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 ...'"

Comments

council

[hey]

The council chamber where they debate laws seemed crazy to me. Everyone is floating in their own flying saucer. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Regular tables with chairs make more sense. More compact and you have a chance to interact with the other representatives.

Re:council

[GameMaster]

Never underestimate the need to be grandiose just for the hell of it, especially when it comes to government. The US congress could meet in a high-school gym, but they chose to build the massive, ornate, capital rotunda instead. For that matter, the same goes for the open pits in the Emperor's thrown room. Even if you didn't claim that it hadn't been completed yet (since the station was supposed to be incomplete at that point), perhaps he was going for a grandiose, and in this case intimidating, look with huge, bottomless, pits.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[eldavojohn]

I see you didn't defend the Storm Trooper armor...

Oh, well, I'm not stupid. Tons of things in the SW universe make absolutely no sense. The storm trooper uniforms are stupid, kind of remind me of French Legionnaire uniforms that always made me laugh when I saw someone dressed like that in the desert. The red flags on your shoulders make you stick out like a sore thumb regardless of where you are.

So there's something that actually existed much like the storm trooper armor. Somethings are meant to intimidate rather than camouflage, perhaps the storm trooper armor is there to let you know that you don't stand a chance? To be distinctive? It's a stretch but it's stupid. Looked really badass when I was a kid though.

A lot of these arguments apply to many sci-fi/fantasy works, not just SW so why waste your time on the critical analysis. Are you bettering society? Congratulations, you just tore apart something that was made over three decades ago.

He should have stuck to the physical aspects of the universe like noise in space and being able to see laser shots from the side ... oh, that's right, we've been over this before on Slashdot, with our friends, in popular mechanics, everywhere. My grandfather commented on the "wings" of ships that seemed to spend all their time in space.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[Khashishi]

Storm Trooper armor is riot gear. It's for protecting against rocks and small arms while they beat down demonstrators. Most non-smugglers won't have access to a blaster capable of blowing through one. Presumably, a gunpowder rifle wouldn't penetrate the armor, which is why the characters use loud and slow firing blasters.

Of John Scalzi

[OzPeter]

Love his books to death - especially "the Andriods Dream", but like all authors his own books have more holes than swiss cheese.

Like computers built into peoples heads that seem to have unlimited bandwidth data links over huge distances - yet there is no power requirements and the enemy can't detect the transmissions

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[commodore64_love]

True, true. For example *this* fanboy can't stand Science stories that have no science. Like Star Wars. It's really just a classic medieval knights-and-dragons-and-ladies fairy tale.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[jollyreaper]

Dude, you've got too much time on your hands ;)

I rather liked the attitude that JMS had about this kind of stuff. One time a fan asked him "How fast do starfuries go?" and his response was "They move at the speed of plot"

If the plot makes sense and the universe remains consistent about it's own rules then who cares how functional RD2D would be in our universe or how badly designed the weapons of Star Trek are?

Part of proper world-building is making it make sense. I appreciate it when an artist goes about creating a mythical fantasy beast and puts effort into figuring out the biomechanics. I laugh when I see something like a four-armed giant depicted where he's drawn with a bog-standard human chest and the second set of arms is just shoved in a foot down from the first. No, a four-armed giant would have a chest a whole lot different from ours!

If you design a fantasy spaceship, figure out what the parts are for! Yes, it's all make-believe, but you end up with a stronger design if you can justify what you're slapping on the model. I had this argument with a designer on a project, he wanted to have all the clips on the guns curving backwards instead of forwards, just to be different. I asked him if he even knew why clips curved forward in the real world. He wasn't sure. I told him it was because bullets are slightly conic and if you stack them they would naturally curve. You don't really see that in handgun cartridges but it makes a difference for the kind you put in assault rifles. He finally conceded to reason there and the weapons looked more sensible as a result.

So, as for the guy's comments in order:

R2D2: yeah, it seems like he should have a voice chip, he could speak in text through the X-Wing's computer as we saw in Empire. But everyone seems to understand him just fine, Han understands Chewie just fine, so it's not an issue. R2D2 is like the Lassie of droids.

