Star Wars: The Thread Strikes Back

[Reply #200 on:]

I could accept the buzz droids if they were a way to get through shields where explosive warheads will be defeated.  But nothing of that sort is implied; no ship that small has a shield.

Quite a few single-man starfighters in the SW universe do have shielding, in fact. Are you thinking of Captain Needa's exclamation in ESB when the Millenium Falcon "disappears"?

 

No ship that small has a cloaking device!

[Reply #201 on:]

I know he says cloaking device.  But why doesn't TIE Fighters have shields then?

[Reply #202 on:]

The more advanced ones do - but I can't remember if the games are considered canon.

[Reply #203 on:]

There used to be 9 levels of canon in Star Wars.  Now there is just the films and all the other crap.  The latter of which is no longer considered canon.

[Reply #204 on:]

If you're in a ship without shields and being fired upon, a cannon is probably considered canon.

[Reply #205 on:]

Actually there is no inmovie evidence of TIE Fighters not having shields ...
i mean.. yes most of them are seen blowing up with single shots but at the same time so do rebel fighters (when the hero is not in them)..
there is inmovie evidence of rebel fighters having shields as its mentioned on screen dialogs ("set your deflector screens double front"  , "stabilize your rear deflectors" ) and also there is some screen visual evidence of shields in rebel fighters on where laser shots get very near and there is some sparks and flashes of where the lasers might be contacting with thr shields ... but again the exact same efect is seen in TIEs ...

I dont know where the "TIE Fighters dont have shields" thing began.. maybe in the WEG RPG guide or some earlier work... actually in the WEG guide i think said some imperial fighters like TIE Interceptors had shields..

Its also widelly acepted that X-Wigns and TIE Fighters are same speed.. and that Y-Wings are a lot slower and slugish and so... while there is no onscreen evidence about Y-Wings being slow .. and actually there was a ILM chart in 1983 wich said Y-Wings had the same speed as X-Wings and Y-Wings... wich btw was a bit faster than the Millenium Falcon and only the A-Wing and TIE Interceptor were faster

[Reply #206 on:]

As far as the movie canon goes, Darth Vader's advanced TIE prototype was fitted with shield generators, and later TIE variants with three wing-panel-things also had shielding, hyperdrives, and even missiles.

As far as sublight speeds go, the original canon was that X-Wings were slightly slower than TIES, with Y-Wings being horribly sluggish. A-Wings were supposed to be a match for the TIE Interceptor in terms of speed, which was for a while the fastest thing in the sky.

Hyperdrive speeds would rank the A, X, and Y-Wings equally, with the Falcon able to trounce them all by a wide margin. But a lot of that canon has been destroyed by trivia from the EU of the prequels.

Who knows what has a shield or a hyperdrive anymore? Next week, LucasDisney might release a short statement to the effect that Palpatine was actually a shielded droid starfighter with a hyperdrive all along. Working for Jar-Jar.

I know he says cloaking device.  But why doesn't TIE Fighters have shields then?

They're piloted by disposable lackeys whose lack of shielding makes certain that they don't get lazy, and must have Jedi-like reflexes to avoid death. Also, the Empire is kind of evil. In addition, it makes it nice and convenient for the heroes to simply blast apart a TIE fighter, rather than needing to wear away at it and overload the shielding before they can make a kill.

The reason that X-Wings are frequently blown apart in the films (especially ANH) is that they're either hit by multiple laser blasts from the Imperial fighters (which have more powerful lasers than the rebels), or turbolaser shots from the cannons on capital ships or the surface of the Death Star. Which overload the shielding and destroy the ship much more easily than the laser cannons on another X-Wing would. When Luke's X-Wing gets hit by a single stray shot, it doesn't do much damage (the power is largely absorbed by his deflector shield, and what gets through is comparable to a bolt from a blaster). When R2 is hit by another single shot, this also does comparatively little damage.

At least, that was "old" canon. I'm not sure what the explanation is now. It probably involves symbiotic microbots in R2's circuitry.

[Reply #207 on:]

The ILM chart from ROTJ back in 1981-83 was this:



The High/Med/Low thing was suposed to be the maneovrability .. this means that while they were filming for ILM at least TIE Fighters, X-Wings and Y-Wings were equal in terms of speed/agility..

Of course speed doesnt account for what hiperspeed is in wich the Falcon excels

having no shields in the TIE Fighters made sense from the persepective of making fast and nimble fighters wich were also cheap to mass produce .. but the Games made them look like party baloons..

