Was the rebellion a real threat to Palpatine?

The movies portray the empire as incompetent morons yet in the EU it says when the rebellion tried to invade the mid rim they totally got their a$& kicked.

Not only that but the Empire had some of the best officers and military commanders, Vader and Thrawn

I also think in the EU it’s stated that if He had lived he’d have crushed the rebellion

[QUOTE=Mider2009;5277486]The movies portray the empire as incompetent morons yet in the EU it says when the rebellion tried to invade the mid rim they totally got their a$& kicked.

Not only that but the Empire had some of the best officers and military commanders, Vader and Thrawn

I also think in the EU it’s stated that if He had lived he’d have crushed the rebellion[/QUOTE]

An insurgency is simply going to be more difficult to defeat than a conventional military opposition.

Vader delivered the ultimate conventional victory over the Rebellion in ESB... and the end of the film shows that simply getting enough of their personnel to safety is already allowing them to regroup without anything like a knockout blow. Thrawn specifically spent a lot of time and patience trying to draw out enough of their leadership and few conventional forces that their defeat would genuinely be crippling... and the escape of their leadership effectively lead to no strategic difference on the overall war, as even the damage done to the Rebel fleet at that point was comparatively small beans considering the Empire’s force superiority.

Palpatine basically needed a way to more efficiently terrorize people into ceasing rebelling - thus the Death Stars. The great trap of his Machiavellian tendencies is that he could never allow for any release valves for tension, or to know when to at least give an image of laying off a little bit on dissent - he wants total control, and would never be satisfied with even the small modicum of power someone like Augustus on Earth never tried to claim.

[QUOTE=godisawesome;5277574]Vader delivered the ultimate conventional victory over the Rebellion in ESB... [/QUOTE]

The battle on Hoth was a complete strategic failure for the Empire though.

They fail to stop the rebellion, they fail to catch any of the leaders and they even let the vast majority of them escape. Only things accomplished there was to destroy a couple a cheap speeders and kill some easy to replace troopers.

That's plain incompetence right there. Even on a tactical level, they land and then walk straight to the shield generator. Not exactly a mind blowing plan to execute.

But Veers did the job. Not like you Vader, being useless on the ground instead of planning things from space as any decent leader would do.

They did manage to kill a few Rebel leaders in the films/novels/comics-Bail was pretty much the first major one, and sort of seen onscreen.


Pretty much the Yavin leadership seen in Rogue One and A New Hope (Draven, Dodonna, Willard) are killed off in the "Hope Dies" arc of the Marvel comic (Where the Rebellion is betrayed and trapped just after getting the full support of the Mon Calamri and their ships), although Mothma and Ackbar make it out. In a way that was more devastating than ESB's attack.

ESB was perhaps more personally devastating for the heroes; Luke finding out the dark truth, losing his hand and weapon; Han frozen just after he and Leia had started falling in love etc.

Ultimately taking into account the entire Saga, not really. Because the sequels effectively took out the Rebellion (now New Republic) and mopped up the Resistance. So while unable to do it in the OT they did take almost everyone out by the sequels.

I mean sure delayed 30 years and through a millitary junta but they did manage to take out the big three and what they built even if Rey eventually stopped Palpatine. That all being said the New Republic government is still in shambles with a single Jedi but they did manage to do it.

Thrawn alone almost beat the rebellion, not only that but i believe in canon he and Vader almost crushed the rebellion.

But again the empire is shown to be portrayed as very incompetent, I believe that if it wasn’t for Admiral Ozzel Vader and Thrawn the rebellion would have been crippled. As well as the time an officer ignored Thrawns order allowing Ezra to escape.

I don’t get The battle of Hoth...why weren’t their cruisers there to intercept the escaping millennium falcon?

^That's what they were doing-hence Han trying to lose them in the asteroid field.

[QUOTE=ChrisIII;5285851]^That's what they were doing-hence Han trying to lose them in the asteroid field.[/QUOTE]

What I mean is why didn’t they have interdictor ships to make sure no ships could get by. Maybe they were a later Star Wars invention

The comics n movies have a weird way to have incompetent officers in key positions like Ozzel or semi competent ones like Piett making bad decisions.

In the Disney canon the Interdictors don't seem to be that plentiful-also some were assigned to Thrawn's fleet as well.

Wouldn't have made any difference to the Falcon as it's hyperdrive was messed up anyway, although it would've screwed up Luke, the other X-wings and transports from leaving.

Vader's ESB fleet is mainly just Executor and five smaller regular destroyers (although one is destroyed during the film).