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Thundercleese5 posted:I don't know if I am remembering this accurately, and I know there is a lot of love for Zahn's Heir To The Empire trilogy, but there was one moment early on in the books that completely stopped my suspension of disbelief: Are you implying that Lando was drinking himself?
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Nov 26, 2010 11:25
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feedmyleg posted:I've always been curious, is there any scale chart that shows the Executor against the Death Star? https://www.merzo.net Lando and Luke with hot chocolate: I didn't want to bring it up until I was done, but...I'm actually reading that same book right now on the book barn's "terrible star wars books" consensus opinion. I've always just assumed that EU books were all poo poo but they were pimping this series pretty hard. I always liked Fiction books and science fiction with a good story, and I liked the original movies for the way they brought outlandish ideas into a film while still keeping the movie very fast moving and engaging cinematically. I've read the original movie novelization, which was actually good and took a few differences from the movie, but a couple of pages of lthe others was enough to warn me that they were everything bad about Star Wars fandom in published form. Mainly that they were completely derivative of the movies in every way, from dialogue to plot-points, but still managed to lose the feel of the first two and a half movies (while injecting poo poo that just didn't belong, like space preachiness and goofy rear end technology that bad Star Trek villains would use). I'm only a third of the way through Heir to the Empire, but that's how this one seems so far. I'm going to finish it and I'm still open to it getting better, but a few things that bug me a lot: - Hot Chocolate and Luke totally being an emotional basketcase (I threw away David Weber books for an overload of this) - quoting the Original Movies constantly. I mean wouldn't Han and Leia have something else to talk about besides being in the Empire Strikes Back? Also, why can't the military characters make some kind of vague but accurate references like they did in Episode IV? The first two times the Empire dispatches fighters they keep referring to them as TIE Fighters, as if to say "Hey this is Star Wars, see? We called them TIE fighters." There are a whole bunch of things like this - silly acrobatics and too many main characters all getting together for stuff again, even though they don't really need to be together. The acrobatics and poo poo, redlettermedia can explain better on how it sucks. It isn't going to get any better by going back to that original swing across the chasm thing from episode IV, especially on some mundane planet with foes we don't really care about. About the main cast all working together: This never happened as part of any plan in the first movies, and they were never really all together in the second and third movies except where they went to rescue Han. Now it's like they are a gang within the Rebellion that just sort of does what they want because they have hero status. The terrible books thread pointed out how annoying, repetitive, and lazy this was several times. On the upside (so far); the minor characters are done well in every case. It's obvious that the author is good, but I wonder if he is contract bound to either quote the trilogy or make an overly obvious reference to it twice in every chapter.
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Nov 26, 2010 13:27
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Kemper Boyd posted:Zahn has a pretty good line about this in the Hand of Thrawn-duology. Most of the Imperial fleet was really keeping a lid on things and making sure that the various factions in the galaxy don't start poo poo up. So, it's not as much about how many ships you have, but how many you can use in your offensives. I think that some book mentions that Thrawn used many dreadnaughts to free up better ships. What bothers me is more the fact that 200 ships, or even 20,000, could be considered a decisive force on a galaxy-wide scale. It's just excessive minimalization, not quite as bad as Traviss, but it still bothers me. Or like in Stackpole how an entire planet is conquered just by having Rogue Squadron and a Mon Cal cruiser fight a Star Destroyer and then land in the capitol city, although I suppose that might be a bit of Mary Sueism instead. stawk Archer posted:On the upside (so far); the minor characters are done well in every case. It's obvious that the author is good, but I wonder if he is contract bound to either quote the trilogy or make an overly obvious reference to it twice in every chapter. I think part of this might be explained that, when the Thrawn trilogy came out, they were pretty much the first new Star Wars anything in 8 years and part of it was testing the water to see if there was still a market for special editions and prequels (it was partly the success of the Thrawn trilogy that convinced Lucas he should do the prequel trilogy). Star Wars fandom wasn't anywhere near as rabid and ubiquitous it is today and Lucasfilm worried that there might not be a market for new Star Wars stuff (lol) so the need to keep reminding readers "Hey, remember [iconic scene from Empire Strikes Back?]" might be part of it. And then later authors kept doing it because the existence of a rabid Star Wars fandom had been established and knew that by sprinkling in a ton of references to Ord Mantell and Boba Fett and "I have a bad feeling about this" and THX-1138 was a surefire way to make the fans feel clever for catching the references and keep buying books.
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Nov 26, 2010 15:29
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Thundercleese5 posted:Lando drinking Hot Chocolate. So you are the jerk that inspired the term 'caff' and 'refreshers' for my Star Wars  .