There was a X-Wing Alliance mod that made more sense.. it decreased the shield a lot (less than 30% of original) and increased the hull rate like 50% and so did the speed

... the result i renember was quite movie like.. shields would save you from stray shots and maybe a few lucky shots.. but an enemy locked on your going for the kill wouldnt take many direct hits to blow his target apart.. and you as player wouls suffer many more system failures before exploding (most of system failures in X-Wing are very fatal like loosing the engines, maneover systems.. radar.. screens)..

It made more sense... TIE Fighters were not that much weaker now since they could frak you up very fast if they got you.. the games mistakes were allways provide star-trek like shields to the fighters... in a B-Wing or a fully shielded GunBoat it took tons of direct hits just to lower the shields ..  game mechanics for players

[Reply #208 on:]

The High/Med/Low thing was suposed to be the maneovrability .. this means that while they were filming for ILM at least TIE Fighters, X-Wings and Y-Wings were equal in terms of speed/agility.

In terms of speed, not so much.



There's a clear gap between the X-Wing and the TIE's speed bars here (and all I've done is add colour over the speed bars). The X and Y-Wings have a smaller gap, but it's still noticeable.

They might be relatively equal, but the differences between the craft in terms of speed (and by implication, agility) are still visible.

[Reply #209 on:]

speed is the MGLT number .. ie : 100MGLT for X-Wing/Y-Wing and TIE Fighter

MGLT is a ficticious speed measure made up by ILM/LF ... it was used later in the X-Wing games where MGLT is the speed measure of fighters (where both X-Wing and TIE Fighters have a top speed of 100MGLT but for some unknown reason Y-Wings are slow down to 80MGLT.. A-Wings top at 125 and TIE Interceptors are kept down at 111MGLT ... B-Wings are faster at 90MGLT and the Falcon in its few apearances has 95MGLT

thats why i complain.. the games and literature (novels mainly) made the Y-Wing slow and slugish , like asuming that they are slow bombers ...  but this chart sugest that Y-Wings werent much diferent from X-Wings... and as said in Return of the Jedi we see them flying during combat with X-Wings and even we see one chase and kill a TIE Interceptor

I know they changed things for game mechanics.. but the Y-Wing ended so slow and slugish that as soon as you were sorrounded by a few TIEs you were as good as dead.. you couldnt outrun them and being big (20m long in game vs 12m long X-Wings and 8m long TIEs) made them easy to hit.. to the point that i clearly renember that back in 1995 when playing X-Wing we nicknamed Y-Wings "hot potatoes".. potatos as they were as agile as one..and hot because they were usually (and most of the time) on fire

[Reply #210 on:]

They weren't really a favourite of mine, but I did once shoot down eleven TIEs in a Y-Wing. Yes, all at once. It's guns are close together, and if you link them, it was a one-shot TIE kill.

[Reply #211 on:]

Apparently someone spotted a AT-AT foot on set of the new film, in a Tatooine-like location.

In other news, the Darth Plagueis novel is somewhat as boring as the Trade Federation talks were in the opening of Ep. I, sure it details Palpatine's rise to power, but it's all political meetings and discussions and omg shutup!
Plagueis himself is ok, but once he meets Palpatine... *makes fart noises with his mouth*

If you want Sith Lord stuff, go for the Bane trilogy.

[Reply #212 on:]

speed is the MGLT number .. ie : 100MGLT for X-Wing/Y-Wing and TIE Fighter

That number, in context, is a rough approximation. The agility/speed represented by the highlighted bars is what the games and the rest of the EU were geared around (although those of the B-Wing and the Falcon have varied enormously across them all).

The EU didn't make Y-Wings slow, lumbering craft. If you'll take note of the footage from the Battle of Yavin, they were somewhat slower than their X-Wing counterparts, which were initially given the role of protective escorts and only began making trench runs once their heavy-hitting but slower bombers had been turned to hot shrapnel by Darth Vader's elite TIE squadron.

The EU also acknowledges Y-Wings as the capable combat fighters of the films, with many of the Alliance's top X-Wing aces having cut their teeth as combat pilots in General Salm's bomber wing.

Post-1983 and pre-1999, there was a wealth of carefully crafted canon that explained the limitations and the capabilities of the A, B, X, and Y-Wings, the TIE, TIE Bomber, TIE Interceptor, and specialist TIE variants as well as "uglies", which are hybridised craft cobbled together from spare parts. For example, the nacelles of a Y-Wing and the wingless body of a TIE. Or an X-Wing's wings mated to the ball cockpit of a TIE via a rotating collar.

