Quote:So.. why couldn't it just hyperspace to a position where it could have appeared, destroyed Yavin 4 and that would have been it. Why did it need to appear and then wait to move into position? How it was used has what bearing on where it appears?

 

Yup, made no sense.  The drama behind the ending of IV was blowing it before the Death Star "cleared the planet" and could target the Rebel base.

 

Plus, Alderaan was described as the first demonstration/operation of the Death Star in IV.  To rewrite that history, they excused away the firing of the weapon in One as a smaller burst that would take a city instead of an entire planet.  Meh, your fans didn't forget IV, guys.  Not getting a pass from me on that one.  Had that really happened in the IV timeline, then Han and Obi Wan certainly would have heard about the Death Star and it's power well before they encountered it - systems would already have been afraid of it.  It would have been the talk of spaceports (like Mos Eisley) all over the galaxies.  There would have been no "that's no moon" surprise moment.  They would have recognized it as the deadly space station they had heard about the moment they saw it, quickly putting two and two together when they encountered what they called the "scout" Tie Fighter.

 

It was never a hyperspacing station.  It was in orbit.  It wouldn't need to orbit anything at all if it could move like a space vessel.  It could just be stationary.  I'm sure that could probably be excused away as... "well, it was orbiting because they were hiding it, pretending it to be a moon."  You see where all the stories turn into more stories to try to spin away the changes?  It doesn't bother me that they changed the story, let's just be honest in that's what they did.  Let's not pretend this is what was intended from the beginning.

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