Slashdot Mirror
Poor Design Choices In the Star Wars Universe
Ant writes "John Scalzi's AMC blog shows a short guide to the most epic FAILs in Star Wars design — 'I'll come right out and say it: Star Wars has a badly-designed universe; so poorly-designed, in fact, that one can say that a significant goal of all those Star Wars novels is to rationalize and mitigate the bad design choices of the movies. Need examples? Here's ten ...'"
Hell hath no fury like a fanboi's scorn.
Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
Let's not even go near the idea of light beams being slow enough to dodge; that's just something you have let go of, or risk insanity.
I think by the time you're writing an article about design failures in Star Wars ... you're already beyond just the risk of insanity.
Right on. Bully. And as we all know, poor design portends end-user doom. These pathetic hacks will be lucky if they ever sell more than three tickets to the producer's three kids for this parade of dreck. And forget merchandising - it'll be a brief stopover at Dollar Tree and then to some banana republic orphanage along with the Superbowl-losing ball caps. Yes, what WERE they thinking?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Clearly you never met a girl.
--Hate from Satan in Hell.
I can't wait for the Star Trek one after reading the seat belt gripe. Idea #1: Why aren't there seat belts on the bridge? It seems like almost every episode someone gets thrown from their chair. It happens so often in ST:VOY it should be the first modification they make to the ship.
Women aren't nearly as obsessive as Fanbois. Ever seen Fatal Attraction? Nothing compared to a fanboi.
Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
I'm not seeing a downside here.
This article is wrong on so many levels, but, of course, is easy to defeat: Everyone knows that the Star Wars universe is perfect. George Lucas had fully anticipated exactly what was going to happen in all 6 movies (and all of the books, comics, cartoons, etc.) while designing the first movie. To question this is heresy, and therefore you, John Scalzi, are a heretic.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
... It's for protecting against rocks ...
That sure helped them against the ewoks.
>R2D2's speech
The original voice of R2D2 died of heat exhaustion while wearing the suit. In his honor they used digital beeps.
>C3P0 and mincing gay man
This is because C3P0 is a gay robot. Its a shame Scalzi is such a bigot that he cannot accept homosexual robots. Someday, 3P0, someday you'll be accepted and you can marry that nice medical robot who has been checking you out.
>Lighsaber guards
With the guard up all lightsaber fights ended in a stalemate. The jedi council of 4922 banned them for the sake of "sport and honor."
>Blasters
In the star wars world, lead bullets are useless against storm trooper armor. So everyone needs to use blasters which are slower and noisier. Blasters also release a mint scent which is an added bonus.
>Luke's lack of seatbelts
Luke was originally told his father died asphyxiating from a seatbelt after an accident that flipped his speeder. Luke vowed to never take that chance and removed his.
>Stormtrooper armor
In a sophisticated universe, style is very important. "The path to defeat, an unstylish military is. - Yoda"
>Death star
The empire has always been a good sport and has left vulnerabilities in all its designs.
>a huge exposed shaft in your Death Star throne room.
To be fair, this was put in so the emperor could toss people down it as he pleased. He knew it was a risk someone could toss him down it too, but he was crazy that way.
I think that the entire point of the stormtrooper uniform is to emphasize the mechanistic, monolithic nature of stormtroopers. It also makes sense in the context of stormtroopers all being clones.
If anything, it's masterful in the sense that if you kill them you don't see biological signs of having done so. They come at you like a horde and shooting one down only means that the next one in line is right there.
Remember, in the Star Wars universe, the people pretty much willingly gave themselves over to Palpatine. After the sham clone wars, the stormtroopers are a reminder of the government, a control, a deterrent. Their effectiveness as one's vanguard is shown to be mixed at best, with officers doing the decision making and fighting (in the mech walking units, on ships, etc), so they exist to remind the populace of the overarching presence of the empire, not to necessarily actually do a good job enforcing it when push comes to shove.
I have my other problems with the Star Wars universe, mind you, and I'm definitely no rabid fan, but it's an amusing series to watch if you ignore the recent three movies.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
To criticize it's light saber technology is like criticizing Xena's chakram physics.
