Boba Fett wrote:Darth Wong wrote:The tensile strength on the cable must be incredible.
That's for sure!
But it still doesn't answer to my question.
Take a very common situation.
If you step on your own shoestring you will fall.
One end of your shoestring is in your shoe -where it can't slip- the other end is under your feet where you block it with your own weight.
You stumble...
The harpoon fixed the cable's end to the walker but the other end was simple released!!!
The snowspeeder just simply flew around the walker so the cable was just spinned over the legs.
If you don't fix the other end, the cable will slip down because of gravity and because of the leg's movement.
If we can't find a solution here I'll consider the scene as bug...
Well, here are a few thoughts, some of which may prove useful.
One end of the cable was securely attached to the AT-AT. The other end was attached to the rear of the snowspeeder by means of a quick-release mechanism that must logically have had a linkage to or incorporated a high speed cable reel and tensioner.
As the harpoon cables are supposed to have been initially designed for towing use, to help maneuver things like clumsy freighters with limited repulsorlifts, the mechanisms of the harpoon cable must have been set up with a certain amount of give in order to avoid snapping the cable loose of its moorings or killing the snowspeeder pilots.
The cable that Rogue 2 deployed to trip the AT-AT wrapped around was anchored to the ankle structure of the machine and was looped around the convoluted lower leg structure some four or five times, under obvious tension. The tension produced by the slightly splayed legs of the AT-AT, along with the tight wrapping of the cable and the tendency of the cable to return to its original length after initial stretching, anchored the cable securely enough that it could not simply fall down.
A typical movie analogy is the Indiana Jones / Xena / Lash LaRue tactic of wrapping the end of a whip around a rod-shaped object. As long as there are several loops of the whip wrapped around the object, maintaining tension on the whip can keep the whip anchored to that object. It also works in real life, though not as reliably.
Another real life analogy is that of using single-strap bolas for hunting. The strap is pulled tight and can not be casually released, even though the strap does not have even one actual anchor point.
