Star Wars

[Reply #440 on:]

If you can go to a certain water planet and kick a certain annoying neutral aliens behind around as the Sith, It has me sold.

Stupid Selkath pricks. I can tell you where to shove your KOLTO!

[Reply #441 on:]

Up to step 78/193 on the Death Star, which is the middle level where all the main dioramas are (Emperors throne room, Prison level, Superlaser, TIE hanger).
Completed below is the Garbage compactor, chasm which Liea and Luke swing across, the tractor beam control, and one of the turbolaser batteries.
Pics when the sun comes up again.

[Reply #442 on:]

By the sounds of it, Faze has the Death Star 1/2 .

[Reply #443 on:]

The Death Bowl.

[Reply #444 on:]

The Clone Wars premiere lived up to the hype. The Yoda episode was decent, aside from some over the top humor. And then the superweapon/rescue episode was just about perfect. I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is the best animated adventure series ever.

[Reply #445 on:]

If you can go to a certain water planet and kick a certain annoying neutral aliens behind around as the Sith, It has me sold.

Stupid Selkath pricks. I can tell you where to shove your KOLTO!

The first time I played that, I saved their stupid fucking shark. Every time after that, I killed it. Because they're so annoying, I wish I could kill them all.

What the hell was their world called, Manaan or something? Should have been called Planet Annoying. I hated that level. Also, their horrible slippery-looking skin is pretty barf-inducing. I'd rather touch a slug than a Selkath.

And I wouldn't like to touch a slug.

Why aren't there more planets full of badass six-foot-tall hairy things that communicate by growling at you?

[Reply #446 on:]

The Clone Wars premiere lived up to the hype. The Yoda episode was decent, aside from some over the top humor. And then the superweapon/rescue episode was just about perfect. I am going to go out on a limb and say that this is the best animated adventure series ever.

I wouldn't go that far, but I did think it was pretty good.  I liked the Yoda episode better, but that might just be because it seemed like I had already seen most of the other episode in the previews for this show.

[Reply #447 on:]

Ok ok, alright. You have to understand that I have a history of overrating new Star Wars on first viewing.

When I first saw The Phantom Menace, I ranked it above Return of the Jedi, but below the other two. Nowadays I rank it below Return of the Jedi. When I first saw Attack of the Clones, I thought to myself "this is a big step up from Episode I, and definitely the second best movie behind Empire Strike Back"...but it hasn't held up on repeated viewings. I now rank it as easily the weakest Star Wars movie. Revenge of the Sith still holds up for me, though. I caught it on TV a while back and I was surprised--I had forgotten how good it was. Definitely as good as any of the original movies.

Anyway, yeah--I recognize that I am going overboard by saying "best animated adventure series ever". But I did think it was really good. Good stories, fun action, amazing animation. And lots of cool stuff for Star Wars nerds(Watto's home planet, getting to hear what Plo Koon sounds like...later in in the season we get to see the Bothan planet and the Rodian planet). This is event television, people! And I still think the show is going to get better and better. We'll see, though.

[Reply #448 on:]

Wow, FJ is a Star Wars optimist who doesn't have some sort of grudge against Lucas. Which is cool, award yourself FJ.

Also, I totally agree with TNUK on my hatred with Manaan and those Selkath, I kind of hope they got really poor when Bacta came around and did the same Bull with the Empire but got the hell genocided out of them because the GE rolls that way.

Ben: What about Planet Death? The wrecking ball? Death Moon? Giant Hurt Ball? The Deathticle?

[Reply #449 on:]

The problem being that those aren't hemispherical.

[Reply #450 on:]

The problem being that those aren't hemispherical.

Technically, the Death Star 2 wasn't perfectly round . Besides, you can halve those things with a bit of effort and a strong stomach.

[Reply #451 on:]

The Clone Wars TV shows were ok, Yoda being all wise to his clones was great (WUV! ) but now there's some conflict in the idea that Clones are connected to the Force, in the Thrawn trilogy they weren't, because they are created unnaturally, but Yoda sez they are, so I'm confused.

Battle droids suck balls, whoever programmed them must have had seven shades of shit for brains! Get your money back Dooku.

