Death Star scene

[stuartctate]

Please forgive me if this has been said before as i am new to this site, but has anyone else ever thought that in the climatic death star scene in a new hope, why didnt it just blow up the planet that was in the way of the moon with the rebel base on, rather than taking an eternity to circumnavigate it??

Oh yeah, that would have buggered up the two sequels!!

[DanielSkywalker]

Well, did you see the size of it? Yavin is a pretty big planet, I doubtthe Death Star even had enough power to destroy it.

[Handothrawn]

There are two good scenarios

A) The Planet Yavin was a gas giant and there just wasn't enough mass to destroy more than the core of the planet, which would have left a huge gas cloud that still would need to be avoided

B) Because George Lucas said so.

[NelsonCoressel]

c) Because the idea was to crush the Rebellion with "one swift stroke," not blow up a planet they were close to guessing it just might take the moon they were hiding on with it.

[AlanRJ]

The Death Star was built to bring fear to everyone out there. Its like in Earths time, we have nuclear weapons and the superpowers (back then anyway) had the "don't piss us off and we won't nuke you". But what happens if you start using nukes flippantly, then you lose the fear factor as everyone will assume you're gonna blow them up next.

Well thats what I think anyway.

[RollaFett]

Everyone has responed well here (LOL Handothrawn on #2!), but I would suggest this: Supreme confidence by the Empire which became overconfidence which ultimately resulted in the destruction of the DS. The Empire did not think for even a micro-second that the rebellion would succeed. I think that they viewed that end battle as nothing more than a mere training exercise for their troops. A perfect example can be found in this scene:

Officer: "We've analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?"

Tarkin: "Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances!"

[Shoma Barad]

In the ANH radio drama, Tarkin in no-where near so confident... he is the one who first suggests running away like a little bantha cub.. then later, he is just showing false bravado for the sake of his subordinates... The audio dramas are cool... cheesy, but kewl... lol

Oh, and the Rebels were on Yavin 4, one of the moons, not Yavin itself (the Gas Giant). So the DS would've made it into a nice little planet pate'.

~~Shoma

[Djinn_Altis]

First of all the DEATH STAR doesn't have an unlimited amount of power. It takes about a day for the power core to build up enough energy to destroy a planet. SOO... if they destroyed Yavin they would have to wait about a day if they wanted to compleatly destroy Yavin IV.

So you see they really hade no choice but to go around Yavin.

[tunafishman]

Go to this link on TOS:

http://www.starwars.com/community/askjc/st...jc20010405.html (http://www.starwars.com/community/askjc/steve/askjc20010405.html)

That should answer any questions.

[Rogue_0009]

Yavin is probably made up of Hydrogen so if u blew it up it would create a huge explosion possibly destroying the death star

[Count Dooku]

Yeah I am sure Yavin was to big for the Death Star to blow up as DanielSkywalker stated. Interesting speculations though. Was Yavin made of hydrogen or no, I am not quiet sure.

[Tovor]

I wondered something recently that is indirectly related to this topic. *The Death Star trench run, a desperate measure to destroy the space station before it could fire on the fourth moon. *The rebels had the Death Star schematics so they could by computer locate any and every location on the surface and within the station, right? *The X-wings when strafing the surface did a lot of damage to surface structures and gun emplacements, so evidently they could fire through the shields enough to cause surface damage, right? *Okay then, they should have pinpointed the control room, the command bridge, and bombarded it with proton torpedos and laser fire to destroy Tarkin and the techs who would activate the firing controls. *That would have stopped Tarkin dead (literally) in his tracks with the station unable to fire or navigate, and the rebels would have had more time to reach the thermal exhaust port without racing against the clock.

[NelsonCoressel]

they should have pinpointed the control room, the command bridge, *

For some reason, I've always had it in my head that the Death Star was controlled from deep within the bowels of the station, not from a "window seat."

[Tovor]

Nelson,
For some reason, I've always had it in my head that the Death Star was controlled from deep within the bowls of the station, not from a "window seat." *

I had had that idea as well, but in ROTJ the throne room on the second station was originally the control room to my understanding, hence the circular enclosed control consoles (one of which Luke jumped into and out of to escape Vader's saber at one point) similar to the consoles in the original. *And that throne room/former control room was at the head of a high tower. *You can check the novel if you have it, because I am almost certain that it served as the main control room before the emperor's arrival.

[NelsonCoressel]

I don't have the novels, so just going by what we see in the films the first DS doesn't show lots of towers and bulbous protrusions, whereas in ROTJ the DS2 does have the Emperor's throne room in a tower of some kind (very similar to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, eh wot?).
So maybe the DS2 in ROTJ has the ability to be controlled from the Emperor's position, but the first DS seems to be run from one internal spot. *Again, I've never read the books, except for the first "Star Wars" in 1977, so maybe I'm way off.

[NelsonCoressel]

Actually, now that I think of it, the first DS does have lots of towers and stuff... But not a grand temple, Imperial throne room type thingy. *

In any case, I think the basic idea of "your over-confidence is your weakness" answers the original question of "why don't they just blow it up?" *They think they have all the time in the world to orbit the planet and line up the moon in the DS target.