All Things Star Wars
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JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
That's why Tarkin is criminally incompetent.
A small piece of good news is that Carrie Fisher had completed her work for Ep. VIII before dying.
r16
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as could have been said on the last page , Palpatine has far weightier matters in his mind than risking an "undefeatable" weapon without escort . Which should need no escort in the first place which clears Tarkin from the spoilers and the lot . Think of a gambit , if not a pawn , then a Knight or Bishop one , if you have ever played chess .
paying tribute to itsTolkien roots , actually nothing kinda happens to that tower . This is of course before ı check Wookipedia , which can be re-written anyhow .
paying tribute to itsTolkien roots , actually nothing kinda happens to that tower . This is of course before ı check Wookipedia , which can be re-written anyhow .
This means that we can possibly expect the next installment to contain a sort of Fast-Furious-style tribute to it, and some sort of epic sendoff for her character... I wonder if she will be lost like Han in EP 7? That would certainly raise the stakes/tension between Kylo Ren vis-à-vis Luke/Rey/Chewy. I remember seeing a great online re-imagining of the PT where Maul didn't die...
Spoiler Clone Wars Spoiler :
Another thing this all brings up, is I was fully expecting Luke to die in Ep 9 already, but I don't know if they would kill off all three OT characters...
Spoiler :
Snerk
Smeghead
Saw the movie today and liked it a lot.
My general memory of SW lore is unfortunately somewhat rusty these days so I'm not really following much of the debate going on various places about the plot and whatnot. Guess I should re-watch the stuff.
My general memory of SW lore is unfortunately somewhat rusty these days so I'm not really following much of the debate going on various places about the plot and whatnot. Guess I should re-watch the stuff.
Synobun
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Most of what you see in Rogue One takes place on new planets! Same with The Force Awakens.
Snerk
Smeghead
Sure, but the locations is only a small part of the plot. The events are always tied up to other plot lines and various characters and stuff. At least to some degree.
Q: Has SW ever tried to explain why the interior of all the ships in space can seemingly operate with 1g?
Q: Has SW ever tried to explain why the interior of all the ships in space can seemingly operate with 1g?
EgonSpengler
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The short answer is no, I don't think so.
One of the key points in the "is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy?" debate is that the movies don't try to examine or explain the science and technology, making it more like fantasy. (Some people split the difference and try to call it "science-fantasy", but I suspect some of those people are just uninterested in the debate and are trying to end it without resolving it.)
The reason the introduction of midichlorians in The Phantom Menace was such a problem for many people was because The Force in particular is meant to defy examination and explanation. It's magic. The somewhat generic language around the technology - "blasters", "light speed" - and the lack of any explanation can be cited in defending the "Star Wars is fantasy" position. A rebuttal to that is that the technology is so ubiquitous and commonplace that the characters really don't know much about it, and don't care - how many of us can explain how a microwave oven works without Googling it? - and that, anyway, a lot of sci-fi doesn't closely examine the science or technology (that's part of why Arthur C. Clarke's books hold up as well as they do, for example).
The Martian is all about examining the science; The Expanse tries to use plausible science, but doesn't spend time explaining it to the viewer (the book series does, at least a little more than the television series); Battlestar Galactica (2004) is like Star Wars, although some people confuse "grim n' gritty" sci-fi with "hard" sci-fi (that's not a slight, btw, BSG '04 is one of my favorite television shows of all time); Firefly is basically Star Wars, the story of Han & Chewy if they had never met Luke & Ben in Mos Eisley.
Back to gravity, I think The Expanse does a good job of handling the issue of gravity in a "hard" sci-fi environment. The authors start the process with a "talk to the hand" moment to current science and technology, by providing all of their spaceships with some sort of fantasy drive-system that doesn't consume massive quantities of fuel, but then they try to handle things more realistically from there (The Martian also starts its story with something we know is impossible - a devastating windstorm on Mars - and then proceeds). Gravity on the ships is provided by their constantly operating at 1g of thrust, either accelerating or decelerating. In the television series, the characters sometimes mention a ship "making a flip" - rotating around so it can go from accelerating to decelerating. The characters also use magnetic boots a lot, and some of the writing on the ship interiors is written twice - right-side-up and upside-down - because when the ships aren't using their engines gravity disappears and then there's no up or down. I like the ship designs in The Expanse because they don't look like versions of aircraft or terrestrial ships, like we see in most sci-fi. Instead, they look more like buildings, where the back of the ship is also the floor and you take an elevator to traverse the length of the ship, because the "front", as determined by its direction of motion, is also the "top" as determined by our sense of (artificial) gravity.
The books also talk a little about how Ceres and Tycho Station achieve artificial gravity by centrifugal force. The authors even mention that on Ceres, gravity lessens as you go "up." The exterior of the asteroid-colony is the floor, so "upwards" is towards the interior (in the television show, all of the airlocks on Ceres are in the floors, not the walls), but as you go into the interior, the spin radius shortens and the coriolis effect starts to make you dizzy.
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I take issue with this statement, good sir... Firefly is clearly StarCraft before humans encounter the Zerg (or Protoss)
.But on topic... I have often been rebuked when referring to Star Wars as "SciFi" with "It's not Science Fiction! IT'S SPACE OPERA!!
