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 ...'"
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.
... 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.
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
My work here is dung.
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.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
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
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
TD-0013 does it best:
http://www.adpov.net/2005/03/09/adpov-001/
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy 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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
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.
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?