adywan said:
Obi-Wan said:
The improvement on the shots of the Imperial Fleet approaching Hoth is astonishing and gorgeous! It makes the 2004 DVD look like good old VHS. Actually the quality of the 2004 DVD makes me believe Lucasfilm were trying to hide some weaknesses. However 1979 and 2010 cannot be compared in technical terms. Now that we have solved the technical weaknesses let's get down to some weaknesses of the shot in general. :-)
The Imperial fleet is approaching an unfriendly planet and everyone should have received the command: "battlestations". (except people commanded by Ozzel)
If that command had been given the star destroyers would not be that close to each other. Actually the shot looks like the Executor is doing a RAS (Replenishment at sea) with two star destoyers which endangers half of the fleet. When doing a RAS ships are most vulnerable as fire could hit and destroy all of them (http://www.marine.de/fileserving/PortalFiles/02DB070000000001/W26MUAG9296INFODE/EGV+BERLIN+beim+RAS_05_640.jpg ). Any RAS has the potential of a disaster, it's never a routine. The Executor has actually no reason to approach an unfriendly planet that close to friendly ships as it decreases the maneuverability of the flagship Executor!
If the Imperial fleet is on an attack mission they wouldn't be close together but instead far apart from each other! In the shot Lucasfilm established they are too close together. One, two, three shots of an ion cannon could do maximum damage as the ion cannon could fire at almost the same coordinates without major adjustment!
Ask yourself the question: If you were an Admiral where would you place your ships - Executor and 6 ISDs - if you know where the Rebel base is located?
I would position all those ISDs apart from each other leaving a corridor of destruction for all Rebel ships that will try to escape from Hoth.
That would render Episode 6 unnecessary, I guess. ;-)
Don't forget that the Imperials were just supposed to look like they were passing through the system so they wouldn't be flying in any form of battle formation. This tactic was screwed up when Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed close to the planet to surprise the rebels. I see no problem with the formation of the ships in that shot
Unless you're a full blown military strategist for a space battle, for the casual veiwer of ESB that approach formation doesn't matter (other than looking really cool =D).
However, you should also note that, unlike ships in formation on a ocean which can only follow a X/Y-axis on a Cartesian coordinate system, in space you also have the Z-axis in which ships can break "up" or "down" relative to position (as their is no real "up" or "down" in space) to evade enemy fire as well as roll their ships to expose a shielded side to incoming fire if shields have collapsed on the opposite side..
Also recall that the Hoth System has an asteroid field near by "with all the asteroid activity in this sector it's going to be hard to detect approaching ships" and the ensuing asteroid field chase... This also means that hyperspace routes in and out of the system are extremely limited as well. So spreading out the fleet could only take place after they have jumped into the system. Furthermore to concentrate a opening formation directly toward a possible hostile planet (Admiral Ozzel was skeptical there Rebels were even there after all) meant that they were over confident to begin with. It's also likely that the Empire didn't expect the Rebels to have a KDY 150-v Planet Defender Class ion cannon and thus spread their net thin for their "catch of the day".
Any other questions class? =D
