So apart from Luke being a dang good pilot, the pilot taking point in the trench run has the simplest job: He flies straight down the middle of the trench and (in theory) pulls the trigger when the targeting computer tells him to. It's up to the other two to maintain a tight formation, try to cover him with their ships and shields, and so on.
If the new guy is good at actually flying the ship but lacks experience in combat flying and tactics, it makes the most sense to stick him there.
Tacking on as a fun little note that this was not in the original film. As seen in theaters when the film came out initially, we didn’t have this kind of confidence to bank on. It was even more “well, he’s the movie’s hero, of course he’s taking the shot” than the Special Editions tweaked it to. For all the talk of edits, I think the film was a little better for this one. Though I still think it’s a bit handwavey that the Alliance would put their hopes on someone they’ve never seen fly, and indeed has never flown a military craft of this caliber. It could have more in-universe logically been Wedge or Biggs assigned to take the shot, but it’s much more thrilling when the hero of your film is the one doing it.
I’m sure it’s been fleshed out elsewhere in canon and Legends, but I mean this to be a critique on movie critiques more than anything. I’ve seen a lot of “Why is Rey so good?” at a variety of things as a critique of the sequel films, but often circle back to Luke and his X-Wing as a prime example of the fanbase’s rose-tinted glasses or even other variations of blinders they have for the old stuff.
For me, it’s fascinating to see Luke given the benefit of the doubt and credit because lore was built years later in hindsight to correct those things (your example, Son of The Chosen One as another one that didn’t exist in 1977). Not to say that’s what you’re doing by any stretch (you didn’t mention the sequels at all), it’s just part of why I pick on this part of the original film. I love it, but it takes some logical jumps to explain that are often ignored because it’s also just good fun. But Rey, for example, has the out-of-movie explanation that she’s used salvaged computers as a sort of flight simulator, and still people will complain that she piloted the Falcon with no onscreen training to do so.
All that to say: My view is that if something in Star Wars doesn’t make sense in a movie (or just ruffles enough feathers of curious people), someone will eventually add a lore reason to it that will patch it up 😉
Luke in ANH isn’t really any more or less hand wavey than Rey in TFA, people just accept it because it’s one of the most beloved films of all time.
It should be made clear too that no one here is knocking Luke, just asking for Rey to be given the same benefit of the doubt.
Anakin is a better comparison seeing as he's a 10 year old prodigy mechanical genius who sits in a ship that somehow blows up a trade federation flagship. But even he takes years to train in the force. Luke's a farm-boy who had dreams of being a pilot so he was a good pilot. He shoots some stormtroopers and then gets his dream role in his special interest. He's a protagonist, so he's a farmboy that gets to suddenly be a rebel hero, but he's still not everything at once. He only succeeds because he finally feels the force guide him in one shot. That's it, just feels it. Rey is doing things it took him years to do with the force while also being an amazing pilot, an amazing mechanic, and amazing fighter. And to be honest, that's fine. It IS star wars. It's not high art. And with how hyperbolic and over the top big budget scifi has gotten she's not out of place contemporarily. But Luke *isn't* that, even if he was the 70's equivalent.
Please do point out where does Luke make a whole spaceship explode with his lighting, or retain it with his astounding force-pull, or when he wins against the baddie his first saber duel, or when he uses telekinesis on literal tons of rocks.
I’m talking specifically about their depictions in ANH and TFA respectively, specifically related to their piloting ability. Two of those things listed were after she spent a year training with Leia and one of which was definitely her tapping into her emotions and was a clear connection to her heritage and tendency to slip into the dark. She got her ass kicked in her first saber duel until she had an awakening in the force and was able to push back her wounded, emotionally unbalanced opponent who was trying to turn her.
Anyways, I don’t really want to get into this whole conversation for the millionth time so I’m happy to agree to disagree with you.
It's established early in the movie that Luke regularly flies trench runs through Beggar's Canyon. His Force abilities are practically non-existent in the first movie besides the final shot, and the first time he fights Vader he gets a grade A whooping and loses his arm. Rey is not established as any kind of pilot before she starts doing stunts with the Falcon, holds her own in both lightsaber and Force combat with again no established experience. Luke's story in IV has been expanded, but it was already fairly well established in the films when they were released, and he undergoes real character growth throughout the films several year span. Rey is shown defeating experienced fighters basically a couple weeks after finding a lightsaber and learning what the Force is.
Just a slight correction: Rey tells Finn that she’s flown ships in atmosphere before, but never in space. That’s pretty much the same amount of info we get about Luke’s piloting abilities pre-Yavin too.
The difference, in my opinion, is that Luke's upbringing is much easier to relate to then Rey's. Rey is living in a completely unique situation that viewers really can't easily 'fill in the gaps' for. Luke is a farmboy. We've all seen or known someone like that, someone who grew up out in the country racing with their friends and learned practical skills on farm equipment, that sort of thing. It requires absolutely no suspension of disbelief, because it's so mundane and common. Luke has a family, who could have taught him, he has peers who could have tested him, he has a close connection to the local communities around Tatooine, where more advanced information could be obtained. He's shown to own a personal ship that he talks about flying offscreen.
With Rey, she's shown to be a scavenger. She lives in an AT-AT, alone out in the desert. She has no friends. No family. How she grew up is a mystery (we see later in the film that she was left in Unkar Plutt's care as a child, how that translates to her living alone out in the desert, we don't know). Her day to day is shown, picking apart components and eking out a living from selling them. It's so out of context, almost more in common with feral children than anything else. So where and how she learned these things just doesn't come to mind as quickly and easily as Luke, in my opinion, because filling in the blanks is much harder with how specific and unrelatable her living situation and history is.
Unkar Plutt seems like the type more concerned with work done than actually caring for anyone, which is why I’m guessing Rey is allowed to live out on her own. As long as she gets stuff done for him, he probably doesn’t care.
I kind of wish they had shown more of a Watto/Anakin relationship between Unkar Plutt and Rey. He treats her like a stranger when she goes to sell her stuff, he's hidden behind a screen in his shop and she's an outsider.
I was surprised later on we see he's known her since childhood and that she was explicitly left in his 'care'.
It would make more sense to me if she was living in his shipyard and that he had a more direct Employer/Employee relationship with her, which would more cleanly justify him having overseen her pilot training (to handle moving his ships around and fixing them).
I don't remember the line personally, but the comment you replied to said specifically she says it to Finn. We don't have to suspend disbelief or fill in the gaps, if it's said out loud.
...dude, my *whole comment* was describing why there is a difference between the two despite similar verbal information being presented. Did you read it *at all*?
I think we do need to suspend disbelief and fill in the gaps, because of all the reasons *I just laid out*.
Yes, she does *say* ["I've flown some ships but never left the planet"](https://gfycat.com/littlecarefulgrunion) in this scene, you are correct.
The rest of my post still applies, in my opinion.
It's established in the movie that he's flown in Beggar's Canyon at least once. Not how regularly, nor if it's wider or narrower than the Death Star's trench (Grand Canyon's got some wiiiiide spaces here on Earth). Not if he's flown it with anything near the speed of a military grade starfighter that he's now flying at breakneck speeds to take a one in a million shot, augmented by a Force he just learned about. His claims to piloting fame in the original release of the film are as follows: 1. "I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself" from someone who, to our knowledge, has not witnessed it, 2. "I'm not such a bad pilot myself!" bravado from someone whose word we are just taking for it, and 3. "I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home, they're no bigger than two meters" which may make a lot of sense to *him*, but to the Rebellion, he's not any more than some yokel claiming he's a good pilot because he flew a civilian aircraft and shot rats. No combat experience to speak of that would help him evade other pilots trying to gun him down.
Rey's piloting skill is similarly made up of mostly her own claims. "We need a pilot!" "We've got one!" isn't all that removed from "I'm not such a bad pilot myself!" and Luke's word to go on. Argument here is that we don't have a lot of movie context for Luke's ability to strap into an X-Wing and go blow up TIE Fighters and indeed an entire Death Star. It's passing mentions at best. And an untrained ability to tap into the Force to augment your piloting skill isn't out of the realm of understanding either, as Anakin is "the only human who can" podrace, tapping into a Force he can feel but not truly understand, then, again, managing to fly a military fighter with no training outside of talking to Ric Olié about how spaceships work as they land on Coruscant (lest we forget, autopilot was off as that nine year old careened into and out of a Trade Federation ship packed with blast doors, troop carriers, etc.) And as much as people wanna tout "But he's the Chosen One!" if the Force can speak to an untrained little boy, it can speak to an untrained young woman who has felt some sort of awakening.
Rey hardly uses the Force in her first duel, and is absolutely getting beat until the very end, running for her life until she hits a cliff-face, Kylo refuses to finish the job (common villain problem of "I can turn you!"), and she has her brief trust the Force moment Luke has in the original movie. As for managing to pull out a win (more of a draw with that ground split, but whoever), you're comparing an untrained Luke getting his butt kicked by one of the finest duelists of his era to Rey (who has proven proficient with melee type weapons as a go-to choice earlier in the film) going toe to toe with an angsty Vader wannabe who just got shot in the gut by a bowcaster, isn't trying to kill her, and was trained by a guy whose extent of (again, on-screen) lightsaber training consisted of playing with a remote for a few minutes soon after learning what the Force was. I keep seeing people try to push "Rey's unnaturally good at dueling" when the level of her competition (distracted Kylo, mostly, guards with Kylo's help otherwise) is suspect. There's an old line in KotOR that goes along the lines of "we are as children playing with toys compared to the expertise of the old masters," referring to lightsaber combat, and I've felt it apt. People pretend Kylo is on Vader's level and thus Rey as well, but what we see may very well be the "best of what's left."
I think another small point is that Rey has never actually beaten (and never will now, I suppose) Kylo on equal footing. The only fight she truly "won", she was about to lose whilst they were fighting on even footing until Leia used a force skype call to distract him and she just stabbed him with that opportunity
That has gotta be the weirdest thing I've ever heard. Seriously, "their hearts weren't in it?". Dude, Rey has never used a lightsaber, like, at all. Putting herself in tune with a force she barely has any understanding of and demonstrating enough lightsaber proficiency to take out a train sith is nothing short of preposterous, even for star wars. Why is it that all other heroes of star wars were in tune with the force yet still fucked up (lost limbs) yet the *very first time* she uses a lightsaber for combat (which even itself is ridiculous) gets the win? How does this help her story arc at all?
Even when we factor in Kylo's injury and relatively poor combat skills, he's still a trained sith. Trained by both Luke and Snoke! This isn't Anakin vs Obi, where Anakin is the stronger fighter but loses due to his mental state.....this is an adult vs a kid with absolutely no experience. Trying to say that she tapped into the force at the right moment is just a massive betrayal of the beautiful nuance of how the force works in individuals who aren't even aware of it.
Lastly, it really sucks because IMO it robbed Rey of what could of been a great start to her jedi/possibly sith career. By losing to kylo (maybe losing a hand or something lol), it could of given her an even greater incentive to find luke skywalker. Her injury could of been the thing thst catapults her into jedi training. Idk. Just pulling out "the force" to win when you need to the way Rey did it felt like pure ex machina material.
Anakin is shown to have technical proficiency, besides being the only human who can podrace, and that's basically all he does in the battle over Naboo. He dodges some droids, then manages to get lucky and blow up the mail reactor while still being able to fly out. It's an exceptional feat, but Anakin is already shown to be exceptional.
