The Real Hero of Star Wars
(now, “Episode IV: A
When the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977, I was 13 years old and thought the movie was the greatest ever made (I had not seen too many films). For me, the hero of the film was not Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia or even R2D2. No, the guy I wanted to be when I grew up was General Jan Dodonna, the brilliant Rebel leader and strategist who masterminded the attack on the Empire’s Death Star by analyzing the stolen technical data downloaded from R2D2 at the Rebel base on the jungle moon, Yavin IV. The subsequent “Battle of Yavin” was won—the Death Star was destroyed—because Dodonna figured out how to exploit the Death Star’s one weakness: a small thermal exhaust port leading to its reactor core. If a Rebel starfighter pilot could just fire a proton torpedo directly down this port, the reactor would be destroyed leading, via a chain reaction, to destruction of the Death Star, despite the fact that the Death Star had far more fire-power than the entire Rebel Alliance. In one scene of the movie, General Dodonna is shown debriefing the Rebel starfighter pilots on his analytical findings and strategy using an animated Powerpoint-type presentation (which was very advanced for the time the film was made). I thought that was way cool!
Sure, it was Luke Skywalker who fired off the crucial shot that destroyed the Death Star with last-minute help from Han Solo. But the real hero of Star Wars is clearly Jan Dodonna the tactitician, who uncovered the Death Star’s vulnerability and formulated the winning strategy. At the awards ceremony at the end of the film, Princess Leia bestows medals on Luke and Han, but not on Jan, a great travesty in my opinion.
General Jan Dodonna (Actor Alex McCrindle), my hero.