How'd Luke hit the exhaust port?

A-Wing_Slash · Post by **A-Wing_Slash** » 2006-09-16 12:15am

ANH makes it clear that the force was what allowed Luke to hit the exhaust port on the Death Star and blow it up. However, it doesn't give any specifics on how.

One thought of mine is that Luke uses his force tk to guide the torps directly into the exhaust port. However, once he shoots them he doesn't show any of the concentration that that kind of force exertion would require.
Perhaps, because he turned off his targeting computer before taking the shot, Luke used the force to somehow aim the torpedos. However, the shotwas too complex for him to just aim the ship correctly, and his control isn't advanced enough at that point to reprogram the torpedos with the force.
My third idea is that, because Luke was so powerful, the force itself exerted its power and simply made the event turn out the way Luke wanted, without any visible mechanism.

None of these theories fits the events perfectly. Am I missing something? I have not read the novelization, and that might explain this scene in a little more depth than the movie.

Continuing from the above, if the force was necessary to hit the exhaust port correctly, did the Rebels have any chance other than Luke? For example, if Darth Vader had not been there and more Rebel fighters were able to take their shots, would that increase the odds enough for one of the non-jedi pilots to hit it? Or was it just a desperate gamble that only succeded because the Rebels had an incredibly powerful force user on their side?

Old Plympto · Post by **Old Plympto** » 2006-09-16 12:39am

I thought the Force allowed Luke to know the exact moment in time to hit "fire" at that speed and trajectory for the torpedo to arc downwards exactly into the exhaust port.

Which would give him a better edge than just holding his course, waiting for the counter on his display to hit zero and hit "fire".

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-09-16 12:57am

Old Plympto wrote:I thought the Force allowed Luke to know the exact moment in time to hit "fire" at that speed and trajectory for the torpedo to arc downwards exactly into the exhaust port.

Which would give him a better edge than just holding his course, waiting for the counter on his display to hit zero and hit "fire".

That would be the simple answer and I agree with it. Just a whisper to 'fire' is better than a complex, unconcious, untrained attempted to Force push a torpeado into a target.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-09-16 01:43am

Given the difficulty Luke expressed in TKing his lightsabre when it was a mere few metres from him as he was trapped in the Wampa's ice cave, ought to diminish any notion that Luke TKed the torpedoi into the exhaust port.

I too think it's simpler and more elegant to say the Force told Luke when to pull the trigger.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2006-09-16 02:12am

On the 2004 DVD, if you press "1138" during that scene, you can see Ben and Yoda's Force ghosts jumping up and down on the torpedoes until they redirect them.

evangelion1 · Post by **evangelion1** » 2006-09-16 03:48am

Lord Poe wrote:On the 2004 DVD, if you press "1138" during that scene, you can see Ben and Yoda's Force ghosts jumping up and down on the torpedoes until they redirect them.

8)

Would you happen to have a link to a video of that i only have the origanl vhs relesae it would be so cool to see that

Comosicus · Post by **Comosicus** » 2006-09-16 04:07am

evangelion1 wrote:
Lord Poe wrote:On the 2004 DVD, if you press "1138" during that scene, you can see Ben and Yoda's Force ghosts jumping up and down on the torpedoes until they redirect them.

Would you happen to have a link to a video of that i only have the origanl vhs relesae it would be so cool to see that

Looks like he got you this time, for at the moment of Death Star run, Yoda was still alive and well on Dagobah. Luke doesn't meet him untill TESB.

Yoda · Post by **Yoda** » 2006-09-16 04:43am

Considering the rebels expected that any of the pilots would be able to destroy the death star, it would be logical to assume the difficulty lies in hitting the 1 meter target while flying down a trench and being shot at by an uber-TIE.

One of the pilots fired before Luke, but his torpedoes missed the exhaust port and detonated on the surface. The force likely guided his hand just as it would have when he "used to bull's eye Womp Rats back home."

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2006-09-16 11:26am

As mentioned, it was most likely some form of "if you fire now, you will hit it" or the Force guiding him to fire. Perhaps the moment was when the standard targetting computer had a clear enough picture through the heavy jamming.

