A question on the Ald/DS explosion "Rings"

[Crossroads Inc.]

One of the core tenets of this forum is to analyze visual evidence and try and form various logical explanations.

For years and years, study of Alderaan blowing up was used to support the DS's power output and destructive capacity.

Then many years later the "revised" star wars came out with pretty new effects and lots of flashy new CGI shots! Among those added were the "rings" from Alderaan blowing up and the DS blowing up. Well goodness! New visual evidence! Suddenly people are going "What is all this? What is the scientific reason for these bizarre rings?"

The trek side suddenly thinks it can make a case that the DS isn't as powerful as it is, cases about "chain reaction" or using some sort of exotic hyperspace warp to blow the planet up.

Which makes me think... In this ONE case, could we not simply say, "screw it" and ignore the changes? Does it really pay to try and analyze something that was CLEARLY added cause someone thought it would look "Cool" despite having no basis in science what so over?

[Srelex]

Lightsabers were created because they were cool and have no basis in science. Does that make them exempt from analysis?

[Crossroads Inc.]

Lightsabers were created because they were cool and have no basis in science. Does that make them exempt from analysis?

Lightsabers are also part of the original movies and established in Canon, the rings were "added" not for any In-universe reason, but for a "re-edit" of the original movie.

It is just something the bugs me about re-editing movies in general. Its ok to improve existing shots, of spaceships or star fighters, but "adding" stuff like the rings rubs me the wrong way.

So its a purely persona opinion on my part.

[Havok]

My issue with the rings, is that they are rings. Or more appropriately, discs. Wouldn't that energy go out in an expanding 'bubble' and not on a horizon line?

[Temujin]

Yeah, I would have preferred an expanding bubble somewhat similar to the supernova shock wave in ST Generations.

[FSTargetDrone]

So we are going to discount the rings from the SE versions, but not other (possibly) objectionable elements from the same versions? That seems highly problematic.

[Temujin]

The rings from the Death Stars could at least be explained as symptom of the hypermatter reactors going up. Alderaan of course is much more difficult to explain, and is the only real problem with the SEs' added effects.

[Havok]

and is the only real problem with the SEs' added effects.

Han shot first.

"Alert my Stardestroyer to prepare for my arrival"

The whole Jabba's palace addition...

[Srelex]

To be really honest, I never got the whole fuss over the shooting thing; in both editions, they both seem to shoot at the same time to me. In fact, I generally don't mind the SE.

[Stark]

Just figure the diffuse stuff is only visible around the apparent edges due to perceived density. Explosion is really spherical but appears to be a ring to an observer.

Oops problem solved, for a certain value of 'solve'.

[FSTargetDrone]

To be really honest, I never got the whole fuss over the shooting thing; in both editions, they both seem to shoot at the same time to me. In fact, I generally don't mind the SE.

My problem there is that the blaster bolts look so damn puny. Yes, powered-back settings, blah blah.

It looks worse with the bolts in there than just having the shower of sparks erupt from the table as I think the original did.

It's at about 5:50. I assume this isn't one of those doctored fan re-dos.

[Temujin]

and is the only real problem with the SEs' added effects.

Han shot first.

"Alert my Stardestroyer to prepare for my arrival"

The whole Jabba's palace addition...

Well I meant from the point of view of arguing tech levels with Trektards.

Otherwise I wholeheartedly agree.

[Molyneux]

One of the core tenets of this forum is to analyze visual evidence and try and form various logical explanations.

For years and years, study of Alderaan blowing up was used to support the DS's power output and destructive capacity.

Then many years later the "revised" star wars came out with pretty new effects and lots of flashy new CGI shots! Among those added were the "rings" from Alderaan blowing up and the DS blowing up. Well goodness! New visual evidence! Suddenly people are going "What is all this? What is the scientific reason for these bizarre rings?"

The trek side suddenly thinks it can make a case that the DS isn't as powerful as it is, cases about "chain reaction" or using some sort of exotic hyperspace warp to blow the planet up.

Which makes me think... In this ONE case, could we not simply say, "screw it" and ignore the changes? Does it really pay to try and analyze something that was CLEARLY added cause someone thought it would look "Cool" despite having no basis in science what so over?

Special Edition? What special edition? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.

[Stark]

You necro'd a thread just to make a contentless +1 post? Way to go, jackhole.

Anyway, I really don't see what's wrong with the whole 'it is spherical and just looks like a ring' thing. Its such a simple solution you can explain it to laymen and they get it.

[Uraniun235]

Wouldn't the ring appear perpendicular to the viewer if that were the case though?

[Stark]

Oh shi-

I forgot they were horizontal. explosion rings are USUALLY perpindicual.

[Ford Prefect]

It's not a big deal to just ignore it. I mean, if you're asking 'does this hurt the analysis', then the answer is obviously 'no', because it doesn't invalidate everything else associated with the Death Star. It's just a thing that happens that looks cool.