C3P0: The reason why he walks like he's got a rod up his ass is because it's a complicated, uncomfortable costume. I promise you he wouldn't walk like that if he were CGI.

Lightsaber: They're incredible dangerous weapons to begin with and you need to be a Jedi to use them. I don't think the Jedi even need handguards.

Blasters: it's all part of the scifi schtick. Given the tech level of star wars, a conventional gun would be just as likely to give you away. Today we've got special microphones and radar that can tell the secret service exactly where a gunshot came from. In 20 years, I would not be surprised if this tech was available in helmets and onboard displays could give an augmented reality flag to where the shooter came from. A blaster would be just as subtle.

Landspeeder: Are you serious? Rednecks drive their pickups without seatbelts all the time. I don't see belts on quadrunners. It would be more appropriate to ask about the lack of five-point restraints at the crewstations on Federation starships and why the consoles all carry safety grenades that explode in combat.

Death Star: Yeah, the unshielded reactor on the first one was dumb. Lucas wanted to steal the bombing sequence from the Dam Busters and needed a plausible reason to recreate that. This necessitated a starship as big as a moon to provide the landscape, a trench to fly down to be like the first movie and some suitable target at the end that could blow the whole thing up. There was historical precedent for something like this with the Bismarck where obsolete biplanes managed to land a single torpedo at the only point on the ship where they could do damage, the rudder. Didn't sink the Bismarck but rendered it lame and set the stage for the final surface battle which sunk her.

Stormtrooper outfits: Yeah, poor visibility in the helmets is a problem. Lucas wanted these guys to all be covered up and not visibly human because it removed the human association with violence. The troopers could just as easily have been Cylons in that getup. But you'd think the helmets would have

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[ArsonSmith]

TD-0013 does it best:

http://www.adpov.net/2005/03/09/adpov-001/

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[commodore64_love]

>>>why waste your time on the critical analysis. Are you bettering society?

Yes. Whenever you point-out, "This could never happen," you improve the general education levels. The American public is already woefully-stupid when it comes to science, so any article that tries to improve knowledge is a good thing. For example - No sounds do not exist in space, even though many think it does. I like one of the comments below the article:

But a "city planet"? Coruscant is the center, capital and most populous planet, we're told. So either there exist vast factories pumping out nitrogen and oxygen, or its life thrives on a hearty stew of carbon dioxide, ozone and heavy metals.

George Lucas stole that idea from Isaac Asimov who created the center of his Galactic Empire as a citywide planet (circa 1935). As Asmiov explained the planet was originally a farming planet just like any other, but as the 20,000 years of the empire's existence continued, it was paved-over with steel and buildings and bureaucracy.

In order to survive, the "cityplanet" relied on imports to bring-in food and water, and also exports to remove waste. Much like how our modern New York City survives. After Asimov's Galactic Empire fell, the ~50 billion people who lived on the center planet literally starved to death, and those who survived removed the steel, crushed the bones for fertilizer, and reverted back to subsistence-level farming.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[mrdoogee]

I always thought it was as much an intimidation tool as actual armor. Kind of like a Samurai Mask. A sea of white "monster faced" troops running at you would be pretty intimidating. Well, intimidating until they start shooting and it becomes obvious that there is no marksmanship taught at the Imperial Academy.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[Bigjeff5]

If I remember correctly Asimov even went into figuring out how much it would take to keep a planet-city like that running - it was rediculous amounts of imports and exports on a daily basis just to keep things from falling apart.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[lymond01]

Not necessarily. Wikipedia's entry on the topic suggests that Lucas always meant Stormtroopers to be clones (as per commentary of Episode II) and has an uncited comment by Lucas that some Stormtroopers were clones and some were conscripts. 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?"

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[bishiraver]

Reminds me of the Jaffa in SG1.

