In case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, there's no actual rhyme or reason to the order these things come out in. I could technically do several OG trilogy jokes in a row if that was just the order the inspiration came in.

That said, today, it's the Battle of Hoth. Another crowning moment of awesome in all of science fiction, but like most amazing things, not entirely without flaws, and a couple of pretty big ones at that. Please note that the jokes made here are based solely on what is seen from the movie itself. I'm sure there's plenty of supplemental material out there that would justify or invalidate these jokes, but we're going only by what can be seen while watching Empire Strikes Back


Battle of Hoth: Holding Back

A lone Star Destroyer, dubbed the Tyrant, waited patiently in space above the planet Hoth, waiting for Rebel evacuation ships to come its way. Captain Lennox wondered how long it would take before his crew could see any action, though he was mildly worried that there would be no action at all. After all, they were all alone out here, a lone Star Destroyer trying to blockade the whole planet. There was a ton of space out here (literally, ha) for the Rebels to utilize. What was stopping them from flying along the surface to the far side of the planet, and just escaping from a direction this one Star Destroyer wasn't watching?

Well, he knew there were four other Star Destroyers blockading the planet somewhere, since that was how many ships were in Death Squadron. But even as big as these ships were, five of them was hardly enough to block every escape route from the whole planet.

Heck, it seemed kind of weird that the Imperial force attacking Hoth was so small, relatively speaking. The Rebel Alliance was the only real military threat the Empire faced, and to the best of anyone's knowledge, they were all here on Hoth. So the size of the Imperial fleet attacking should have been huge, just to guarantee absolute annihilation if nothing else.

That was all above Captain Lennox's pay grade. If the people in charge thought this would work, then any failure would be on their heads, not his. He didn't get much time to think about it, all things considered. Lieutenant Cabbel was alerting him to some very specific knowledge.

"Sir, Rebel ships are coming into our sector."

Pleased to hear that he would presumably apprehend the first Rebels in this blasted scenario, Lennox expressed exactly that sentiment. "Good. Our first catch of the day."

Since the standing orders were to catch Rebel transports if at all possible, the Tyrant's shields were lowered so it could catch their enemy with a tractor beam. It was just a GR-75 transport and two X-Wings. Child's play.

Or, it would have been, if only a series of powerful ion blasts from the planet's surface hadn't impacted the unshielded Star Destroyer at that moment, completely disabling it and sending it drifting into space.

"What was that?!"

"Must have been a planetary ion cannon, sir!"

Needless to say, Lennox was flummoxed bu this assessment. "A planetary ion cannon?! How the hell did the probe droids and ship scans miss something that massive?!"

"That's... a good question, sir."

"On top of that, how did it even shoot at us? Does the planetary shield only work one way? That doesn't make any sense!"

Lieutenant Cabbel merely shrugged. "Maybe it's not beneath the shield?"

This possibility seemed to grate on Lennox's nerves, though it seemed pretty justified. That moron Ozzel really had screwed everything up by tipping the Rebels off to their presence. More recon would have been a godsend.

"Then get some TIE fighters down there and blow it up! Wait... why the hell didn't we already have all of our TIEs deployed to begin with? We still could have intercepted that Rebel transport with our fighters, and that ion cannon would have been useless against them!"

"The bigger question is, why aren't our TIEs giving any air support to the ground forces? Word on the comms is that our AT-ATs are being harassed by airspeeders or something. I bet they would appreciate the benefits of the total air superiority we could easily achieve with five Star Destroyers' worth of TIEs."

Captain Lennox stared deadpan at the icy planet of Hoth as he took in this statement from his Lieutenant. "My God, you're right! What the hell are we even doing?!"


You know, it's kind of weird how the only time the Empire really uses their massive numerical superiority in the original trilogy is Return of the Jedi. I guess, cinematically speaking, ESB wanted to focus on the speeders vs the walkers, but it really doesn't make any sense that the Empire didn't use their unmatched air superiority at all. Like, not even in space. What would the Rebels have done if ever ISD deployed all their fighters to also screen for evacuees? I doubt two X-wings would have been able to protect each transport.


