Star wars episode 6: how did the rebel fleet manage to take out the imperial fleet?

the death star destroyed a few of the rebel command ships before it was blown up and there were many imperial star destroyers during the battle. since the imperial fleet is numerically bigger than the rebel fleet how could they have lost?

Star wars episode 6: how did the rebel fleet manage to take out the imperial fleet?
Rebels won the morale high ground. Yes they were out numbered but the Empire had 6 killing blows against them and were retreating because of: 1: The Super Star Destroyer was sent into the Death Star and blew up. 2: The Death Star blowing up. 3: Darth Vader was killed. 4:Emperor also died. 5: Lost a few Star Destroyers due to taking out their shields. 6: Losing the Shield Generator on Endor %26amp; after losing not only First and second in command and 2 massive Capital ships %26amp; no chain of command left and all the fleet Admiral's would have been fighting amoungst each other as who was going to be in command so communication would of been in disarray.





However if you read the books, the Empire wasn't truly destroyed either.
Reply:Valcruel sums it up well.





If you read Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, Grand Admiral Thrawn shows that Palpatine used the Dark Side to influence his warriors, much as Joruus C'baoth did. With him dead, there was no one to maintain order, and no one who could wrest command after all of those disasters.
Reply:Because Palpatine was dead (so to speak anyways). Valcruel %26amp; oweaponx are just about right on with their comments but the main thing that caused the destruction (again, so to speak) of the Imperial Fleet was the lose of Palpatine. I believe it was oweaponx that mentioned the book "Heir To The Empire", it is the first book in the 3 book set called "The Thrawn Trilogy". I would say the info on this is about 1/3 to 1/2 way through the book when Grand Admiral Thrawn went to the Emperor's private store house on Wayland ... there were only a select few who even knew of its existance ... Vader didn't even know about it. This is where they meet Jorrus C'baoth who is a clone of the Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth. The books lead you to believe that the clone is insane, which he is, but other books have come out with C'baoth in them, the real one, and he is an arrogant jerk in them too so the "insanity" of the Clone C'baoth really isn't much off the mark. oweaponx is a little off in what Thrawn wanted C'baoth for ... it wasn't to do what Palpatine did it was to just help during battles and other crucial moments. Palpatine impossed his "will" on all Imperial officers. Not so much take over their minds but to cut down on mistakes and he did this on a almost constant basis. If your knowledge of Palpatine is only from the movies then you're missing a bunch of info that would make it easier to see that Palpatine could and did do this. It is still debated hotly as to weather or not it is canon but there is a comic series by Dark Horse Comics, well 3 series actually, Dark Empire, Dark Empire II. Empire's End, that sheds a lot of light on Palpatine and how he was able to do the things he could. The main theory is that massive use of the Dark Side causes a human body to destory itself from the inside out. To combat this Palpatine had a bunch of clones of himself made. Every time his "body" would be about to "die" he would transfer his conscience into a new clone body and off he would go again. This would make him pretty much immortal but as the clones got farther and farther away from the "original" the clone bodies would break down faster. The Dark Empire series is pretty good and describes this much better than I can. There are a couple of other reasons to read this set the biggest of which is that in this story Luke turns to the Dark Side and becomes Palpatine's right hand just as his father had been. Luke believes, wrongly, that the only way he would ever defeat Palpatine was to learn the ways of the dark side so when that fight came Palpatine would have anything up his sleeve, so to speak, that Luke wouldn't be ready for. It was almost a tragic mistake for Luke ... if not for Leia's help Luke probably would have become the same kind of monster that Vader was. Ok, well that was a bit of a rant that had almost nothing to do with the question ... lol ... but in a nutshell, it was Palpatines death that led to the defeat of the Imperial Fleet.





to bronte1512:





you mention "read the book" ... if you're talking about the book version of Return Of The Jedi ... that book is full, by George Lucas own words, of errors so take anything from that source with a grain of salt ... or two. When it was written there was no idea of what would happen in the prequels so by that alone there are going to be mistakes ... at least that was the reason Lucas gave when de-bunking the book. All that aside, it was a pretty good read but ultimately wrong.
Reply:If you read the book,you'll realize that when the Emperor died everything became chaos, the soldiers didn't know what to do. And it isn't all that unusual for a smaller force to defeat a larger opponent(seemly more powerful), it has happened time and again here on Earth. And they had the Light Side of the Force on their side.