer" certainly sounds less dangerous to the uneducated ear than "Cruiser". (Which is possibly, out of universe, why Lucasfilm went with that designation in the first place)

Less dangerous? I would imagine that's the opposite. Also, cruiser can be used to refer to a lot of things. Most civilian ships are referred to as Crusiers, it's only military ships that are known as destroyers.

Yeah, thanks for catching that. Looks like I derped and said the opposite of what I intended to say.

[Adam Reynolds]

Based on The Empire Strikes Back, it is likely that any ship small enough to fly through the shield gate is also too small for a cloaking device.I suspect that was a design consideration as to why it wasn't simply large enough to land something the size of a star destroyer.

While Clone Wars shows that smaller cloaks are possible, it is likely too expensive to be worth it in most cases. The fact that the ship used in that episode was a one off also indicates the rarity of the technology.

[Galvatron]

If "the slow blade penetrates the shield" tactic works in Star Wars, then I'd be more concerned about a cloaked star destroyer or dreadnought piercing some other area of the shield far away from the gate and raining destruction down upon the planet's power generators. However, since there's no canon precedent for such a thing, I wouldn't assume that Star Wars shields work that way.

I only brought up the stealth ship from TCW to illustrate that Star Wars cloaking devices actually render their ships literally invisible. Admiral Trench even mentioned that he's faced other ships like it before, so it's obviously not a new technology.

[Shroom Man 777]

Would it be undetectable to other non-visual sensors at close range?

[Galvatron]

Apparently so since it flies within spitting distance of a Munificent-class star frigate and isn't detected until it decloaks to attack Trench's flagship.

[Zinegata]

"Destroyer" certainly sounds less dangerous to the uneducated ear than "Cruiser". (Which is possibly, out of universe, why Lucasfilm went with that designation in the first place)

I'd also note that real-world navies have in fact almost entirely dispensed with "cruisers" and now basically call all large surface combatants as "destroyers"; even though many of these destroyers are as big as WW2 cruisers.

[Shroom Man 777]

That's actually a great point. Maybe such a similar case is happening with the ISD, turning into an all-purpose Burkeswarm because it can do anything and has sufficient space to do so (mostly). Whereas those smaller ships we see in Rebels are totally inadequate LITTORAL COSMIC SHIPS


I wonder if the lack of khyber crystals and the death of Erso was one of the reasons why the Death Star 2 was really huge. No more khyber optimization trick, so they really needed something gigantic. But the plus side is its hugeness eliminates the need for a thermal exhaust port that can be exploited.

...but they STILL forgot the whole "one shot to the reactors will make everything explode!" So... because everyone in the Death Star died and Vader isn't a superweapon engineer... and because he himself didn't care for such superweapon technoterrors (despite being an accomplished engineer himself)... they had no idea what was the exact problem of the Death Star! They thought it was just the exhaust port.

[Lord Revan]

It also be possible that what ever Erso did to the reactor(s) was so sudtle that imperial engineers couldn't find it and with emperor (metaphorically) hovering over their shoulders they fixed the exhaust issue and figured it was wiser to not inform the emperor about the reactor problem rather then risk Palpatine's wrath by delaying his pet Project, with exhaust issue fixed there wasn't anyway you could have exploited the reactor problem anyway once DS2 was fully complete.

Also I dout Vader had any real personal involvement with design process of either of the Death Stars

[Shroom Man 777]

Comment on soundtrack:

The Imperial March is something we don't even hear in ANH, only in ESB first. So thematically it's kind of like how the Death Star was only fired with "one reactor only" for this entire film, even though those were pretty much planetkilling shots, because it was a directorial decision to make everything in the film serve as build-up to compliment the Original Trilogy films. If the Imperial March played in Rogue One... before Empire Strikes Back... it'd be... jumbling things up in a way.

I kind of put it together cause... maybe I'm such a supernerd but on my first viewing I was going "you better NOT use the Imperial March BEFORE ESB!" and likewise with the superlaser usage. I was really looking at the levels of restraint they're using!

