Video Shared Online Tries To Show A Scientifically Accurate Death Star
The relationship between Star Wars and science is, shall we say, “complicated” and it has been so for more than 40 years. George Lucas and his crew created the visuals and sounds of the saga primarily from a storytelling point of view and not necessarily with scientific accuracy in mind, leading to things like sound in space, big fiery explosions when there is no oxygen or laser cannons that make the iconic pew pew when triggered. To loosely quote Han Solo, “This is not how science works.” A YouTuber from Canada has recently posted a video on his channel, depicting what the firing of the superlaser of the second Death Star would have looked like if the Empire's most impressive weapon had been equipped with more scientific accurate lasers. The result would have been devastating for the Rebels.
Like many other things, the look of the superlasers of both Death Stars firing was done in order to create an impressive and menacing image, not a scientific correct representation of an actual laser. Powered by a gigantic hypermatter reactor, the energy passed through massive kyber crystals, forming powerful energy beams. In case of the first Death Star, these beams were emitted through eight smaller outlets located around the massive dish, and then condensed into one giant beam that was fired at its target. The superlaser of the second Death Star had seven of these emitters with the eighth one located at the center of the dish, but the principle was more or less the same. Aside from this change in the design of the Death Star's primary weapon, the scientists and engineers of the Empire were able to make some other modifications to the superlaser, most notably by reducing the time the weapon needed to recharge form hours to mere minutes and by enabling the laser to be focused more finely. This made it possible for the Death Star to target and hit big capital ships and not just whole planets.
EckhardtsLadder, a YouTuber from Halifax has created a short video of the space battle above Endor. However, this time the superlaser is behaving like lasers in our galaxy, and they are very powerful lasers indeed. As there are no particles in the vacuum of space that could reflect the light of the laser, there are no visible beams, just small green flashes of light when the laser is fired. Furthermore, instead of being combined into one big blast, each of the eight laser emitters can be aimed and fired independently and in rapid succession, like a real laser would be able to.
See for yourself:
Admittedly, the result is much less impressive visually than what we got in the final film, with the ships seemingly exploding randomly (and again in big fiery blasts, but this is not the point here). A Death Star that could have fired each of their superlaser emitters independently and not have to take any time to recharge would have wiped out the whole fleet of the Rebel Alliance in no time.
Although the discussions of how Star Wars failed at even basic science may be interesting and fun, they are ultimately pointless. Star Wars has always been more of a space fantasy than science fiction, and most of the choices that Lucas and his visual effect and sound designers made were absolutely for the better with respect to how his galaxy looked and sounded. The Battle of Yavin would have been nearly unwatchable with no sound. No one would have like to see spaceships that slowly drift from one side of the screen to the other instead of performing fast maneuvers or bank turns that are only possible in atmosphere, and the climactic trench run culminating in a very small flash of light when the first Death Star exploded.
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Source(s): Screen Rant