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Transferrins posted:That airplane did not crash through the atmosphere of a planet like the star destroyer would have. What did the ship Anakin crash landed on Coruscant at the beginning of Ep3 look like (i don't have a screenshot)? It was charred as gently caress and not just from the battle. The SD is just sitting there with no evidence of what it should have been through in it's lifetime. It's a problem with much of TFA, things look nice and familiar but are missing the characteristic scars that time passing should have imparted on them.  Looks to be in pretty decent shape to me and it took a plunge down through the atmosphere. The Star Destroyer could have probably used some more scorching but then again we don't get to see the underside or nose of the Star Destroyer either. Because it crashed into the loving sand and looks like a ship that has done so.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:22
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ZoCrowes posted:Very similar condition to the wreckage on Jakku that has been there for only 30 years: Something something empty shell something something.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:22
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quote:Starkiller Base is a fine concept, in theory. Unfortunately, the filmmakers were apparently too self-conscious to play it straight and without irony, which is the only way these things can work. I don't agree, but it also only occurred to me because I noticed the star destroyers in the Executor shot. quote:Something something empty shell something something. With the X-Wing too I wonder if the point is there's nothing particular worth selling on it that's easy to get. Rey had to go in pretty deep it seemed for anything especially valuable. "This is worth...hm....zero point oh five rations." 
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Feb 16, 2016 18:24
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MrSmokes posted:It's really sad, because some of these people actually impressed me with their arguments favoring the prequels, and made me look at those movies in a better light and appreciate them more. For some reason they feel like they have to bash TFA and end up going with stupid poo poo like this. I find it very disappointing and unfortunate. That reason is because TFA is a bad/mediocre movie without a soul, designed by committee to appeal to as many people as possible. The old Star Wars, even the PT, had at least a vision of something other than making money. One of the few things I liked about TFA though, lacking of soul notwithstanding, is that in its quest for a broader fanbase it made the protagonists black/woman.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:28
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RBA Starblade posted:It occurs to me that the Star Destroyer is to the Executor as the Death Star is to the Starkiller. At the other end of the spectrum are the TIE fighters, which are literally OT TIE fighters with a fresh coat of paint. It might be "realistic" for designs to be preserved, but Star Wars isn't a documentary and I think the movie would be much improved by standing out as more visually distinct. You can see more original designs in the concept art, which makes it clear that it was a deliberate decision to move away from that direction and hue close to the OT aesthetic instead. Hopefully the sequels will take more risks in this regard. Also, mandatory PT chat, but the PT did really well in terms of storytelling through visual design. The Trade Federation battleship in particular is a fantastic design that manages to invoke the Star Destroyer while looking nothing like it, and simultaneously convey the differences between the Trade Federation and the Empire.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:29
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McCloud posted:That reason is because TFA is a bad/mediocre movie without a soul, designed by committee to appeal to as many people as possible. The old Star Wars, even the PT, had at least a vision of something other than making money. Really you're using the "soul" argument? Next are you going to tell me that vinyl sounds better because it's "warmer?"
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Feb 16, 2016 18:31
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ZoCrowes posted:No poo poo film is visual but there also needs to be a sense of verisimilitude to ground the fantastic. Just because it's not what you imagine wreckage in the desert looks like does not mean poo poo. The wreckage on Jakku look like wreckage that has been in the desert for decades. I, for one, am not arguing that the ships aren't decrepit. I'm saying it doesn't really mean anything, because the movie has already showed us that Star Destroyers and X-wings aren't forgotten relics. They're still in use, barely changed. The movie doesn't stand on its own as a sequel to ROTJ. It only works as a Star Wars reboot released in 2015 to an audience that's been waiting 32 years for a return to the OT milieu. Someone thirty years from now watching the OT for the first time and then proceeding immediately on to TFA is probably, I think, going to be a bit perplexed and underwhelmed by the experience.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:31
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People are going to like The Force Awakens just fine. They will be neither perplexed nor underwhelmed. At worst, they'll be merely whelmed.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:37
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Phylodox posted:You're comparing designs from 70 years apart versus 30 years apart. What did fighter jets look like in 1986? If someone who didn't know anything about fighter jets came across one that had crashed in the desert 30 years ago, do you think they'd be able to tell, at a glance, when it came from? The conversation is about design language conveying the passage of time and signaling a new post-Imperial era, or not doing so for whatever reason. I don't think your scenario is relevant, but I'll answer the question. If someone were to come across an iconic fighter that crashed in 1986, they'd probably be looking at an F-14, the type of fighter made famous that year by Top Gun. Compared to the most modern fighter designs like the F-22, it's from a distinctly different, older design era. The F-22 was retired a decade ago, but the X-wings in TFA are minor updates to a 40-year-old basic design. What if it was instead an F-16? That's been a mainstay of the American fighter fleet since the 70s and is still in service. It's not iconic and looks just a little outdated today, but the really interesting story about it is that it's still around despite being mostly-obsolete for basically political reasons. First, there's no credible geopolitical threat that justifies the kind of defense spending required to replace