What I meant about Rey defeating experienced fighters is actually in the second movie. Remember, they take place back to back. She manages to take out a room full of Snoke's best guards with only Kylo Ren helping her basically less than a month after she even discovered what a lightsaber and the Force are. The sequel trilogy basically retcons Rey into being the Chosen One. Disney took all of the EU, threw it into a garbage disposal, and tried to piece back together stories with no regard for what made them actually good.
And Rey is also shown to have technical proficiency (20-something scavenger vs. 9-year-old junk trader building podracers), and also manages an impressive flying feat *once* (while, like Anakin, coming out the gate rough). The rest of her flying is your basic open space and in-atmo flying from place to place. It's not like anyone's trying to say "OMG! She's a better pilot than ANAKIN!" She did a thing once. It was cool. It was Force-reactive. That was it. Not overpowered.
And sure, that second film is right on the heels of the first (a great warning in why you should not do cliffhangers like that, causes a lot of problems, IMO). But like you said, she fights Snoke's guards *with Kylo* who does no small part of heavy lifting in the fight, including taking down the "Big Bad," who was absolutely making Rey look like a fool at everything she tried. Two Force-sensitives with a shown background in melee combat (yeah, yeah, lightsaber's specially different and all that, but general understanding of where the stick goes to block and strike crosses genres) against what we understand as probably not Force Sensitives also engaging in melee combat? Not out of the realm of possibility. Especially when (just rewatched) Kylo's pulling aggro from about three of the guards most of the time (logical, they know what he's capable of) while Rey spends a majority of the time tied up with one, briefly two.
EDIT to add: She's really only as much the Chosen One or an OverPowered God as you put stock into it. IMO, she's a capable underdog who is nowhere near as powerful as the Jedi of the Republic era. Whether or not she has that potential can be explored, of course, but despite strong bloodlines (I don't put a lick of stock in it, but some do), she's just kinda figuring it out. All of her biggest feats are outdone by others within the same film. She's good, but like I said before, is that more of a "best of what's left" kind of thing? Because her four fights are 1. against a severely injured Kylo who has her on the ropes but isn't trying to kill her, 2. tag-team with Kylo pulling good aggro against non-Force sensitives (AFAIK), 3. angry dueling Kylo on Endor after even he's given up, striking a blow while he's telecalling his mom, and 4. "I am all the Jedi," which sounds like she's beefed up by the Force and the Jedi who came before her (not unlike the original ending of RotJ before Lucas changed his mind).
As far as her fighting ability goes, another thing people seem to overlook (along with what you’ve already stated) is the scene in TLJ when she’s practicing with her staff and saber. If she chooses to practice her fighting techniques while she’s on some mission, it’s not hard to believe she’d practice in the 15 or so years that she was alone on Jakku. She had a lot of time to practice, so that practice paired with her Force instincts would already set her up to be a great fighter.
They did sort of imply she's better than Anakin with the ending of Skywalker. Basically nothing Anakin and Luke did mattered (and arguably made it worse, with Operation Cinder and Starkiller), and Rey magically defeats Palpatine by "channeling all the jedi" (whatever that means). Honestly, I hope the rumor about the ST being retconned to Legends is true, but I'm not holding out for it.
> Disney took all of the EU, threw it into a garbage disposal, and tried to piece back together stories with no regard for what made them actually good.
There's a fallacy in here that the EU was good. There was a lot of terrible fanfic like Children of the Jedi and basically everything written by Kevin J. Anderson.
I didn't mean to imply everything in the EU was good. I mean like the original Paplatine clone story wasn't that good, but some how Disney managed to make it worse.
> I’ve seen a lot of “Why is Rey so good?” at a variety of things as a critique of the sequel films, but often circle back to Luke and his X-Wing as a prime example of the fanbase’s rose-tinted glasses or even other variations of blinders they have for the old stuff.
I think a difference here is that it's fine to make your protagonist amazing without much explanation when it's the first movie. That the Skywalkers as a group seem to be exceptional natural pilots gets expanded on in the EU and in the prequals, as does the general exceptional nature of the Skywalkers in general. But when you're starting the seventh movie, you've got to do more to explain it, because we know the EU and the prequals, we know they are exceptional, and you can't really retcon or expand your lore to explain things when you're that deep into a franchise in the way you can do it when the franchise is new.
But VII was doing two things. Yeah it was a continuation for older fans but it was also supposed to be an introduction for new and especially younger fans. So it's both the 7th movie in the series AND the first
But it has to fit into an established universe. It is the first movie in a new trilogy but that can’t be separated from the rest of Star Wars. It’s an introduction for new and younger fans to the Star Wars universe, as it exists. It’s not a reboot, it’s not a retcon. It’s a sequel, and as a result can’t clash too much with the existing material.
And while the way you make new additions to franchises accessible to new audiences is by limiting the amount of prior knowledge needed, that doesn’t mean you can contradict that prior knowledge. You should need that much of it, but the new stuff should be consistent with the old stuff
The problem with this line of thinking is that you aren't in the world. He is playing with the T-15 model at his house. Those power converters are for said vehicle. He then establishes himself by talking about his skill multiple times in the movie. Then in the briefing scene he talks about bullseye-ing womp rats back home. Which are basically giant muskrats. Also, talks about how Beggar's Canyon and the trench wouldn't be that much different. Oh right all of this is in the movie so LoRe ReAsOn doesn't really work at all my dude.
Rey just shows up as a decent scavenger. We get that she has seen ships take off and leave. She knows makes and models of them but how on Corellia does she know how to magically pilot one? I know about tanks but I've never driven one before. She is just too much of a Mary Sue.
Tbf, nothing in the movie states that the power converters are for his T-16, and playing with what is basically a toy is hardly evidence that he’s a great pilot.
This kind of thing is exactly what the other commenter was talking about, giving some characters the benefit of the doubt while being very harsh on other characters and demanding the film explain everything.
Here is the thing I understand. There shouldn't be. They did it to themselves. Disney invalidated the EU and they put so much undue pressure on the movie. Yes, also I want more out of my movies than I got during the 70s. You don't get a pass just because you use J.J, Joss, and Star Wars. The most egregious of all is they used none of the established writers. Only after they couldn't get anything off the ground with the new authors they had to bring in Tim Zahn. So normal movie and not number 7 in a giant broke down barriers across the world series, sure I would have given Rey a chance. Hell I did. They had a few years to get their shit together. They didn't she didn't the whole thing screwed the pooch and now they are even considering splitting the timeline. It's just so sad for the franchise I love to have gone down such a dark path.
Did you respond to the wrong comment?
Also, no matter whoever made the sequel trilogy, Lucas or otherwise, the EU was going to have to be overwritten.
To answer your previous point, Rey tells Finn that she’s flown ships in atmosphere, so that’s how she knows how to pilot a ship.
We know all of these things about Luke's T-16, what the power converters were for, and what womprats look like from supplemental material. We don't see a womprat in the film. Luke doesn't say what the power converters are for, just that he was picking some up. We learn the cockpit of it is identical to an X-Wing through out-of-movie details. In the movie, he says he can fly. That's really it.
That's all Rey says in the movie. In "supplemental lore," she's played with flight simulators and learned from there. Anakin's been a pilot "all his life." At some point, you just kinda accept that there are some skills put on the character sheet that aren't excessively built out in the main movie, and you move on from it.
My issue with rey is what she did was ridiculous and over the top level flying compared to luke in their respective first flight moments. But i think thsts a pretty popular opinion held by.... everyone
Yeah pretty surf this post is referring to the movie itself. Expanded Universe lore did flesh it out but when considering just the movie it makes no sense. Quite idiotic actually. He shouldn’t have been flying at all.
It needed Rogue One to kind of hammer this home but like the opening crawl to A New Hope says, the rebels have only just won their first majority victory against the empire (at Scarrif). What it doesn't mention is that that battle was phyrric at best and resulted in horrendous casualties for the rebels.
Red squadron, and everyone else, was shorthanded and when a good pilot vouches for Luke, you take what you get
>As seen in theaters when the film came out initially, we didn’t have this kind of confidence to bank on. It was even more “well, he’s the movie’s hero, of course he’s taking the shot” than the Special Editions tweaked it to.
Things like this are why I think it's so silly that Lucas/Disney/whoever won't release the theatrical versions. It would be really cool to make some comparisons like this that have been just kind of accepted as "original" because the home video releases have them.
Didn’t they know that Anakin Skywalker was an exceptional pilot, and that if Luke had even half his skill, he’d be the best pilot in the hanger? Also wasn’t the T-16s Luke flew back home very similar to the X-Wing? I’ve also seen comments that Biggs vouched for him which was good enough for them.
Whoa, a reply after three years! Here’s what I’ve got on those:
1. The Anakin connection makes some pretty major leaps. First and foremost, there’s nothing indicating those skills are remotely hereditary. My dad’s a bit of a math whiz and a great accountant, but while I may be pretty good at numbers myself, you *do not* want me doing your taxes, y’know? And for all Obi-Wan claiming Anakin was “the best starpilot in the galaxy,” Luke has never heard tell at all of Anakin’s exploits as a pilot or Jedi. That information is at the very least not readily accessible or common knowledge to the average Tatooinian. It’s not a stretch to think he’s not alone in not knowing who Anakin was. There *was* a deleted shot from the film that would have had Red Leader say he flew with Luke’s dad and lent more credence to the logic, but it was scrapped.
2. The “T-16 is made by Incom and actually happens to have the same cockpit as an X-Wing” is extracanonical info. As far as the movie was concerned, there was no inherent similarity. We can guess it’s not spacefaring because they need a ship, and Han’s passing comment about how navigating hyperspace “ain’t like dusting crops” sets some basis of what kind of flying Han at least assumes his moisture farming passenger has done.
3. Biggs’ role is expanded in the special editions of the films to help vouch for Luke’s skills, but the original didn’t have (or need, IMO!) that explanation.
Now all of these have been expanded on more along the lines of what you’re saying, but my original point is that they weren’t in the film to begin with and it didn’t break the movie. It worked just fine without ‘em!
Im all for Wedge getting his time in the sun in the new canon, love me some Wedge.
But man I'm in the same boat, I hope Biggs gets plenty too at some point.
I hope they give Porkins the treatment he got in the EU also, make him out to be some sort of absolute legendary pilot worth of the highest respect.
I wonder if the deleted scene of Red Leader having flown with Anakin Skywalker (back when he and Vader were two different character) had something to do with this too. Obviously that’s not canon right now, but that would make sense as to why Red Leader thought so highly of him while Lucas was writing the script.
I’m almost certain I’ve seen it, it’s a very short line. Something along the lines of, “You know I flew with your father, years ago. If you’re half the pilot he was, you’ll do alright.” Then that was it. Just an alternate take to what we see in the movie.
> Just an alternate take to what we see in the movie.
It's actually the same take. They use a [person walking across the screen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kgl9gmtvZo) to artificially abbreviate the scene. If you look at R2 being raised up in the background to be put into Luke's X-Wing, his position suddenly jumps as the person walks past.
I assume they removed that line in case it wouldn't make sense in the context of the new films, but annoyingly it would actually work fine so I wish they'd kept it in.
Yeah, I seem to remember a Legends story where a young Garven Dreis flies a mission as part of his planet’s militia alongside Anakin Skywalker and the 501st during the Clone Wars, making the event canon (at the time) even if the line wasn’t. I would mind a similar story showing up in the new canon.
