As much as I love the original trilogy (minus all its recent 'improvements'), there are still a few things about these Star Wars movies that have never sat quite well with me- from a purely 'logical' sense, that is. The one I'm going to focus on (briefly) in this post is the whole Mission to Endor at the end of Return of the Jedi.
I am perfectly alright with the whole concept of the Rebel attack on the Death Star. Yes, it is all a bit 'shooting from the hip', but then the Rebels know they are taking a risk here. They just feel that the risk is worth the possible reward. I'm even cool with the whole plan of sneaking people onto Endor using a stolen shuttle and codes. Where that falls apart (for me at least) is after the shuttle has passed through the Imperial blockade. They reported that they are a 'parts and technical crew for the forest moon'. That makes sense, but then they land the shuttle, apparently, in the middle of the forest- a couple days march from the ONLY Imperial installation (that we know of) on the planet. Considering how tight security MUST have been in the system (especially with the Emperor there), you would think that SOMEONE would have noticed this shuttle going off course and heading for the boonies. I mean, they probably had limited approach vectors and ALL that stuff.
Now, you COULD explain this all away by saying that the Empire 'allowed' them to land, since Vader had already sensed Luke and knew there were shenanigans in the works. But that wouldn't explain why the Rebels would have thought this was a good plan. So, yeah. There we are a pretty big plot hole if you ask me. And quite honestly, I don't have a way to 'fix' this. Perhaps there WERE other Imperial installations on the planet and they 'pretended' to land at one, but instead diverted to the forest. But again, you'd think someone would check on this and follow up- especially when you have an entire day (at least) to notice the discrepancy.
So, ummmm... nope. I'm drawin' a blank here. If anyone else has any bright ideas as to what might close this plot hole, I'm all ears.
The best I can come up with is that they were planning to be in and out with the generator blown up before the Imperials had time to verify that the shuttle had crashed. They couldn't land at the facility itself, for obvious reasons. Landing off in the woods, potentially faking a crash, would focus the Imperials attention someplace other than their front doorstep while they moved in to get their mission done.
ReplyDeleteThat's the best I have. I know it's a little weak, but there are some things that can't be easily explained away. Sometimes you just have to chalk things up to plot-convenience.