I wouldn't mind a chance to try out some physics experiments with Xena ;) Or Gabrielle for that matter. Least before they made her into a damn blonde.
I'm sorry, what were you talking about again?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yeah and a long long time ago in a galaxy far away they obviously didn't have such stuff like OSHA.
Or they'd have railings to stop people from falling into pits and other nasties...
Clearly it's a galaxy where they didn't have warning stickers on lightsabers to tell people "This way to enemy", or "Do not point lightsaber at remaining head".
But still...
I see where you're going with this! George Lucas should have built the DSII as a cube, with decentralized structure. And Perhaps used artificial augmentations to humanoids to staff this new battle station. YES, we should get right on that! Not only that, they should replace the Emperor with .... a QUEEN!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Was I the only one bothered by the sad attempt to bridge the gap between EP 3 and EP 4 by simply throwing away all the nice full color displays and elegant controls that we saw in the ships of the first 3 episodes, and in one fell swoop go back to the flashing lights and big on/off switches of the last 3? You know, at the end of EP 3 when Darth takes command of the Empire fleet, only to strut out onto the bridge of a ship that looked like it was designed to control a hydroelectric dam and not fly among the stars...
Maybe I was the only one.
t's really just a classic medieval knights-and-dragons-and-ladies fairy tale.
By way of Japan.
... can dance on the head of a pin? Have you thought about that?
Doubt they could rebuild it in time.
I prefer to think that all the Ewoks died a slow, hideous death because Lucas is evil and that's the secret subtext of the movie.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
For that matter, the same goes for the open pits in the Emperor's thrown room.
5 stars, intentional or not.
RD2D? Red 2-dimensional thing? hmm..
or is that pronounced roodie-toodie
Maybe protocol droid software was open source? :)
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I know right, everyone knows the french don't go to battle.
Perhaps Anakin told the librarian bot at the Tatooine Public Library 'I want every language translation (book/tape/disk/whatever) you have' and imported them all into C3P0's memory. By the time the copyright cops caught up with him he had become Darth Vader so they let him go as a matter of professional courtesy (sort of how sharks don't bite lawyers)
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Pop the DVD in, crack a beer, and watch the film. Anytime you feel the nihilism of deep criticism threaten to overcome the movie, take a sip. Fanbois are well advised to keep several crates of ale on hand.
I'm waiting for the SunnyD commercial "Aw, dude, grape stuff? Epic fail !!!"
I can see it now...
Kid 1: "Aw, dude, grape stuff? Epic fail!"
Kid 3: "Noooooooo!"
Kid 2: "Do not want!"
Kid 3: "El oh el oh el!"
Mom: "Who wants some Sunny D?"
Kid 2: "Sunny D greater-than grape stuff!"
Announcer: "New Sunny D is made of win, with vitamins and minerals that are teh roxx-zero-ars!"
Kid 1: "Sunny D p'owns!"
Kid 3: "Are oh tee eff el oh el!"
Bow-ties are cool.
Duh, that's why they send the Foreign Legion.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Imagine a historical fiction novel where Napoleon at Waterloo defeated the knights of the Round Table by using the Enola Gay to drop an atom bomb. It's OK because it is "fiction", right?
Would have worked for Harry Turtledove.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
In the beginning was the word. Then came the sequel.
despite its conspicuous lack of Jar Jar Binks.
Joe Pesci didn't like the script ?
But it does speak in plain english.
syntax error at test.pl line 1, at EOF
Execution of test.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
I would be upset if instead it said "beep boop beep beep".
Doug: Uh question for Ms. Bellamy. In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a... [the nerds chuckle] a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Wizard.
Yes, but when he introduces Luke to the lightsaber, Kenobi says it's not as "random as a blaster". Maybe they have different settings, like the phasers on Star Trek:
"Hey, we have them outnumbered 10 to 1. Let's make this interesting, set blasters on Random!"
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
I believe the main giveaway that stormtroopers are clones is Princess Leia's line in IV, as Luke enters her cell in a trooper outfit:
"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"
... you think she was referring to his height??