In one episode, SG1 is showing some faction the difference between the staff weapons and the assault rifles that SG1 uses. They show a Jaffa trying to hit a target perhaps 20m away - he misses several times, as you can imagine the staff weapon is rather inaccurate. One of the SG1 team then proceeds to shoot the shit out of it with their P90.

The relevancy is thus:

They explain that the staff weapon isn't made for battle - it's made for fear and intimidation. The same could probably be said for storm troopers: the blasters are loud, inaccurate, and give away your position like nobody's business. Their armor is for show, to embody intimidation and quell resistance.

It doesn't make much sense in the SG1 universe, however, as it seems like the different Goa'uld are constantly skirmishing each other. You'd think they'd use the staff weapons to intimidate their slaves, and something a little more efficient for actual battles with other Goa'uld.

In Atlantis, Ronon has a pistol that seems to shoot the same kind of energy as the staff weapons, with the caveat that it can be set to stun. Because it's a pistol, he's much more accurate than a Jaffa ever would be with his staff weapon. ... but this is only marginally related to the topic at hand, which is: Why was a wookie living on endor?

Nerd-boy strikes back

[SoupIsGood Food]

R2-D2

R2 is an astromech droid - he was designed to assist in the operation of small spacecraft. He is well suited for trundling around flight decks - he was not meant to go up and down stairs, and it's a credit to his character that he performed his duty in desert and swamp. He doesn't speak english because he speaks astromech - sentients who fly or work with spacecraft will understand astromech. Speech synthesis is unnecessary to his function... are you unhappy that your perl compiler doesn't speak in plain english?

C-3PO

C-3PO is a protocol droid. His form is purely ornamental, as his function is to facilitate communication between sentients, usually in a business setting. He is not required to lift heavy objects or cover rugged terrain at great speed, and the exposed wiring is probably just ornamentation. Droids develop their own personalities as they are learning and self-modifying systems - he made himself a screaming coward.

Lightsabers

Japanese blades often did not have a tsuba (hand guard) - relying on a tsuba to protect the hand was folly, as was slashing down a blade to get at the fingers. A quick disengage and riposte would leave you dead.

Blasters

I don't think the beams themselves are being dodged, but those dodging are anticipating their aim-point. Happens in most movies with regular guns, too. Blasters are recoiless and require no reloading, which makes them tactically superior to firearms.

Landspeeders and other flying vehicles

Unless the repulsor field was designed to keep you in place - or artificial gravity.

Stormtrooper Uniforms

Yeah, OK, storm trooper armor is useless.

Death Star

The original design flaw was overlooked by the Deathstar's builders - the Rebels analyzed the data and discovered it themselves. The second deathstar wasn't complete, and relied on planet-based shield generators rather than structure to protect it.

Sarlaac

Doodle-bugs (antlions) and sea anenomes rely on this same technique, and as the skeleton from ANH illustrates, Tatooine has megafauna prey.

That Asteroid Worm Thing in Empire Strikes Back

Not spaceships, cometary debris containing organic compounds, or spacefaring organisms that feed on same.

Midi-Chlorians

Lucas is as one dead to me for that midichlorian crap.

Artistic License (or Homer's Poor Choices)

[Ukab the Great]

1. Your city is under siege and suddenly this man-made wooden horse appears out of nowhere. Any sane military command would probably blow it up or set fire to it, as opposed to taking it behind his lines and leaving it unguarded.

2. It's a bit much for foreign leader like Menelaus to go to the trouble of war over his wife leaving him for another man. Especially in an era where women were considered simple commodities.

3. Odysseus tries to escape from an island with a hot chick who does magic and wants to use him as a love slave back to an existence of responsibility and the possibility of mortal danger. Nuff said.

4. The cyclops has one eye. A monster with limited depth perception is not too intimidating and wouldn't be a very effective monster.

Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist

[Wraithlyn]

Coruscant was even called Trantor (the name of Asimov's city planet) in an early Star Wars draft.

I believe the name Coruscant actually comes from Timothy Zahn's excellent Thrawn trilogy.

