How long WAS the Endor trip????

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:08 pm

I am of the opinion that most of the traps seen in the film could have been improvised from existing materials on hand. For example, pit traps may have already been in place ("Chewie! Don't!") and simply made a little deeper. In order to build more huts, the Ewoks may already have been logging, hence the ready supply of logs. The bit about the dammed stream in the novelization is difficult, but taking things relatively loosely, I find a single morning-to-afternoon pass believable.

The difference here is not in interpreting the evidence so greatly, but the degree to which I am willing to overlook small differences and inconsistencies, and presume either more Ewoks or some prior quiet preparation by Chirpa immediately following the Rebels telling them a story. There are a lot of unknowns - but the morning launch and afternoon arrival are unmistakable.

Multiple days also tends to mess with the arc of the story, IMO; to me, this is the day the Empire fell. It seemed like that when I first watched it.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:11 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Eh? The one in TPM, achieved by Maul to reach Tatooine from Coruscant, seemed rather fast.
The EU distances aside, we have no canon knowledge of the actual distance between Tatooine and Coruscant. According to the second-tier canon of the ANH novelization, Han was expecting to get back to Tatooine from Alderaan (a core world) in 3 weeks to deliver Jabba his money, which suggests up to a week and a half of travel time there and back. This from the supposedly fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.
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Post by GStone » Mon Feb 04, 2008 11:27 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:I don't understand what you're trying to say.
If one is to take out the idea of the traps being built after Wicket left the droids, including the AT-ST sized traps and damming a river, you're gonna have to get rid of the 'hundreds' of LYs for the distance because the traps being built after he left them was in mind when the distance was written for where the rebels were meeting up before going to Endor.

If ewoks had any considerable amount of strength, they'd be hurling those rocks at the frm that tree log with greater force. When those few were whipping rocks above their head before throwing them, they'd have had greater speed and would have done more than just knock the STs backwards. You'd be seeing them do more damage to ST armor with stone hammers than what we see.

But, if one is gonna pick and choose pieces from the novel, they're still screwed. If one is gonna bring in ewoks carrying the rebels, look how fast they were moving. Their legs are stubby as hell. Do you remember seeing them run? The fuckers aren't agile or quick. Even if a bunch of them could hold up an average sized tree log, they aren't moving fast to do it. They weren't moving fast when the hauled Han, Chewie, Luke, 3PO and R2. And even if we apply greater than normal for that size strength, it's gonna take them a hell of a long time to hoist even one of them up there. Look at the chimp. It's strong and they can give a human quite a whollup, but you aren't gonna say they'd be good at carrying really heavy stuff, even when they aren't using their hands to walk.

For daming a river, they have to carry the rocks (once again, they aren't fast or agile) and they have to wait for the water build up. It seems like beavers can do a lot, but they aren't building dams big enough to hold back water that can topple an AT-ST. Their arms aren't that long, so even with digging an AT-ST sized hole, they aren't gonna be throwing out dirt like a rotary tiller. Something can be ewok sized and move across land fast, but only if they walk on four legs. Ewoks use just 2 and they're stubs.
Eh? The one in TPM, achieved by Maul to reach Tatooine from Coruscant, seemed rather fast.
Tatooine to Geonosis for Padme's yachte in AotC.

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:11 am

GStone wrote:If one is to take out the idea of the traps being built after Wicket left the droids, including the AT-ST sized traps and damming a river, you're gonna have to get rid of the 'hundreds' of LYs for the distance because the traps being built after he left them was in mind when the distance was written for where the rebels were meeting up before going to Endor.

If ewoks had any considerable amount of strength, they'd be hurling those rocks at the frm that tree log with greater force. When those few were whipping rocks above their head before throwing them, they'd have had greater speed and would have done more than just knock the STs backwards. You'd be seeing them do more damage to ST armor with stone hammers than what we see.

But, if one is gonna pick and choose pieces from the novel, they're still screwed. If one is gonna bring in ewoks carrying the rebels, look how fast they were moving. Their legs are stubby as hell. Do you remember seeing them run? The fuckers aren't agile or quick. Even if a bunch of them could hold up an average sized tree log, they aren't moving fast to do it. They weren't moving fast when the hauled Han, Chewie, Luke, 3PO and R2. And even if we apply greater than normal for that size strength, it's gonna take them a hell of a long time to hoist even one of them up there. Look at the chimp. It's strong and they can give a human quite a whollup, but you aren't gonna say they'd be good at carrying really heavy stuff, even when they aren't using their hands to walk.

