Star Wars (ANH) makes no sense Logically, therefore it's good Cinematically - (YouTube video "Plot Holes and Artistic License in Star Wars" Discussion.)

So this guy on YouTube called Rob Ager who mostly does film analysis made some videos a while back where he talks about plot holes, or more specifically artistic license, in ANH.
With the recent release of TFA the subject of plot holes and artistic license have been thrown about quite a lot regarding all seven SW films. A lot people have even started tearing the old films apart in defense of the logical inconsistencies of the new, and I was suddenly reminded of these two videos.

Now I’d like to point out that I’m not trying to make any big claims about the PT or TFA here, I actually want to start a new type of discussion here (TFA discussions can remain in the TFA threads), but I’d really like to hear what you guys think about this guy’s observations.

His argument here is pretty much, as I’ve stated in the title of this thread, that ANH makes little to no sense logically, but that this is actually what makes it such a good film. The film isn’t logically driven, but emotionally driven, and therefore it’s successful in cinematic terms.

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9KKnCYrihs

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnSXJLbuaco

(PS, this guy isn’t as into SW as most people are here so he does make a few assumptions and mistakes that many of us may take for granted. It doesn’t hurt his overall arguments though, just though I’d mention it.)

If you’re not too interested in his “rant” about what doesn’t work ‘logically,’ just skip ahead to ca. 9:50 on the second video to hear his conclusion on why ANH is actually a good film ‘cinematically’.

Well “plot holes” are his words not mine, and he is mostly talking about artistic license. Also a lot of discussions about plot holes these days revolve around the “logic” of a film.

EDIT;
from wikipedia - "In fiction, a plot hole or plothole is a logical inconsistency within a story. Such inconsistencies include such things as illogical or impossible events, and statements or events that contradict earlier events in the storyline."

Actually I’d say he’s using the term correctly when also including the term “artistic license.”

Smoking Lizard said:

Alderaan said:

None of that stuff is plot holes.

This. Those “documentaries” weren’t even worth watching, as they were clearly written by someone who barely understood the movie. Half of it was just plain dumb: Lasers shot into the trash compactor water would electrocute everyone; why was Leia “wasting time” going to visit Obi Wan when it was urgent to get the plans to the Rebels; the gas giant Yavin would be too far from its sun for the Rebel base to be habitable (wrong!); the Death Star pulls everything downwards (wrong!); etc., etc.

He gets the one about Leia guessing that the Imperials are tracking them right, and the one about Obi Wan shutting the tractor beam off, but that’s about it.

All in all? Not worth watching.

Well, first off, he does point out how he’s a casual viewer of SW. Not everyone is as well versed in SW lore as the fans are, and not everyone has seen ANH enough times to know every detail by heart. He analyzing the film’s strengths not as a part of the franchise, but as a standalone film.
Secondly he does point out that he’s not knowledgeable enough about SW to really understand why Leia was heading for Obi-Wan on Taooine. His point was simply that it was a plot-convenience that needed a lot of in-universe explanation to be properly understood. Yet, since it serves the plot, most people don’t really think about it.

Smoking Lizard said:
…the Death Star pulls everything downwards (wrong!)

Smoking Lizard said:
EDIT

Oh! And the medal ceremony at the end. That stupid ceremony bothered me more than anything else.

I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you still disagreeing with him, or are you agreeing with him here?

Smoking Lizard said:

Smoking Lizard said:
…the Death Star pulls everything downwards (wrong!)

ZkinandBonez said:

I understand that that editing sequence is misleading. The Death Star is built with buildings jutting up from its surface, just as building are built on earth. The gravity is at the core of the space station. So the hangar bay the MF flew into was a tall building structure. See here:

Well, the film “flipflops” the logic of the Death Star so to speak. When the Falcon is pulled into the hangar the gravity is clearly downwards;

Yet, later when they attack it the cannons are pointed outwards like you showed in your picture. There’s also these guys;

It’s like he says in the video, the film makes up whatever logic it needs to tell an interesting story, as well as be visually interesting.

