Quote:
Originally Posted by Buehler445
The argument in introducing the kamikaze strategy is why didn't they do it to the death star or starkiller or whatever.
The statement you quoted was the only real way around that is 1. Nobody thought of it, which is lame. or 2. It would cost too much to outfit a kamikaze ship to destroy.
I'm sure hyperdrives cost money and I'm sure the marginal increase in power to move a big ship like the one Hondo used vs a smaller ship with Hyperdrive like an X wing or something. So more mass = more power to get to hyperspace. That would lead to the marginal cost of moving a unit of mass to hyperspace probably is pretty high.
Look at a semi truck vs a pickup truck vs a car. The cost per unit torque between a car and a pickup isn't that much, but as you get heavier, the cost per unit torque between a pickup and a semi is pretty high. Meaning the marginal cost (cost to move up one unit) gets pretty high as you get heavier.
So it is feasible that the hyperdrives for big ships are just too expensive to procure, but that's pretty out there. It's far more likely that it is just a big assed plot hole.
Here is some reading on Marginal costs if your're interested.
https://www.investopedia.com/video/p...st-production/ |
Ah... thanks for fleshing that out. I see what you are getting at now. And while it's the best argument I've seen for it yet, I don't think it really works however as an explanation because, as has been mentioned here, the two supporting ships that run out of fuel during the chase would surely have been better spent in a kamikaze attempt instead of just being left to drift and sacrificed. The loss and cost of those hyperdrives were going to have to be absorbed regardless. Especially considering the captains (or at least the one captain) stays behind anyway. So I still don't buy that explanation, and this is coming from someone who want's there to be a valid explanation to this hole.
I kind of absolve Johnson for this plot hole however. This will probably piss people off, and that is not my intention, but here is my reasoning... why haven't any of us, or any of the previous directors, thought of hyperspace kamikaze as a possible weapon before? In real-life, Nuclear weapons exist, but all sides seem to for the most part understand that the use of those weapons are so devastating, harmful and potentially mutually destructive, that no one dares use them (anymore), and we all understand why we don't dare use them.
Han establishes right in the very first movie that light speed travel is dangerous and destructive if not done right or rushed.
("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?")
If that's true, then when faced with certain annihilation, why didn't anyone attempt a suicide jump at the Deathstar to save the resistance? If it was too easy of a solution for the resistance to use and therefore not included as an option within the SW universe, the question should have been asked and answered right then and there in episode 4 so we could all understand, as we do with Nukes, why they aren't to be used except in the most extreme of circumstances.
For example:
("Han, remember what you told me about jumping to hyperspace? Even a small X-wing might be able to disable that dish long enough to allow the resistance to evacuate the planet and escape!"
"Luke, we can't do that, it would tear a whole in space",
OR "create a worm hole", OR "destroy the hyperspace lane forever", OR,
"turn us all into tribbles...") or something, anything.
And that would have settled it. We would return to episode 9 and see the fallout of Holdo's maneuver - and while it saved what remained of the resistance, we'd see the steep cost of that act.
But it was never asked and never answered. So the use of the hyperspace kamikaze here in TLJ didn't create a plot hole IMO, it merely exposed one.