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Poor Design Choices In the Star Wars Universe

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the there-are-so-many dept.

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 ...'"

29 of 832 comments (clear)

  1. At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    R2-D2
    Sure, he's cute, but the flaws in his design are obvious the first time he approaches anything but the shallowest of stairs. Also: He has jets, a periscope, a taser and oil canisters to make enforcer droids fall about in slapsticky fashion -- and no voice synthesizer. Imagine that design conversation: "Yes, we can afford slapstick oil and tasers, but we'll never get a 30-cent voice chip past accounting. That's just madness."

    I believe his primary function is a flight droid so they were built to interface with ships. Not a lot else. John Scalzi seems to suffer from the "must have everything" school of thought and doesn't think the future will focus on minimalism and getting one thing right. Thank god he's not writing software and just another hot air blogger. I reject Episodes I, II & III so I don't know what he's talking about with the oil slick and jets.

    C-3PO
    Can't fully extend his arms; has a bunch of exposed wiring in his abs; walks and runs as if he has the droid equivalent of arthritis. And you say, well, he was put together by an eight-year-old. Yes, but a trip to the nearest Radio Shack would fix that. Also, I'm still waiting to hear the rationale for making a protocol droid a shrieking coward, aside from George Lucas rummaging through a box of offensive stereotypes (which he'd later return to while building Jar-Jar Binks) and picking out the "mincing gay man" module.

    Again, you're overlooking his primary function. C-3PO is a protocol droid designed to serve humans, and boasts that he is fluent "in over six million forms of communication." So he's got arthritis, well, you didn't build him to be flexible or fight. You built him to look pretty and translate. Everything else is bells and whistles. I think he was meant to stand in a corner for some rich merchant or politician and translate any language imaginable. Are you going to tell me that my car is flawed because I couldn't afford a $20 toaster to put in the dash?

    Death Star
    An unshielded exhaust port leading directly to the central reactor? Really? And when you rebuild it, your solution to this problem is four paths into the central core so large that you can literally fly a spaceship through them? Brilliant. Note to the Emperor: Someone on your Death Star design staff is in the pay of Rebel forces. Oh, right, you can't get the memo because someone threw you down a huge exposed shaft in your Death Star throne room.

    Uh, the second Death Star was never completed, you idiot. The rebels learned about it and attacked it before it had everything completed so anything like "four paths to the central core" or "exposed shafts" could well have been necessary during its construction. Haven't you seen Clerks or watched Robot Chicken's parody of Palpatine trying to talk to the foreman?

    But Luke's X-34 speeder on Tatooine? The Yugo of speeders, man. One hard stop, and out you go.

    He's a farmer. You should have seen the "vehicles" and ATVs I drove while working on farms. One was a modified bus with huge water tanks on the back and an upside down bucket for a seat. They make a Yugo look like a dream car. Are you going to complain about the blast marks and carbon scoring adorning the rag tag rebel ships next?

    So easy to rip apart. And you know, he doesn't offer anything constructive. Like the asteroid worm. He would have enjoyed it more if space in the Star Wars galaxy was like our space? Dead, uninhabited and void? George Lucas isn't a god but he sure thought up some neat ideas for a universe that John Scalzi will never come close to.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by Red4man · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hell hath no fury like a fanboi's scorn.

      --
      Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
    2. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    3. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Clearly you never met a girl.

                          --Hate from Satan in Hell.

    4. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      My work here is dung.
    5. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      The armor is easier to defend than their marksmanship ;)

      Here we have the pride of the Empire. A professional solider who was cloned from stock hand selected to be the most effective killing machine possible. He spends every waking minute either training for battle or fighting in one. There's Han Solo, less than ten meters away. Avowed enemy of the empire. Working with the terrorist Luke Skywalker to try and overthrow the Emperor. He's ours now! The Stormtrooper raises his blaster to his shoulder, aims, fires....... and misses!

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    6. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... It's for protecting against rocks ...

      That sure helped them against the ewoks.

    7. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by TWX · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.
    8. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by jollyreaper · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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
    9. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by ArsonSmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
    10. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by eln · · Score: 5, Insightful

      C-3PO is a protocol droid designed to serve humans, and boasts that he is fluent "in over six million forms of communication."