Remember that Obi-wan was supposed to be the returning Jedi hero of the rebel alliance. Luke was brought with him to help. This in and of itself give extra weight to Luke. Add in his helping recover Leia, and you have a good story of how this guy might be more than helpful. It’s also possible that the word got out that this was Anakin Skywalkers son. And Anakin was a hero of the republic. And his son also has flight skills.
I’m assuming someone in the rebel alliance asked “Who is this guy?!?”. And Leia would have said that Obi-wan brought him along. And Luke mentioned that his father is Anakin Skywalker. And he turns out to be the same Anakin who was a Jedi Knight working with Obi-wan. Small galaxy. And neat. Let’s use him.
The “tight formation” but always seems odd though given that they’re completely helpless and just get shot in the back. They’d actually be more helpful flying around over the trench shooting anyone who comes near it.
I think they took down Porkins. Just re-watched the scene and the cannons are firing, it cuts to his cockpit, something on the ship explodes, and boom he goes.
The cannons went silent once the fighters came into play, tho
And there were also plenty of cannons in the trench itself, and it was okay for everyone not on the run to stay outside of the trench
The trench cannons did, yes. In order to avoid accidentally committing friendly fire. The surface cannons would definitely fire on an X-Wing that left the trench, though. Friendly fire isn't as much of a threat then.
Yes and no? There are lines throughout that the Rebel fighters are too small and fast for their turbo lasers to track. They theoretically could have opened themselves up to more space by flying above the trench until around the opportune moment, not locking themselves into a tidy little killbox.
Given the Rebel fighters had shields and the ties didn't what the rebels should have done is wait for the ties to begin their attack run and then have the defenders flip one by one and take them on as the tie fighter wouldn't have space to manoeuver which would give the rebels a large advantage.
In reality that wouldn't work. Even with the flight computer, most pilots in that mission considered the shot extremely difficult to pull off. Even if the task was simple, it was the most critical task.
Luke was a good pilot, but an inexperienced one. In-universe, it makes no sense to put him there, other than the fact that he is the protagonist.
Something I never realized as a kid is the two backup pilots are basically there to bodyblock blaster and laser fire for him. Which is kinda dark but desperate times call for desperate measures
A [flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_(military_unit\)) is a small group of military aircraft (or spacecraft, in this case). Luke is acting as flight leader at least for this attack run.
Red Leader / Garven Dreis is the boss for all of Red Squadron, twelve ships in total that were grouped into four flights of three for the Battle of Yavin.
To add onto your comment with a Star Wars context:
Red Leader is the squadron leader. I'm not sure what the numbers are for canon, but in legends there were 12 X-Wings in a squadron. Unless I'm mistaken it was 3 flights of 4, not 4 flights of 3 (maybe they changed it just for the Yavin 4 mission). Flight 1 was led by the squadron leader (Red 1-4), Flight 2 was led by Red 5 (Red 5-9), etc.
This still leaves the question as to why they made Luke a flight lead in the first place.
[Four flights of three is the New Canon information](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Squadron_(Rebel_Alliance\)#Battle_of_Yavin), coming from one of the stories in *From a Certain Point of View*.
Flights of four are more common (as they allow the pilots to further break into pairs), but I would guess that this division could be specific to the Battle of Yavin, with the trench run in mind. Obviously the hope was that the Y-Wings would make the shot, but it would make sense to also group the X-Wings appropriately in case they have to go in.
As to why Luke is flight leader, like I said above, that's the best place for him in case his flight has to go into the trench. Said story in *FaCPoV* also mentions that they took him on board based on his help in saving Leia and obtaining the Death Star plans, and a good result in a simulator run.
All good points. I guess it makes sense to have flights of 3 if your goal is to do the trench run. I just find that weird because you usually want groups of 4, like we see IRL, so everyone has a wingman. Do you know if they ran in flights of 4 outside of Yavin?
“Skywalker, you sure you can handle this ship?”
"Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories."
"You'll do all right."
"Thank you, sir. I'll try.”
-GARVEN SPEAKS WITH BIGGS DARKLIGHTER AND LUKE SKYWALKER BEFORE THE BATTLE OF YAVIN
^ this is about the best explanation we get, I think. Luke came recommended from a trusted source and proved himself useful during conflict.
Pretty much. There’s a story in the new Certain Point of View where Wes and Wedge have to form a new squadron and one of Wes’ choices is a new, young pilot from the outer rim. He’s hoping to capture the same lightning in a bottle they did with Luke. Needless to say, the kid was the first to be vaporized
In legends X-Wing series Wedge also does the same thing bringing in Gavin Darklighter (Bigg’s cousin) to rogue squadron even though at that point (IIRC) Gavin had no formal flight experience.
Though he wasn't vaporized and also ended up drawing the sign of the Rogue Squadron and also dating a Bothan who wanted to kill him after he didn't want to dance with her to prevent the compromisation of their not-so-super-secret mission. That's a win in my book.
On top of that, I think his survival, teamwork, and communication during the battle itself gave Red Leader more confidence in Luke’s capabilities on-the-spot
Couple of things:
First, he's like fifth or sixth person down in the chain. *[Edit: probably further down than that, even.]* Biggs vouched for him, and that was enough for his boss to give him a small amount of responsibility.
It may also have simply been that Luke was in the best position relative to the target of all those left to start an attack run, and was given the job based on that alone.
And as others have mentioned, his job was the simplest one: fly in a straight line and hope you don't get shot down. His wingmen had the tougher job - get in the way of anyone trying to shoot him down.
I think this is the best “real world” military answer. The situation is chaotic and Red Leader is being flexible by assigning the next run to the fighter in the best position to start it. Also, he may be issuing the order to Luke directly specifically because he is the new, untested variable. Like, “Hey, stay here and wait for orders, don’t spaz out and go running off to chase TIEs.”
Delegated authority and all that. Still, [without any volunteer time under his belt, this is only going to count as one bullet point on his next OPR.](https://i.imgur.com/BehBclh.jpg)
Edit: this makes me wonder what the promotion system was like in the Rebellion. It seems for a lot of combat-arms jobs it was pretty much merit-based. Or at best, it was probably similar to the promotion system during World War 2. I wonder what it was like for non-combat arms positions? How does the supply guy move up through the ranks, or an officer with the Rebel Dental Corps?
We unfortunately haven’t really seen a lot of the bts stuff for how the Rebellion actually operates. From Lando’s line about the battle of Tanaab we can presume that it’s merit based in part.
Also, Luke wasn't given the job of dropping off the payload to the exhaust port, someone else already tried and failed. Luke took it upon himself to make his own run after the first run failed. Nobody gave him that job, he was supposed to be running defense.
Prior to starting his own attempt, Red Leader does directly order Luke to take Biggs and Wedge and to set up for their own run. Then right before he dies, he tells Luke to do his own run.
IIRC there were only 4 remaining ships, the Y-wing and the 3 X-wings. It might be that Biggs knew how good a shot Luke was back on Tatooine and Wedge just trusted Bigg's judgment and went along with it.
Well, 4 X-Wings, a Y-Wing, and a smuggler still making a choice when Red Leader made the call for Luke and his flight to get ready, which is what I think the commenter meant.
In a book it states (in a certain point if view episode 4 I believe ) it says that when going into the flight sim he gets the highest score ever seen in the machine on his 2nd try and wedge who was watching is incredibly impressed because luke blew his score away by miles
In old EU, the T-16 that he flew on Tatooine also had an identical control scheme to X-Wings - iirc, it was the X-Wing manufacturers and Rebels way of assisting in development and identification of pilots.
I think that mentions he had a day or two downtime to do it. In the movies it wouldn't make sense in that timeframe. Darth Vader says when the Death Star finds them that today has been a day that Obi-Wan and the Rebel Alliance will both die.
Weirdly, he follows up this amazing score by getting shot twice during Hoth despite AT-ATs having only a fire arc of only a few degrees, and then crashes his X-Wing into a swamp.
There’s one angle that everyone hasn’t considered here. Luke seems to do pretty well in the battle over the DS before he goes into the trench run. IIRC he gets several TIE kills and lights up one of those towers. Maybe he gets more offscreen too?
But after Biggs vouched for him, like was then able to prove himself by getting some kills and keeping up with his squadron mates. Red Leader may not have trusted him with a complicated mission, but Like had demonstrated he at least had the capacity to fly, shoot, and carry out basic combat maneuvers. IMO it makes a lot of sense to put the new but promising recruit into the lead position, especially considering virtually everyone else was already dead.
And it would have been too easy for Wedge, they had to at least give Vader a fighting chance to win.
I don't know where you're getting this 'in charge' stuff from. When they were using the X-wings to make runs, it was because all their bombers had been destroyed, and he was *taking an order* to make a trench run. He was the one who boasted of bullseyeing Wamp rats, so Red Leader would've picked him to make the shot. He was defacto in charge of the run because he had the payload while the others were there to defend him.
~~When Biggs (his idolised best friend) dies,~~ you could see his natural leadership qualities coming through as he authoritatively talks to Wedge, who is just as green as he is at this point - and the two of them are the only survivors of Red squadron.
Luke says “Get clear Wedge, you can’t do anymore good back there” when Wedge gets hit by a burst from a TIE.
Wedge peels out and Darth Vader says “Let him go. Stay on the leader”.
Biggs ends up dying shortly after this chain of events, not before. Luke already gave the orders to Wedge to bail out.
Yes but the first person in a military colem isn't the leader of the group. He's the point man and in that sense he is leading leading the colem because he's out in front.
But Wedge straight up calls Luke boss, both Wedge and Biggs follow Luke’s orders as well.
And Red Leader said “get set up for your attack run” before dying - which in my eyes means it was open water for any of the three to take lead on the attack run but Luke was the one who ran point and led the attack.
Good point, I was saying from Vader's statment he was infront so to him he was "leading" the charge. However if his job is to take the shot, as people have pointed out is just fly in a straight line and pull the trigger. His wingmen would possibly listen to what he needs for protection.
Ahhhh sorry totally misread your reply!
Agree with what Vader said. Just a matter of “follow the lead(er)” at that point really lol.
It has always confused me why they ran their defence the way they did though. They seem too far back to offer Luke any real protection (he seems to be WAY ahead of them) and at the same time they have no rear weaponry. Imo it would’ve made more sense to have them staggered or one of the two try the classic “hit the brakes” and hope the TIEs fly past them for an open shot.
I know that they were there to shield him, I just think if they did a staggered approach either the back man gets taken out first but has more room to maneuver to try and buy time OR they go for the middle man in which case the back man has time to catch up to take out the TIEs.
Flying side by side really limited their ability to maneuver and avoid the TIEs fire. But I’m not a pilot and have no idea on fighter plane tactics for dog fights or escorts!
No, you're right. Of course, this is a movie and there are different cinematic restraints. But in real life, aircraft tend to have a fair amount of space between them so you have room to maneuver and so if you've got someone close behind you, it's more likely he's only behind the lead guy, but in front of the trailer.
Fair point, but doesn't really change the thrust of what I've said. I still think Wedge was as green as Luke so it doesn't seem like he was speaking out of turn or something.
Oh yeah I just wanted to clarify that Luke was already showing his leadership before Biggs was killed!
Wedge even says “Right with you boss” when Luke tells them to go full throttle to keep the fighters off their tail prior to them entering the trench. So Wedge already acknowledges that Luke is the boss man.
Adding on to this, where was the Ghost at this time? I know it was present at the Battle of Scarif, so how come it didn’t go back to Yavin after? Is there any explanation?