This canon was almost never adhered to strictly in the video games, where the maximum speed and the maneouverability of any particular fighter was subject to variable mission parameters. Playing X-Wing: Rogue Squadron on the N64, you had a slightly different top speed from level to level. The majority of missions took place within a planetary atmosphere, but the slowest one was in the trenches of the Death Star. Just think for a second about why that doesn't make sense but might be a good idea for the difficulty curve of a video game.

The A-Wings were also subject to a good deal of nerfing between RotJ and the first games/books. Originally supposed to be the Mary Sue of space fighters, they became "a hard stick to handle", "tempermental", and underpowered compared to the X-Wing. Or the B-Wing, which gradually went from a fighter-bomber with limited use to a magic bullet for winning battles against Star Destroyers, with capabilities only limited by the number of "technological genius" characters that the EU authors managed to put into the background.

Ackbar's personal B-Wing, for example, was modified by Verpine techs until it had the capabilities of an A-Wing in terms of speed and an X-Wing in terms of firepower. Then it was sabotaged by one of his trusted underlings, and he ended up piloting it into the base of a crystal cathedral on some shitpot planet.

In other news, the Darth Plagueis novel is somewhat as boring as the Trade Federation talks were in the opening of Ep. I

It's set during the period during which all canon and continuity was raped to death by the prequel films. Of course it's going to be shit. Really, what did you expect?

[Reply #213 on:]

Some cool Sith shit, which there is, but there's also boring politics stuff which could be done in far less detail.
I'd be fine with Palpatine being a glorified assassin killing everyone who opposes him instead of all this talking nonsense

[Reply #214 on:]

As usual, the Nostalgia Critic makes some good points.

I actually agree with a few of the things he says, but it really doesn't help me to enjoy the prequels any more, sadly enough.

[Reply #215 on:]

Well, this is interesting.

Lucasfilm makes it official: New Star Wars films ignore Expanded Universe

Good thing or bad thing?

[Reply #216 on:]

I think I'm almost okay with that... sure there have been some fantastic stories been told in the EU... but there in also lies the problem - they've been told.

This also may sound very crass but as a fan of Fem!Revan, being told "but canon says you're wrong!!!" many years ago has conditioned me towards the mindset of simply saying "fuck it".
Not that I'm suggesting fans snub the films and campaign tirelessly for  the EU lore to remain in place or anything like that - put basically, lives do not depend on the status of the post-RotJ storylines. Though that said, if I feel particularly for anyone then I feel for those actually invested previously in publishing EU content because this really does render all of their work null and void - what it doesn't do is render our enjoyment of their stories and characters as anything less - or at least it shouldn't do.

Personally, I for one am glad the ruxor haxor Vong get erased...
And I'm excited to see how the post Endor struggles may be addressed again. There's a huge amount of scope to be used. My only concern is that the film plots and/or characters are simply, well, crap, but that doesn't have to be the case.

[Reply #217 on:]

This means that no film version of Heir to the Empire is likely, which is a little disappointing. But as Zed says, the Vong are also consigned to the garbage masher on the detention level. So that's good.

As long as Ep. VII doesn't suck, it's a good thing overall that they now have a blank canvas.

[Reply #218 on:]

The new film will also feature some of the original cast.

News Item

[Reply #219 on:]

Not too surprising since the producers had already talked quite a bit about having original cast members return. What I find more surprising is that of all the new cast members, Andy Serkis might be the biggest name among them. I don't think I'm particularly familiar with any of the other newcomers.

[Reply #220 on:]

I haven't seen any of Domhnall Gleeson's films but I have a good idea of who he is, Andy Serkis I know is famous for his CGI motion capture but I best know him as capping and voicing Monkey in the game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and Oscar Isaac I know from Sucker Punch. That's about it.

[Reply #221 on:]

He was the cook in Peter Jackson's King Kong along with Kong himself.

[Reply #222 on:]

Also Gollum you dinguses!
Domhnall Gleeson (son of Brendan, awesome) was good in About Time, so I'm on board, although he's a bit... scrawny? Not sure if that will work against him... slimmer tunics/robes or whatnot.

[Reply #223 on:]

As usual, the Nostalgia Critic makes some good points.

I actually agree with a few of the things he says, but it really doesn't help me to enjoy the prequels any more, sadly enough.

I liked the kick-ass lightsaber fights and the fact that Jar Jar shut up later on, but that doesn't get rid of the fact that

1) THAT STUPID ASS LOVE STORY IS LIKE THE CENTRAL THEME WTF

2) JAR JAR WAS THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE

3) That was really some godawful acting

4) Did I mention the love story?

I burst out laughing at the beginning when all the weapons are pointed at his head when he says 'The good stuff.'

