How much time does each movie cover?

I mostly agree with MalàStrana’s assessment here.

I’d like to entertain DE’s assessment of ESB taking place over a matter of months. Although, perhaps weeks is a bit more palatable to me. There is a sense (to me) that a lot of time passes in certain sections; Luke’s recovery, stuck in the asteroid field, hanging around Bespin, etc…

Well, here’s two EU (both old and new) answers;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1A7DO_3I1k

Hidalgo points to a Disney-EU novelization that claims that Dagobah, being a planet very strong in the Force, operates on it’s own time and laws of physics. So essentially Luke spent more time on Dagobah, than the Falcon spent travelling to Bespin.

And the old West End Games books estimated that Luke trained for ca. 6 months.

ANH - several weeks at least (death star probably cannot use light-speed travel)
ESB - several weeks as well (millennium falcon had broken hyperdrive)
ROTJ - two weeks

If the DS did just pop right in front of planet, it would technically do it’s purpose, at the expense of the Death Star, but…

Lord Haseo said:

Good for headcanon but bad for actual canon. I wish we could just get a super definitive answer from someone like Kathleen Kennedy or from a canon source.

Why would Kennedy be a more reliable source than Hidalgo?
For a “definitive answer” you’d need to get it from either Lucas or Kasdan (or Kesher if he every talked about it before he died).

imperialscum said:

ANH - several weeks at least (death star probably cannot use light-speed travel)
ESB - several weeks as well (millennium falcon had broken hyperdrive)
ROTJ - two weeks

I’m pretty sure it’s always been canon that the DS has light-speed capabilities. It has at least always been part of the EUs.
As for non/pre-EU canon, although SW takes huge liberties with its “science” I can’t imagine how many years/decades/etc it would take the DS to reach Yavin at sub-light speed. (Keep in mind that Hoth and Bespin are relatively close.)

Lord Haseo said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Lord Haseo said:

Good for headcanon but bad for actual canon. I wish we could just get a super definitive answer from someone like Kathleen Kennedy or from a canon source.

Why would Kennedy be a more reliable source than Hidalgo?
For a “definitive answer” you’d need to get it from either Lucas or Kasdan (or Kesher if he every talked about it before he died).

Because in this instance he pretty much used a non canon source. Doesn’t really sit well with me.

EDIT:

I’m curious as to what WEG writers means…

WEG is the abbreviation for West End Games, the writers of which actually fleshed out more Star Wars EU and continuity in the 80s than anyone for a long time when writing their guides for the original Star Wars PnP RPG. A lot of old EU books were based on their timelines and maps and canon.

It does in my world.

My idea of the timescales of ESB hinges on the assumption that Bespin is a planet in the Hoth system:

My lord, the fleet has moved out
of light-speed. Com-Scan has
detected an energy field protecting
an area around the sixth planet of
the Hoth system. The field is
strong enough to deflect any
bombardment.

The word ‘system’ in Star Wars can refer to either a planet or an entire solar system. So if this is the case, Bespin wouldn’t be more than a few AU’s away from the Ice Planet of Hoth. Presumably Bespin is closer to the star, past a particularly dense asteroid belt which separates it from the unnamed Ice Planet. It is highly unrealistic for Bespin to be located in another star system entirely, since star systems are usually light years apart. This would require Luke to train on Dagobah for over a year, regardless of the time dilation effects on board the Falcon. Alternatively, if the Falcon traveled at the speed of light across only the Hoth the system, it would probably take less than an hour to make the trip. At even 1/4 the speed of light, this trip wouldn’t need to take more than a day or two.

Of course, this fast travel time implies that either Luke’s training was very brief, or that the Falcon couldn’t accelerate to even a significant fraction of the speed of light. I’d bet on the latter, since the ships in the Star Wars universe act more like they are in an atmosphere than in a vacuum, and thus don’t act as if under constant acceleration with constant thrust. For the purposes of the story, ships have ‘full throttle’ which is their top speed, and even at full throttle the Falcon takes quite a while to make a journey across the Hoth system.