[ray245]

Comment on soundtrack:

The Imperial March is something we don't even hear in ANH, only in ESB first. So thematically it's kind of like how the Death Star was only fired with "one reactor only" for this entire film, even though those were pretty much planetkilling shots, because it was a directorial decision to make everything in the film serve as build-up to compliment the Original Trilogy films. If the Imperial March played in Rogue One... before Empire Strikes Back... it'd be... jumbling things up in a way.

I kind of put it together cause... maybe I'm such a supernerd but on my first viewing I was going "you better NOT use the Imperial March BEFORE ESB!" and likewise with the superlaser usage. I was really looking at the levels of restraint they're using!

At the same time, they showed so much restraint that the music is utterly forgettable. Giacchino isn't really a good successor to John Williams.

[Zinegata]

At the same time, they showed so much restraint that the music is utterly forgettable. Giacchino isn't really a good successor to John Williams.

He had four weeks. He didn't really have much of a chance to make it good, especially when memorable music is dependent on unique melodies that take time to develop.

The best music for Rogue One was in one of the trailers - when they did a reprise of the iconic Star Wars theme with military undertones.

[ray245]

At the same time, they showed so much restraint that the music is utterly forgettable. Giacchino isn't really a good successor to John Williams.

He had four weeks. He didn't really have much of a chance to make it good, especially when memorable music is dependent on unique melodies that take time to develop.

The best music for Rogue One was in one of the trailers - when they did a reprise of the iconic Star Wars theme with military undertones.

And Giacchino never really have any unique melodies to his name in his previous works for him to even recycle them.

[Galvatron]

I think Howard Shore is the only composer left in Hollywood that can do thematic scores like John Williams used to. I'd sure like to see how he'd do with Star Wars.

[xerex]

Regarding the question of the senate's actual power. I would look to Mussolini's italy as the example. Mussolini was Dictator but Victor Emmanuel III was still King and officially superior to Mussolini. There was the grand Fascist Council which could remove Mussolini and DID at the end.

So while in practice Palpatine was an "Il Duce" he still could legally be removed and perhaps he simply "forsaw" that if he acted before a certain date he would be removed.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think Howard Shore is the only composer left in Hollywood that can do thematic scores like John Williams used to. I'd sure like to see how he'd do with Star Wars.

Was Shore the one who did LotR, or am I thinking of someone else?

[Galvatron]

I think Howard Shore is the only composer left in Hollywood that can do thematic scores like John Williams used to. I'd sure like to see how he'd do with Star Wars.

Was Shore the one who did LotR, or am I thinking of someone else?

Yep, that's him.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm, he's not my very favourite composer (that would be Murray Gold of Doctor Who), but I can see him being a decent fit for Star Wars.

[Galvatron]

Now that they've squeezed as many movies as possible out of the Middle-earth franchise, maybe he'd be available to do Star Wars when John Williams retires. Shore's no spring chicken at age 70, but Williams is 84.

[Civil War Man]

If the shield gate was simultaneously the projector of, and only entrance through, the shield then it would mean that the shield did in fact go down. I'll have to go back and watch again. Can't wait to have this on BluRay.

One possibility is that the shield was set to be fail-safe as opposed to fail-secure in the event of a power loss on the gate. They may have gone that route because they didn't want access and communications to and from the archives cut off if the gate glitched. There were several Star Destroyers and squadrons of TIE fighters stationed there, not counting the troops on the ground, and the gate was built sturdily enough that it took crashing one of the Star Destroyers into it in order to bring it down, so they may have considered those precautions adequate to defend the facility, allowing them to focus on making sure other sites could maintain uptime with the archives.

Whether that makes sense or not depends on whether the forces were considered good enough to defend the gate, and how critical it was for other facilities to have 100% uptime.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Just come back from seeing it for a third time, and I kept an eye out for some things in the Scarif scenes, namely:

The shield does not go down. It is clearly disrupted enough for the transmission to penetrate, but the shield is visible in the view from the Death Star when Tarkin orders them to fire on the base, and it is still visible both when Vader orders boarding parties to the Mon Cal ship and even when Leia's corvette jumps to hyperspace.

So:

1. The shield gate did not generate the shield.
2. The shield generators/projectors were not in the vicinity of the Citadel Tower.
3. The DS was able to fire through a planetary shield.