Before I delve into this blog head first, I wanted to let everyone know that my free trial for Hyperspace is about to end, and at the moment, thanks to bills, rent, etc, I can't afford to renew. As a result, this may be my last blog for some time. I have no idea if my blogs will be saved or not, or what happens when a hyperspace membership expires, although I would like to eventually renew, now that I've had a taste of the membership. Although if it weren't for blogs, I probably wouldn't renew, that seems to be the biggest advantage to hyperspace now that the movies are no longer in production (though I'm hoping to see similar stuff for the series, like webcam, etc.)

If anyone has enjoyed my blogs enough to continue to discuss Star Wars with me, or just to get to know me, my email address is jonwasik@stdragon.com

Now, onto the blog! There's something that's bothered me about the movies for some time, in conjunction with the Expanded Universe, that is deflector shields. Obviously on ships like the Falcon, they exist, else she wouldn't have made it past the blockade in ESB, let alone into the asteroid field and beyond. Threepio even states "We've just lost the rear deflector shield, one more direct hit on the back quarter and we're done for!"

But what about X-Wings and Y-Wings? According to every novel I've ever read in Star Wars, X-Wings and Y-Wings have these fabled deflector shield things, it's what gives them an advantage over the more maneuverable tie fighters and interceptors. Furthermore, we even hear Red Leader in ANH say "switch your deflectors on double front" so clearly these snub fighters have them. Yet in ANH and RotJ, we see one blast or two blasts from a tie fighter hit them, and boom, they blow into little tiny pieces of space debris! So what, they never switched them off of double front, and left their backs open to attack, or did they simply say "ahh what the heck I'll be a hero" and turned them off? Because a deflector shield is supposed to be able to take several hits from the tie weapons. Now if a Star Desteroy turbolaser made a direct hit, I could see instant destruction there, turbolasers are nasty powerful buggers, but little 'ole laser cannons on tie fighters? It could be attributed to taking damage previously, but some of the ships we see destroyed should have some deflector power, and I know from the novels and video games that deflectors recharge (granted slowly) over time.

The same can be said about the N1 Starfighters in Episode I, to my knowledge, we never see Anakin's fighter get hit until the hull has two or three glancing blows on it, and that's enough to scorch the hull, send him out of control and overheat his systems. Huh?! Okay, maybe while we're watching the Jedi fight and the Naboo ground troops invade, he takes a couple of hits, a lot is happening in that battle. And he obviously does have a deflector shield, and it's powerful enough to deflect small arms fire.

Then comes Episode II. Suddenly an even smaller fighter than the N1, the Jedi Starfigher, not only has a deflector, but a powerful one that sustains multiple glancing blows. We can see after the 'seismic charges' (which is impossible, seismic charges wouldn't work in space, as seismic is based on vibrations!) when Jango brings the Slave1 in behind Obi-Wan's fighter, he's hitting him many times (all of those tiny little explosions that are occuring, although some are hitting asteroids, most are exploding in what appears to be empty space, that's really his deflector shield.) Finally after all of those hits, he manages to get a couple of blasts through.

Then comes Episode III. No more deflector shields? Okay, the ARC fighters have probably been in battle for some time, although the fact that Cody is in the lead fighter suggests they came in at the same time as the Jedi, so they should have full deflector shields...but wait, one or two hits, and fighters go boom again? And the buzz droids, how the heck did they manage to get through Obi-Wan's shields when he'd apparently not taken even one single hit prior to then? Were collision shields simply not invented until the OT era? (In The Courtship of Princess Leia, Han rams the Falcon into something with collision shields up, and although they take quite a bit of damage, they survived relatively intact.)

It's one of those things that's just been nagging at me for a long time. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Is Lucas simply using deflector shields when it's convenient, or is there some actual in-story explenation for 'the myth of the deflector shield'?