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We know the size of the Death Star (2nd one) to be 160 km in diameter, and the length of the Executor Super Star Destroyer to be 19 km. In ROTJ we see the Executor smash into the Death Star, [image in this post][1].

This is obviously way off scale.

What should this scene actually look like? Has anyone seen a scale-corrected version of this scene?

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  • 4
    added the actual picture replacing the link, since your whole question is based off the picture. :D
    – Himarm
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:44
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    it is interesting they chose to show it at the wrong scale here. the point of what's happening in this Act is that the empire is gonna loose. if the correct scale was shown, it would have emphasized the damage more... // more likely it was just an unimportant detail to them
    – zipquincy
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:57
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    they didnt want to break their actual death star.
    – Himarm
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 17:50
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    Where did the 19km figure come from, though? I'd argue that the movie is the more canonical source, so it is whoever decided that Executors are 19km long that made the mistake.
    – Harry Johnston
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 19:16
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    This question is no doubt inspired by the commentary at scifi.stackexchange.com/a/82759/21871 , q.v.. ☺
    – JdeBP
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 21:36

3 Answers 3

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Darth Satan got it first and deserves the credit, but I couldn't resist doing this in Photoshop:

enter image description here

I took the picture in the question, found a frame from before it where the Executor hasn't hit the station yet so I could see how long the nose is, did a proportional resizing because the resolutions weren't the same, overlaid the full Executor on the crash frame so I could see the full size from stem to stern, measured that in pixels, adjusted it up for the rotatation of the angle of the ship against the pixel grid, to get:

250px Executor = 19km

Then I got a fairly large full Death Star II image and scaled it up proportionally:

DS2 = 160km

250/19 = x/160

x = 160 x 250 / 19 = 2105px

Then I rotated it 90 degrees to get the angle of crash more correct than it would be coming into the top of the Death Star (since during the battle, the main laser was aimed at the fleet battle. Also if it hit the top, it would have landed right next to where Luke, Vader, and the Emperor were, so they would have got quite a view and quite a shake.). Then I touched up the mixing of the images, such as fixing the black line between the explosion and the ship.

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    If obi wan shuddered when the alderon blew up a jillion light years away, why didn't a room full jedis on the death star flinch when all these people died?
    – Darth Egregious
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 19:38
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    @user973810 Allderan was peaceful. The dark side doesn't care. And Luke has bigger things on his mind at that moment.
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 19:57
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    @Zibbobz nah. The alderon thing literally knocked kenobi on his ass and he was nowhere nearby. You're just making wild rationalizations. But that's 90% of the purpose of this site.
    – Darth Egregious
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 20:15
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    @user973810 Might be good to ask that as a question on the site. I'm not sure why it's a comment to this answer to this question about the scale of things.
    – Dronz
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 20:19
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    @Dronz, Despite the truly awesome nature of Darth Satan's special effects skills, you get the accept for extra effort on the image. :)
    – Stewbob
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 15:39
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To scale it would have looked something like this:

enter image description here

Source: I drew a 160 pixel diameter circle and a 19 pixel long triangle in a paint program, then scaled them up 2x.

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    Fear my awesome special effects
    – user8719
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:46
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    -1 no hand-drawn circles
    – KSmarts
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:49
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    Impressive stuff. Which university do you teach graphics art at?
    – Valorum
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:50
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    For all we know, this is the highest level in the game Asteroids.
    – Jack B Nimble
    Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 16:53
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    @JackBNimble Time to brush up on my programming skills, because I intend to make that game. I may need Darth Satan's help with the graphics, though.
    – KSmarts
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 20:48
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Here is an article which has sizes for both Death Stars.

There is some uncertainty on whether the Second Death Star was 160km wide or up to 900km.

Cannon purists seem to favor the larger size!

http://www.moseisleyspaceport.org/how-big-is-the-death-star/

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    Can you add the relevant sections of that linked article to your answer? The trouble with links is that they sometimes go out of data, and your answer becomes kind of useless if that ever happens. Having all the necessary information here mitigates that problem
    – Jason Baker
    Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 16:58

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