(Of course the more blatant excuse is that Luke’s the main character. This kind of logical nitpicking probably wasn’t that much of a concern for either filmmakers or viewers back in the 70’s.)
But of course. However, thought experiments like these can be fun.
I agree (I probably should have phrased that last sentence a little better).
These kinds of explanations are also examples of why it’s so nice to have an EU. It can help explain the more logical details of something which your suspension of disbelief can handle while watching a film for the first time, but which might get a little weirder as you get older and start to really think about it.
I get that the EU can ‘clean up’ something like this but I have to believe that the true answer to this is simply that ILM did not have the time or resources to show an all-out assault on the battle station.
Again, it comes back to Rogue One and what they explain/don’t explain. From the trailers I have seen, this first assault on the DS/Scarif looks massive. I always covered up for the old SFX (the scarcity of ships) during the DS battle as the Rebellion having been decimated in an earlier battle or simply being in their infancy. Through the newer materials (Rebels/Rogue One), it appears the Rebel Fleet has been running for awhile.
It wasn’t until the other night I actually thought about how many pilots survive the DS Assault and counted the pilots in the ceremony. Now I feel like an explanation would be nice.