There are several other reasons why the story wouldn’t take months: Vader couldn’t realistically continue a search for that long with so many valuable Imperial resources, rebel forces most likely wouldn’t wait around at the rendezvous point for weeks on end, and it would be highly irresponsible of Luke to abandon his troops for such an extended period of time.

TL;DR: ESB takes place over several weeks at the most, more likely no more than two weeks.

NeverarGreat said:

My idea of the timescales of ESB hinges on the assumption that Bespin is a planet in the Hoth system:

Well, while attached to the Star Destroyer Han says that they’re in the “Anoat system” so they clearly left the Hoth system when escaping into the asteroid field.
According to the EU (both versions) Bespin is in the Bespin System which is in the Anoat Sector.
Either way, Bespin is at least not in the Hoth system.
That would regardless have made Han’s “it’s pretty far, but I think we could make it” statement pretty pointless if it was simply in the same solar system.

ZkinandBonez said:

NeverarGreat said:

My idea of the timescales of ESB hinges on the assumption that Bespin is a planet in the Hoth system:

Well, while attached to the Star Destroyer Han says that they’re in the “Anoat system” so they clearly left the Hoth system when escaping into the asteroid field.
According to the EU (both versions) Bespin is in the Bespin System which is in the Anoat Sector.
Either way, Bespin is at least not in the Hoth system.
That would regardless have made Han’s “it’s pretty far, but I think we could make it” statement pretty pointless if it was simply in the same solar system.

The Anoat system could be another planetary system in the Hoth solar system. I’d say that’s actually quite likely given that their passage from the Ice Planet into the asteroids and then their escape from the asteroids are both short sequences. I don’t expect that they could have gotten very far, and certainly not into another solar system light years away.

As for the EU:

NeverarGreat said:

ZkinandBonez said:

NeverarGreat said:

My idea of the timescales of ESB hinges on the assumption that Bespin is a planet in the Hoth system:

Well, while attached to the Star Destroyer Han says that they’re in the “Anoat system” so they clearly left the Hoth system when escaping into the asteroid field.
According to the EU (both versions) Bespin is in the Bespin System which is in the Anoat Sector.
Either way, Bespin is at least not in the Hoth system.
That would regardless have made Han’s “it’s pretty far, but I think we could make it” statement pretty pointless if it was simply in the same solar system.

The Anoat system could be another planetary system in the Hoth solar system. I’d say that’s actually quite likely given that their passage from the Ice Planet into the asteroids and then their escape from the asteroids are both short sequences. I don’t expect that they could have gotten very far, and certainly not into another solar system light years away.

As for the EU:

Sure, it’s not impossible, “pretty far” is vague when dealing with a sci-fi/fantasy franchise that isn’t always that consistent or even that logical. However, I don’t really see how you can have two solar systems in the same system? I can’t imagine even SW would stretch it that far, despite clearly having no idea what a parsec actually is, etc. Also we have no idea what sub-light speed really means, at least not within sources that are purely films related. Sub-light speed, might be just short of light speed for all we know, which is pretty fast. But again, don’t know how far you’d get on that, and I’m pretty sure that neither Lucas/Kasdan/Kershner cared either (especially Kershner).

As for the EU explanations; I was just trying to give some examples of how other people have “solved” the problem.

What I mean by the Anoat system being a planetary system (as opposed to a solar system) is that it’s a system which consists of a planet and its moons. So the Bespin and Anoat planets (and their satellites) both orbit the same star as the Ice Planet, and this entire system is called the Hoth system. However, since they have just left the asteroid field when Leia asks where they are, it may be that the Anoat system was once a planet but this got destroyed and it is now the asteroid field.

And yeah, all this is pretty far from the purview of the filmmakers, but it’s fun to try and fit the pieces into a plausible model instead of the Flash Gordon-y vagueness that it is currently. The only reason I consider that sub lightspeed travel must take a long time is that if it didn’t, Han and company would cross a single solar system within hours at a large fraction of the speed of light, yet their journey would still take years if they had to travel between solar systems. Given that the plot purpose of a long trip to Bespin was so that Luke could have a reasonable amount of time to train with Yoda, the speed of spaceships in Star Wars is then limited based on how long you think it should take to train Luke.