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Nov 26, 2010 15:55
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stawk Archer posted:God that's so fuckin retarded.
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Nov 26, 2010 16:07
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Flagrant Abuse posted:It's also, thankfully, non-canon. The Ultra-class has never been featured in any licensed work, or for that matter, any non-licensed work aside from one dude's fanart. I think it's a good example of how people take the exact opposite thing away from these movies than what made them good. It really starts about halfway through RotJ, when we realize that there's a bigger death star that we have to fly into or otherwise fight with ALL of the quirky main characters! The fact that they can build a bigger and bigger star destroyer doesn't make the Empire any more threatening, not as long as you have fighter pilots who are able to destroy any base or take down any ship. I haven't read Roque Squadron but I've played the game and I sort of have the idea how pointless it even becomes to have any kind of fleet. In the first movie, they were obviously a guerilla army with limited ability to attack and scarce on resources. The Empire was dangerous because resources were not an issue. They had enough Star Destroyers to make it dangerous to travel anywhere, and they could build ridiculously huge, phantasmagoric space stations to simply overwhelm any military conventions. A lot of factors working together made the attack on the Death Star possible. Building bigger and bigger star destroyers would just be stupid wankery on the author's part. So the Executor was a big deal? Well I'm going to one up it. It's just like some guy from the old comic book store who told me that the regular Star Wars saga is all piddly poo poo compared to what some guy called Exar Kun did. So I guess you can just say something is bigger and that makes all of the problems of plot, characterization, and cinematic pacing less important.
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Nov 26, 2010 16:31
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Pope Mobile posted:That's when you get home and find out you don't have a VCR. That would seriously suck. I think I would actually cry a little. We have one, though, but just because we wanted to watch The Great Mouse Detective on vhs a long time ago... I know, we're pathetic. 
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Nov 26, 2010 18:35
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Indeed! Everyone in this thread, from people who know a lot about Star Wars to people who want to know more about Star Wars, judges you most harshly for your obscure interests!
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Nov 27, 2010 01:55
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I was just thinking, man is the Padawan hairstyle stupid looking.
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Nov 27, 2010 02:29
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Argas posted:This essentially. Dreadnoughts are obsoleted by Star Destroyers but it's not like the average planet or regional faction could muster up a fleet to take on a few Star Destroyers or several dreadnoughts. In my opinion, it's illustrated fairly well in the Han Solo trilogy in the second book. Also, if I remember correctly the commanding officer was under orders to lose the battle. Miltank fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Nov 27, 2010 |
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Nov 27, 2010 05:55
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muscles like this? posted:I was just thinking, man is the Padawan hairstyle stupid looking. Is that ever the truth. What were they thinking?
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Nov 27, 2010 06:06
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So I was playing KOTOR the other day and it got me thinking: The game takes place 4000 years before Episode I, yet the technology level has not advanced at all in that timespan. I guess after FTL travel, unlimited energy sources, and human-like AI, there's nothing else to develop. Either that or the Jedi and Sith created a conspiracy to keep the tech the same, to prevent one side from gaining an advantage over another. Also, why do ships from the prequel trilogy look so much more shinier and advanced than the ones from the original trilogy? (Besides better special effects of course). Did the Empire set everyone back a few decades or something? wafflemoose fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Nov 27, 2010 |
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Nov 27, 2010 06:15
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Starhawk64 posted:Did the Empire set everyone back a few decades or something? I bellive the Empire pretty much kept all the good tech for itself. I could be wrong however.
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Nov 27, 2010 06:26
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Nckdictator posted:I don't know what the gently caress that is, but I do know that I want to drive one. Does anyone ever think of something like Pimp My Star Destroyer? You know, a nouveau-riche Imperial warlord gets his hand on a few Imperial-class Star Destroyers and blows a huge amount of credits giving them tiny chandeliers in the bridge, flames coming out the exhaust ports and around the docking bay, chrome reactor covers, ground effect, that sort of thing? Gearshift shaped like a krayt dragon skull and accelerator (ISDs totally have those, right? ) shaped like a foot, fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror? He'd pull it up next to the Executor while it's stopped at a red light and make the bow bounce up and down with the inertial dampers. It would be horrible.
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Nov 27, 2010 06:28
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The Klaxon modified to wail out some Dixie.
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Nov 27, 2010 06:34
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Starhawk64 posted:Also, why do ships from the prequel trilogy look so much more shinier and advanced than the ones from the original trilogy? (Besides better special effects of course). Did the Empire set everyone back a few decades or something?