[Rossum]

Warning: stupid over-analysis of the scene.


Perhaps the rings are the result of a secondary explosive effect that occurred inside the planets core? In the prequel series, didn't Jengo Fett have some sort of seismic bombs emitted a horizontal planar explosion that could slice through asteroids? In one of Mike Wongs analysis of the scene, he figured that it was a some kind of weaponized force-field effect that would be useful for causing earthquakes. (the seizmic bomb drops below the surface and then discharges energy on the horizontal plane to cause an earthquake).


Anyway, maybe the Death Star Turbo-laser has a feature that allows it to convert some of its energy output into creating a planar forcefield inside of the targeted planet? Fire a hugely powerful beam into the planets core and transfer a percentage of it into a planar field that cuts the planet in half. This causes massive disruption of the planets plate tectonics and somehow makes it easier to explode the planet... even if they don't pump in enough energy to outright reduce the planet to asteroids, a planar explosion like that cutting the planet in half should seriously mess up the planet. Maybe its part of a 'lower' setting for the Death Star... a blast that destroys the planets crust but leaves a molten blob of magma in orbit. Uses less energy and leaves the possibility of using the molten husk for something.

There is no reason to believe that this would require any less energy to blow up the planet (you still need energy to produce the asteroid field) but the Empire could have set up something like this so they could effectivly destroy more planets for the same energy if they needed to (utterly destroy one rebel planet, or turn two rebel planets inside out for the same energy).

Or maybe they need to project a shield into the planet to help concentrate all the energy into the core to allow for the explosion? If they fire a confined beam strong enough to blow up a planet into the core, there is the risk that it would just blow a hole straight through the planet and leave a gaping 'exit wound' instead of utterly destroying it. Project a field into the planet to contain the energy long enough to explode the planet. When the field breaks, it releases that ring of energy and the planet blows.

[Xess]

If the ring is a result of a hypermatter reactor exploding it would be easy to rationalize the Alderan rings as the explosion of the hypermatter reactor Alderan had powering its shields.

[Molyneux]

You necro'd a thread just to make a contentless +1 post? Way to go, jackhole.

Anyway, I really don't see what's wrong with the whole 'it is spherical and just looks like a ring' thing. Its such a simple solution you can explain it to laymen and they get it.

My apologies; it was still on the front page of the board. I thought that the thread was still active.

If the ring is a result of a hypermatter reactor exploding it would be easy to rationalize the Alderan rings as the explosion of the hypermatter reactor Alderan had powering its shields.

Would that really make sense, though, if the Alderaan ring is centered on the same point as the planet? Unless they had some kind of massive field generator in the planet's core.

[Xess]

Would that really make sense, though, if the Alderaan ring is centered on the same point as the planet? Unless they had some kind of massive field generator in the planet's core.

That is indeed a problem. I haven't read the Death Star novel but apparently is says the superlaser blasts some of Alderaan's matter into hyperspace. Perhaps that was primarily the core and that effect produced the ring. The same could be said that the reactor going up on the Death Stars produced the same effect on them during their explosions.

[Imperial528]

Well, I thought about this a bit and none of the possible causes for the Death Star's rings I could come up with seemed likely, so I looked up the effect on wikipedia. On there, it claims that an astronomer theorized that the DS' ring could have been caused because the explosion's shock wave would reach the equatorial trench first, and would expand faster than the rest of the shock wave from that point due to the sudden drop in resistance. I think that makes enough sense, although it doesn't help with Alderaan. Since if you applied that to Alderaan, assuming the planet has a bulge at its equator due to its spin, there should be a ring-shaped lack of a shock wave.

[Uraniun235]

Doesn't work at all; the ring emerges almost perpendicular to the trench on DS1. DS2 it's kind of close to the trench, but I still don't see it making sense; besides, there's all that empty/unfinished space, you'd think we'd see more going on there if the "drop in resistance" was a significant factor.

[Dooey Jo]

If you can come up with a scenario where we get two colliding shockwaves somehow, particles in the intersection could get thrown away with a much larger horizontal (well perpendicular to the direction between the centres of the shockwaves) force.

In the Death Stars, it's easy to say that there were two simultaneous explosions because we don't actually see how the final explosions that kill them start (note that the DSII explodes a few moments after that fire thing reached the surface). I suppose with Alderaan you could say that yes, the blast made powerful seismic thingys bounce around and collide to push some material out faster in a ring. It's a little bit unlikely though, especially in the way it's shown in the film, but it's not like saying "yeah some hypermatter reactors do that when they blow up" is any less of a hand wave.

[Jake]

How would these rings be used to support the trekkie chain reaction theory, or any other that the DS isn't as powerful as mentioned on this site?