star wars - Why Obi-Wan wasn't able to cross all laser gates in the fight with Darth Maul?

At some point during the battle between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul, then enter a corridor. Obi-Wan follows them, but is separated from them by some kind of laser gates.

Obi-Wan behind laser gates

Qui-Gon and Darth Maul reach partway through the corridor while they are dueling, only travelling at a speed of someone walking. When the gates open, Obi-Wan rushes to join the battle, as fast as he can. But even then he can't reach Qui-Gon and Darth Maul before the gates close again.

Why wasn't a running Obi-Wan able to cover a greater distance than what Qui-Gon and Darth Maul managed to cover whilst fighting?

Answer

The assumption you make is that the gates are open for the same amount of time on each cycle. The scene goes like this.

Maul and Qui-gon make it to the gates as Obi-wan starts running.

All the gates open simultaneously, Maul makes it to the final gate, Qui-gon to the penultimate gate and are thus separated. Obi-wan makes it to the first gate, as they all close out of sync.

The laser gates now open sequentially. First the gate behind Maul, then the one separating Maul and Qui-gon. They both get at duelling in the final chamber.

Obi-wan waits for the first gate to open. Maul and Qui-gon are still going at it.

The gates continue to open sequentially. The first gate opens, and Obi-wan runs to the end, slowed down by the gates opening. He is closed off by the final gate shutting before he can help Qui-gon. This open-close cycle is much shorter than for Qui-gon.

Maul Kills off Qui-gon. The gates still aren't open.

The gates open, duelling occurs.

So as you see, the gates are not one a simple open-close cycle, the time and order that the gates open changes and requires some time to move through a full cycle. This is why Obi-wan never made it in time, he is held back by the sequential opening of the gates.

Ironically, I could believe the presence of two living creatures would change the environment in the inner chamber. If the gates were for security of environmental control, that might make the gates close faster/sequentially.

Comments

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

Blog

Search This Blog