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Nov 27, 2010 06:37
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Flagrant Abuse posted:The simplest explanation is that the Rebellion doesn't really have access to a whole bunch of shiny new technology and generally takes what scraps they can get their hands on. The Empire, on the other hand, while it's available to them, they prefer a different design aesthetic. Incom, the company that manufactures the X-Wing, had no problems building new ships for the Rebellion. My guess is the invasion of the Empire has caused economic stress throughout the galaxy and it's cheaper to build ships using older, more modular designs. Plus, the blockier, larger ships must offer some advantages, such as room for shielding and life support systems. Notice how small a Tie Fighter is compared to an X-Wing. There's no room for shields or life support on a Tie, the pilot has to wear a spacesuit and rely solely on mad piloting skills to stay alive. Theoretically, someone flying a Tie will be a much better pilot than someone flying an X-Wing due to the fact that he's flying what is essentially a one hit-point wonder. Of course, the Empire tends to use cannon fodder tactics...... Speaking of cannon fodder, are the Stormtroopers supposed to be clones? It can't be coincidence that they look like the Clone Troopers from the prequel trilogy. If they are clones, it adds a bit of  factor as they are such poor shots and die so easily, unless the Empire decided to take shortcuts with the cloning process, making copies of copies and we all know that copying a copy results in an even more inferior copy.
wafflemoose fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Nov 27, 2010 |
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Nov 27, 2010 06:55
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SeanBeansShako posted:So you are the jerk that inspired the term 'caff' and 'refreshers' for my Star Wars
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Nov 27, 2010 07:04
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Starhawk64 posted:Speaking of cannon fodder, are the Stormtroopers supposed to be clones? It can't be coincidence that they look like the Clone Troopers from the prequel trilogy. If they are clones, it adds a bit of As for being poor shots, you really have to look at context. They certainly seemed like good shots when boarding the Tantive IV, and when they were shooting at the heroes on the Death Star, it's likely that they were simply trying to herd them onto the Falcon. The Empire put a tracker aboard, remember, and if they kill the heroes, then they can't fly the Falcon back to the rebel base.
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Nov 27, 2010 07:05
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Starhawk64 posted:Speaking of cannon fodder, are the Stormtroopers supposed to be clones? It can't be coincidence that they look like the Clone Troopers from the prequel trilogy. If they are clones, it adds a bit of Some of the Stormtroopers are clones, not all
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Nov 27, 2010 07:05
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Starhawk64 posted:So I was playing KOTOR the other day and it got me thinking: The game takes place 4000 years before Episode I, yet the technology level has not advanced at all in that timespan. I guess after FTL travel, unlimited energy sources, and human-like AI, there's nothing else to develop. Either that or the Jedi and Sith created a conspiracy to keep the tech the same, to prevent one side from gaining an advantage over another. The Tales of the Jedi comics that are set just before KOTOR had designs that were supposed to look more archaic than the movie-era designs. However when KOTOR was being made Bioware decided that the Tales designs were stupid and just copied the movie aesthetics, basically. I don't know if there's ever been any sort of in-universe explanation as to why galactic designs and engineering change so suddenly in the years between Tales and KOTOR.
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Nov 27, 2010 07:48
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Chairman Capone posted:The Tales of the Jedi comics that are set just before KOTOR had designs that were supposed to look more archaic than the movie-era designs. However when KOTOR was being made Bioware decided that the Tales designs were stupid and just copied the movie aesthetics, basically. I don't know if there's ever been any sort of in-universe explanation as to why galactic designs and engineering change so suddenly in the years between Tales and KOTOR. I dont think there has but I'm sure someone can correct me. As for why KOTOR's technology is basically on par with the movies the justification actually is fairly solid. The galaxy hit its technology peak a long time ago and theres only been minor advancements since. The movies kinda implied that from the get-go with its "used future" aesthetic.
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Nov 27, 2010 08:47
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RagnarokAngel posted:I dont think there has but I'm sure someone can correct me. And yet they need new ship designs every in-universe few years.
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Nov 27, 2010 09:21
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ZeeToo posted:And yet they need new ship designs every in-universe few years. Not really. Consider Incom developed the Y-Wing bomber during the clone wars, but it was still used well into the later stages of the GCW, some 30+ years later. The X-Wing is still around (with a few upgrades) 40+ years ABY, and the Tie Fighter line is still used by the Empire in the Legacy era. As for why there are new designs every few years? Put that down to fashion and a very big galaxy (so there's a few ship designers out there). Also regarding the KOTOR tech, remember there's a breakdown of galactic civilisation c. 1,000 years before the film. That'd explain a tech breakdown in the same way you can't plot a straight technological advancement from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome to the modern day.