[Reply #224 on:]

1) THAT STUPID ASS LOVE STORY IS LIKE THE CENTRAL THEME WTF

I don't recall anything about ass-love being a central theme in Star Wars. Are you sure you're not confusing it with a derivative work of anally-themed pornography that you've watched?

[Reply #225 on:]

 

[Reply #226 on:]

1) THAT STUPID ASS LOVE STORY IS LIKE THE CENTRAL THEME WTF

I don't recall anything about ass-love being a central theme in Star Wars. Are you sure you're not confusing it with a derivative work of anally-themed pornography that you've watched?

Stupid-ass

[Reply #227 on:]

This spider appears very similar to another species in found in Tunisia (where Star Wars was filmed) called Cebrennus villosus, but spider expert Dr. Peter Jäger was able to deduce that they were indeed different species since they possessed slight differences in their sex organs. “However, the unique mode of locomotion also serves as a criterion to distinguish the species,” says Dr. Jäger.

[Reply #228 on:]

1) THAT STUPID ASS LOVE STORY IS LIKE THE CENTRAL THEME WTF

I don't recall anything about ass-love being a central theme in Star Wars. Are you sure you're not confusing it with a derivative work of anally-themed pornography that you've watched?

Stupid-ass

Well, at least you were able to remember the name of it. Now take it to the appropriate thread.

[Reply #229 on:]

1) THAT STUPID ASS LOVE STORY IS LIKE THE CENTRAL THEME WTF

I don't recall anything about ass-love being a central theme in Star Wars. Are you sure you're not confusing it with a derivative work of anally-themed pornography that you've watched?

Stupid-ass

Stupid ass-love story.

[Reply #230 on:]

YESSSSSSS

[Reply #231 on:]

So in 40-something years, Galactic technology hasn't advanced at all? They're still using X-Wing starfighters?

I call BS. The tech upgrades between one prequel film and another alone were pretty big. From the prequel era to the Rebellion era, there was a massive shift. Surely the X-Wing ought by now to be as outdated as the Z-95, T-16 or Jedi Starfighters would have been during the original trilogy.

The only reason that the Alliance were using X-Wings, Y-Wings, and the like at the time of the original trilogy was that they didn't have access to the Empire's resources and were forced to use outdated or superceded kit to fight the Imperial war machine. They didn't have a vast pool of pilots or expendable mooks, so they had to use craft with heavy, bulky, shield generators to keep their guys alive. They didn't have massive starships with the firepower to slag a continent from orbit, so they needed to keep their bases hidden and use whatever they could find to stay out of sight and alive.

In the time since the Empire was toppled, are we seriously supposed to believe that the Alliance haven't scrapped the X-Wing (which during the original trilogy was effectively replaced by the A-Wing), and come up with something sleeker, meaner, and less reliant on an astromech to serve as extra RAM for the underpowered combat and navigation computers?

Don't get me wrong. I fucking love the original trilogy's ships and stuff. This just damages the suspension of disbelief a little when you compare the apparant zero progress in military design and technology that's been made in the last 40 years of their universe with the fucking explosive evolution of the technology that was seen in the prequels and the subsequent jumps required to get from that state to the state of the original trilogy.

I mean, some of the promo material quite clearly shows the foot of an AT-AT. So it's not just the Alliance who are stuck 40 years in the past (in all respects except that they've all gotten way older), it's also the Empire. A galaxy-spanning bureaucracy of unrivalled power and military might, responsible for most of the innovations between the prequel and original trilogies, has stagnated to the point where they've made nothing new in the last 40 years. Not even a new paintjob for their giant walky dog robots.

I should point out at this point that I really do fucking love the AT-AT. This is not intended to be a criticism of the original trilogy, or the technology shown in it. It's just that if we're now several decades further along the timeline (how else are they going to explain Han Solo now having more wrinkles than Jabba's tail and Luke Skywalker now looking more like George Lucas would have in a universe where he aged more gracefully.

Dis shud be a vidyo


Finally, it's not just a case of this meaning that technology has somehow remained stagnant for decades - it could mean that the destruction of the Death Star and subsequent collapse of the Empire caused a social upheaval that destroyed the fabric of civilisation, disrupted manufacturing infrastructure, and actively set back development to the point where rusted relics are the best thing that exist in-universe.

We could be getting a Star Wars film with a decidedly post-apocalyptic twist.

[Reply #232 on:]

Luke should totally have a beard in the new episodes, a more elegant facial hair, for a more civilized age.

[Reply #233 on:]

So in 40-something years, Galactic technology hasn't advanced at all? They're still using X-Wing starfighters?

I call BS. The tech upgrades between one prequel film and another alone were pretty big.