them completely with newer fighters. Second, the defense industry is notoriously inefficient and the Pentagon is notoriously corrupt, and those two institutions can't/won't cooperate to produce more modern designs at a reasonable price. Complacency, inefficiency, corruption: sounds kind of like the state of affairs in the last days of the Republic. Connecting the crashed X-wing to your crashed F-16, we can surmise that the New Republic (the ultimate supplier of the X-wings to the Resistance) suffers from the same kind of problems that plagued the Old Republic, a conclusion that is supported by the brief glimpse of not-Coruscant we get in the film. But how does that connect with the main themes of the film? TFA is not about the problems of governance in an era of political and social malaise. The X-wings and other replicated OT-era icons aren't used as signifiers of a military-industrial complex transformed into just another rent-seeking institution in an "end-of-history" capitalist society. These are not obsolete military hardware on their last legs like the F-16. Everything is shiny and new. The same designs with a fresh coat of paint perform just as well as they did in the OT. Now, there is nothing wrong with that and it's perfectly fine from a production perspective to use iconic designs because they're iconic (in fact, I like the updates and the high-contrast color palettes, and there's just something cool about X-wings and TIE fighters dogfighting on screen), but nothing about them communicates that we're in a different era. In fact, they signal that little has changed, that things have stagnated, while other elements of the film directly contradict this notion.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:45
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:In fact, they signal that little has changed, that things have stagnated, while other elements of the film directly contradict this notion. Do they? A film filled with characters obsessed with the past, reliving their past, fighting the wars of the past, living in a galaxy that hasn't been able to move beyond the struggles that defined it three decades ago? Maybe I've read the film differently than others, that's entirely possible.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:51
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People in the future will have the full 7-9 trilogy and also additional Star Wars without having to wait year after year for it, and will be basking on the glory of the Disney reboot pt where Ahsoka is the main character and Jar Jar has been replaced by BB-1.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:52
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Cnut the Great posted:How unfortunate that you seem incapable of formulating a substantive rebuttal. It's kind of difficult to formulate a rebuttal to something as ridiculous as claiming that the ships on Jakku look untouched and ageless. I wasn't referring to arguments such as the one you've made about the ships not looking all that different from 30 years ago. In fact, I fully agree. I wish there had been more brand new ships in TFA instead of just newer-looking X-Wings, TIEs and Star Destroyers. That is actually a valid criticism. Although for me, something like that was just not a big deal, and seeing the ships in action more than made up for it. I found the fighter combat to be very well filmed, like the continuous shot of Poe wasting like ten TIEs in a row, or Poe flying into the oscillator and just going apeshit with his X-Wing. If nothing else, the newer-looking X-Wings and TIEs still look fantastic, and I'm a big fan of Kylo Ren's transport. This Jakku argument is loving stupid and it should be described as such. All the wreckage on the surface looks completely appropriate. I think everything on Jakku was very good visual storytelling that set the planet apart from Tatooine. Talking about visuals, it was probably the best part of the movie aside from the design of Starkiller Base, which I still think is an incredibly cool concept that unfortunately wasn't used as well as it could have been. I would have liked to see it not get introduced halfway through and then destroyed before the movie was over, because it's such a unique setting, and the terrifying power it has should have been taken more seriously. I have no problems admitting that TFA has flaws. It's just utterly bizarre to me that we've started on this topic about how Jakku of all places apparently doesn't show the passage of time well enough. It looks perfect for what it's trying to convey. The fact that the Star Destroyer's engines look so close to this real-life wreckage amused the hell out of me.  So yeah, it's just really weird to me that criticism is aimed at Jakku, and not the far bigger issue of Takodana and D'Qar looking so similar and ordinary that I didn't even know they were different planets until I read it somewhere. Queering Wheel fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Feb 16, 2016 18:53
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The amusing thing is (perhaps unintentionally due to the advances in special effects) the Tie Fighters and X-Wings look newer in TFA than in the OT. And I don't mean technologically they look newer, I mean that they appear cleaner, less worn down, etc. Yeah, you can probably justify it with the Resistance being better funded, but it is funny that the equivalent of a WW2 fighter is still in operation and is refurbished on top of that.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:54
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homullus posted:You are mistaking continuity with characters revering the OT. Han Solo is, in that universe, a famous smuggler and General in the Rebellion, and Leia is a famous Princess, Republic senator, and General in the Rebellion.. Chewbacca, in that universe, uses a bowcaster. Kylo Ren talking to Darth Vader's melted helmet and keeping it in Vader's ashes is somewhat like "Rey pretends a bit wearing discarded Rebel helmet and has a pilot toy," except she leaves that behind. Neither is at all like "Millennium Falcon is broken down and up on cinder blocks in the front yard and nobody even knows it's the Falcon." "Chewie, we're home" Han Solo has spent the past X years trying to get back to his old self, and ignore that he had a son with Leia. Leia has gone back to leading a resistance against a group that isn't even in power. They're both living in the past. Kylo wants to right their wrongs.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:54
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I dont see this all being a fault of the film - I find it a fault with the viewer expecting newer and shiny designs.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:59
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This doesn't look like it's been weathered and scavenged for thirty years. It looks exactly like real life things that haven't been scavenged at all! Yes, thanks.
