I saw it and didn't mind it, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly clever or inspired.
The new battle droid character was neat, and the tie in's with the rest of the series at the end were neat, but the rest? Meh.
I love watching the ships in the new Star Wars movies though. They genuinely seem to have gravity and personality. They aren't just some kind of graphic artists weak fantasy of a spaceship, they feel real, and I could watch that all day long.
Posted on Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - 09:26 pm:
I don't believe him when he says he always planned three movies (now 8?) He had to make up the whole backstory, and it doesn't always work. And I guess we got more 'politically correct' as they say. So now Han Solo doesn't shoot first, and in episode 3, Natalie Portman says she was"elected" Queen.
Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 - 10:38 pm:
A world better than jarjar and qui-gon; a real movie and not a cartoon trying to be a real movie. Ditto on reprogrammed droid, best robot personality so far. Blind Wushu master's staff fight was awesome; I like his character better than any of the jedi. I'm no science guru but I'd like some explanation on how a crystal is a power source.
Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 - 11:05 pm:
Fuel. By untwisting the force patterns with an unobtainium technobabble you can make the rareite crystals release incredible levels of madeitupium energy, even more than antimatter.
Face it. George Lucas wrote a fairy tale with princesses and magic swords. He then threw in the Battle of Midway ( and other WW2 fighter plane footage ) and spaceships that all have a distinctive Sound while flying through vacuum and ignoring the laws of physics in a way that makes Battlestar Galactica seem like a science textbook.
Plus Lucas has little knowledge of science past camera settings, and doesn't care.
Even his dialog is a bit mediocre, since many of the great lines ( other than Luke, I am your... ) were ad libbed by the young cast.
That biting criticism aside, and ignoring Episodes 1-3 ( throw enough money at a man and he'll do a lot he's not fond of ) Star Wars was a Fun film.
The method of computer controlled models integrated with the early cgi was a breakthrough in realistic special effects. And it wasn't a CGI pile of idiocy, it's full of top notch practical effects. The Deathstar explosion was filmed from below on the back lot to avoid the effects of gravity on the expanding debris & fire.
Multiple companies were MADE making this film. Industrial Light And Magic is just the most famous.
This film changed the face of cinema.
And, cheesy as it is, it was a fun story. Rumors that Lucas pretty much winged it as the trilogy got funded are probably true. I wouldn't have expected to make a second one. What actual money making trilogies had been made before Star Wars?
A buddy's daughter is a college student Star Wars Freak. SHE could tell you how the crystals make with the special effects, but the made up science is actually retconned onto the story DECADES LATER by fans who go nuts on this stuff. Don't forget there is a PILE of novels and cartoons shows in the Star Wars 'verse. Many written by obsessed Fans.
Star Wars Fandom, Like Trek Fandom, is a force of nature in itself.
The Galaxy Quest gag that the fans know how to run the ship better than the crew is TRUTH. Trek fans even know how to work the transporter by analyzing the hand motions from the show & comparing them to stills of the control panel.
Enjoy, don't sweat the utter lack of logic, math or science. That just ruins the suspension of disbelief you need to have fun with this stuff.
Take Captain America's shield; it's super strong and can withstand virtually any impact. Because Vibranium absorbs all kinetic energy it's exposed to and stores it, which causes it to vibrate at a certain frequency, giving it the ability to dissolve other metals.
I presume none of that works in real life science but it works for movie theory.
They could have mentioned something about how the Kaiburr crystals resonate under specific conditions, at a frequency so high they produce a special type of light instead of HF or something. Just a little snippet like that would have satisfied me, and probably a lot of nerds who are more nerdier than I.
...could have mentioned something about how the Kaiburr crystals resonate...
Full geek Fan.
I bet if you look someone has figured that out.
I'm an ongoing reader & fan of David Weber's Honor Harrington series. Horatio Hornblower.... In Space! In the series there's a LOT of work on creating the abilities and limitations of the fictional Space Drives. Gravity wedges "above & below" the ship move it, and are impenetrable. This forces the Ship Designers to put the weapons, lasers & missile tubes, as Broadsides like the great sailing ships.
As I said, it's supposed to be the same situations as shown in "Master & Commander, The Far Side Of The World" You have ships weeks or months away from home. Independent commands guarding convoys, etc. Lots of room for PLOT.
All sci-fi fictional space drives are deliberately limited for Plot purposes.
If, for example, you can drop a fleet right into planetary orbit, war becomes a problem. How do you defend against that? ( Alert Orbital fortresses & your own Fleet )
Usually you have to "drop out of hyperspace" a distance from a star in literary SF. This gives the writer something cool to write about for the time between entry into a system and planet fall.
In the case of George Lucas & the Star Wars 'verse, that aspect of "big enemy fleet jumps right on top of us...Oh No! We're Doomed!" is probably intentional for the exact OPPOSITE reason. Picks up the pace of the story.
So if you're flying at warp speed and fire a laser weapon.... Does the laser move at regular speed relative to you, until it moves beyond the influence of the gravity wedge (or beyond the spacetime flux zone of your Alcubierre drive)... at which point... you run right into the back side of your own laser? Ouch. Edit I guess it gets trapped in the leading edge of the spacetime flux zone and travels just ahead of you until you break warp and then it resumes normal light speed. Man i sound like a nerd. But it's fun to think about.
FTL in the Honor Harrington series is through multiple levels of hyperspace. Speed of light is higher as you jump quantum levels. Takes more power to jump higher.
The ships top out at 0.8 C in normal space based on radiation shield limits. So no one goes FTL relative to the space they occupy. ( plot limits.... and it avoids the laser while speeding issue )
Civilian freighters don't have as expensive a hyper or shield generators so are slower both ways.
Also there are shoals in hyper. Gravity waves that will destroy a ship under wedge drive so they use a different "shape" like a disc to surf the waves. Thus each ship needs multiple engines.
A "simple" fusion rocket to move in crowded areas like when docking. ( the gravity wedge is huge & would rip stuff apart ).
The gravity wedge. "Impeller nodes" near bow & stern.
A modified bigger "alpha nodes" to make the sail & wedge.
In the Star Wars 'verse, no you don't. Once you jump you're in your own pocket dimension. You can't see or be seen by anyone else. It takes time to calculate a jump and once there you are locked on course & can't change.
In the Trek 'verse with completely different rules, you do. But you have to match "frequency" to another. You can maneuver in warp.
In the Harrington 'verse you have to be in the same level of warp. And not in a gravity wave. Missiles use the same "wedge" drive at much higher acceleration and just vaporize in a gravity wave. You can maneuver in hyper space. However if the Alpha nodes are damaged in battle they can't switch to "sail" mode and hitting a wave kills you. If you're in a stellar system that is in a gravity wave you can't go to hyper with damaged Alpha nodes. ..or.... poof! ( meaning you can't run away )
In the Niven Known Space series you are also untouchable in warp but can maneuver.
In both the Known Space & Harrington mythos you can't go to warp close to a gravity well. So you come back to normal space out past Uranus orbit. ( & not very close to a planet ) This is both a plot limitation.... no jumping into Earth orbit, and a logical scientific limit..... you need less curved space to jump. ( if this is a realistic limit you can't even test warp drives close to the Sun. In fact, doing so "proves" warp drive impossible.
The important part is each system of travel be self consistent.
Of course the arguments over who kicks who's butt are endless. Trek vs Star Wars? Babylon 5?