[Reply #452 on:]

The Clone Wars TV shows were ok, Yoda being all wise to his clones was great (WUV! ) but now there's some conflict in the idea that Clones are connected to the Force, in the Thrawn trilogy they weren't, because they are created unnaturally, but Yoda sez they are, so I'm confused.

Yeah, well, Thrawn also had animals that generated a no-Force zone around themselves.  I'm not convinced that he really understood how the Force was supposed to work.

Also, his clones were different.

Battle droids suck balls, whoever programmed them must have had seven shades of shit for brains! Get your money back Dooku.

This is probably why the Empire went with stormtroopers.  Sure, they can't hit the broad side of a barn, but they're still not as bad as battle droids.

[Reply #453 on:]

Thrawn's animals were sessile tree-dwellers called Ysalamiri. A single ysalamir creates a bubble around themselves in which the force does not exisit. Multiple ysalamiri re-inforce each other. Hence their homeworld, Myrkyr, is a force-free planet.

Growing a clone quickly results in a natural resonance between it and the original becoming unbalanced. This resonance imbalance causes the clone to go crazy, as it can't adapt to the resonance set up by the force.

Growing clones in a force-free bubble removes the resonance, as the force cannot penetrate the bubble. So the clone stays sane, with no unbalanced external force-effects making it crazy.

His clones were different in that they could not be detected by a Jedi, were not mentally unstable, and most importantly of all, could be grown very quickly. As little as twenty days to full maturity. All thanks to the ysalamiri.

[Reply #454 on:]

I am convinced the whole state of the Galaxies Military was akin to post WW1 France to get into a position where Battledroids actually won conflicts.

I mean, look at skinny and unintimidating they are. Also, Ion weapons? christ! I bet whole armies could have been defeated with a single Y-Wing strafeing run...

[Reply #455 on:]

But Y-Wings weren't around back then. I'd be willing to bet the evolution of the Ion Cannon as a conventional and entrenched military weapon was entirely due to the prevalance of droid armies before the Revolution.

[Reply #456 on:]

Ion Cannons were used like that before the Battledroids came along...

[Reply #457 on:]

I think the idea with the battle droids was that they could be cheaply and easily mass produced.  What they lacked in individual effectiveness they made up for in overwhelming numbers.

[Reply #458 on:]

Ion Cannons were used like that before the Battledroids came along...

In that case, battledroids may be adequately shielded. Or they may just rely on the overwhelming numbers. See the post above mine.

Either way, Ion Cannons are not in such wide use as good ol' blasters. There are more ships and weapons without the capability than with. Perhaps it's expensive tech?

[Reply #459 on:]

Even if that is so, watching Episode III occasionally I notice these things numbers or not are simply a retarded choice for a battledroid design.

I mean, in a Galaxy as old as the Star Wars they wouldn't have such cheap outs in war droid design. Heck, the KOTOR era battle droids were tougher and well built compared to those tin cans.

[Reply #460 on:]

Droidekas would be a much more effective choice for an army. If those things were to come at opponents in sufficient numbers, there would be no survivors.

I love Destroyer droids. I want one. It would be trained to carry things for me, and to call me "daddy".

[Reply #461 on:]

Droidekas would be more expensive and take longer to make.  You couldn't build as large an army of them.

Droidekas are shock troops.  Battle droids are the basic grunts.

[Reply #462 on:]

I can imagine easy ways to stop Droideka too. Stairs, surfaces with poor grip and tank traps come to mind.

Also, vehicles with heavy grade A shields. The CIS just got lucky they caught the Old Republic and the Jedi at their worst I think.

[Reply #463 on:]

Honestly, I never found them to be all that difficult to beat in Battlefront.  Shoot them when their shields are down and they blow up just like the battle droids.

[Reply #464 on:]

They still look awesome.

[Reply #465 on:]

The CIS, we're shit but we look awesome!

Come to think of it, sounds like a slogan that suits the prequal movies pretty fine...

[Reply #466 on:]

I think the idea with the battle droids was that they could be cheaply and easily mass produced.  What they lacked in individual effectiveness they made up for in overwhelming numbers.

I think that's the logic behind it. Overwhelm the superior soldiers with sheer weight of numbers.