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Feb 16, 2016 18:59
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Vintersorg posted:I dont see this all being a fault of the film - I find it a fault with the viewer expecting newer and shiny designs. Which they got!
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Feb 16, 2016 19:00
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The design shift from the Old Republic to the Empire was catalyzed by years and years of galaxy-wide war-- the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War-- and ideological change. I do think that the New Republic and its relationship to the Resistance is one of the more undercooked elements of TFA, but the Republic-provided X-Wings still tell us a little-- they're the heirs to the Rebellion we know from the OT, and the galaxy has been at peace for thirty years and the First Order is a recent threat the Republic wasn't taking super-seriously, so there was little impetus for a huge leaps forward in military spaceship design.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:06
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Purely aesthetically speaking, I think the1977 looks a lot more like 2016 than the 40s did 1977
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Feb 16, 2016 19:06
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Cnut the Great posted:I, for one, am not arguing that the ships aren't decrepit. I'm saying it doesn't really mean anything, because the movie has already showed us that Star Destroyers and X-wings aren't forgotten relics. They're still in use, barely changed. The movie doesn't stand on its own as a sequel to ROTJ. It only works as a Star Wars reboot released in 2015 to an audience that's been waiting 32 years for a return to the OT milieu. Someone thirty years from now watching the OT for the first time and then proceeding immediately on to TFA is probably, I think, going to be a bit perplexed and underwhelmed by the experience. I honestly don't have a strong opinion about the fact that X-Wings and Star Destroyers are still used and similar because that is not that different than our world's militaries. On the commercial side the Boeing 747 was introduced in 1969 and is aesthetically relatively unchanged today. An even more appropriate example would be the F-16. It was introduced the year after Star Wars was released, is still in service, and is not scheduled to be retired for another decade. Yeah, there have been updates underneath the hood but the overall design and aesthetic is the same. I can image in the X-Wing being in a very similar situation. Military technology can go a long time between noticeable changes and once a design is found to work well it tends to stick around. You can even make comparisons in Star Destroyer designs to the evolution of the aircraft carrier. The USS Langley was the first aircraft carrier introduced in 1922 and was converted from a coal collier. Much like the Venator class Star Destroyers it was bulky and archaic but the lines were there and you can tell what it is.   Around 20 years later the US Navy launched the USS Oriskany (which is now a badass artificial reef and wreck dive) and the in the same time frame the Galactic Empire launches the Imperial Class Star Destroyer. These are the iconic looks for those particular ships and what most people think of when they think Star Destroyer or Aircraft Carrier.   30 years after the launch of the Oriskany you have the Nimitz Class carriers. These are pretty comparable to the Resurgent Class Star Destroyers used by the First Order. Updated but not strikingly different than anything that came before. Nowhere near difference in the jump from the first generation to the second generation of Aircraft Carrier/Star Destroyer.   So what is happening in Star Wars as a whole as far military technology is concerned is not that different that what happened in the real world. The Clone Wars were like World War II in that total out war was driving military hardware design forward at a very fast pace in response to the new technologies being developed for total war. Lucas talked about this and it was part of his intent in how it was shown on screen.The NT is like the post-Cold war era. Yeah, there is a lot of new potential tech innovations but military hardware design on a lot of levels (like aircraft carriers and F/16s) is relatively similar to what came before. I would not be surprised if this was in the back of the designer's minds when working on TFA. It makes sense to compare the real world in this way to the movies because WWII films were such a huge inspiration for the space battles of the OT. Edit: And just for shits and giggles here is a comparison between a late 70s F-16 and T65 X Wing   And a modern F-16 and T70 X Wing   Military hardware can go decades without major design changes. I don't think it's a mistake by the filmmakers to believe that the same things can happen in the Star Wars Universe. ZoCrowes fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Feb 16, 2016 19:10