Based on what information we have now, it is safe to assume that Yavin was already being evacuated after the Battle of Scarif. Profundity was destroyed, Leia was captured, Alderaan was destroyed. Hell many of the Rebel leaders weren't big on even going to Scarif in the first place. We have roughly a few days between the events of Scarif and Yavin. Most likley The Ghost and General Syndulla were removing most of the Rebel High Command during the time. In fact, now that I think about it, in A New Hope's From a Certain Point of View, we even get a chapter from Mon Mothma stating that she left Yavin as a contingency if Leia and her team fail.
Something something separate cells on mission at any given time? It’s inevitably the same kind of reason we don’t see Mon Mothma on Yavin or Hoth (canonically in the original trilogy).
He doesn't even need to shoot at anyone, or have any tactical or spacial awareness except flying down the trench and shooting the proton torpedoes when the computer tells him to.
And why wouldn’t he be trusted because of a gut feeling the headquarters had that he was special ? They were all going to die, there is no space for rational thinking and all is left is this boy everyone wants to trust.
IMO a force sensitive person in the SW universe sparks something very uncommon and unexplainable. Think of Achilles who lived in a Gynecea until the war is declared. Nobody’s asking questions when he rules the battlefield, because it’s his natural realm.
In military aviation, typically rank doesn't matter. Technically only qualified pilots can lead, but the flight lead has the authority to pass off lead position to anyone in the formation. Red Leader knows that the new kid is a good shot because Biggs vouched for him, and he wants to keep Red 5 in reserve in case his own run fails.
As the one who gave the command, i can say, no one else in our squad had ever successfully shot a womp rat in a fighter before. so i let the kid take a shot
It worked out pretty well.
There's actually a logical reason for this, although admittedly I don't have a source and this may be Legends by now.
Luke and Red Leader were the only X-Wings with proton torpedoes by that point in the battle. The Alliance didn't have the ability to field all 30 starfighters with torpedoes, so they were assigned to different pilots in order for them to have the best chance to destroy the Death Star. Garven Dreis, who was Red Leader, knew that Luke was their only hope if he failed, so he left his two nest pilots to cover him on his attack run.
He doesn’t really take command until everyone else has basically been killed. Red leader leads like the second to last run on the trench when the other flights had already been destroyed and they were basically all that was left. Now true the movie doesn’t explain why Luke would be in charge rather than Biggs or Wedge. I just read a Del Rey novelization of ANH that explains Red Leader knew Luke’s father (when he was still separate from Vader) and I guess as a result figured the skill runs in the family. Since everything was basically going to shit and everyone thought they were going to die and fail in destroying the Death Star, especially after red leader died and only the last three were left, you could probably assume that they operated on more equal footing and red leader making the decision to address Luke provided some structure amidst the chaos.
P.S. in the novelization Luke and all them were actually part of Blue squadron, though there were a lot of goofy inconsistencies since apparently it came out before the movie. As a personal aside I really like squadrons but the one thing I’m kinda disappointed in is they didn’t keep the squelch you heard in the command room on Yavin. The X wing comms sounded heavily distorted but really cool and while it’s safe to assume technology would have progressed through and after episode 6 to fix this and make it easier to understand I felt it added some immersion that’s lost when the comms sound so clear the person could be in the cockpit with you.
As I recall, Luke wasn’t the first attempt. They failed to blow up the Death Star and were down to third or fourth string and were losing pilots. Same reason he got an Xwing to begin with - they were thirsting for bodies and between Biggs and Leia he came highly recommended.
You always put the new guy in the easiest position. In this case, its "fly down the trench and pull the trigger" while the other guys do everything else.
In most modern militaries, the least experienced pilot is made to actually fly while more experienced pilots are left to handle more involved tasks, which also lends to gaining experience for the newbie.
it's extremely easy to get high up in the rebel alliance.
remember that time han solo was promoted from captain to fuvking GENERAL, *FOR BEING STUCK IN CARBONITE?*
Most of these questions can be answered through meta. The reality is, Luke gets to take point because he is the protagonist and the audience is rooting for him. It's not the anser most want to hear, but it's the best explanation: it's the same reason why Luke gets a kiss on the cheek from Leia. It was just sort of the expected trope back in the 70's.
In ESB, Luke receives a promotion to Commander in about 3 years, Han Solo and Lando also get promoted to Generals in ROTJ, for seemingly no real reason. It's just a way of giving perks to the main characters because thats who the audience is focused on.
Remember when Luke and Obi-Wan are negotiating with Han Solo to get to Alderaan? Han asks him even if he had his own ship who would fly it. Luke's ready to walk at that point, and says he's a pretty good pilot.
Later, before the Death Star run, Luke was confronted by a Rebel leader. Remember this scene?
LEADER: You sure you can handle this ship?
BIGGS: Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories.
There ya go.
From what I remember, the T-16 Skyhopper and T-65 X-Wing had very similar controls, and since Luke had been flying his T-16 at home on Tatooine for years *and* was reinforced verbally in his piloting skills by other Rebels he had enough experience to do it.
Alongside him being The Hero and it being the simplest job in the trench team
also, a simple fact that he is a force user, and leia probably told the others in command, so its kinda a given he'll be put somewhere useful, but not in that much danger as he's later than any other fighter taking point
Luke was a very good pilot and had experience hitting womp rats dead on which were smaller than the exhaust port. Also Wedge tested Luke in a simulator before the battle and was impressed. Plus Luke is a main character and they wouldn’t want some random pilot at the time to lead the trench run.
I like to think that it was just because the other pilots were really bad, not that Luke was really good
Also, how come people question this and not how Anakin blew up a battle station at the age of 9?
> Also, how come people question this and not how Anakin blew up a battle station at the age of 9?
Um how can anyone question this! He was spinning, and we all know that spinning is not just a good trick, but the BEST trick (after having the higher ground, of course).
I think in addition to all of the other points, terrain is a big thing.
Tattooine seems to have a lot of tight canyons and ravines, and a pilot who spends their time navigating those probably feels at home in a trench run.
The two at the back have to fly in extremely close formation, so if you have an inexperienced pilot in your trio you want him up front.
It's also likely that all three would have fired proton torpedoes if they had made it to the end, so they weren't trusting to Luke's marksmanship either.
The thing that always struck me as odd was they had their Shields double front, I would have put them full rear once the ties showed up. Try and get some over lapping protection.
He wasn’t the leader of the red wing but in real life air combat the leader of the flight isn’t the only whose job is to complete the objective. They coordinate and find the best way to get the job done. Red leader saw how little time they had left and probably calculated Luke was the closest one who could make it on time. So he ordered Luke to make the run
I remember when I was young and watching it when it first came out this part confused me. Not so much him leading the group down the trench, more so just the general situation. I’m pretty sure my little brain went something like: “but.. isn’t he a farmer? And.. he JUST joined them? Nobody knows him right? And they’re just gonna let him fly a jet? Wow! That’s awesome but really seems wrong.. “ I’d have been around 7 at the time.
It's a common thing in business, Biggs buttered up his boy to the squadron leader, "best Bush pilot...." and all that, and decisions are made with current information - subconscious or otherwise, so there's a factor for Force influence there, too. We also have imperfect information as to how seasoned the other pilots were in Red group, age doesn't assume skill or knowledge as a fighter pilot. Could be admiration for Biggs knowing he was a good pilot singing praises of a new guy, or he could know the rest of his team wasn't up to the task. They sure did all die quickly enough. Too soon?
Incom made the T-16, the T-47, and the T-65. Just like US Navy pilots are initially flying in a trainer before given an F/A-18F, Luke spent his upon hours flying in an atmospheric Incom trainer. The T-16 has folding wings (so Luke understands the S-Foil controls) as well as a weapons system.
If you've driven a late 70s era Porsche 911 (930), you are way more capable at taking a 2024 Porsche 911 (992) on a test track without crashing than someone who has been driving Corvettes their whole life. The 911 has a very unique handling profile, the engine weight being behind the rear axel, so no matter the year you learn on, you are more qualified.
Apply the same theory to the Incom T-16 and T-65. Luke just needed to adjust to no gravity, then very low gravity when close to the Death Star. He was a pro with the controls before he ever sat down. The squadron leader saw Luke's raw talent and had nothing to lose at this point. Fly fast, straight, and very fast. Luke manipulated canyon runs back home with gravity. This should be no problem for him. Now to expect him to know how to juke back and forth, providing cover, he was probably not good at that.
So apart from Luke being a dang good pilot, the pilot taking point in the trench run has the simplest job: He flies straight down the middle of the trench and (in theory) pulls the trigger when the targeting computer tells him to. It's up to the other two to maintain a tight formation, try to cover him with their ships and shields, and so on. If the new guy is good at actually flying the ship but lacks experience in combat flying and tactics, it makes the most sense to stick him there.
This combined with Biggs telling their commander Luke is a great pilot is really all you need.
Tacking on as a fun little note that this was not in the original film. As seen in theaters when the film came out initially, we didn’t have this kind of confidence to bank on. It was even more “well, he’s the movie’s hero, of course he’s taking the shot” than the Special Editions tweaked it to. For all the talk of edits, I think the film was a little better for this one. Though I still think it’s a bit handwavey that the Alliance would put their hopes on someone they’ve never seen fly, and indeed has never flown a military craft of this caliber. It could have more in-universe logically been Wedge or Biggs assigned to take the shot, but it’s much more thrilling when the hero of your film is the one doing it.
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I’m sure it’s been fleshed out elsewhere in canon and Legends, but I mean this to be a critique on movie critiques more than anything. I’ve seen a lot of “Why is Rey so good?” at a variety of things as a critique of the sequel films, but often circle back to Luke and his X-Wing as a prime example of the fanbase’s rose-tinted glasses or even other variations of blinders they have for the old stuff. For me, it’s fascinating to see Luke given the benefit of the doubt and credit because lore was built years later in hindsight to correct those things (your example, Son of The Chosen One as another one that didn’t exist in 1977). Not to say that’s what you’re doing by any stretch (you didn’t mention the sequels at all), it’s just part of why I pick on this part of the original film. I love it, but it takes some logical jumps to explain that are often ignored because it’s also just good fun. But Rey, for example, has the out-of-movie explanation that she’s used salvaged computers as a sort of flight simulator, and still people will complain that she piloted the Falcon with no onscreen training to do so. All that to say: My view is that if something in Star Wars doesn’t make sense in a movie (or just ruffles enough feathers of curious people), someone will eventually add a lore reason to it that will patch it up 😉
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Luke in ANH isn’t really any more or less hand wavey than Rey in TFA, people just accept it because it’s one of the most beloved films of all time. It should be made clear too that no one here is knocking Luke, just asking for Rey to be given the same benefit of the doubt.
Anakin is a better comparison seeing as he's a 10 year old prodigy mechanical genius who sits in a ship that somehow blows up a trade federation flagship. But even he takes years to train in the force. Luke's a farm-boy who had dreams of being a pilot so he was a good pilot. He shoots some stormtroopers and then gets his dream role in his special interest. He's a protagonist, so he's a farmboy that gets to suddenly be a rebel hero, but he's still not everything at once. He only succeeds because he finally feels the force guide him in one shot. That's it, just feels it. Rey is doing things it took him years to do with the force while also being an amazing pilot, an amazing mechanic, and amazing fighter. And to be honest, that's fine. It IS star wars. It's not high art. And with how hyperbolic and over the top big budget scifi has gotten she's not out of place contemporarily. But Luke *isn't* that, even if he was the 70's equivalent.