Battle of Hoth II: Skill Variance

On the field of battle, one of the AT-ATs approaching Echo Base stopped in its tracks, turned its head a little bit, and snapshotted a Rebel snowspeeder right out of the air as it tried to zoom by. The shot was so incredible, it was more akin to aimbot than a feat a mortal could pull off, regardless of training. Inside o the cockpit, one of the drivers commented this to his comrade, who had made the shot.

"Holy shit, that was amazing! That was like... precognitive foresight or something!"

His comrade didn't notice the praise immediately, as he seemed focused on shooting something else. Peeking through the viewport on the AT-AT, the first driver saw that his friend with the legendary aim was having a very hard time of hitting a bunch of Rebel troops on the ground, all of whom were moving very slowly in a pretty straight line, compared to that snowspeeder a second ago.

"...you ever feel like the accuracy and precision of Imperial soldiers is decided by the roll of cosmic dice with every shot?"

This time, his gunner buddy actually responded. "You think so? Seems more like the whims of some omnipotent god to me."


This scene always gets me. Not including that time on the first Death Star where Stormtroopers were intentionally allowing the heroes to live, the Empire is seen having pretty bad aim, most of the time. But this one dude, driving a super cumbersome, giant mechanical camel with a terrible field of view and fire, manages to aim on a dime and shoot down a passing snowspeeder with one shot like some MLG pro with no life.

Git gud scrub.


Battle of Hoth III: Guerilla Warfare

As another Rebel snowspeeder was shot down by an AT-AT, the remaining members of Rogue Squadron broke off their attack run to avoid the same fate. Wedge Antilles, who was somehow second in command to Luke Skywalker despite having far more experience and flight hours than him just because the farmboy had won a battle with space magic, addressed said farmboy with a valid thought.

"Rogue Leader, far be it from me to question your tactics, but is there a reason we keep approaching the Imperial walkers from the front, literally the only side they have guns on? Maybe we could try the sides? Or the back? There's literally no danger with those approaches."

Luke didn't answer immediately, perhaps analyzing the value of Wedge's advice and wondering if Dack's imminent death could be avoided if they stopped attacking from the one direction AT-ATs could defend themselves from.

"Shit."


Honestly, it always struck me as weird how Luke was put in charge of Rogue Squadron so quickly. Like, I know he did stuff between Episode 4 and 5, and he was the one who blew up the Death Star, but that latter feat was mostly luck, space magic, and the fact that other people either died for him or covered him. It didn't really prove that he had any real leadership qualities. Just seems weird that Wedge becomes his subordinate after ANH.


Battle of Hoth IV: The Best Defense

With blaster fire proving ineffective, the Rebels were using a new strategy with the Imperial Walkers: trying to trip them up with their tow cables. Wedge had just finished wrapping one of the giant walkers around the legs, and all that was left now was for it to trip itself over. Unfortunately for the Rebels, the AT-AT in question did the unthinkable: it stopped walking.

Wedge was quick to express his displeasure. "Aw man, come on! How did they know?!"

His gunner, Janson, didn't seem as surprised by this. "Well, we did fly around them like, four times. It would be kind of weird if they didn't notice what we were doing. Even if they couldn't see from the cockpit, a fellow AT-AT probably alerted them to our plan."

"Man, the bad guys aren't supposed to be able to communicate! If they're allowed to do that along with their superior firepower, how the hell are we supposed to win?!"

There was no answer, as the now still AT-AT rolled really high on luck and sniped Wedge's snowspeeder out of the air at that moment. It then proceeded to miss the next seven shots against stationary turrets on the ground.


You ever notice that the bad guys aren't allowed to come up with clever strategies in most scenarios? Like, the good guys can communicate to make good plans, but the bad guys can only ever communicate to say "oh no, the good guys have a clever plan!"


Battle of Hoth V: What's the Difference?

Luke's great strategy had been a success: by using their tow cables, the Rebel pilots had managed to knock over an AT-AT. With that accomplished, one of the speeders swooped in and fired a shot into the walker's neck, causing it to explode in a brilliant flash of debris.

