Slashdot Mirror
How Star Wars Trumped Star Trek For Scientific Accuracy
An anonymous reader writes "When George Lucas added the 'ring around the Death Star' effect to his 1997 re-release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the revision was almost as hated as Greedo shooting first, and to boot was seen as a knock-off of the seminal 'Praxis effect' in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). But a debunking astronomer claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe."
Cue the guys with pointy latex ear extensions flipping off the guys with the neon glowing plastic swords.
Ring around the Death Star? Greedo shooting first? You mean, people actually watch the butchered editions of Star Wars?
I had no idea.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Which would win in a fight, the Millennium Falcon or the Enterprise?
Just made Star Wars totally unrealistic.
........tell fan boys what? I am sure we all know better than to try and argue anything to a fan boy. His universe is set in stone and any alteration is considered a blasphemy on a level beyond religion. Lukas had every right to change his creation but to assume fans of the original would be pleased was a little foolish. And Han shot first......
Of course not. Everybody knows that the Tauntauns all live on Hoth, and they didn't even go there until episode V.
If you look at the dynamics of the Enterprise during the Far Point episode, you can see at least 16 maneuvers that violate physics. I think it's pretty clear that the people who do Star Trek don't have any respect -- whatsoever -- for any kind of physical realism. On the other hand, if you look at the way the Millennium Falcon moves, especially the way it goes into hyperdrive, it is WAY more realistic.
It really bothers me that Trekkies/Trekkers/whatever you want to call them think that Star Trek is so great. What really gets me is how Earth-centric it is. Like, as if Earth would become some marvelous utopian society and yet the Klingons (note: Black people?) are so freakin violent.
The whole idea in Star Wars of a struggle between good and evil is far more realistic, and I think that's why so many kids aged 7-9 relate to Star Wars so well, because it reflects the reality of the world, as any child can see. I vowed never to watch any more Star Trek about 3 years ago, and honestly it was the best decision I ever made. Even my work performance improved.
Weather is a magic carpet, wizard spell, and police box, or warp drive.
No, weather is rain, snow, sun, or wind. You probably wanted to say:
Whether it is a magic carpet, wizard spell, and police box, or warp drive.
That's no moon - it's the Borg!!!!
How Vi trumped Emacs!
Have I been here too long?
Free Martian Whores!
It's just amusing that a person who once went in front of Congress to protest against the colorization of The Three Stooges is one of the biggest film revisionists of all time at this point.
His position was absolutely consistent. His protest against colorizing the Stooges was correct - you don't mess with the classics (To those that object to the usage of The Stooges and "classic" in the same breath, I ask which you would rather see, "Three Little Pigskins" - also starring a very young Lucille Ball - or "Star Wars Episode I: The Coming of the Trade War"? And besides, if you do object, you're probably a woman.) Of course, recognizing his own stuff as the schlock it is, he's perfectly free to make any changes he wants in it. I think a cross-dressing Jabba the Hutt would be nice for the next "Director's Edition", don't you think?
That is all.
Is that Star Wars is a gigantic steaming pile of shit.
The other problem with having Greedo shoot first is that they were, what . . . about 2-3' feet from each other? Across the table? Greedo is an experienced bounty hunter. How the hell does he miss from that distance??
He likely went to the same shooting range as every stormtrooper in the galaxy.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
I think you must've been! C'mon out of your vault, the war is long over and we all use nano now.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
It shoots midichlorians.
What did you use the fishing poles for? To reach the books on the high shelves, to lift the librarians skirt, or something else entirely?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Stooge revisionism? Curly slapped first?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Greedo missing from 3 feet away, stormtroopers unable to hit anything, and Obi-wan's comment "Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise," can all be explained away by another of Kenobi's comments: "...clumsy or random as a blaster."
From all this, I can only conclude that "blasters" have an intentionally random directional shift applied each time the weapon is fired. Such randomness would mean that they constitute a galaxy-spanning game of Russian roulette, and would also make them ideal terror weapons.
This feature can be used to explain the Stormtrooper precision based on the standardization of their equipment. If all Imperial blasters have an identical random-deflection-generator installed and seeded with the same value, then shots taken at the same time would have identical deflection and all strike the same area, despite having completely unpredictable accuracy.
I switched to microsoft office word. I don't know what you people are talking about.
I enjoy both Star Trek and Star Wars as adventure drama, but there is not one iota of real science in either one. Might as well post an article about how the pot trumped the kettle for whiteness.
The original Howling Frog is a fictional character and has no UID.
So you are saying it's an Eastern?