Real life is messy and sub-optimal...

[GameMaster]

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that Lucas isn't the best designer in the world, and that the prequels sucked, but most of the points brought up are kinda garbage.

• R2-D2:
  • Stairs aren't a problem when you're original design included jets.
  • The "slapstick" oil could have, simply, been a standard coolant/lubricant drain.
  • The voice is an issue, but we don't really know what species designed that model of robot. Perhaps they can understand the chirps he makes. Since he's a technical component and not a protocol droid he would have no need for a large collection of languages.
• C3PO:
  • He wasn't just put together by an eight year old, he was put together by an eight year old slave using scrap parts.
  • As has been pointed out by others here, he's intended to be a "protocol droid" which implies that he's meant to, primarily, focus on things like knowing proper etiquette for a situation and language translation. The need for him to have more than basic mobility/flexibility would be non-existent. The fact that Anikan says he built the droid to help his mother do chores could simply mean that he's making do with a sub-optimal helper for his mom because of the limited source of parts he can scavenge.
  • The comments about C3-P0's personality are 100% opinion base and have no real justification. It's not unreasonable to expect that servant robots might be designed with an effeminate personality in order to look more subservient to their wealth masters pair that with the fact that we don't know how much impact the eight year old builder might have had on it and it could, easily, end up being a poor stereotype as seen through the eyes of an eight year old.
• Lightsaber
  • Since we don't know how to build a real lightsaber, we don't know how they react when they come into contact with each other (other than the fact that they can't pass through each other). For all we know, two lightsabers coming into contact with each other may create a form of electrostatic friction with each other that stops people from sliding the two "blades" along each other. That would make a blade guard unnecessary.
• Blaster
  • There is nothing about the blaster that, necessarily, implies that it's firing light beams. In fact, the slow speed the author ridicules implies that it might be some form of super-heated plasma ball.
  • As for dodging them, the movies never gave me the impression that they moved all that slow. They seemed, to me, to move no slower than traditional tracer rounds. The only people I saw being show to react fact enough to "dodge" individual rounds were the Jedi characters who are, specifically, supposed to posses super-human reflexes. Plenty of people dodged when they were fired at, but even people in real life respond, ineffectively, when bullets are wizzing past their heads.
• Landspeeders, etc.
  • As others have pointed out, Luke is supposed to be a poor farmer's adopted child and a crack pilot. Poor farmers, the world over, drive far worse (and less safe) vehicles that a Yugo. The idea that he "hot dogs" it without seat belts isn't so hard to believe in that context.
• Stormtrooper Armor
  • It may have been designed to protect more against physical attacks more than blasters since, without the armor, the troops might be even more susceptible to injury. This would lead to a situation, like in the Dune novels, where a whole class of weapons would become useless (in this case physical weapons like clubs and bullets) and only the most advanced of enemies have the technology to be any kind of threat (or, in the case of the Dune novels, the skill level/training to use a bladed weapon to get through the personal energy shields).
  • Perhaps the armor protects them more than we see in the movie. Just because they fall down when shot, doesn't mean that they're, necessarily, dead. In real life, the best "bullet-proof" tactical armo

What about light saber switches?

[deathpulse]

The Jedi Knights can move objects with their minds.... yet they fight with what is essentially a flashlight on steroids that has an "on/off" switch. Why don't the smart Jedi just "use the force" to switch off their opponents saber? I guess the argument could be made that the other Jedi would just "use the force" to keep the saber switched on... but wouldn't all saber battles melt down into a concentration battle for who could switch their damn weapon on?

In space, only the keen eard can hear you scream

[TiggertheMad]

No sounds do not exist in space, even though many think it does.

Wrong. Sound is pressure waves that propagate through a medium. Space is not an absolute vacuum, just a very, very, very thin medium. So, sound would exist, but it would dissipate very quickly, and it would have to be VERY loud to be heard at any distance.

Yes, sound would not exist in space as you see it in the movies, but saying that it doesn't exist at all is just as inaccurate.