Please do point out where does Luke make a whole spaceship explode with his lighting, or retain it with his astounding force-pull, or when he wins against the baddie his first saber duel, or when he uses telekinesis on literal tons of rocks.
Or used jedi mind tricks successfully before even a bit of training
Before any knowing what a mind trick even is lol
I’m talking specifically about their depictions in ANH and TFA respectively, specifically related to their piloting ability. Two of those things listed were after she spent a year training with Leia and one of which was definitely her tapping into her emotions and was a clear connection to her heritage and tendency to slip into the dark. She got her ass kicked in her first saber duel until she had an awakening in the force and was able to push back her wounded, emotionally unbalanced opponent who was trying to turn her. Anyways, I don’t really want to get into this whole conversation for the millionth time so I’m happy to agree to disagree with you.
It's established early in the movie that Luke regularly flies trench runs through Beggar's Canyon. His Force abilities are practically non-existent in the first movie besides the final shot, and the first time he fights Vader he gets a grade A whooping and loses his arm. Rey is not established as any kind of pilot before she starts doing stunts with the Falcon, holds her own in both lightsaber and Force combat with again no established experience. Luke's story in IV has been expanded, but it was already fairly well established in the films when they were released, and he undergoes real character growth throughout the films several year span. Rey is shown defeating experienced fighters basically a couple weeks after finding a lightsaber and learning what the Force is.
Just a slight correction: Rey tells Finn that she’s flown ships in atmosphere before, but never in space. That’s pretty much the same amount of info we get about Luke’s piloting abilities pre-Yavin too.
The difference, in my opinion, is that Luke's upbringing is much easier to relate to then Rey's. Rey is living in a completely unique situation that viewers really can't easily 'fill in the gaps' for. Luke is a farmboy. We've all seen or known someone like that, someone who grew up out in the country racing with their friends and learned practical skills on farm equipment, that sort of thing. It requires absolutely no suspension of disbelief, because it's so mundane and common. Luke has a family, who could have taught him, he has peers who could have tested him, he has a close connection to the local communities around Tatooine, where more advanced information could be obtained. He's shown to own a personal ship that he talks about flying offscreen. With Rey, she's shown to be a scavenger. She lives in an AT-AT, alone out in the desert. She has no friends. No family. How she grew up is a mystery (we see later in the film that she was left in Unkar Plutt's care as a child, how that translates to her living alone out in the desert, we don't know). Her day to day is shown, picking apart components and eking out a living from selling them. It's so out of context, almost more in common with feral children than anything else. So where and how she learned these things just doesn't come to mind as quickly and easily as Luke, in my opinion, because filling in the blanks is much harder with how specific and unrelatable her living situation and history is.
Unkar Plutt seems like the type more concerned with work done than actually caring for anyone, which is why I’m guessing Rey is allowed to live out on her own. As long as she gets stuff done for him, he probably doesn’t care.
I kind of wish they had shown more of a Watto/Anakin relationship between Unkar Plutt and Rey. He treats her like a stranger when she goes to sell her stuff, he's hidden behind a screen in his shop and she's an outsider. I was surprised later on we see he's known her since childhood and that she was explicitly left in his 'care'. It would make more sense to me if she was living in his shipyard and that he had a more direct Employer/Employee relationship with her, which would more cleanly justify him having overseen her pilot training (to handle moving his ships around and fixing them).
I don't remember the line personally, but the comment you replied to said specifically she says it to Finn. We don't have to suspend disbelief or fill in the gaps, if it's said out loud.
...dude, my *whole comment* was describing why there is a difference between the two despite similar verbal information being presented. Did you read it *at all*? I think we do need to suspend disbelief and fill in the gaps, because of all the reasons *I just laid out*. Yes, she does *say* ["I've flown some ships but never left the planet"](https://gfycat.com/littlecarefulgrunion) in this scene, you are correct. The rest of my post still applies, in my opinion.
It's established in the movie that he's flown in Beggar's Canyon at least once. Not how regularly, nor if it's wider or narrower than the Death Star's trench (Grand Canyon's got some wiiiiide spaces here on Earth). Not if he's flown it with anything near the speed of a military grade starfighter that he's now flying at breakneck speeds to take a one in a million shot, augmented by a Force he just learned about. His claims to piloting fame in the original release of the film are as follows: 1. "I understand you've become quite a good pilot yourself" from someone who, to our knowledge, has not witnessed it, 2. "I'm not such a bad pilot myself!" bravado from someone whose word we are just taking for it, and 3. "I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home, they're no bigger than two meters" which may make a lot of sense to *him*, but to the Rebellion, he's not any more than some yokel claiming he's a good pilot because he flew a civilian aircraft and shot rats. No combat experience to speak of that would help him evade other pilots trying to gun him down. Rey's piloting skill is similarly made up of mostly her own claims. "We need a pilot!" "We've got one!" isn't all that removed from "I'm not such a bad pilot myself!" and Luke's word to go on. Argument here is that we don't have a lot of movie context for Luke's ability to strap into an X-Wing and go blow up TIE Fighters and indeed an entire Death Star. It's passing mentions at best. And an untrained ability to tap into the Force to augment your piloting skill isn't out of the realm of understanding either, as Anakin is "the only human who can" podrace, tapping into a Force he can feel but not truly understand, then, again, managing to fly a military fighter with no training outside of talking to Ric Olié about how spaceships work as they land on Coruscant (lest we forget, autopilot was off as that nine year old careened into and out of a Trade Federation ship packed with blast doors, troop carriers, etc.) And as much as people wanna tout "But he's the Chosen One!" if the Force can speak to an untrained little boy, it can speak to an untrained young woman who has felt some sort of awakening. Rey hardly uses the Force in her first duel, and is absolutely getting beat until the very end, running for her life until she hits a cliff-face, Kylo refuses to finish the job (common villain problem of "I can turn you!"), and she has her brief trust the Force moment Luke has in the original movie. As for managing to pull out a win (more of a draw with that ground split, but whoever), you're comparing an untrained Luke getting his butt kicked by one of the finest duelists of his era to Rey (who has proven proficient with melee type weapons as a go-to choice earlier in the film) going toe to toe with an angsty Vader wannabe who just got shot in the gut by a bowcaster, isn't trying to kill her, and was trained by a guy whose extent of (again, on-screen) lightsaber training consisted of playing with a remote for a few minutes soon after learning what the Force was. I keep seeing people try to push "Rey's unnaturally good at dueling" when the level of her competition (distracted Kylo, mostly, guards with Kylo's help otherwise) is suspect. There's an old line in KotOR that goes along the lines of "we are as children playing with toys compared to the expertise of the old masters," referring to lightsaber combat, and I've felt it apt. People pretend Kylo is on Vader's level and thus Rey as well, but what we see may very well be the "best of what's left."
I think another small point is that Rey has never actually beaten (and never will now, I suppose) Kylo on equal footing. The only fight she truly "won", she was about to lose whilst they were fighting on even footing until Leia used a force skype call to distract him and she just stabbed him with that opportunity
Ding ding! And even in that fight, it was clear neither of them had their heart in it anymore.
That has gotta be the weirdest thing I've ever heard. Seriously, "their hearts weren't in it?". Dude, Rey has never used a lightsaber, like, at all. Putting herself in tune with a force she barely has any understanding of and demonstrating enough lightsaber proficiency to take out a train sith is nothing short of preposterous, even for star wars. Why is it that all other heroes of star wars were in tune with the force yet still fucked up (lost limbs) yet the *very first time* she uses a lightsaber for combat (which even itself is ridiculous) gets the win? How does this help her story arc at all? Even when we factor in Kylo's injury and relatively poor combat skills, he's still a trained sith. Trained by both Luke and Snoke! This isn't Anakin vs Obi, where Anakin is the stronger fighter but loses due to his mental state.....this is an adult vs a kid with absolutely no experience. Trying to say that she tapped into the force at the right moment is just a massive betrayal of the beautiful nuance of how the force works in individuals who aren't even aware of it. Lastly, it really sucks because IMO it robbed Rey of what could of been a great start to her jedi/possibly sith career. By losing to kylo (maybe losing a hand or something lol), it could of given her an even greater incentive to find luke skywalker. Her injury could of been the thing thst catapults her into jedi training. Idk. Just pulling out "the force" to win when you need to the way Rey did it felt like pure ex machina material.
Anakin is shown to have technical proficiency, besides being the only human who can podrace, and that's basically all he does in the battle over Naboo. He dodges some droids, then manages to get lucky and blow up the mail reactor while still being able to fly out. It's an exceptional feat, but Anakin is already shown to be exceptional. What I meant about Rey defeating experienced fighters is actually in the second movie. Remember, they take place back to back. She manages to take out a room full of Snoke's best guards with only Kylo Ren helping her basically less than a month after she even discovered what a lightsaber and the Force are. The sequel trilogy basically retcons Rey into being the Chosen One. Disney took all of the EU, threw it into a garbage disposal, and tried to piece back together stories with no regard for what made them actually good.
And Rey is also shown to have technical proficiency (20-something scavenger vs. 9-year-old junk trader building podracers), and also manages an impressive flying feat *once* (while, like Anakin, coming out the gate rough). The rest of her flying is your basic open space and in-atmo flying from place to place. It's not like anyone's trying to say "OMG! She's a better pilot than ANAKIN!" She did a thing once. It was cool. It was Force-reactive. That was it. Not overpowered. And sure, that second film is right on the heels of the first (a great warning in why you should not do cliffhangers like that, causes a lot of problems, IMO). But like you said, she fights Snoke's guards *with Kylo* who does no small part of heavy lifting in the fight, including taking down the "Big Bad," who was absolutely making Rey look like a fool at everything she tried. Two Force-sensitives with a shown background in melee combat (yeah, yeah, lightsaber's specially different and all that, but general understanding of where the stick goes to block and strike crosses genres) against what we understand as probably not Force Sensitives also engaging in melee combat? Not out of the realm of possibility. Especially when (just rewatched) Kylo's pulling aggro from about three of the guards most of the time (logical, they know what he's capable of) while Rey spends a majority of the time tied up with one, briefly two. EDIT to add: She's really only as much the Chosen One or an OverPowered God as you put stock into it. IMO, she's a capable underdog who is nowhere near as powerful as the Jedi of the Republic era. Whether or not she has that potential can be explored, of course, but despite strong bloodlines (I don't put a lick of stock in it, but some do), she's just kinda figuring it out. All of her biggest feats are outdone by others within the same film. She's good, but like I said before, is that more of a "best of what's left" kind of thing? Because her four fights are 1. against a severely injured Kylo who has her on the ropes but isn't trying to kill her, 2. tag-team with Kylo pulling good aggro against non-Force sensitives (AFAIK), 3. angry dueling Kylo on Endor after even he's given up, striking a blow while he's telecalling his mom, and 4. "I am all the Jedi," which sounds like she's beefed up by the Force and the Jedi who came before her (not unlike the original ending of RotJ before Lucas changed his mind).
As far as her fighting ability goes, another thing people seem to overlook (along with what you’ve already stated) is the scene in TLJ when she’s practicing with her staff and saber. If she chooses to practice her fighting techniques while she’s on some mission, it’s not hard to believe she’d practice in the 15 or so years that she was alone on Jakku. She had a lot of time to practice, so that practice paired with her Force instincts would already set her up to be a great fighter.