For daming a river, they have to carry the rocks (once again, they aren't fast or agile) and they have to wait for the water build up. It seems like beavers can do a lot, but they aren't building dams big enough to hold back water that can topple an AT-ST. Their arms aren't that long, so even with digging an AT-ST sized hole, they aren't gonna be throwing out dirt like a rotary tiller. Something can be ewok sized and move across land fast, but only if they walk on four legs. Ewoks use just 2 and they're stubs.
Mh, okay. Could we just have some sort of simplified chronology here, just based on facts, from both the film and the book?
I'm rather lost about what happened when.
Tatooine to Geonosis for Padme's yachte in AotC.
Another detail I didn't pay lots attention to. What happened exactly there?

@ Mike: well, that's problematic, because even if you put Tatooine and Coruscant on opposed sides of the galaxy, the trip was still fast as I recall. I mean, it could have been more than one day 1/2 long, really.

That three weeks trip seems contradicted by the movie, and something like a rationalization, pit stop or else, would probably be necessary.

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Post by GStone » Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:37 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Mh, okay. Could we just have some sort of simplified chronology here, just based on facts, from both the film and the book?
I'm rather lost about what happened when.
The trap creation timeline is unknown. We only know of them as they are being used against the imperials. The best chronology of what happens is what Darkstar has on his pages. Just look at the major subheadings of the 2 pages and jump over the lengthy explanations about the shadows.
Another detail I didn't pay lots attention to. What happened exactly there?
Based on the time passage on Coruscant, she and Anakin traveled less than a parsec at 1,251 to 1,356c.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Tue Feb 05, 2008 12:51 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:@ Mike: well, that's problematic, because even if you put Tatooine and Coruscant on opposed sides of the galaxy, the trip was still fast as I recall. I mean, it could have been more than one day 1/2 long, really.

That three weeks trip seems contradicted by the movie, and something like a rationalization, pit stop or else, would probably be necessary.
The day-or-so guess is based on a similar off-hand comment where Han says they'll show up at Alderaan at some particular hour.

Granted, Han could have been lying, but if you're not listening closely, or are willing to put some gaps in the "movie time," a week each way is perfectly reasonable.

Darth Maul's trip has to be on a faster timeline than three weeks, but then, we don't know how close in hyperspace terms Alderaan is to Coruscant from the movies, either.

Leave the movies, and we're looking at a fairly inconsistent batch of evidence about hyperdrive.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:00 am

I don't necessarily see any contradiction since the "actual" distance between Coruscant and Tatoonie and Tatooine-Alderaan were never actually established. Alderaan could be on a longer route relative to Coruscant from Tatoonie is all.

The other problem that we have is that time in either of the two trilogies is never handled all that well. How long did the Falcon spend in the asteroid field in TESB? How long was Luke on Dagobah training with Yoda? How long did the Falcon take to limp from Anoat to Bespin during that whole time?

Did Darth Maul really only take a day or so to reach Tatooine from Coruscant? Hard to tell.

The Genosis-Tatoonie trip in AoTC is rather interesting in that regard since it involves a fairly well-maintained ship; Queen Amidala's yacht going across a stated distance of "less than a parsec" (less than 3.26 light years). Based on events going on simultaeously during that trip's timeframe indicate that no less than an hour went by, which places a reasonable cap on general SW ship speeds at around 28,000c. Robert Scott Anderson is considerably less generous in this article here:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWaotcparsec.html

He assigns a speed of 1,752c to the yacht.
-Mike

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:11 am

For Tat-Cor to be short, and Tat-Ald to be that long, either the Millenium Falcon is terribly slow in comparison to the Sith Infiltrator, or Tatooine is incredibly close to Coruscant, and Alderaan is somehow very far. But Luke clearly suggests in ANH that Tatooine is in the butthole of the universe, and this doesn't fit much with the idea of Tatooine being so close to a world like Coruscant or Alderaan.

Oh, besides, there's just something that makes no sense:
The EU distances aside, we have no canon knowledge of the actual distance between Tatooine and Coruscant. According to the second-tier canon of the ANH novelization, Han was expecting to get back to Tatooine from Alderaan (a core world) in 3 weeks to deliver Jabba his money, which suggests up to a week and a half of travel time there and back. This from the supposedly fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.
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What is the exact quote? They didn't make Tat-Ald in 3 weeks in ANH. It was particularily fast, pretty much in the ballpark of Maul's Cor-Tat trip

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:29 am

Something else. Looking at RSA's page about the Coruscanti sunsets, I notice that the sun would not pass above the Jedi temple.