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Phylodox posted:Do they? A film filled with characters obsessed with the past, reliving their past, fighting the wars of the past, living in a galaxy that hasn't been able to move beyond the struggles that defined it three decades ago? Maybe I've read the film differently than others, that's entirely possible. Yes, it's clear things have changed just going by the contents of the film. The Empire got owned so hard at Endor that it was overthrown by a popular liberal revolution and spent some time being insignificant enough that the Republic didn't consider them a big threat and got owned in return by Starkiller Base in a surprise attack from a remote corner of the galaxy. Now, part of that is myopia and laurels-resting, but in order to be myopic you have to have lost sight of the problem (i.e. it's not staring you in the face) and in order to rest in your laurels you have to have won them in the first place. The Empire would have had to be spanked pretty badly beyond what we saw at the end of ROTJ. The theme of looking backwards fits with the idea that there has been most of an OT-PT cycle in the meantime, which is to say that an incredible amount has changed. And yet X-wings are still dueling TIE fighters like it's a week after Endor.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:11
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you know the extremely clear visual about the passage of time between these star wars movies, visually emphasized from the first shot of the second trailer, easily understood by even the children that this movie is made for? well it should have had more rust
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Feb 16, 2016 19:23
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Um, clearly the x-wings and TIEs are new, they are a different color! They just need to throw some racing stripes on the destroyer in the next movie for the people that got confused this time.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:24
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ZoCrowes posted:So what is happening in Star Wars as a whole as far military technology is concerned is not that different that what happened in the real world. The Clone Wars were like World War II in that total out war was driving military hardware design forward at a very fast pace in response to the new technologies being developed for total war. Lucas talked about this and it was part of his intent in how it was shown on screen.The NT is like the post-Cold war era. Yeah, there is a lot of new potential tech innovations but military hardware design on a lot of levels (like aircraft carriers and F/16s) is relatively similar to what came before. Yeah, the disappointment isn't that some of the current tech looks similar to the thirty-year ago tech, but that there isn't the new stuff next to it to show that it's still a new era.   
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Feb 16, 2016 19:25
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The trouble is that most people are writing about the 'realism' of the 'universe' and not the fact that we're seeing a series of images in a movie, that need to convey specific things.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:26
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The trouble is that most people are writing about the 'realism' of the 'universe' and not the fact that we're seeing a series of images in a movie, that need to convey specific things. "it's the future! here's the ruins of the past, there's a tie fighter with modern design sensibilities. children understand this"
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Feb 16, 2016 19:28
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The trouble is that most people are writing about the 'realism' of the 'universe' and not the fact that we're seeing a series of images in a movie, that need to convey specific things. You never answered, how long does a general serve in the Star Wars?
