Star Wars Star Wars Discussion Thread - LET THE PAST D-! Oh, wait, nevermind

[stephen the barbarian]

tarkiller Base is a pile of idiot balls that is introduced clumsily, handled entirely in the background, has no impact on our heroes, and completely fails to be a stand in for the Death Star.

jj abrams entire body of work, summed up in one sentence.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

jj abrams entire body of work, summed up in one sentence.

"BUT IT'S GOT MAWR BOOOM & SO AWESOME!!!"

 

[Zachowon]

So Omega is TECHNICALLY Boba Fett's sister right? Kinda how X-23 is Wolverines Daughter?

 

[Battlegrinder]

It was very cool but the lack of shields on any of the vessels and the presence of uber beam cannons on a corvette bugs the hell out of me.

"Uber" is relative, they're really only capable of knocking out a similarly sized ship (slightly smaller ship in this case), which is impressive but hardly unprecedented in SW, it's the same principle we've seen in superlaser armed capital ships scaled down to a much smaller ship.

It's hardly unprecedented in real life, or more relevantly for SW, it's hardly unprecedented in WW2 as well, where we had stuff like PT boats that were armed with immensely destructive weapons for their size.

 

[Skallagrim]

Starkiller Base is the worst part of the Sequel Trilogy.

And I don't just say that because it's the first obvious major problem and the thing that turned me off the Sequel Trilogy.

Compare the Death Star to Starkiller Base, the first we hear of the Death Star it's Darth Vader having just killed a bunch of people over plans to the thing, the first we hear of Starkiller Base it's Han with a plan to infiltrate the place. Half of Episode IV is just dealing with the PLANS for the thing and when we finally blow it up it's the climax of the whole thing and the culmination of a bunch of people's work that we actually SEE.

The Death Star's fatal weakness is a single shaft, a near impossible shot, a critical weakness mandated by the reactor design and mitigated as best as possible. Starkiller Base's fatal weakness is, in no particular order, a centralized generator that has no reason to be centralized, insufficient sensor coverage, no Interdictor Fields, and apparently being waaaaay too obvious(how does Han find it? No idea).

Starkiller Base is a pile of idiot balls that is introduced clumsily, handled entirely in the background, has no impact on our heroes, and completely fails to be a stand in for the Death Star.

No seriously, compare the one shot the Death Star got off vs the one shot Starkiller Base got off, the Death Star blows up a main character's home planet in front of them, massive emotional damage to a main character so we have a reason to care about destruction too large for humans to really grasp, Starkiller Base blows up a bunch of planets, I have no idea which, none of the main characters give a shit about any of them, it's pure spectacle and has less emotional impact than a fireworks display.

Compare the death of the Death Star to the death of Starkiller Base, one get's blown up after a hard fought battle to get the one guy who has a chance to make the shot into precisely the position to do so, every supporting character has put in on screen effort to get to this point, and Luke's Force Assisted Perfect Shot hits the audience in the feels as surely as it hit the Death Star. Starkiller Base get's blown up because characters have been planting satchel charges in the background of dealing with Kylo.(and btw, how fucking pathetic is Kylo that characters have the spare attention to do anything but not die, he is so blatantly "Shitty Vader Knock Off" it's not even funny, which just makes Luke's reaction to his "spark of darkness" all the more ridiculous)

The Death Star gets off its one shot while it's still invulnerable, while the audience is still unsure if it'll actually be destroyed, it's a demonstration of power absolute. Starkiller Base gets off its one shot after it's already been infiltrated and a bunch of the fatal satchel charges have been planted, it's the last gasp of a failed power play.(that the First Order still somehow takes over the Galaxy really begs the question of why they ever made it)

The destruction of the Death Star is a major turning point in the war, and it's treated like it by the story, Starkiller Base is a footnote and its treated like it by the story. But both are also absolutely central to their movie.

The Death Star is a character, Starkiller Base is scenery.

EDIT: just in case anyone is wondering why I'm back to ranting about the Sequel Trilogy, I was just in the Dentist for temp crowns so I blame local anesthetic)

jj abrams entire body of work, summed up in one sentence.

Truly, the fundamental issue with the sequels is the people in charge. Writer-directors with the exact wrong attributes for the job, and producers/managers behind the scenes with no feel for story-telling.

That's also the key difference with sequels. Yeah, those were flawed. And yes, that was almost entirely down to things Lucas did. But there was also a lot of good, fun, even great stuff in the sequels. And all that was due to Lucas, too!

Anything that was vaguely okay in the sequels -- and little ascended beyond that -- was entirely in spite of the "creative minds" behind the trilogy.

 

[Bacle]

So Omega is TECHNICALLY Boba Fett's sister right? Kinda how X-23 is Wolverines Daughter?

Pretty much; it's implied she's another 'unaltered' clone like Boba, just female.

 

[Zachowon]

Pretty much; it's implied she's another 'unaltered' clone like Boba, just female.

Now I wanna see her in live action

 

[f1onagher]

"Uber" is relative, they're really only capable of knocking out a similarly sized ship (slightly smaller ship in this case), which is impressive but hardly unprecedented in SW, it's the same principle we've seen in superlaser armed capital ships scaled down to a much smaller ship.