"OK, whatevs... lols
. I think your use of "hard" and ("soft"?)to describe stuff like Gravity, Inerstellar, Europa Report etc... as opposed to stuff like StarCraft, Stargate, Independence Day etc... makes a lot more sense than the "science-fantasy" approach or insisting that "space opera" be treated as its own genre... To me the term "fantasy" is way too tied to the Tolkein universe and all its progeny to be inseted into space-stuff. And TBH Star Trek invokes that traditional imagining of "fantasy" more than any other SciFi, with the Human-Elf alliance mirroring the Human-Vulcan alliance, the Romulans acting as the "evil" or "dark" elves, the Klingons clearly filling the role of Orcs, Ferengi as goblins, and so on...BTW speaking of which, where would you place Star Trek in this scale btw? Soft? Or is it kind "medium"?
Synobun
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Gravity is a malleable force in the SW galaxy. Accelerator compensators and repulsorlifts do all the work. That's the best answer you're going to get for a space opera unless you delve into horrible fan theories.
Edit: Sci-fi is usually split into space opera, soft-sci, and hard-sci ranging from least logical to most logical. Space opera needs no reason. Soft-sci needs to sound reasonable. Hard-sci needs to be be reasonable.
Edit: Sci-fi is usually split into space opera, soft-sci, and hard-sci ranging from least logical to most logical. Space opera needs no reason. Soft-sci needs to sound reasonable. Hard-sci needs to be be reasonable.
EgonSpengler
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Yeah, these labels can make your head spin. Margerate Atwood famously rejects the label "science fiction" for her novel The Handmaid's Tale, preferring "speculative fiction" instead (one wonders how she feels the novel winning the Arthur C. Clarke award 
). But what about the novels of China Mieville (e.g. Perdido Street Station)? What about the "techno-thriller" novelists, like Tom Clancy? If using science and technology as part of the society is what makes Star Wars sci-fi, then surely Mieville's books are also sci-fi. And if using plausible current or near-future science and tech makes a story sci-fi, then Clancy's books must be sci-fi too.
). But what about the novels of China Mieville (e.g. Perdido Street Station)? What about the "techno-thriller" novelists, like Tom Clancy? If using science and technology as part of the society is what makes Star Wars sci-fi, then surely Mieville's books are also sci-fi. And if using plausible current or near-future science and tech makes a story sci-fi, then Clancy's books must be sci-fi too.
EgonSpengler
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I think it's soft, but I wouldn't object if someone called it medium. Most of the stories are about the characters and societies, but sometimes they do look directly at the technology and science. They're notoriously inconsistent, though, and don't explore the implications of their tech very much. In one episode, Dr. Pulaski creates a new spinal cord for Worf but never gives Geordi new eyeballs or Picard a new heart. After the Worf episode employs the revolutionary organ-implant procedure to develop Worf & Alexander's storylines and characters, the organ-transplant procedure is never heard from again.
btw, when I was a kid my friends and I interpreted the various species as analogues of the Cold War countries. The United Federation of Planets was the United States; the Klingon Empire was the Soviet Union; the Romulan Empire was the People's Republic of China; the Vulcans were either Taiwan or Japan; etc. Today, I like to interpret them as facets of, or interpretations of, the United States, and that includes the later species and groups such as the Borg and the Dominion.
IIRC, the procedure didn't work and the only reason Worf survived was precisely because his Klingon anatomy was evolved specifically to survive combat injuries to critical organs with all kinds of redundant organs and such, so that was why they couldn't/wouldn't try the procedure on anyone else... or was that a different episode? And wasn't there some resolution with Picard's heart failure that made him prefer his artificial heart?... I seem to remember Q putting him in some kind of "It's a wonderful Life" type scenario where he never lost his real heart but he was some lily-livered low-ranking officer as a result... suggesting that the artificial heart and how he got it was part of who he was so it shouldn't be replaced... Oh and Geordi does get new eyeballs right?. IIRC, In the series finale future Geordi is sporting brand new working eyes... anyway... I agree that the both the Dominion and Cardasssia are meant to invoke the US in some ways.
Apologies everyone... I know we're straying here talking Star Trek in a Star Wars thread but I just can't resist
Apologies everyone... I know we're straying here talking Star Trek in a Star Wars thread but I just can't resist
EgonSpengler
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No, that sounds like the same episode. I also remember the bit about redundant Klingon anatomy. I guess I've forgotten that Pulaski's surgery didn't actually work (I don't think I've watched TNG since it aired).
Yes, and yes, although the "It's a Wonderful Life" episode wasn't saying that Picard's artificial heart shouldn't be replaced, it was that he shouldn't regret the behavior that led to him being stabbed in the first place. I'm trying to remember the series finale's future-Geordi. iirc, in the movies, he had cybernetic eyeballs that did away with the visor.
Episode (2 part'er) was called "All Good Things" sniff, sniff... so apropos...
. Here's a screenie of future Data and Geordi talking:
I remember that Amidala's ship in The Phantom Menace has individual micrograv units for the luggage. Yes, each individual piece. I simply must assume that all ships have this capacity, which, given that they can go into ‘hyperspace’, doesn't sound that difficult.
I remember in Star Trek 6, the "artificial gravity" was turned off allowing the assassins to get the drop on our heros by using "magnetic gravity boots"... so why can't the Star Wars ships just have the same "artificial gravity" mojo?
Synobun
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