Wait.. where do you get the impression that the star wars universe advanced technologically big time between the prequels and sequels..

Its a civilization that has been traveling faster than light for over 25000 years.. technological breakthrought would be not much big and few between..

For example the clone wars series shows Y-Wings and Z-95s fighters being used in the clone wars.. and the Z-95 is oficially as old as at least the Phantom menace (its mentioned in the novelization).. and yet EU books keep both fighters active beyond the Yuzam wars (+30 years after Endor).. that means at least 60 years in service ..

X-Wings were created acording to EU sources arround 5 years before Yavin.. having X-Wings in the new movies would make the design barelly 40 year old..

Do you know that WE punny earthlings have active fighter desings (and other planes)( wich are well over 40 year old?

The F-4 Phamton is still active and being upgraded in some air forces..it flew for the first time in 1958.. that means is 56 years old!!!  The F-15 a quite more modern and today is USA first line defense fighter flew first in 1972..is 42 year old and its end is still far away..same with the F-16 (1974) the F-18 (1974).

Hell even the MIG-21 is still quite active in upgraded versions and is from 1959..


The X-Wing in the photo actually isnt a T-65A/B/C (the good old X-wings from the trilogy) .. as it has only 2 engine intakes.. actually it seems more like a Z-95 or a Z-95 hibrid



The books keep X-Wing version active waay past 40 years after Endor.. so this new movie having a semingly newer X-Wing version makes totally sense.


also i find funny..when the prequels came out many people complained about the fighters and ships being more advanced than the prequels.. and while as you all know i dont like defending that pile of crap ..the ships from the prequels are NOT more advanced..only more sleak looking because the Naboo ships were basically "art ships"..but in performance they would loose agains an X-Wing or a TIE Fighter

[Reply #234 on:]

My sense is that a very long-lived empire could be relatively stagnant or even regress periodically, assuming that there were no ongoing conflicts with other militarily-comparable empires.   Azimov's Foundation series comes to mind.

[Reply #235 on:]

The ship in the behind the scenes photo doesn't have the pronounced glans of original trilogy X-wings on its nose either.  Perhaps the Empire's recent advancements have been in modesty.

[Reply #236 on:]

Just because we're getting glimpses of old ships doesn't mean there won't be new ships too. Even if technology has advanced, it doesn't mean there might not be people flying pieces of junk. People still drive around old beaten-up cars.

[Reply #237 on:]

Just because we're getting glimpses of old ships doesn't mean there won't be new ships too. Even if technology has advanced, it doesn't mean there might not be people flying pieces of junk. People still drive around old beaten-up cars.

Yes.. but in our real life earth today as said is even common for jet fighter designs to still be active .. like the F-15, F-16 and F-18... all 40 year old designs and all of them not only totally working today ..but with plenty of life still ahead (there are newer versions of all of them and even a proposal of a Stealth F-15).. and the fighter in the photo isnt even a classic X-Wing.. its a bit diferent so it could be just an updated version.. most surelly there will be plenty of new spacecraft.. tought if they follow a bit the EU (wich they have said they dont need to) the empire ships should remain the same or close.. as the empire would by now been "on the run" with not much resources to design and produce new ships .. also as said in the EU X-Wing variants remain active for much longer ..and actually the X-Wing (Incom T-65) is like a follow up version of the Z-95..



The Z-95 was followed up by the ARC-170



But the ARC-170 is a heavy fighter bomber (3 crew)..not a one man space superiority fighter



A few years before the Battle of Yavin Incom was developing a more close sucesor to the Z-95 .. Incom was planing on allowing the rebel alliance to use/produce/buy their fighter .. the empire found out and they busted Incom and a rebel operation ensued to rescue Incom's technical staff head and steal the 6 prototypes and run away.. the Empire dont produce the X-Wing because they dont need too .. they have allready really good fighter craft.

Actually lookin at it.. that "new" X-wing seems quite related to the very original Ralph McQuire concept drawings:





maybe they want to recycle the concept as a more streamlined advanced X-Wing follow-up

[Reply #238 on:]

http://io9.com/loopers-rian-johnson-is-the-director-of-star-wars-epis-1593912131

Glad they're not having the same person direct the entire trilogy

[Reply #239 on:]

Rian Johnson is a bold choice too, I'm pretty happy with it. Looper was an interesting and very tightly written sci-fi flick, and he's further shown his excellent directing skills on some of the best Breaking Bad episodes. If J.J. Abrams ends up giving us a cookie-cutter Episode VII that doesn't take many chances (which happened with Star Trek Into Darkness, in my opinion), at least we have hope that Johnson will inject some originality into the franchise. This is good news I think.