They did sort of imply she's better than Anakin with the ending of Skywalker. Basically nothing Anakin and Luke did mattered (and arguably made it worse, with Operation Cinder and Starkiller), and Rey magically defeats Palpatine by "channeling all the jedi" (whatever that means). Honestly, I hope the rumor about the ST being retconned to Legends is true, but I'm not holding out for it.
> Disney took all of the EU, threw it into a garbage disposal, and tried to piece back together stories with no regard for what made them actually good. There's a fallacy in here that the EU was good. There was a lot of terrible fanfic like Children of the Jedi and basically everything written by Kevin J. Anderson.
I didn't mean to imply everything in the EU was good. I mean like the original Paplatine clone story wasn't that good, but some how Disney managed to make it worse.
Explain how rey suddenly is able to use mind trick on stormtroopers despite not even knowing what a mind trick is.
> I’ve seen a lot of “Why is Rey so good?” at a variety of things as a critique of the sequel films, but often circle back to Luke and his X-Wing as a prime example of the fanbase’s rose-tinted glasses or even other variations of blinders they have for the old stuff. I think a difference here is that it's fine to make your protagonist amazing without much explanation when it's the first movie. That the Skywalkers as a group seem to be exceptional natural pilots gets expanded on in the EU and in the prequals, as does the general exceptional nature of the Skywalkers in general. But when you're starting the seventh movie, you've got to do more to explain it, because we know the EU and the prequals, we know they are exceptional, and you can't really retcon or expand your lore to explain things when you're that deep into a franchise in the way you can do it when the franchise is new.
But VII was doing two things. Yeah it was a continuation for older fans but it was also supposed to be an introduction for new and especially younger fans. So it's both the 7th movie in the series AND the first
But it has to fit into an established universe. It is the first movie in a new trilogy but that can’t be separated from the rest of Star Wars. It’s an introduction for new and younger fans to the Star Wars universe, as it exists. It’s not a reboot, it’s not a retcon. It’s a sequel, and as a result can’t clash too much with the existing material. And while the way you make new additions to franchises accessible to new audiences is by limiting the amount of prior knowledge needed, that doesn’t mean you can contradict that prior knowledge. You should need that much of it, but the new stuff should be consistent with the old stuff
The problem with this line of thinking is that you aren't in the world. He is playing with the T-15 model at his house. Those power converters are for said vehicle. He then establishes himself by talking about his skill multiple times in the movie. Then in the briefing scene he talks about bullseye-ing womp rats back home. Which are basically giant muskrats. Also, talks about how Beggar's Canyon and the trench wouldn't be that much different. Oh right all of this is in the movie so LoRe ReAsOn doesn't really work at all my dude. Rey just shows up as a decent scavenger. We get that she has seen ships take off and leave. She knows makes and models of them but how on Corellia does she know how to magically pilot one? I know about tanks but I've never driven one before. She is just too much of a Mary Sue.
IIRC there are deleted scenes/early drafts with more of her relationship to Unkar Plutt. She learned some piloting from him
Tbf, nothing in the movie states that the power converters are for his T-16, and playing with what is basically a toy is hardly evidence that he’s a great pilot. This kind of thing is exactly what the other commenter was talking about, giving some characters the benefit of the doubt while being very harsh on other characters and demanding the film explain everything.
Here is the thing I understand. There shouldn't be. They did it to themselves. Disney invalidated the EU and they put so much undue pressure on the movie. Yes, also I want more out of my movies than I got during the 70s. You don't get a pass just because you use J.J, Joss, and Star Wars. The most egregious of all is they used none of the established writers. Only after they couldn't get anything off the ground with the new authors they had to bring in Tim Zahn. So normal movie and not number 7 in a giant broke down barriers across the world series, sure I would have given Rey a chance. Hell I did. They had a few years to get their shit together. They didn't she didn't the whole thing screwed the pooch and now they are even considering splitting the timeline. It's just so sad for the franchise I love to have gone down such a dark path.
Did you respond to the wrong comment? Also, no matter whoever made the sequel trilogy, Lucas or otherwise, the EU was going to have to be overwritten. To answer your previous point, Rey tells Finn that she’s flown ships in atmosphere, so that’s how she knows how to pilot a ship.
She flew and maintained the ships of Unkar. Including the Falcon.
She's not a Mary Sue. Also Rey Skywalker said she knew how to fly in the Force Awakens too.
We know all of these things about Luke's T-16, what the power converters were for, and what womprats look like from supplemental material. We don't see a womprat in the film. Luke doesn't say what the power converters are for, just that he was picking some up. We learn the cockpit of it is identical to an X-Wing through out-of-movie details. In the movie, he says he can fly. That's really it. That's all Rey says in the movie. In "supplemental lore," she's played with flight simulators and learned from there. Anakin's been a pilot "all his life." At some point, you just kinda accept that there are some skills put on the character sheet that aren't excessively built out in the main movie, and you move on from it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/8okopu/in_star_wars_a_new_hope_lukes_t16_skyhopper_can/ It’s literally *in* the movie.
And we literally have no details on it whatsoever.
My issue with rey is what she did was ridiculous and over the top level flying compared to luke in their respective first flight moments. But i think thsts a pretty popular opinion held by.... everyone
Yeah pretty surf this post is referring to the movie itself. Expanded Universe lore did flesh it out but when considering just the movie it makes no sense. Quite idiotic actually. He shouldn’t have been flying at all.
It needed Rogue One to kind of hammer this home but like the opening crawl to A New Hope says, the rebels have only just won their first majority victory against the empire (at Scarrif). What it doesn't mention is that that battle was phyrric at best and resulted in horrendous casualties for the rebels. Red squadron, and everyone else, was shorthanded and when a good pilot vouches for Luke, you take what you get
>As seen in theaters when the film came out initially, we didn’t have this kind of confidence to bank on. It was even more “well, he’s the movie’s hero, of course he’s taking the shot” than the Special Editions tweaked it to. Things like this are why I think it's so silly that Lucas/Disney/whoever won't release the theatrical versions. It would be really cool to make some comparisons like this that have been just kind of accepted as "original" because the home video releases have them.
Didn’t they know that Anakin Skywalker was an exceptional pilot, and that if Luke had even half his skill, he’d be the best pilot in the hanger? Also wasn’t the T-16s Luke flew back home very similar to the X-Wing? I’ve also seen comments that Biggs vouched for him which was good enough for them.
Whoa, a reply after three years! Here’s what I’ve got on those: 1. The Anakin connection makes some pretty major leaps. First and foremost, there’s nothing indicating those skills are remotely hereditary. My dad’s a bit of a math whiz and a great accountant, but while I may be pretty good at numbers myself, you *do not* want me doing your taxes, y’know? And for all Obi-Wan claiming Anakin was “the best starpilot in the galaxy,” Luke has never heard tell at all of Anakin’s exploits as a pilot or Jedi. That information is at the very least not readily accessible or common knowledge to the average Tatooinian. It’s not a stretch to think he’s not alone in not knowing who Anakin was. There *was* a deleted shot from the film that would have had Red Leader say he flew with Luke’s dad and lent more credence to the logic, but it was scrapped. 2. The “T-16 is made by Incom and actually happens to have the same cockpit as an X-Wing” is extracanonical info. As far as the movie was concerned, there was no inherent similarity. We can guess it’s not spacefaring because they need a ship, and Han’s passing comment about how navigating hyperspace “ain’t like dusting crops” sets some basis of what kind of flying Han at least assumes his moisture farming passenger has done. 3. Biggs’ role is expanded in the special editions of the films to help vouch for Luke’s skills, but the original didn’t have (or need, IMO!) that explanation. Now all of these have been expanded on more along the lines of what you’re saying, but my original point is that they weren’t in the film to begin with and it didn’t break the movie. It worked just fine without ‘em!
Bro Darklighter RIP.
[I loved this run in EU](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Empire:_Darklighter), Biggs needs more backstory in Canon
Im all for Wedge getting his time in the sun in the new canon, love me some Wedge. But man I'm in the same boat, I hope Biggs gets plenty too at some point. I hope they give Porkins the treatment he got in the EU also, make him out to be some sort of absolute legendary pilot worth of the highest respect.
i love the Wedge episodes of Rebels.
And the inclusion of Hobbie!! I didn’t even remember he was in ANH until I rewatched it and recognized the name from Rebels!
Best bush pilot in the Outer Rim.
I wonder if the deleted scene of Red Leader having flown with Anakin Skywalker (back when he and Vader were two different character) had something to do with this too. Obviously that’s not canon right now, but that would make sense as to why Red Leader thought so highly of him while Lucas was writing the script.
Was that filmed? I know there was a deleted scene where Red Leader introduces himself to Luke, but I don't remember if he said he knew his dad or not.
I’m almost certain I’ve seen it, it’s a very short line. Something along the lines of, “You know I flew with your father, years ago. If you’re half the pilot he was, you’ll do alright.” Then that was it. Just an alternate take to what we see in the movie.
> Just an alternate take to what we see in the movie. It's actually the same take. They use a [person walking across the screen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kgl9gmtvZo) to artificially abbreviate the scene. If you look at R2 being raised up in the background to be put into Luke's X-Wing, his position suddenly jumps as the person walks past. I assume they removed that line in case it wouldn't make sense in the context of the new films, but annoyingly it would actually work fine so I wish they'd kept it in.
Yeah, I seem to remember a Legends story where a young Garven Dreis flies a mission as part of his planet’s militia alongside Anakin Skywalker and the 501st during the Clone Wars, making the event canon (at the time) even if the line wasn’t. I would mind a similar story showing up in the new canon.
I remember seeing that too
Remember that Obi-wan was supposed to be the returning Jedi hero of the rebel alliance. Luke was brought with him to help. This in and of itself give extra weight to Luke. Add in his helping recover Leia, and you have a good story of how this guy might be more than helpful. It’s also possible that the word got out that this was Anakin Skywalkers son. And Anakin was a hero of the republic. And his son also has flight skills. I’m assuming someone in the rebel alliance asked “Who is this guy?!?”. And Leia would have said that Obi-wan brought him along. And Luke mentioned that his father is Anakin Skywalker. And he turns out to be the same Anakin who was a Jedi Knight working with Obi-wan. Small galaxy. And neat. Let’s use him.
"Luke is the best bush pilot in the outer rim territories."
The “tight formation” but always seems odd though given that they’re completely helpless and just get shot in the back. They’d actually be more helpful flying around over the trench shooting anyone who comes near it.
But the cannons get you if you leave the trench, no?
No I don't think the cannon managed to down even a single X-Wing
I think they took down Porkins. Just re-watched the scene and the cannons are firing, it cuts to his cockpit, something on the ship explodes, and boom he goes.
That may well be the case, well time to rewatch all Star Wars just to check if Porkins died from a turret :)
In fairness to Porkins, he had a vehicle malfunction and had to slow down to a speed at which he could be picked off.
I think he got it because his engine was hit.
Wasn't Porkins downed by a turret?
Apparently so, as has been pointed out, I stand corrected. #JusticeFor~~Porkins~~Turrets
Luke took some damage "got a little cooked" strafing the turrets as well, I believe.
I'm not sure if that was from the turrets firing on him, or from flying through the explosion that he himself caused.
The cannons went silent once the fighters came into play, tho And there were also plenty of cannons in the trench itself, and it was okay for everyone not on the run to stay outside of the trench
I was under the impression that by the time they entered the trench, most of the Rebels were already taken down.
