Rebel Alliance Pilots in "A NEW HOPE" Medal Ceremony

WOW cant believe thats the first time I noticed that, good catch!! You would of thought with the Death Star looming in on them it would be all hands to the pump (or rather star fighter) maybe the rest were..............busy.........off sick.............plain chicken

 

Red and Gold squadrons. 12 one man ships each.
Seems to me that the Rebellion wouldn't have the resources like the Empire. Just havin' lost an entire squadron just days before (Blue squadron). Wedge din't participate in that action, so surely there were other pilots that din't as well. I'd say that the 2 squadrons were all they had available at the time. Not 'nuff ships for all the pilots. The Rebellion's purdy scrappy an' underfunded

 

very informative.

 

The lack of Wedge in action I was referin' to was Scarif, not Yavin.

 

They probably didn't need a whole bunch of squadrons attacking the Death Star. Just enough to get down that trench, and blow the thing up. You also need reserves in case plan A doesn't work. Really they should have been evacuating Yavin during the battle.

 

I still think... as small as an' as Underfunded as the Rebellion is.... they had only So much... weapons, star fighters, Etc... to get this done

 

A few days could have passed. Maybe pilots who weren't there during the battle came for the ceremony from other planets?

 

One of these people should be Nora Wexley, but it looks like only male pilots were allowed to participate.

 

Leia didn't contact Yavin IV until they atually arrived there (notice how General Willard, the commander of the Rebel Forces is surprised to see her alive, i.e. she didn't contact the Rebel base before).

Thus it seems that upon her arrival, only an emergency contingent of fighters was stationed at Yavin IV with the other fighters and pilots being engaged elsewhere in battle/s with the Empire (remember Threepio telling Luke that him and Artoo had been in many battles before).

This becomes obvious upon Luke's arrival. As he descends from his X-Wing, three other pilots - still carrying their helmets - join the scene. These pilots probably just returned from their missions (with others to follow and to be able to participate in the medal ceremony).

 

No, the three pilots welcoming Luke could of course also be the next pilots that will take Luke's X-Wing, the other X-Wing and the Y-Wing (that we see in the returning scene alongside the Falcon) out for a patrol flight. However, I'm pretty certain that all the pilots assembled during the medal ceremony are those that had returned from other missions.

 

R2-D2 had exploded from laser fire. The awards scene suggests he may not have even been seen by Luke again until the ceremony.

I'm sure in the time it took for the all the kings horses and all the kings men to put R2-D2 back together again there was plenty of time to gather the ceremony audience from across the rest of the alliance. This could have been days at least.

When I took my old PC in to Time Computers for fixing, I didn't get it back for at least a week. I'm sure repairing, reassembling, refitting and giving a full valet job to a completely sentient true AI would have taken more than an afternoon.

 

These guys deserved one.

 

Chewie and Wedge needed awards! I'm pretty sure chewie got one in the comics right? But what about Wedge? And porkins and Biggs? And especially red leader and gold leader! They needed awardes after rouge one alone

 

@Rogue_Leader

What about the pilot of the Y-Wing that returned with the others to Yavin IV after the battle was over?

Interestingly, here is the medal ceremony according to the third draft of SW from August 1975:

She rises and places a gold medallion around Han’s neck, then repeats the ceremony with Chewbacca, the robots and finally Luke. They turn and face the assembled troops, who all bow before them.

Apparently they were rather decorated for bringing the Death Star plans to Yavin IV.

 

"We count 30 rebel ships, Lord Vader..."

There goes the 12 one-man ships in 2 squadrons.

I've wondered this myself.....as an X and Y-wing aficionado.....

 

Hopefully by the end of the ST he'll get one although I doubt they'll care considering the galaxy's current situation.