Assuming the shadows are reliable here (they are not in ROTJ), one must believe that the Jedi Council's tower changed from TPM to AOTC.
There's just too much of an urban architectural difference to argue that this whole sector of the cityplanet was altered.
http://st-v-sw.net/images/Wars/Special/ ... PM01sm.jpg
http://st-v-sw.net/images/Wars/Special/ ... ay05sm.jpg

Any shadow analysis, based on the wrong assumption that the Council sessions took place in the same tower both in TPM and AOTC, would be considered wrong, since obviously there's just too much of a scenery change to work on the orientation of light from those shots.

EDIT: some quick drawings:

Image

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:24 am

From page 108 of the ANH novelization Han says this to Jabba:
Again the sardonic smile. "As you say, I'am too valuable to fry. But I've got a charter now and I can pay you back, plus a little extra. I just need some more time. I can give you a thousand on account, the rest in three weeks."
Why take three weeks to get back to Tatooine to give Jabba the money, if the Falcon can make the trip in only a day or two? I find it a bit of stretch that Han would be screwing around for nearly 3 weeks when he could just immediately get his cash, refuel the Falcon, maybe rest a day or two, and be back on Tatooine to settle the account with Jabba and be free of harassment.

As pointed out before, it is clear that we did not see the entirety of the Tat-Ald trip, so it is possible that several days went by with Luke being trained by Obi-Wan, and Artoo, Threepio and Chewie passing some of the time with the holo-chess.

Unlike the Sullust-Endor trip, there's no excuse with the Falcon since it is a large enough and modestly comfortable enough ship to support several people for days on end if need be.
-Mike

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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:11 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:From page 108 of the ANH novelization Han says this to Jabba:
Again the sardonic smile. "As you say, I'am too valuable to fry. But I've got a charter now and I can pay you back, plus a little extra. I just need some more time. I can give you a thousand on account, the rest in three weeks."
Why take three weeks to get back to Tatooine to give Jabba the money, if the Falcon can make the trip in only a day or two? I find it a bit of stretch that Han would be screwing around for nearly 3 weeks when he could just immediately get his cash, refuel the Falcon, maybe rest a day or two, and be back on Tatooine to settle the account with Jabba and be free of harassment.

As pointed out before, it is clear that we did not see the entirety of the Tat-Ald trip, so it is possible that several days went by with Luke being trained by Obi-Wan, and Artoo, Threepio and Chewie passing some of the time with the holo-chess.

Unlike the Sullust-Endor trip, there's no excuse with the Falcon since it is a large enough and modestly comfortable enough ship to support several people for days on end if need be.
-Mike
Alderaan would need to be in some very isolated and hard to access sector to make the trip so long.
It's quite a given that Coruscant is a core world. There may even be a source that describes Alderaan as a CW, from the canon.

The thing is, with Coruscant in the middle of the galaxy, somehow, and Tatooine on the fringe, even putting Alderaan on the other side can't give three weeks when Maul completed Cor-Tat very quickly, even less when the MF is supposed to be fast.

Besides, that bit from the novelization, it's the scene where Han meets Jabba in spacedock 49, right?
Is there any mention of time in the film?
If not, then the book's dialogue doesn't fit with the film and has to be discarded, since Han would have not uttered those words.

As for Endor, everything relies on the traps built by the Ewoks (the EU has its own take on it, and explains that these traps are also built for some giant beast, so some of them are already there).

There's also Han's 0300 statement or so. The final range is 6 - 18 hours.

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Post by 2046 » Tue Feb 05, 2008 1:32 pm

I think several of you have an idea in mind that the attack was a tightly-scripted operation. This is an easy concept to fall victim to, but if you look deeply it is not the case at all.

My next posting or so will have further details on this point.

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Post by GStone » Tue Feb 05, 2008 3:02 pm

The thing about 3 weeks should also be taken in the context that Ben and Luke wanted to get to Alderaan, while avoiding 'any imperial entanglments'. Han say that's a tricky thing to do, which might explain why it'd take 3 weeks. Add in that when they leave Tatooine, they're trying to escape the ISDs, so that might alter their flight plan more.