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Nov 27, 2010 12:15
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ZeeToo posted:And yet they need new ship designs every in-universe few years.
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Nov 27, 2010 13:15
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T-1000 posted:Every time the jedi population reaches critical mass, there's a massive war that wipes out a substantial proportion of the galaxy. The only technologies that survive are things that are widespread, comparatively simple and very easily understood and produced. During these periods of chaos weapons technology makes massive leaps forward, then stagnates once the jedi population is reduced and peace is restored. The periods of episodes 2-3 and 4-6 are chaotic and so the ships and ground weapons develop rapidly. In the period up to the start of episode 2 and between 3-4 there's not a lot of progress beyond fashion because there's uneasy peace. Interesting theory, sometimes I wonder if the universe would be better off without any force users. It's not because of the Jedi and Sith that I like Star Wars, it's the epic space battles and normal people doing badass things, which is why Han Solo is my favorite character.
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Nov 27, 2010 15:33
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Starhawk64 posted:Interesting theory, sometimes I wonder if the universe would be better off without any force users. It's not because of the Jedi and Sith that I like Star Wars, it's the epic space battles and normal people doing badass things, which is why Han Solo is my favorite character. Han Solo is the best character because he doesn't need hokey old religions or space magic to survive, he just has the tools of the rogue: Bullshit and luck.
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Nov 27, 2010 15:45
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Man it's so obvious Obi-Wan is Luke's real father.
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Nov 27, 2010 18:51
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Man it's so obvious Obi-Wan is Luke's real father. "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father." "He told me enough! He told me you killed him!" "YEP"
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Nov 27, 2010 19:04
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Starhawk64 posted:Interesting theory, sometimes I wonder if the universe would be better off without any force users. It's not because of the Jedi and Sith that I like Star Wars, it's the epic space battles and normal people doing badass things, which is why Han Solo is my favorite character. The Force is a major factor that keeps it from being like other sci-fi though. I agree that in it's current form youre probably right. But in the OT the Force was more subdued. We saw clear demonstrations of "Magic" but nothing generally too overt. As authors try to one up each other The Force just got silly and basically made invincible supermen. Big Mean Jerk posted:Man it's so obvious Obi-Wan is Luke's real father. Would be funny if Anakin's paranoia was on the ball.
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Nov 27, 2010 19:08
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Man it's so obvious Obi-Wan is Luke's real father. Could the alternate reality comics pull this off and not make it look retarded is the real question.
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Nov 27, 2010 19:52
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Starhawk64 posted:Interesting theory, sometimes I wonder if the universe would be better off without any force users. Kreia up in here
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Nov 27, 2010 21:03
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RagnarokAngel posted:The Force is a major factor that keeps it from being like other sci-fi though. I agree that in it's current form youre probably right. But in the OT the Force was more subdued. We saw clear demonstrations of "Magic" but nothing generally too overt. As authors try to one up each other The Force just got silly and basically made invincible supermen.
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Nov 28, 2010 01:09
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SeanBeansShako posted:Could the alternate reality comics pull this off and not make it look retarded is the real question. Well, Owen is already *obviously* Obi Wan's brother, so it couldn't require too many changes. e: this is a joke, I just think that it would be cool Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Nov 28, 2010 |
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Nov 28, 2010 01:14
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Doc Hawkins posted:Well, Owen is already *obviously* Obi Wan's brother, so it couldn't require too many changes. Huh, that still is canon then? kinda weird.
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Nov 28, 2010 01:21
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SeanBeansShako posted:Huh, that still is canon then? kinda weird. Naw it's not.
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Nov 28, 2010 01:39
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RagnarokAngel posted:Naw it's not. I was going to say how weirdly hosed up that somebody related to Obi-Wan somehow got involved with Anakins family circle.
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Nov 28, 2010 01:47
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http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Owen_%28Kenobi%29 Basically since Episode II removed any chance of Owen and Obi-Wan being related, it was just decided that Kenobi had a brother named Owen, but not the same one.
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Nov 28, 2010 01:50
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RagnarokAngel posted:http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Owen_%28Kenobi%29 Owen must be a popular name for the late Old Republic peroid.
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Nov 28, 2010 02:36
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SeanBeansShako posted:Owen must be a popular name for the late Old Republic peroid. I wonder if there is an Owen Antilles
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Nov 28, 2010 02:43
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