It's hardly unprecedented in real life, or more relevantly for SW, it's hardly unprecedented in WW2 as well, where we had stuff like PT boats that were armed with immensely destructive weapons for their size.

If they had been packing a proton torpedo rack like a PT boat that would have been different. I'm fine with the heavy beam weapons when they're impractical strategic assets, less so when they casually violate the offense/defense balance of Star Wars. It's rarely consistent, but Star Wars does have a very compelling weapon vs defenses meta that allows for the WW2 in space tactics that make it so much fun. Things that automatically nix shields (without counter-measure like PD vs missiles) break this balance and start an Honor Harrington-style race to the bottom.

That's my fundamental complaint. If the corvette had dumped a load of missiles to accomplish the job or if the Imperial gunboats' shields had held for a few seconds that would have all been fine, I just dislike magical bullets.

 

[BlackDragon98]

i stumbled into this little fan clip. looks like it could use more love.

Everything was fine until I saw the A-wing launch racks and the solid cutting lasers.

"Uber" is relative, they're really only capable of knocking out a similarly sized ship (slightly smaller ship in this case), which is impressive but hardly unprecedented in SW, it's the same principle we've seen in superlaser armed capital ships scaled down to a much smaller ship.

You clearly haven't taken a look at the size of power plants necessary to support such weapons.

Harrower class dreadnoughts for the Silencer, Imperial class SD for the Conqueror superlaser, Victory class SD for a smaller test version of the Conqueror

The worse part was how long they were able to keep the laser running.

Complete immersion break.

It's hardly unprecedented in real life, or more relevantly for SW, it's hardly unprecedented in WW2 as well, where we had stuff like PT boats that were armed with immensely destructive weapons for their size.

I believe JFK would like to disagree.

 

[Agent23]

jj abrams entire body of work, summed up in one sentence.

Stolen ideas turned to shit?

Seriously now, his "original" work was basically copy-pasted from other, popular shows.
Alias was his big beak iirc and he basically ripped off "La Femme Nikita"
Fringe was a blatant rip off of "The X-Files"
All his reboots basically took the original plot and turned it into bad teen fanboy fanfiction.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

@Droideka MK.II
You're clearly forgetting the Y-Wing Formation Superlaser from the EU (Vong era).

Starlancer Project

 

[Bear Ribs]

Wasn't there a superlaser on the B-Wing in Rebels as well? Granted that was Rebels and some people don't care for its canonicity.

This one by the same modeler, sans superlaser, works a bit better IMO.

 

[Bacle]

So odd question, but has anyone considered what would happen if you combine Ssruvi entenchment tech with Holocron tech?

Potential brain AI-uploading, maybe?

 

[Zyobot]

Fourteen (soon to be fifteen) years later, and still epic!

 

[Agent23]

Fourteen (soon to be fifteen) years later, and still epic!

The video is nice, but I am no fan of the emo hippe crap the band makes, if you like Gregorian-like chants there are better place to get them than Globus.

Like maybe this old gem:

 

[Battlegrinder]

A-wing launch racks

I at least get the objection with the laser, but why are the launch racks a problem?

I believe JFK would like to disagree.

I'm not sure what your argument is here?

 

[Zyobot]

The video is nice, but I am no fan of the emo hippe crap the band makes, if you like Gregorian-like chants there are better place to get them than Globus.

Like maybe this old gem:

Don't really know about the composers. I just like the song.

But thanks, have certainly heard that track before and appreciate the sense of "martial spirit" it brings to Star Wars.

 

[BlackDragon98]

I at least get the objection with the laser, but why are the launch racks a problem?

I'll let you connect the dots here.

I'm not sure what your argument is here?

PT boats were notoriously fragile and vulnerable to heavy seas.

It's also had basically no visibility in adverse weather (fog, heavy rain, etc.) and at night, when JFK's PT boat got chopped in half by a IJN destroyer.

Also, PT boats fired off dozens of torpedoes in the naval battles of Guadalcanal to no effect.

Most of their kills were done in a very specific set of conditions.

Immensely destructive weapons are only useful if they can be deployed successfully in a variety of conditions.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I'll let you connect the dots here.

Ok, first off that's a different class of corvette than the one in the video, the one in the video is a larger model.

Secondly, that cutaway shows that the mid section of the ship is mostly just diplomatic facilities and some hallways, there's no vital systems there you couldn't replace with a hanger. Which is exactly what they did:

PT boats were notoriously fragile and vulnerable to heavy seas.

It's also had basically no visibility in adverse weather (fog, heavy rain, etc.) and at night, when JFK's PT boat got chopped in half by a IJN destroyer.

Also, PT boats fired off dozens of torpedoes in the naval battles of Guadalcanal to no effect.

Most of their kills were done in a very specific set of conditions.

Immensely destructive weapons are only useful if they can be deployed successfully in a variety of conditions.

I'm not clear what the relevance is supposed to be here. PT boats had downsides and flaws, yes (and at the time JFK was manning one, defective torpedoes, which is part of the issue at Guadalcanal), therefore mounting oversized guns on a spaceship is impossible or implausible because......a japanese destroy rammed PT 109?

 

[Bacle]

CR-90s, and most of it's variants, were closer to coast guard cutters than PT boats, and a few were even Midget Carriers.

Skipray's are PT boats.