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:04 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:From page 108 of the ANH novelization Han says this to Jabba:
Again the sardonic smile. "As you say, I'am too valuable to fry. But I've got a charter now and I can pay you back, plus a little extra. I just need some more time. I can give you a thousand on account, the rest in three weeks."
Why take three weeks to get back to Tatooine to give Jabba the money, if the Falcon can make the trip in only a day or two? I find it a bit of stretch that Han would be screwing around for nearly 3 weeks when he could just immediately get his cash, refuel the Falcon, maybe rest a day or two, and be back on Tatooine to settle the account with Jabba and be free of harassment.

As pointed out before, it is clear that we did not see the entirety of the Tat-Ald trip, so it is possible that several days went by with Luke being trained by Obi-Wan, and Artoo, Threepio and Chewie passing some of the time with the holo-chess.

Unlike the Sullust-Endor trip, there's no excuse with the Falcon since it is a large enough and modestly comfortable enough ship to support several people for days on end if need be.
-Mike
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Alderaan would need to be in some very isolated and hard to access sector to make the trip so long.
It's quite a given that Coruscant is a core world. There may even be a source that describes Alderaan as a CW, from the canon.
Not really, depending on where in the SW galaxy Alderaan is relative to Tatooine and Coruscant. For example, I can start a trip to Boston, Massachusetts in Orlando, Florida, but if I wanted to, I could hit Washington D.C. long before because in terms of relative geography, Washington is about mid-point in the distance of my journey to Boston. Same thing can apply to a Tat-Ald trip versus a Tat-Cor trip. More on this below, but also the thing to consider is that we know from the two canon movie maps that the Outer Rim territories are not necessarily at the literal edge of the SW galaxy.
The thing is, with Coruscant in the middle of the galaxy, somehow, and Tatooine on the fringe, even putting Alderaan on the other side can't give three weeks when Maul completed Cor-Tat very quickly, even less when the MF is supposed to be fast.
Coruscant is only in the middle of the galaxy in some of the EU literature. The ICS maps and other EU maps do not jive well with the canon representations seen in AoTC where we know that the Geonosis and Tatoonie systems are nowhere near the actual edge of the galaxy, but somewhere just past mid-way from the core to edge. The same thing for Kamino, which is said to be "beyond the Outer Rim":

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWkamino.html

Note where the two maps zoom in from relative the the galactic core and the actual edge.

Besides, that bit from the novelization, it's the scene where Han meets Jabba in spacedock 49, right?
Is there any mention of time in the film?
If not, then the book's dialogue doesn't fit with the film and has to be discarded, since Han would have not uttered those words.
Yes, it takes place in Docking bay 94. But the novelization is very correct and shows a great deal of the intent, whether or not he actually said that in the movie. For example compare what Han says later on about the Imperial starfleet being able to destroy a planet in the novelization to the way he says it in the movie. In the novelization, he finishes his entire sentence whereas in the movie he's cut off. So we can treat it as a historical novel from the SW universe's perspective where the intent is given that might not be apparent in a documentary film. Thus we can keep it and quite easily since we do not see the entire trip the Falcon made. Han's 0200 hour arrival time at Alderaan was given late in the trip is all.

As for Endor, everything relies on the traps built by the Ewoks (the EU has its own take on it, and explains that these traps are also built for some giant beast, so some of them are already there).

There's also Han's 0300 statement or so. The final range is 6 - 18 hours.
While that's possible, it still doesn't explain everything away. The Ewoks might have built some traps beforehand, but not all, and many of the traps still require a great deal of forethought and effort to build in such a short time. At least a day, maybe two went by, though I would agree that five is a bit of a stretch, even though we know from the EU that a starflighter can support a pilot in a non-stop trip for that length of time. The 0300 statement could be based on the understanding between Han and the rest of the commando team that they would meet at the appointed 0300 time in say, 2 days, or what have you. But the next time we see them with the commandos at the bunker, it clearly is not 0300. So there is ample oops factor still involved here for the timing.
-Mike

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Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:14 pm

GStone wrote:The thing about 3 weeks should also be taken in the context that Ben and Luke wanted to get to Alderaan, while avoiding 'any imperial entanglments'. Han say that's a tricky thing to do, which might explain why it'd take 3 weeks. Add in that when they leave Tatooine, they're trying to escape the ISDs, so that might alter their flight plan more.

Not unless that had already been taken somewhat into account on Han's part that he'd have to break through the blockade. So how would things have gone differently otherwise? More time to let the nav computer do it's computations? We're still taking a minute or two here regardless, and the same result we see in the movie. Also the departure time for the Falcon in terms of taking off from Tatooine would have at most been a matter or minutes or and hour or so on the outside if the Stormtroopers not come in to raid them.
-Mike

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