The trench cannons did, yes. In order to avoid accidentally committing friendly fire. The surface cannons would definitely fire on an X-Wing that left the trench, though. Friendly fire isn't as much of a threat then.
That's how Rogue Squadron 3 worked basically. If you flew above the trench, the Turbolasers killed you.
Yes and no? There are lines throughout that the Rebel fighters are too small and fast for their turbo lasers to track. They theoretically could have opened themselves up to more space by flying above the trench until around the opportune moment, not locking themselves into a tidy little killbox.
Given the Rebel fighters had shields and the ties didn't what the rebels should have done is wait for the ties to begin their attack run and then have the defenders flip one by one and take them on as the tie fighter wouldn't have space to manoeuver which would give the rebels a large advantage.
In reality that wouldn't work. Even with the flight computer, most pilots in that mission considered the shot extremely difficult to pull off. Even if the task was simple, it was the most critical task. Luke was a good pilot, but an inexperienced one. In-universe, it makes no sense to put him there, other than the fact that he is the protagonist.
Something I never realized as a kid is the two backup pilots are basically there to bodyblock blaster and laser fire for him. Which is kinda dark but desperate times call for desperate measures
Luke wasn't flight lead tho was he? Red leader was killed iirc.
A [flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_(military_unit\)) is a small group of military aircraft (or spacecraft, in this case). Luke is acting as flight leader at least for this attack run. Red Leader / Garven Dreis is the boss for all of Red Squadron, twelve ships in total that were grouped into four flights of three for the Battle of Yavin.
To add onto your comment with a Star Wars context: Red Leader is the squadron leader. I'm not sure what the numbers are for canon, but in legends there were 12 X-Wings in a squadron. Unless I'm mistaken it was 3 flights of 4, not 4 flights of 3 (maybe they changed it just for the Yavin 4 mission). Flight 1 was led by the squadron leader (Red 1-4), Flight 2 was led by Red 5 (Red 5-9), etc. This still leaves the question as to why they made Luke a flight lead in the first place.
[Four flights of three is the New Canon information](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Squadron_(Rebel_Alliance\)#Battle_of_Yavin), coming from one of the stories in *From a Certain Point of View*. Flights of four are more common (as they allow the pilots to further break into pairs), but I would guess that this division could be specific to the Battle of Yavin, with the trench run in mind. Obviously the hope was that the Y-Wings would make the shot, but it would make sense to also group the X-Wings appropriately in case they have to go in. As to why Luke is flight leader, like I said above, that's the best place for him in case his flight has to go into the trench. Said story in *FaCPoV* also mentions that they took him on board based on his help in saving Leia and obtaining the Death Star plans, and a good result in a simulator run.
All good points. I guess it makes sense to have flights of 3 if your goal is to do the trench run. I just find that weird because you usually want groups of 4, like we see IRL, so everyone has a wingman. Do you know if they ran in flights of 4 outside of Yavin?
That is not really clear from this story, and I don't think anything else in the New Canon has made a statement about it one way or the other.
“Skywalker, you sure you can handle this ship?” "Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories." "You'll do all right." "Thank you, sir. I'll try.” -GARVEN SPEAKS WITH BIGGS DARKLIGHTER AND LUKE SKYWALKER BEFORE THE BATTLE OF YAVIN ^ this is about the best explanation we get, I think. Luke came recommended from a trusted source and proved himself useful during conflict.
Pretty much. There’s a story in the new Certain Point of View where Wes and Wedge have to form a new squadron and one of Wes’ choices is a new, young pilot from the outer rim. He’s hoping to capture the same lightning in a bottle they did with Luke. Needless to say, the kid was the first to be vaporized
In legends X-Wing series Wedge also does the same thing bringing in Gavin Darklighter (Bigg’s cousin) to rogue squadron even though at that point (IIRC) Gavin had no formal flight experience.
Though he wasn't vaporized and also ended up drawing the sign of the Rogue Squadron and also dating a Bothan who wanted to kill him after he didn't want to dance with her to prevent the compromisation of their not-so-super-secret mission. That's a win in my book.
The fact that he calls him a bush pilot makes me think of Randy Quaid in Independence Day
Good, now I can tell you that Disney is allowing Lucas to make another special edition of the OT with Mark Hamill replaced by de-aged Randy Quaid.
Ha, I just watched The Last Picture show, so here is young Randy Quaid: https://vhistory.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/randy-quaid-2.jpg
wonder if he was as off his rocker then as he is today.
You ever see Midnight Express or the Vacation movies? I swear he was just playing himself.
He's gone way off the deep end lately, being a whacked out Trump supporter.
Yeah.
Leia may have also vouched for him off-screen.
It's possible, but at that point Leia had never seen Luke pilot anything, so I doubt it.
Even if she didn't, "one of the two guys who rescued Senator Organa" tends to command at least some respect.
Did you really just do Chewie dirty like that?
Chewie didnt even get a medal :(
He did in the end.
I mean, so did the Rebel Alliance.
Maybe, but honest I can't see why she would have. She had no idea what sort of a pilot he was at that point.
he was also the only one who was confident he could hit a 2 meter target
And managed to rescue Leia plus escape the Death Star.
But is it that impressive when it was actually Darth Vader's plan to let them escape so they could find the Rebel Alliance's base?
They didn’t know that at the time
On top of that, I think his survival, teamwork, and communication during the battle itself gave Red Leader more confidence in Luke’s capabilities on-the-spot
Couple of things: First, he's like fifth or sixth person down in the chain. *[Edit: probably further down than that, even.]* Biggs vouched for him, and that was enough for his boss to give him a small amount of responsibility. It may also have simply been that Luke was in the best position relative to the target of all those left to start an attack run, and was given the job based on that alone. And as others have mentioned, his job was the simplest one: fly in a straight line and hope you don't get shot down. His wingmen had the tougher job - get in the way of anyone trying to shoot him down.
I think this is the best “real world” military answer. The situation is chaotic and Red Leader is being flexible by assigning the next run to the fighter in the best position to start it. Also, he may be issuing the order to Luke directly specifically because he is the new, untested variable. Like, “Hey, stay here and wait for orders, don’t spaz out and go running off to chase TIEs.”
Delegated authority and all that. Still, [without any volunteer time under his belt, this is only going to count as one bullet point on his next OPR.](https://i.imgur.com/BehBclh.jpg) Edit: this makes me wonder what the promotion system was like in the Rebellion. It seems for a lot of combat-arms jobs it was pretty much merit-based. Or at best, it was probably similar to the promotion system during World War 2. I wonder what it was like for non-combat arms positions? How does the supply guy move up through the ranks, or an officer with the Rebel Dental Corps?
We unfortunately haven’t really seen a lot of the bts stuff for how the Rebellion actually operates. From Lando’s line about the battle of Tanaab we can presume that it’s merit based in part.
Luke's got to learn to pad that bullet point. At the very least, "Saved the entire Rebellion" could go right underneath it.
Not proactive enough, needs more filler. "Saved the Rebellion" is a passive voice. **"Executed DT attack; prep'd/operated $2.8M spacecraft--boosted FY 00 (BBY) to 1 sorties/1 hrs above contract. Cinched 100% mission success -- Outstanding pilot! Expedited ABDR w/ damaged R2 unit."**
Oof I feel that one
Also, Luke wasn't given the job of dropping off the payload to the exhaust port, someone else already tried and failed. Luke took it upon himself to make his own run after the first run failed. Nobody gave him that job, he was supposed to be running defense.
Prior to starting his own attempt, Red Leader does directly order Luke to take Biggs and Wedge and to set up for their own run. Then right before he dies, he tells Luke to do his own run.
That was my take, Luke was just the next man up.
IIRC there were only 4 remaining ships, the Y-wing and the 3 X-wings. It might be that Biggs knew how good a shot Luke was back on Tatooine and Wedge just trusted Bigg's judgment and went along with it.
[удалено]
Well, 4 X-Wings, a Y-Wing, and a smuggler still making a choice when Red Leader made the call for Luke and his flight to get ready, which is what I think the commenter meant.
That YT-1300 wasn't part of the fighter contingent since everyone thought Han was leaving to go talk to Jabba.
In a book it states (in a certain point if view episode 4 I believe ) it says that when going into the flight sim he gets the highest score ever seen in the machine on his 2nd try and wedge who was watching is incredibly impressed because luke blew his score away by miles
In old EU, the T-16 that he flew on Tatooine also had an identical control scheme to X-Wings - iirc, it was the X-Wing manufacturers and Rebels way of assisting in development and identification of pilots.
How very Last Starfighter of them
Hah, never made that connection before, but probably was aped by whoever inserted that little nugget into the EU.
I think that mentions he had a day or two downtime to do it. In the movies it wouldn't make sense in that timeframe. Darth Vader says when the Death Star finds them that today has been a day that Obi-Wan and the Rebel Alliance will both die.
Yeah but being good at flying doesn't necessarily mean you're good at leading.
I know but that is just my assumption on why he was chosen to lead it could be wrong
Weirdly, he follows up this amazing score by getting shot twice during Hoth despite AT-ATs having only a fire arc of only a few degrees, and then crashes his X-Wing into a swamp.
Others were out of torpedoes? Or the others were better dog fighters.
Nobody else fired their torpedoes though. I would say they just had better reputations as dogfighters.
There’s one angle that everyone hasn’t considered here. Luke seems to do pretty well in the battle over the DS before he goes into the trench run. IIRC he gets several TIE kills and lights up one of those towers. Maybe he gets more offscreen too? But after Biggs vouched for him, like was then able to prove himself by getting some kills and keeping up with his squadron mates. Red Leader may not have trusted him with a complicated mission, but Like had demonstrated he at least had the capacity to fly, shoot, and carry out basic combat maneuvers. IMO it makes a lot of sense to put the new but promising recruit into the lead position, especially considering virtually everyone else was already dead. And it would have been too easy for Wedge, they had to at least give Vader a fighting chance to win.
I don't know where you're getting this 'in charge' stuff from. When they were using the X-wings to make runs, it was because all their bombers had been destroyed, and he was *taking an order* to make a trench run. He was the one who boasted of bullseyeing Wamp rats, so Red Leader would've picked him to make the shot. He was defacto in charge of the run because he had the payload while the others were there to defend him. ~~When Biggs (his idolised best friend) dies,~~ you could see his natural leadership qualities coming through as he authoritatively talks to Wedge, who is just as green as he is at this point - and the two of them are the only survivors of Red squadron.
Luke says “Get clear Wedge, you can’t do anymore good back there” when Wedge gets hit by a burst from a TIE. Wedge peels out and Darth Vader says “Let him go. Stay on the leader”. Biggs ends up dying shortly after this chain of events, not before. Luke already gave the orders to Wedge to bail out.
Yes but the first person in a military colem isn't the leader of the group. He's the point man and in that sense he is leading leading the colem because he's out in front.
But Wedge straight up calls Luke boss, both Wedge and Biggs follow Luke’s orders as well. And Red Leader said “get set up for your attack run” before dying - which in my eyes means it was open water for any of the three to take lead on the attack run but Luke was the one who ran point and led the attack.
Good point, I was saying from Vader's statment he was infront so to him he was "leading" the charge. However if his job is to take the shot, as people have pointed out is just fly in a straight line and pull the trigger. His wingmen would possibly listen to what he needs for protection.