That latter photo of the guy on the cannon is also a good example of his point that SW is essentially just a fairy-tale/fantasy told in a sci-fi setting. Why use a manned cannon on a giant space station anway? Also how is he shooting out a window on a space-station?
Sure, you could start arguing about force-shield technology, or how the laser bolts can travel one way and not the other, but over-all the point is that it’s not really meant to be explained. It looks cool, and the more down-to-earth feel adds a level familiarity that the audience can connect to while at the same time making it more interesting and entertaining by putting it into space.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Well, the film “flipflops” the logic of the Death Star so to speak. When the Falcon is pulled into the hangar the gravity is clearly downwards;

No, it doesn’t. It’s just a perception illusion. Imagine the hangar the MF is flying into is at the top of the Empire State building. See it? Now imagine the Empire State building has an opening for ships to fly through to land. Is that opening in the roof of the Empire State Building? No. It’s on the side. Like this:

It’s like he says in the video, the film makes up whatever logic it needs to tell an interesting story, as well as be visually interesting.

Hang on a minute, I’m a bit confused. You’re using a picture of a building to disprove the “Death Star is just a big house in space” statement?

Also my point with the image I posted earlier is that they enter by the equator trench, which means that people should be looking up at the Falcon as it enters the hangar bay. However, we can clearly see people standing on the same horizontal plane as the falcon does entering the hangar. They are essentially standing with the south-pole downwards, and the north-pole upwards, and with the Death Star core to their side.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:
Also how is he shooting out a window on a space-station?

Lasers in the visible spectrum (red) pass through glass. They’re light. Just like your laser pointer.

Are they “lasers” though? The blasters in SW doesn’t really operate on any conventional logic that resembles actual lasers. Again, they’re essentially just regular guns in a sci-fi costume, so make it more interesting. Considering how all the “lasers” in SW explodes everything they come in contact with I hardly see how they can just pass through glass.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Hang on a minute, I’m a bit confused. You’re using a picture of a building to disprove the “Death Star is just a big house in space” statement?

The Death Star is NOT a big house in space; the Death Star is a small planet (or, well, moon) in space. Imagine it this way. When the Empire built the Death Star, they build a surface. A plain, flat surface, like the surface of a planet. And then they build city structures along that surface.

The thing that the MF flew into was a really large building that was constructed on the SURFACE of the Death Star.

Also my point with the image I posted earlier is that they enter by the equator trench…

No, they did not. See the above comment. Yes, it’s difficult to imagine at first, but once you get it, it will be intuitive. You won’t be able to “unsee” it.

However, we can clearly see people standing on the same horizontal plane as the falcon does entering the hangar. They are essentially standing with the south-pole downwards, and the north-pole upwards, and with the Death Star core to their side.

No. They are standing with the core at their feet, their heads facing space, and the north and south poles are immaterial, just like on earth or the moon.

So when Darth Vader came in and said, “Send a scan team in,” he was standing in a building built on the surface of the Death Star, not in the guts of the Death Star. The Death Star is a small planet. You build stuff on the surface.

Ok, show me where these buildings are then. Because I sure as hell can’t see it.

There is absolutely nothing that for me, or for any casual viewer (and I’m not exactly a casual viewer), that suggest that they enter anything else than the trench. The way it’s shot clearly indicates that that’s where they’re going. The angular opening that the enter from on the left-hand side of the screen also suggest that they’ve entered the trench.

If the Death Star had a gravitational pull like a real moon would have had, then logically it should have looked like this;

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Are they “lasers” though?

According to Han Solo they are: “That wasn’t a laser blast…something hit us!”

Well, they sure as hell doesn’t act like laser really do.
And that’s my over-all point, or rather the point from the guy in the video, it doesn’t have to make sense. The film never tries to make sense. It’s like Han talking about the Falcon having done the Kessel run in 12 Parsecs. A Parsec isn’t a measurement of time, but of distance. But who cares, it sounds cool, and it makes the Falcon sound like an impressive ship.
Also I disagree that ANH, or any SW film for that matter, follow it’s own rules. I’d barely say that is has any form of rules. It doesn’t need any “rules”, because unlike something like Star Trek it doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics. It’s a fantasy, and you don’t have to explain it any more than you need to explain magic in a fantasy film.
Take the space-slug scene from ESB as an example. Why was there gravity inside the asteroid/slug? Why don’t they question it? Those tiny masks surely can’t be airtight enough to serve as spacesuits? There’s no pressure chamber on the Falcon, or at least not one that they used, they simply walk down the ramp. There’s nothing about that scene that makes any scientific sense. But it doesn’t have to, that’s the beauty of Star Wars.