The torpedoes had to have turned on their own for the reasons mentioned above. Luke's concentration was on making the shot and he relaxed after he fired, and his TK ability shown on Hoth wasn't nearly enough to move the torps.

The torpedoes may have had some preprogrammed maneuvers in effect as a counter to the jamming, but those maneuvers would have to have been augmented by some sensor data so that the torpedoes or fighter could know where they were in relation to the port.

1123581321 · Post by **1123581321** » 2006-09-16 12:21pm

Lord Poe wrote:On the 2004 DVD, if you press "1138" during that scene, you can see Ben and Yoda's Force ghosts jumping up and down on the torpedoes until they redirect them.

That's quite an accomplishment on Yoda's part, especially since he wasn't dead yet.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2006-09-16 01:07pm

1123581321 wrote:That's quite an accomplishment on Yoda's part, especially since he wasn't dead yet.

Hey man, his ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-09-16 01:13pm

I believe that the OT ICS says that the proton torpedoes for all Rebel fighters in the run were programmed to manuever down the exhaust port.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-09-17 11:59am

One thing I never understood at all when I watched that movie as a kid:

If the port is set into the Death Star's surface, and flying down the trench means that the torpedoes have to make a 90 degree turn in order to successfully hit the target...

Why the heck don't they just fly straight towards the bloody thing? It's a lot easier to hit a 1m. target that's directly in front of you than hitting that same target when it's set in the floor of the trench you're flying down at breakneck speeds.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-09-17 12:05pm

Molyneux wrote:One thing I never understood at all when I watched that movie as a kid:

If the port is set into the Death Star's surface, and flying down the trench means that the torpedoes have to make a 90 degree turn in order to successfully hit the target...

Why the heck don't they just fly straight towards the bloody thing? It's a lot easier to hit a 1m. target that's directly in front of you than hitting that same target when it's set in the floor of the trench you're flying down at breakneck speeds.

Hmm; that close to the surface might break up the Imperial targeting sensors and/or jamming a bit for a safer approach. What's odd, is that there were guns in the trench itself, implying that the Empire indeed realized the port may be a flaw.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-09-17 12:19pm

Molyneux wrote:
Why the heck don't they just fly straight towards the bloody thing? It's a lot easier to hit a 1m. target that's directly in front of you than hitting that same target when it's set in the floor of the trench you're flying down at breakneck speeds.

Because every gun in line of sight on the surface will have a bead directly on you while you're trying to get a targeting computer lock. And that's a lot of guns.

What's odd, is that there were guns in the trench itself, implying that the Empire indeed realized the port may be a flaw.

I'm not sure about that, the guns are just as likely placed in there to serve the same purpose as the surface defense batteries (firing at capital ships) and were placed there- well, just because they could (like every other gun on the surface

) They're not anti-fighter guns, remember.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2006-09-17 12:29pm

Molyneux wrote:One thing I never understood at all when I watched that movie as a kid:

If the port is set into the Death Star's surface, and flying down the trench means that the torpedoes have to make a 90 degree turn in order to successfully hit the target...

Why the heck don't they just fly straight towards the bloody thing? It's a lot easier to hit a 1m. target that's directly in front of you than hitting that same target when it's set in the floor of the trench you're flying down at breakneck speeds.

If the fighters had went a vertical approach the Death Star's point defence guns would have shreaded them before they could get a shot off.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-09-17 12:38pm

Vympel wrote: I'm not sure about that, the guns are just as likely placed in there to serve the same purpose as the surface defense batteries (firing at capital ships) and were placed there- well, just because they could (like every other gun on the surface ) They're not anti-fighter guns, remember.

Yeah, but their firing arc would suck in the trench where as on the surface they'd have a better field of fire.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-09-18 01:08am

Comosicus wrote:
evangelion1 wrote:
Lord Poe wrote:On the 2004 DVD, if you press "1138" during that scene, you can see Ben and Yoda's Force ghosts jumping up and down on the torpedoes until they redirect them.