"Quantity has a quality all its own" ~ Joseph Stalin

[Reply #467 on:]

Wow, FJ is a Star Wars optimist who doesn't have some sort of grudge against Lucas. Which is cool, award yourself FJ.

It's true that I hold no grudge against Lucas, but that's beside the point. There are a lot of really talented people making the Clone Wars cartoon. Lucas hasn't written a single script or directed a single episode--he's only a producer. He funds it and gives advice where appropriate.

All of the non-Lucas people are doing a really good job on this show. But internet nerds seem to have a hardon for bashing anything that Lucas is involved with, so the show gets unfairly criticized.

And now for some droid points:

1. I understand the "quantity over quality" thing for the battle droids, but why in the world couldn't they make them without voice modulators? They could have made the droids mute and saved like $5 per unit. And it would save the audience from having to sit through their silly conversations.

2. I wouldn't count a videogame as evidence that droidekas are easy to defeat. Obviously, they made them easier so that the player has a chance in heck of winning. In the movies, it seems like droidekas are pretty much unstoppable.

3. Ok, you're right, stairs might be a way to defeat them. Same goes for AT-ATs/AT-STs. Are these things designed by some primitive alien race that have never heard of stairs before, or something? You'd think they could have these things fly or hover or something.

Or even just have wheels, for crying out loud. Standard 20th century tank treads are really all they need to remove their only one wekness. But no, they still go for the mile-high stiff-jointed metal legs. Sigh...

[Reply #468 on:]

Don't forget it is embarassing to see those Battledroids fire and struggle with their blasters with their tiny stick arms.

As for the voices, you could tolerate them in Episode 1 but by Episode III everything they and the SBD said made me cringe and want to punch the TV in frustration. That we can blame on Lucas.

In A Galaxy Far Far Away, Mechanical Engineers are easily distracted or have poor design judgement. 

[Reply #469 on:]

I think it's more that the GE are into weapons of sheer terror, and build giant things that crush and blast and maim and strike fear into people's hearts so badly that they forget there's got to be a logical way to defeat things like AT-ATs, and run screaming into the blaster cannon fire.

Plus, there don't tend to be many staircases large enough to pose a problem to an AT-AT. There isn't much that's large enough to pose a problem to them.

Of course, there are plenty of tiny little things like rebels armend with a grppling cable and a snow speeder that can cause them mucho problemo, but everything has a weakness.

That's why AT-ATs should be supported by the smaller, nimbler AT-STs, which in turn should be supported by large numbers of ground troops on speeders, which in turn should be supported by fucking enormous numbers of stormtroopers running around blasting at shit.

The Empire has the kind of resources to commit to even tiny battles on this sort of a scale, so it's not really a problem until they encounter some sort of organised resistance led by the son of their dark and twisted cyborg commander.

As for the vocal units on the battledroids, they should've given them the same voicebox as an R2 unit, and for that matter, the same weaponry as an IG-88 clone.

Conversations with those droids would be something like this:

**cute whistle noise**
**blows your head off**

Much less annoying.

[Reply #470 on:]

... Wut?

[Reply #471 on:]

Build the rest of the Death Star dammit! Lego Aldeeran won't blow it self up Faze.

[Reply #472 on:]

Now that would be an awesome set. The asteroidal remains of Alderaan (note the correct spelling, Nurdy), complete with roaming TIE Fighters and the Falcon fresh from hyperspace.

[Reply #473 on:]

It'd be the lamest Lego set if wasn't the Asteroid field .

I had a feeling Alderaan would have been the most boring possible place to live. At least Tatooine had Jabba's bitching parties!

[Reply #474 on:]

I had a feeling Alderaan would have been the most boring possible place to live. At least Tatooine had Jabba's bitching parties!

See Tarkin did all those people a favor by ending their boring meaningless lives.

[Reply #475 on:]

Tarkin. No "g".

[Reply #476 on:]

Tarkin. No "g".

My bad.

[Reply #477 on:]

Indeedg.

[Reply #478 on:]

Laugh it up nerdball.

[Reply #479 on:]

So, anyone else got a pre-Prequal Encyclopedia of the films? I have. Read through it a lot.