LogFAQs > #909869853

A single Y-wing did not have the punch to bring down a ship this size.

Neither should a single bomber have had the punch needed; especially when it's payload was what appeared to basically be freaking thermal detonators as opposed to, you know, bombs. The bomber ships were crap vulnerable on their way up to the run, yet had a payload strong enough that one could take down a capitol ship. Had they said it was, say, a corvette I might have let it slide... but a ship of that size? No. Fuck you Johnson. No.

You mean a large, seemingly-invulnerable construct has defence systems designed for large ships rather than starfighters, allowing small, one-man ships to penetrate the outer defences and exploit a vulnerability? And it even has an officer lampshading that by saying something like, for example, "We count 30 rebel ships, but they're so small they're evading our turbolasers?"

PAHAHAHAHA! No. If we were talking the guns meant for ship to ship combat we wouldn't have a problem. Those turrets were anti-fighter ones... that couldn't handle fighters. Rewatch ANH. Notice how the Death Star managed to have turrets that could at least reliably shoot back? There's a reason larger capitol ships have guns like that. Because they're huge targets and if a single fighter could easily harass them just because they couldn't bother with basic anti-fighter defenses they wouldn't last long at all.

Which didn't seem to help in ANH, where Y-wings were getting one-shotted left and right.

The Y-wings in ANH were damaged and not at full power due to the prior battle. However the trilogy and EU make it pretty clear that Y-wings are pretty freaking durable.

You mean like Snowspeeders?

Snowspeeders were garbage craft that had the advantage of having been designed to operate in cold weather. The fact that they had, of all things, a TOWCABLE should clue you in to the fact that they were not designed for combat. Unlike, you know, a bomber.

We see hangar bays open to the hard vacuum of space with things (in this case ships, rather than weapons, but same dif) going in and out of them constantly. Star Wars just kind of assumes there's a magical anti-vacuum shield that keeps all the air in on their ships.

Actually, they don't. Just the opposite. The series have multiple instances of shields failing and the games make the shields blatant multiple times. While they're no longer 'canon' it's a basic attention to detail that could have been resolved with just a bit of CGI or even something like 'Warning: Environmental Shield Failing' alert in the background. Plus, later on, we see things like the characters opening a door leading into space with no problems to let Leia in and the like. Face it. Johnson didn't give a crap. I'm not even complaining that things aren't 100% realistic in a movie with space samurai wizards; just that he couldn't give a crap and only cared about pushing his vision as opposed to making a Star Wars film.

There are literally fewer movies where this doesn't happen in Star Wars than where it does, and most of the cases are even worse than this. In Episode IV Luke takes out an entire moon-sized Battlestation with just one fighter-bomber, and in Episode VII Poe does the exact same thing to its bigger, badder cousin. In Episode I Anakin blows up a pivotal droid control ship almost by accident while flying a ship mostly designed for self-defence, and in Episode V the Empire's huge walking tanks are literally tripped up by what amounts to flying tow-trucks. Episode VI offers us a two-for-one as a single fighter - not even a bomber, but a fighter - takes out the Empire's flagship while yet-another-Death-Star is destroyed by the ever-reliable X-Wing and its smuggling freighter partner.
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I am the gentle hand who heals, the happy smile who shields, and the foot that will kick your ***! - White Mage