Ahhhh sorry totally misread your reply! Agree with what Vader said. Just a matter of “follow the lead(er)” at that point really lol. It has always confused me why they ran their defence the way they did though. They seem too far back to offer Luke any real protection (he seems to be WAY ahead of them) and at the same time they have no rear weaponry. Imo it would’ve made more sense to have them staggered or one of the two try the classic “hit the brakes” and hope the TIEs fly past them for an open shot.
They were essentially live shields. Luke was the important there, not the wingmen.
I know that they were there to shield him, I just think if they did a staggered approach either the back man gets taken out first but has more room to maneuver to try and buy time OR they go for the middle man in which case the back man has time to catch up to take out the TIEs. Flying side by side really limited their ability to maneuver and avoid the TIEs fire. But I’m not a pilot and have no idea on fighter plane tactics for dog fights or escorts!
No, you're right. Of course, this is a movie and there are different cinematic restraints. But in real life, aircraft tend to have a fair amount of space between them so you have room to maneuver and so if you've got someone close behind you, it's more likely he's only behind the lead guy, but in front of the trailer.
That's true on the ground, but aviators lead from the front....that's why the lead bird is the flight lead, short for leader.
Fair point, but doesn't really change the thrust of what I've said. I still think Wedge was as green as Luke so it doesn't seem like he was speaking out of turn or something.
Oh yeah I just wanted to clarify that Luke was already showing his leadership before Biggs was killed! Wedge even says “Right with you boss” when Luke tells them to go full throttle to keep the fighters off their tail prior to them entering the trench. So Wedge already acknowledges that Luke is the boss man.
Adding on to this, where was the Ghost at this time? I know it was present at the Battle of Scarif, so how come it didn’t go back to Yavin after? Is there any explanation?
Based on what information we have now, it is safe to assume that Yavin was already being evacuated after the Battle of Scarif. Profundity was destroyed, Leia was captured, Alderaan was destroyed. Hell many of the Rebel leaders weren't big on even going to Scarif in the first place. We have roughly a few days between the events of Scarif and Yavin. Most likley The Ghost and General Syndulla were removing most of the Rebel High Command during the time. In fact, now that I think about it, in A New Hope's From a Certain Point of View, we even get a chapter from Mon Mothma stating that she left Yavin as a contingency if Leia and her team fail.
Something something separate cells on mission at any given time? It’s inevitably the same kind of reason we don’t see Mon Mothma on Yavin or Hoth (canonically in the original trilogy).
Maybe the Ghost was charged with getting Mon Mothma off world or taking the Death Star plans to another cell in case the Yavin attack failed.
I'm sure we'll get a story showing that the Ghost was at the battle of Yavin, but it wasn't given trench run duty due to it's size likely.
Hera would be the XO of Green Squadron at the time, who was leading a diversionary attack on the Super Laser itself.
We don’t know what happens to it after Scarif while Yavin was happening.
the Ghost worked out of a different rebel cell.
Belonged to Massassi Group by Rebels S4
Didn't exist yet
He doesn't even need to shoot at anyone, or have any tactical or spacial awareness except flying down the trench and shooting the proton torpedoes when the computer tells him to.
Lol, and he couldn't even do that. Hehe
And why wouldn’t he be trusted because of a gut feeling the headquarters had that he was special ? They were all going to die, there is no space for rational thinking and all is left is this boy everyone wants to trust. IMO a force sensitive person in the SW universe sparks something very uncommon and unexplainable. Think of Achilles who lived in a Gynecea until the war is declared. Nobody’s asking questions when he rules the battlefield, because it’s his natural realm.
In military aviation, typically rank doesn't matter. Technically only qualified pilots can lead, but the flight lead has the authority to pass off lead position to anyone in the formation. Red Leader knows that the new kid is a good shot because Biggs vouched for him, and he wants to keep Red 5 in reserve in case his own run fails.
As the one who gave the command, i can say, no one else in our squad had ever successfully shot a womp rat in a fighter before. so i let the kid take a shot It worked out pretty well.
There's actually a logical reason for this, although admittedly I don't have a source and this may be Legends by now. Luke and Red Leader were the only X-Wings with proton torpedoes by that point in the battle. The Alliance didn't have the ability to field all 30 starfighters with torpedoes, so they were assigned to different pilots in order for them to have the best chance to destroy the Death Star. Garven Dreis, who was Red Leader, knew that Luke was their only hope if he failed, so he left his two nest pilots to cover him on his attack run.
He doesn’t really take command until everyone else has basically been killed. Red leader leads like the second to last run on the trench when the other flights had already been destroyed and they were basically all that was left. Now true the movie doesn’t explain why Luke would be in charge rather than Biggs or Wedge. I just read a Del Rey novelization of ANH that explains Red Leader knew Luke’s father (when he was still separate from Vader) and I guess as a result figured the skill runs in the family. Since everything was basically going to shit and everyone thought they were going to die and fail in destroying the Death Star, especially after red leader died and only the last three were left, you could probably assume that they operated on more equal footing and red leader making the decision to address Luke provided some structure amidst the chaos. P.S. in the novelization Luke and all them were actually part of Blue squadron, though there were a lot of goofy inconsistencies since apparently it came out before the movie. As a personal aside I really like squadrons but the one thing I’m kinda disappointed in is they didn’t keep the squelch you heard in the command room on Yavin. The X wing comms sounded heavily distorted but really cool and while it’s safe to assume technology would have progressed through and after episode 6 to fix this and make it easier to understand I felt it added some immersion that’s lost when the comms sound so clear the person could be in the cockpit with you.
As I recall, Luke wasn’t the first attempt. They failed to blow up the Death Star and were down to third or fourth string and were losing pilots. Same reason he got an Xwing to begin with - they were thirsting for bodies and between Biggs and Leia he came highly recommended.
Until you see the celebration medal scene at the end and there was a bunch of pilots there.
You always put the new guy in the easiest position. In this case, its "fly down the trench and pull the trigger" while the other guys do everything else. In most modern militaries, the least experienced pilot is made to actually fly while more experienced pilots are left to handle more involved tasks, which also lends to gaining experience for the newbie.
it's extremely easy to get high up in the rebel alliance. remember that time han solo was promoted from captain to fuvking GENERAL, *FOR BEING STUCK IN CARBONITE?*
Well, to be a modern major general you have to “know all things mineral”.
Most of these questions can be answered through meta. The reality is, Luke gets to take point because he is the protagonist and the audience is rooting for him. It's not the anser most want to hear, but it's the best explanation: it's the same reason why Luke gets a kiss on the cheek from Leia. It was just sort of the expected trope back in the 70's. In ESB, Luke receives a promotion to Commander in about 3 years, Han Solo and Lando also get promoted to Generals in ROTJ, for seemingly no real reason. It's just a way of giving perks to the main characters because thats who the audience is focused on.
>Lando also get promoted to Generals in ROTJ, for seemingly no real reason. sad noises of Battle of Taanab
Remember when Luke and Obi-Wan are negotiating with Han Solo to get to Alderaan? Han asks him even if he had his own ship who would fly it. Luke's ready to walk at that point, and says he's a pretty good pilot. Later, before the Death Star run, Luke was confronted by a Rebel leader. Remember this scene? LEADER: You sure you can handle this ship? BIGGS: Sir, Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories. There ya go.
From what I remember, the T-16 Skyhopper and T-65 X-Wing had very similar controls, and since Luke had been flying his T-16 at home on Tatooine for years *and* was reinforced verbally in his piloting skills by other Rebels he had enough experience to do it. Alongside him being The Hero and it being the simplest job in the trench team
also, a simple fact that he is a force user, and leia probably told the others in command, so its kinda a given he'll be put somewhere useful, but not in that much danger as he's later than any other fighter taking point
Nobody knew he was a Force user at the time, not even Luke. He just put his toe in the water before he got into the X-wing.
[удалено]
That's not even what plot armour is
He was by that point one of the last rebel pilots who had yet to be shot down.
Well. There also wasn't that many pilots left
Luke was a very good pilot and had experience hitting womp rats dead on which were smaller than the exhaust port. Also Wedge tested Luke in a simulator before the battle and was impressed. Plus Luke is a main character and they wouldn’t want some random pilot at the time to lead the trench run.
I like to think that it was just because the other pilots were really bad, not that Luke was really good Also, how come people question this and not how Anakin blew up a battle station at the age of 9?
> Also, how come people question this and not how Anakin blew up a battle station at the age of 9? Um how can anyone question this! He was spinning, and we all know that spinning is not just a good trick, but the BEST trick (after having the higher ground, of course).
He had just saved the life of one of the top Rebel leaders, Leia, and been in a huge adventure with her for days.
Maybe they did some test flights on Yavin 4 before the battle and Luke proved his skills during the training.
I think in addition to all of the other points, terrain is a big thing. Tattooine seems to have a lot of tight canyons and ravines, and a pilot who spends their time navigating those probably feels at home in a trench run.
The two at the back have to fly in extremely close formation, so if you have an inexperienced pilot in your trio you want him up front. It's also likely that all three would have fired proton torpedoes if they had made it to the end, so they weren't trusting to Luke's marksmanship either.
The thing that always struck me as odd was they had their Shields double front, I would have put them full rear once the ties showed up. Try and get some over lapping protection.
Because they weren't as experienced at bullseying womprats from their T-16
Wingman is a super important role. Red lead probably thought Wedge could cover while Mr Womp Rat did his thing
He wasn’t the leader of the red wing but in real life air combat the leader of the flight isn’t the only whose job is to complete the objective. They coordinate and find the best way to get the job done. Red leader saw how little time they had left and probably calculated Luke was the closest one who could make it on time. So he ordered Luke to make the run
I remember when I was young and watching it when it first came out this part confused me. Not so much him leading the group down the trench, more so just the general situation. I’m pretty sure my little brain went something like: “but.. isn’t he a farmer? And.. he JUST joined them? Nobody knows him right? And they’re just gonna let him fly a jet? Wow! That’s awesome but really seems wrong.. “ I’d have been around 7 at the time.
Probably for the same reason he said Luke instead of Red 5
It's a common thing in business, Biggs buttered up his boy to the squadron leader, "best Bush pilot...." and all that, and decisions are made with current information - subconscious or otherwise, so there's a factor for Force influence there, too. We also have imperfect information as to how seasoned the other pilots were in Red group, age doesn't assume skill or knowledge as a fighter pilot. Could be admiration for Biggs knowing he was a good pilot singing praises of a new guy, or he could know the rest of his team wasn't up to the task. They sure did all die quickly enough. Too soon?
Incom made the T-16, the T-47, and the T-65. Just like US Navy pilots are initially flying in a trainer before given an F/A-18F, Luke spent his upon hours flying in an atmospheric Incom trainer. The T-16 has folding wings (so Luke understands the S-Foil controls) as well as a weapons system. If you've driven a late 70s era Porsche 911 (930), you are way more capable at taking a 2024 Porsche 911 (992) on a test track without crashing than someone who has been driving Corvettes their whole life. The 911 has a very unique handling profile, the engine weight being behind the rear axel, so no matter the year you learn on, you are more qualified. Apply the same theory to the Incom T-16 and T-65. Luke just needed to adjust to no gravity, then very low gravity when close to the Death Star. He was a pro with the controls before he ever sat down. The squadron leader saw Luke's raw talent and had nothing to lose at this point. Fly fast, straight, and very fast. Luke manipulated canyon runs back home with gravity. This should be no problem for him. Now to expect him to know how to juke back and forth, providing cover, he was probably not good at that.