When I recently re-watched Star Wars I wasn’t just keeping track of Stormtrooper deaths. I was curious if the stock Imperial fighter, the TIE Fighter, was also always a piece of disposable junk.
TL;DR: no, it was not, but please keep reading anyway!
Here’s a breakdown of each time we see a TIE Fighter in action in the original cut of Star Wars from 1977.
The Remains of Alderaan
A TIE Fighter gets the jump on the Millennium Falcon and shoots it a few times, but runs off. No additional fire is exchanged.
Escaping the Death Star
4 TIE Fighters attack the Millennium Falcon after it escapes the Death Star. All four are defeated, but not before causing some damage to the ship. However, Leia points out that the Empire “let them go” in order to track them, so it’s implied that these guys weren’t even trying very hard. They just had to make it look like they were trying to stop them.
Assaulting the Death Star
How many ships the Rebels have is suspect. We see 16 points of light streaking off from the Rebel base, but then see 17 ships approaching ( 14 X-Wings and 3 Y-Wings). However later an officer mentions “30 ships” are attacking. Vader’s later line “several fighters have broken off from the main group” implied that a larger group was attacking elsewhere and the smaller group was attacking the trench.
Porkins (X-Wing) is taken out by the guns
5 TIEs arrive
1 Random X-Wing (red helmet guy) is killed by a TIE
Luke shoots down a TIE chasing Biggs
Wedge shoots down a TIE chasing Luke
Y-Wings start their run
Vader launches with 2 TIEs along side him
Vader shoots down 3 Y-Wings
Red Leader starts his run
Vader shoots down 1 X-Wing
TIE shoots down 1 X-Wing
Red Leader takes his shot and misses
Vader shoots down Red Leader
TIE damages Wedge’s X-Wing, he retreats
Vader shoots down Biggs
The Falcon arrives
Han shoots down TIE Fighter
TIE Fighter collides with Vader, crashing, but Vader flies away
Flying away we see: 2 X-Wings, 1 Y-Wing, The Falcon
Final Tally:
Imperial Fighters
4 destroyed (add 4 more for the earlier scene escaping the Death Star)
1 survived (damaged)
3 unaccounted for, presumed destroyed
Rebel Ships
9 destroyed
4 survived (1 damaged)
18 unaccounted for, presumed destroyed
It should be noted during this fight no ships seem to be sturdier than others. X-Wings, Y-Wings, and TIEs are all taken out by a few shots. We only see three ships survive taking a direct hit.
Based on what we see during that battle the Rebels are clearly the underdogs. The TIE Fighters are not weak disposable craft. They are no more or less durable than the Rebel ships they are fighting against.
If we expand this into Empire it doesn’t really sell the case any further. We only see 4 TIE Fighters get destroyed, and they expertly navigate an asteroid field while chasing the Millennium Falcon before ultimately succumbing to the environment. Later the Falcon is chased by three more TIE Fighters, but none of them are destroyed.
Even in Jedi where we see scores of Imperial fighters the case is never really made, visually, that they are inferior craft. We see them taken out with a few hits and we see Rebel ships taken out with a few hits. Based exclusively on what is seen on the screen they are at worst equal to Rebel fighter craft. There are more of them, as evidence by the end of Jedi, but that doesn’t mean they are worse craft or that their pilots are junk.
So where does this idea of them being disposable garbage come from?
Blame Dungeons and Dragons
What we think we know about ships in the original Star Wars trilogy mostly comes from West End Games RPG manuals published in the 80s and 90s. The artists who brought the movies to life weren’t cranking out technical manuals like the nerds over at Star Trek, they were busy bashing kits together to make models out of Ralph McQuarrie’s art. So these game writers had to guess based on observation of the films and took some liberties in order to make an exciting adventure game.
Some things would be really obvious. How many engines? How many weapons? These are all things you can see from the photos of the models. But… how fast were they? How much damage could they take? Well, they had to make all that up.
With that said when it came time to create stats for the various ships it panned out like this:
- X-Wings = Durable \ kind of fast
- Y-Wings = Extra durable \ slow
- A-Wings = Semi-Durable \ extra fast
- B-Wings = Extra durable \ a bit fast
- TIE Fighters = Flimsy \ very fast
- TIE Bombers = Less flimsy \ very slow
- TIE Interceptors = Flimsy \ extra fast
All Rebel craft have shields
No Imperial craft have shields
This is based on a few lines about “angling deflector screens” in the Death Star battle, so that means Rebel ships have shields, but in no way implies Imperial craft don’t. However someone decided that Imperial ships don’t have shields and that was that.
All Rebel ships had hyperdrives
All Imperial ships lacked hyperdrives
This is based entirely on a single line from Obi-Wan “A fighter that size couldn’t get this deep into space on its own.” Conversely we see each of the Rebel ship models go to hyperspace prior to the Battle of Endor.
All of the rest of the stats are guess work. If the writers at West End Games had decided that a TIE Fighter had all the same stats as an X-Wing, including shields, but lacked a hyperdrive it would be just as accurate to what we see on screen, but they didn’t do that. They chose to make the bad guys easy to kill and disposable so our heroes could rack up kills.
This is verbatim what is written about the TIE Fighter in the 2nd Edition Revised rule book:
The prime Imperial starfighter at the height of its power, TIEs (Twin-Ion Engine starfighters) are designed to be fast, but they are also light and very fragile. Prior to its defeat, the Empire never gave a second thought to sacrificing scores of these ships to accomplish goals — there were thousands more just like them.
The Star Wars Roleplaying Game Second Edition Revised and Expanded p. 249 – 248
When it came time to translate the Star Wars space combat experience into a PC game, where do you think they got their info on ship stats? Yep… West End Games RPG books. It’s not always a 1:1 stat compare, but they definitely used it as a basis. Same with the Expanded Universe comics and books. All of them used the WEG books as reference. It was officially the unofficial canon of Star Wars lore.
And much like the disposable Stormtrooper cynicism that propagated in the years following the OT, so too would this concept of disposable ships pollute future Star Wars projects without even really analyzing the original films.
Armchair Screenwriter 