I liked the overall message of this guy was aiming for. I’ve thought to myself countless times, “Is it… is it feasible to make a movie/story in general without ‘plotholes’?” but honestly, that video put some things into perspective. Star Wars couldn’t be the same if we’re bogged down in technical stuff of how “x” works. Through “artistic licence”, you can have a fanatical setting without explaining much so long as you create an emotional draw into the story via characters and the rhythm of things.
It absolutely doesn’t mean you haphazardly throw up a setting and hope the characters do the rest, but you can certainly get away with a lot as he mentioned.

P.S. I also found his video about how artistically screen wipes were used in Star Wars. It does bug me at times though that he uses the SE versions for the base of his Star Wars analysis and his somewhat lacking knowledge on certain things, but there’s still some merit to the commentary.

TavorX said:

I liked the overall message of this guy was aiming for. I’ve thought to myself countless times, “Is it… is it feasible to make a movie/story in general without ‘plotholes’?” but honestly, that video put some things into perspective. Star Wars couldn’t be the same if we’re bogged down in technical stuff of how “x” works. Through “artistic licence”, you can have a fanatical setting without explaining much so long as you create an emotional draw into the story via characters and the rhythm of things.
It absolutely doesn’t mean you haphazardly throw up a setting and hope the characters do the rest, but you can certainly get away with a lot as he mentioned.

P.S. I also found his video about how artistically screen wipes were used in Star Wars. It does bug me at times though that he uses the SE versions for the base of his Star Wars analysis and his somewhat lacking knowledge on certain things, but there’s still some merit to the commentary.

His overall work is pretty interesting, so I highly recommend you look into his other videos (especially if you’re into film analysis). He also has a video on R2 and C-3PO, as well as the visual symbolism of ESB (EDIT: this one is no longer on YouTube).
Just keep in mind that he’s a pretty casual SW fan so he won’t get every detail right. He mostly talks about the films of Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, etc. so sci-fi/fantasy franchises aren’t exactly his specialty. But he does like to come to the defense of more pop-culture type movies every so often.
(Also his humour takes some getting used to, but his videos are pretty insightful regardless.)

ZkinandBonez said:

If the Death Star had a gravitational pull like a real moon would have had, then logically it should have looked like this;

LOL @ picture. I can just imagine seeing that in the movie.

Anyways, about gravity, I’ve always been aware that they have some kind of gravity control in the floors, not sure where I read it, was it from the cross sections book or where. That’s why there is gravity on ships, like Falcon, star destroyers etc. I don’t think the gravity is at DS’s core, it would make no sense when we see what we see. Also if they were in the floors, you could flip the floors the way you want, so you can have the DS gunners shooting X-Wings etc.

LexX said:

ZkinandBonez said:

If the Death Star had a gravitational pull like a real moon would have had, then logically it should have looked like this;

LOL @ picture. I can just imagine seeing that in the movie.

Anyways, about gravity, I’ve always been aware that they have some kind of gravity control in the floors, not sure where I read it, was it from the cross sections book or where. That’s why there is gravity on ships, like Falcon, star destroyers etc. I don’t think the gravity is at DS’s core, it would make no sense when we see what we see. Also if they were in the floors, you could flip the floors the way you want, so you can have the DS gunners shooting X-Wings etc.

I’m sure the EU has some clever explanation/excuse for it all, my point is simply that it’s not important to the overall film(s).

DuracellEnergizer said:

Smoking Lizard said:

Are they “lasers” though?

According to Han Solo they are: “That wasn’t a laser blast…something hit us!”

Lasers don’t come in bolt form and they don’t travel slower than the speed of light.

So either the “lasers” in SW aren’t literally lasers (just like most blueprints aren’t literally blue) or light operates under different physical laws in the SW Universe.