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Feb 16, 2016 19:28
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All this talk of realism broke my BB droid, thanks jerks. https://zippy.gfycat.com/ShinyIgnorantCricket.webm
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Feb 16, 2016 19:29
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wyoming posted:All this talk of realism broke my BB droid, thanks jerks. Remind me to get that for my girlfriend's cat.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:30
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The trouble is that most people are writing about the 'realism' of the 'universe' and not the fact that we're seeing a series of images in a movie, that need to convey specific things. All of those posts were addressing the specific issue of  "why isn't the technology more advanced?????" If we're talking images on a screen, how about the sunken ruin of a Star Destroyer and a neo-fascist movement which sees its salvation in bigger, pointer, more star destroyer-y star star destroyers.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:30
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Sir Kodiak posted:Yeah, the disappointment isn't that some of the current tech looks similar to the thirty-year ago tech, but that there isn't the new stuff next to it to show that it's still a new era. We do see tech advancement though. BB-8 is clearly a more advanced droid than R2. He can take stairs without needing little arm rockets. It also would not make sense for an insurgency like the First Order to have the space equivalent of modern drone warfare. And the Resistance is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the Republic which means they probably don't have the space equivalent of the US Military budget either. It's closer to ISIS vs the Peshmerga than anything else.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:31
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:Yes, it's clear things have changed just going by the contents of the film. The Empire got owned so hard at Endor that it was overthrown by a popular liberal revolution and spent some time being insignificant enough that the Republic didn't consider them a big threat and got owned in return by Starkiller Base in a surprise attack from a remote corner of the galaxy. Now, part of that is myopia and laurels-resting, but in order to be myopic you have to have lost sight of the problem (i.e. it's not staring you in the face) and in order to rest in your laurels you have to have won them in the first place. The Empire would have had to be spanked pretty badly beyond what we saw at the end of ROTJ. The theme of looking backwards fits with the idea that there has been most of an OT-PT cycle in the meantime, which is to say that an incredible amount has changed. I don't know where you're getting that a lot must have changed when the film flat out shows us at every turn that it hasn't. The final battle of the war took place only a little over a year after the battle of Endor. The implication is that the New Republic and the First Order have had an uneasy détente since then, with no open war.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:31
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The trouble is that most people are writing about the 'realism' of the 'universe' and not the fact that we're seeing a series of images in a movie, that need to convey specific things. The problem is people bitching about the clearly ruined wreckage on Jakku looking brand new. Which it doesn't. Additionally, films need verisimilitude in order to allow for suspension of disbelief. Having verisimilitude and being realistic are two very different things. And for someone who frequently misuses the word "feudal" in your interpretations of Star Wars films you seem to have no problem introducing readings related to history.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:37
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ZoCrowes posted:We do see tech advancement though. BB-8 is clearly a more advanced droid than R2. He can take stairs without needing little arm rockets. Wait, do we actually see how BB-8 gets up the stairs? Honestly asking, because I must have missed it. I'm not talking about having unmanned drones in particular. Not least because we already saw those in Revenge of the Sith where a bunch of unmanned droid fighter ships take off after Obi Wan and Anakin in the opening space sequence. I really liked The Force Awakens, but for a series where so much of the joy of it is in great production design, it didn't exactly offer much new.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:41
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Pretty sure we only see BB8 awkwardly roll down some stairs.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:44
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Empress Theonora posted:All of those posts were addressing the specific issue of This is actually an example of what I'm talking about, because you're jumping the gun. We begin the film with the "bigger, pointier" vehicle already in space. There's no salvation of the wreck, and it's not actually clear what the New Order stands for - even at the end of the film. You're missing the sequence of the images, and the progression of the narrative. We see the ship, and then we see a slightly older version of the same ship. Now I'm imagining a sequence where Rey goes to tear apart an old wreck and it unexpectedly lifts off, having been secretly refurbished by a team of young Imperial upstarts. Why not show the New Order using scavenged and salvaged tech, considering that they're the losers of the previous film? The film all but directly states that the New Order has a massive infrastructure already in place, but how? It only makes sense if the Empire never actually went away. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Feb 16, 2016 19:49
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Sir Kodiak posted:Wait, do we actually see how BB-8 gets up the stairs? Honestly asking, because I must have missed it. I was more talking about the technological equivalent of a drone (same "holy poo poo this is the future!" factor) than seeing an actual drone in Star Wars. I don't even know what that would be tbh. We see BB-8 go down, not up. But we don't even get that out of R2. I agree with you. I think there were a handful of interesting designs but compared to what came before it's not quite as impressive. That being said I like the new designs that we do get quite a bit. On the other hand I think that the Prequel trilogy went a bit too over the top at times with some of the landscapes. I liked that the constraints of locations reigned in the OT a bit in what it was capable of. I prefer the look of the Endor moon to Kashykk for instance. Yes, Kashykk is far more alien and massive in scope but that's not always a good thing. My favorite locations in the prequels, like the palace on Naboo, tend to be based on real locations.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:51
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Why not show the New Order using scavenged and salvaged tech, considering that they're the losers of the previous film? They 'lost', but they still had a ridiculous amount of resources at their disposal. What they really lost was a strong leader. It's not like all of their guns and ships exploded along with Sheev.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Now I'm imagining a sequence where Rey goes to tear apart an old wreck and it unexpectedly lifts off, having been secretly refurbished by a team of young Imperial upstarts. Why not show the New Order using scavenged and salvaged tech, considering that they're the losers of the previous film? I wonder how hard it would be to put the Death Star back together.
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Feb 16, 2016 19:53
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Sheev didn't explode he just turned into Gollum
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Feb 16, 2016 19:55
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