      3PO is there for comic relief primarily, so his cowardice doesn't bother me. What really bothered me about him is the origin story in Episode 1. I mean seriously, are you trying to tell me that an 8 year old, bored out of his mind on a desert planet, with access to enough parts and knowledge to build a basically sentient robot is going to build a PROTOCOL DROID? I mean, he could have built a mindless killing machine, or a machine capable of fixing his speeder for him, or stealing shit from the marketplace, or raiding moisture farms for water, or SOMETHING. But no, he builds a droid designed to communicate politely in 6 million languages and that's about it. What the hell does a kid whose primary interest is podracing need with a protocol droid that can speak 6,000,000 languages, 5,999,999 of which he can't understand, and 5,999,983 of which he's unlikely to ever need to know? This kid had to be the biggest dork in 3 galaxies.

    11. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Interesting

      >>>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
    12. Re:At the Risk of Sounding Like an Apologist by SBrach · · Score: 5, Funny

      I know right, everyone knows the french don't go to battle.

  2. Oh dear by FTWinston · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Oh dear by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, they're never referred to as 'lasers' or similar in the films. The books describe them as ionized gas throwers, like the PPGs in Babylon 5. In fact, if they were coherent light beams you wouldn't be able to see them, the only reason you can see them from the side is that they are projectiles that are glowing.

      Turbolasers, on the other hand...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Death Star by pwizard2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Death Star
    An unshielded exhaust port leading directly to the central reactor? Really? And when you rebuild it, your solution to this problem is four paths into the central core so large that you can literally fly a spaceship through them? Brilliant. Note to the Emperor: Someone on your Death Star design staff is in the pay of Rebel forces. Oh, right, you can't get the memo because someone threw you down a huge exposed shaft in your Death Star throne room.

    I agree with the critique on the Death Stars. Centralized power was the fatal flaw in both, so it would have made a lot more sense to use distributed power systems throughout the Death Star II. (lots of little reactors instead of one big one) That way, the rebels would have had to destroy the DSII apart piece by piece. Given how much time that would take, the Imperials probably would have won.

    I won't even go into the Endor holocaust in detail. (guess what happens when you detonate a small artificial moon near a planetary atmosphere? You get lots of fallout, resulting in nuclear winter and lots of dead ewoks)

    --
    "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
    1. Re:Death Star by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You get lots of fallout, resulting in nuclear winter and lots of dead ewoks.

      I'm not seeing a downside here.

    2. Re:Death Star by gwern · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Plus, how do you get around the fact that Luke killed way more people by destroying the Death Star I than Vader ever did?

      Let's keep in mind that we see very little of Darth Vader; we don't hear about his genocide of the Falleen, for example (I'll assume that you will refuse to accept that Darth Vader is responsible for blowing up Alderaan, even though he was Supreme Military Executor, in charge of all military operations). The EU covers his exploits in much more detail, and gives him a more appropriate bodycount.

      Also, the people on the Death Star were military. In war, military personnel are fair game. Luke didn't go after civilians; Darth Vader and the Empire did.

  4. Re:Re-cutting by MrNemesis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I happen think giving George Lucas access to the star wars prequels was a poor design choice :)

    --
    Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
  5. Seat belts by T-Bone-T · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. Re:council by GameMaster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  7. The "real" reasons why by gad_zuki! · · Score: 5, Funny

    >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.

  8. Re:Let's not forget...... by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is no sound in space.

    There's no incidental music in the real world. I like to consider space sound effects to be the same sort of thing.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Nerd-boy strikes back by SoupIsGood+Food · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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. Re:Nerd-boy strikes back by zakur · · Score: 5, Informative
      Japanese blades often did not have a tsuba (hand guard)

      Nonsense. A tsuba is an integral part of a practical katana. Only decorative or ceremonial long blades occasionally (e.g. shirisaya) lacked them. The tsuba didn't just protect the wielder from an opponent's blade, it also prevented the wielder's hand from sliding onto the blade during thrusts. Fighting with a tsuba-less sword would be folly.

  11. Artistic License (or Homer's Poor Choices) by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  12. Check his library card by jd2112 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  13. What about light saber switches? by deathpulse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?