I’m repeating myself here, but the whole point here is that there aren’t any answers to these questions (outside of the EU anyway) and that it doesn’t matter. It’s a movie, all that matters is the story and the characters, not what the lasers are made of.

(PS, my statement “Are they “lasers” though?” was more of a sarcastic and rhetoric question.)

Tobar said:

This entire thread is ridiculous.

Yes. We are waiting for Frink to proclaim this thread as the worst.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Also I disagree that ANH, or any SW film for that matter, follow it’s own rules. I’d barely say that is has any form of rules. It doesn’t need any “rules”, because unlike something like Star Trek it doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics. It’s a fantasy, and you don’t have to explain it any more than you need to explain magic in a fantasy film.

Yeah, this is a hard concept for me to put into words. When I say a fantasy has to obey its own rules, I’m not saying it has to obey the laws of physics. I’m saying it has to, well, obey its own rules.

For example, if you and I made a movie about vampires, and we establish that the only way to kill these vampires is to drive a wooden stake through the vampire’s heart, if, at the end of the movie, the hero kills the main vampire by shooting it with a pistol, you’d conclude that was stupid, correct?

Indeed, vampires are fantasy. There’s no such thing. And they certainly don’t have to obey the laws of physics, but if you establish in your vampire universe that the only way to kill them is with the wooden stake, killing one with a pistol would be absurd. It would be a contradiction, a logic trap. But the problem is, often times when critics point out these logic traps, these absurdities, the defenders of the film are quick to say things like, “It’s a fantasy! It doesn’t have to obey the laws of physics!” and, “It’s just a movie!” and, “It’s a vampire movie! You’re trying to inject logic into a vampire movie?! News flash! VAMPIRES AREN’T REAL!”

Right, well I’ve somewhat misunderstood what you were saying because I completely agree with what you just said.
All fiction definitely needs to be consistent with it’s own “fake-logic”, what I was trying to say earlier however was that sci-fi rules never applied to SW in the first place so it was never really a part of it’s “rules.”

The big confusion here I think comes from the fact that SW borrows from so much sci-fi that it does give the impression that it actually does make some scientific sense at times, but then all of a sudden there’s a space-slug with it’s own ‘gravitational pull’.

Smoking Lizard said:

ZkinandBonez said:
Take the space-slug scene from ESB as an example…

Agreed. The space slug was stupid. Lucas just loves to have big monsters attempt to eat things in his movies. It’s ironic when I saw TESB at the age of 11, I attempted to explain why the space slug was stupid and I got the very same, “It’s a movie!” and “It’s science fiction, not science science!” defenses.

It’s just one of those things you’ve got to give a pass.

However, I wouldn’t say that the space-slug scene is “stupid” because it works well within the narrative, as well as within it’s fantasy logic. In a lot of interviews with Irvin Kershner you hear him talk about how he completely ignored any attempt at sci-fi logic because Lucas had told him that it was all fantasy anyway. And in that sense you can always look at the space-slug as some kind of mythological beast.

Here a quote from Kershner on why he agreed to make ESB;
"I accepted to do the film because I loved the idea of doing a fairy tale, of doing something imaginative, doing something that children would love, and that gives me great pleasure. Some people call it Science Fiction- I don’t even consider it science fiction, I consider it a fairy tale. In Science Fiction you’re very concerned about leaving a spaceship on a planet because there may not be oxygen or the gravitational force is not the same as on earth or what your body’s adjusted to and so you must take all that into consideration or it’s considered very poor Science Fiction. It’s fairy tale, that’s the environment. That’s the context. That you can literally do anything. And if I believe it, while I’m doing it, the audience tends to believe it too. So that’s a fairy tale."

And one from Lucas;
"We look at it as a different dimension. The laws of physics are different here. Star Wars is not Science Fiction at all. It’s much more attuned to mythology, to psychology, to history than it is to science. It’s more of a parable about the way we are, rather than the way we’re going to be. That’s why it starts out as a fairytale - a long time ago in a galaxy far away - once upon a time. It deals with princesses. It’s purposely designed not to be about where we’re going. It’s about where we’ve been and what we can learn from the past in the present."

So I’d argue that the space-slug is anything but stupid, I’d say it’s pretty brilliant.