Would you happen to have a link to a video of that i only have the origanl vhs relesae it would be so cool to see that
Looks like he got you this time, for at the moment of Death Star run, Yoda was still alive and well on Dagobah. Luke doesn't meet him untill TESB.

Hey, since when to Easter Eggs need to make sense or be consistant with continuity?

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-09-18 02:06am

Artoo made the shot. He just let Luke take the credit.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2006-09-18 03:06am

Drooling Iguana wrote:Artoo made the shot. He just let Luke take the credit.

Either this is sarcasm or a joke, I can't tell which.

But R2-D2 had just taken a shot in the head.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2006-09-18 10:57am

He was faking it.

glass · Post by **glass** » 2006-09-20 11:19am

Lord Poe wrote:
1123581321 wrote:That's quite an accomplishment on Yoda's part, especially since he wasn't dead yet.
Hey man, his ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is.

'Judge me by being alive, would you? And well you should not...' No, that doesn't really work does it.

Anyway, to answer the OP: I agree with those who have said that the force told Luke when to 'pull the trigger'.

The other pilots could have fire at the right time by dumb luck, so in theory they could have made the shot, but we have no way of noing if it was a 1 in 20 chance or a 1 in a million.

glass.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-09-20 11:32am

There's a short bit of dialogue at the start of Luke's run that might be relevant -

My scope shows the tower, but I can't see the
exhaust port! Are you sure the computer can hit it?

When I first saw the movie, I thought the idea was that the targetting computer locks onto the port, calculates the velocity of the fighter and the distance to the port and then gives the pilot a signal when he has to release the torpedoes which then continue on a preset path into the port itself (much like V-rockets; at X minutes of flight the fuel is cut off and the missile dives, without relying on any sort of external sensors).

During the first run, the targetting computer locked onto the tower instead of the port itself, the computer crunched the wrong numbers (distance and angle to tower vs distance and angle to port), prompted the pilot to fire at this incorrect point and the dumb torpedoes dutifully followed their preset flight path straight into the ground.

Luke, however, used the voodoo of the Force and released them at the correct point.

At least, that's how my six-year-old brain processed the scene.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2006-09-20 06:19pm

Bounty wrote:There's a short bit of dialogue at the start of Luke's run that might be relevant -

My scope shows the tower, but I can't see the
exhaust port! Are you sure the computer can hit it?
When I first saw the movie, I thought the idea was that the targetting computer locks onto the port, calculates the velocity of the fighter and the distance to the port and then gives the pilot a signal when he has to release the torpedoes which then continue on a preset path into the port itself (much like V-rockets; at X minutes of flight the fuel is cut off and the missile dives, without relying on any sort of external sensors).

During the first run, the targetting computer locked onto the tower instead of the port itself, the computer crunched the wrong numbers (distance and angle to tower vs distance and angle to port), prompted the pilot to fire at this incorrect point and the dumb torpedoes dutifully followed their preset flight path straight into the ground.

Luke, however, used the voodoo of the Force and released them at the correct point.

At least, that's how my six-year-old brain processed the scene.

Sounds interesting. However, the blast mark from Red-1's torps is off to the side of the port, not falling short.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2006-09-20 07:00pm

Bounty wrote:When I first saw the movie, I thought the idea was that the targetting computer locks onto the port, calculates the velocity of the fighter and the distance to the port and then gives the pilot a signal when he has to release the torpedoes which then continue on a preset path into the port itself (much like V-rockets; at X minutes of flight the fuel is cut off and the missile dives, without relying on any sort of external sensors).

It'd be pretty useless to have a weapon that can only be fired by a human and within a window of opportunity of 2 ms. Some preprogrammed maneuvers may have taken place (get over port, then dive into it), but the computer would have had to assist in setting up a flight path in order for human pilots to have any chance of hitting the target.

The jamming would make getting an exact fix on the tower just as difficult as getting an exact fix on the exhaust port, so relying completely on preprogrammed maneuvers from a predetermined point would not offer any advantage and only serve to make the shot impossible for a human to make.

Also, Red Leader's shot didn't miss by over a kilometer like the delay between lock and firing would suggest.