Wedge was tempted to cheer for the victory, but a thought cut him short as it occurred to him. "Hold on, what happened to 'that armor is too strong for blasters?'"

Luke, having been the one to utter that line, tried to clarify. "Well, the neck was a weakpoint. The armor wasn't as thick there."

Unfortunately for the young Skywalker, Wedge was having none of that. "OK, but how come we had to knock it over to shoot it? It's not like the neck was only exposed when the AT-AT was on the ground. We could have shot the neck the whole time! Heck, it may have actually been an easier shot while the walker was still moving! We would have had plenty of room to target it whenever it turned its head away from us!"

To this assessment, Luke had no rebuttal. Instead, he got on the comm. "Hey everybody, forget that crap I said about the tow cables. Turns out we can just shoot 'em in the neck. Crazy, right?"


I get it, the whole "fly circles around the walker with a cable to knock it down" is very cool. But as the joke states, it's apparently unnecessary to the extreme. One shot to the neck of the AT-AT blew it up. There's no reason to believe the neck was any more or less vulnerable while on the ground compared to standing up. So the snowspeeders could have killed the walkers the whole time, without ever having to knock them down at all.


Battle of Hoth VI: Teach Us, Lord Vader

With the majority of Echo Base cleared by Imperial forces, Darth Vader and members of his 501st Legion walked into the hangar just in time to see the Millennium Falcon taking off for the skies. There was nothing they could do besides watch the ship escape. Well, apparently one of the Stormtroopers thought there was something they could have done.

"Lord Vader, couldn't you use the Force to stop that ship?"

The Dark Lord of the Sith placed his hands on his hips. "Oh no, the Force isn't that busted yet. Best I can do is sense weird things, throw small objects and choke people. But just you wait, one day the Force will be a cheap writing element used to overlook all rhyme and reason! People will be downloading force powers from the minds of others. Freezing blaster bolts in midair. Turning people into space Mary Poppins! Why, the Emperor himself will be knocking hundreds, even thousands of ships out of the sky with lightning, but that same lightning will somehow be unable to overpower a lightsaber, which is also a piece of technology!"

The Stormtrooper who had initially asked the question was silent for a moment, but he eventually got over his bewilderment. "That... all sounds really dumb."

"Oh yeah, a definite case of taking rule of cool to its worst extreme, ignoring all logic or sense of sanity. It gets worse, there's even-"

Vader may have continued on, but he was interrupted by another Stormtrooper who was entering the cave. Looked like he had some sort of report to make.

"Lord Vader, the atats are requesting new orders!"

Vader and the Stormtrooper he had been conversing with both offered perplexed expressions, not that you could tell behind the helmets.

"The what's are requesting new orders?"

"The atats!"

Vader's Stormtrooper buddy turned to face him. "I think he means the AT-ATs, sir."

Hearing this, Vader immediately began to Force choke the soldier who had made the report about the walkers. "What?! You simpleton, who in their right mind would call them atats, like a whole cohesive word? It's an acronym: ALL-TERRAIN ARMORED TRANSPORT. Acronyms can be pronounced as whole words, but only if it makes sense, like TIE fighter! But you don't see anyone saying ISD as one word, do you? No one says CIA or FBI as one cohesive word, instead of its individual letters! If we followed your logic, the AT-ST would be called the atst! That's stupid! You're stupid! You deserve this!"

With that, Vader choked the Stormtrooper to death, though his demise earned no pity from any of his fellow soldiers. He really did deserve to die for that.


OK, so of course I don't think anyone really deserves to die for something as silly as the mispronunciation of an acronym, but come on: it IS nonsensical. The thing is, I've heard people argue that AT-AT could be pronounced as 'atat' in one whole word, but no one has ever said that about the AT-ST, AT-RT, AT-TE, and all the other walkers that have the exact same naming convention. No one argues that 'atst', 'atrt', or 'atte' makes any sense to say.

So, if all of those walkers are pronounced by their individual letters, why would the AT-AT be any different? Oh, and we also took some potshots at the sequels. Couldn't help myself.