57

In The Last Jedi the Resistance ships are in a situation where their fuel reserves get gradually depleted.

Has this ever happened in Star Wars before? Has anyone else ever run out of fuel? I'm thinking primarily of ships which are in normal operational condition rather than those which have been shot or damaged.

My preference would be for answers from Disney canon but failing that I'll accept answers from Legends.

|improve this question
  • 8
    What fuel do those ships use anyway? – einpoklum Jan 25 '18 at 13:52
  • 89
    @einpoklum Plot fuel – Steven Rands Jan 25 '18 at 14:11
  • 16
    @einpoklum Liquid Schwartz? – J... Jan 25 '18 at 23:44
  • 14
    @StevenRands: Come on now, no need to be fuelish. – einpoklum Jan 25 '18 at 23:57
  • does actually needing to fuel, as opposed to running out count? – Aibobot Jan 26 '18 at 0:59
51

In the second season of Star Wars Rebels, fuel supply was a common theme. There are 2 specific episodes in which ships were either out of fuel or running so extremely low that it hindered operation of the ship

S02E15 - "The Call"

The Ghost is essentially running on fumes to the point that they barely have enough fuel reserves to run the heating systems or use the weapons. When they find a Imperial fuel refinery, Hera indicates that they don't even have enough fuel to take off if they land, so the crew has to do some sub-orbital skydiving to secure the landing area and steal the fuel before Hera can make an attempt at landing.

S02E19 - "The Forgotten Droid"

Chopper gets separated from the rest of crew when they stage a raid on an Imperial fuel depot. The main story is Chopper's, but the B-story is the Rebel capital ships are unable to jump to hyperspace to flee from the Empire until the Ghost returns with the stolen fuel.

|improve this answer
  • 15
    I swear they made Rebels to set up precedents for The Last Jedi. Every time people complain about something completely new or seemingly never-done-before from Episode 8, the response is always pointing at one or another episode from Rebels as justification. Very intriguing. – Ghoti and Chips Jan 25 '18 at 22:20
  • 1
    @GhotiandChips Except the surviving in space thing. That has precedence in Clone Wars – Logarr Jan 26 '18 at 17:18
  • 3
    @Logarr That just has precedent in reality. Though it's never been attempted, it seems likely that humans could survive brief exposure to space. – Justin Lardinois Jan 27 '18 at 9:25
  • @JustinLardinois Indeed. You'll die of suffocation before anything else, and in a space suit or something you'd die of overheating before anything else. The whole "body starts icing over in seconds" you see in Last Jedi and GotG2 is Hollywood Science. In reality you can only lose heat in space through radiative transfer, which is wildly less efficient than the convective transfer we're used to on Earth. The biggest threat to Leia in that sequence was the concussive wave of the blast. – zibadawa timmy Jan 27 '18 at 22:02
  • @zibadawatimmy It was actually GotG 1 where Star Lord freezes in space. – WakeDemons3 Feb 9 '18 at 21:49
65

In Episode I, Queen Amidala's Naboo cruiser has too little power to reach Coruscant and has to make an unscheduled stop on Tatooine for supplies.

RIC OLIE: There's not enough power to get us to Coruscant - the hyperdrive is leaking.

QUI-GON: We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship.

Later the whole hyperdrive is replaced, yet oddly there is no further mention of fuel.

The only other time that refuelling of a spacecraft is mentioned in the films (that I can think of) is during Episode III, when Obi Wan travels to Utapau to determine the Seperatist presence there. On arrival, he requests some fuel for his starfighter.

|improve this answer
  • 4
    RIC OLIE : There's not enough power to get us to Coruscant...the hyperdrive is leaking. QUI-GON : We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship. They specifically mention fuel. source – phantom42 Jan 25 '18 at 13:14
  • 3
    @TheDarkLord I'm not sure I'd limit it to just "healthy" ships. The reason this is a good question in general is that fuel (which is an important logistic in the real world) seems to be an incredibly unimportant logistic in Star Wars (prior to TLJ). Limiting this to just healthy ships is going to make a short list even shorter – Machavity Jan 25 '18 at 13:24
  • 28
    Probably fuel was inexpensive, unlike spare parts – TimSparrow Jan 25 '18 at 13:46
  • 10
    In RotS, Obi-Wan and Anakin are literally swimming in fuel aboard the federation cruiser, but it's unclear which ship(s) the fuel is for. – phantom42 Jan 25 '18 at 14:15
  • 4
    They mention both "Power" and "refuel" in TPM... I'm not surprised that they used hybrids on Naboo, though. (: – xDaizu Jan 25 '18 at 15:55

protected by Community♦ Jan 25 '18 at 17:11

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.