NeverarGreat said:
The problem with that scene from a scientific perspective is that it’s strongly implied that a Hyperdrive is literally able to accelerate objects up to and past the speed of light, instead of opening a tunnel into another dimension.

DrDre said:
No, there’s normal speed driven by normal engines with normal physical limits, and there’s lightspeed for which you need a hyperdrive. The former is normal motion in real space, while lightspeed is achieved in another dimension called hyperspace.

I’ve only read the last few pages of the thread, so my apologies if this has been mentioned already, but on the topic of whether hyperspace involves simply travelling really quickly or entering another dimension, ANH would seem to establish that it’s the former, since one is still at risk of interacting with physical objects in the universe. As Han says, “Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”