Was Qui-Gonn's cameo neat or feel goofy and shoe-horned in?
kinda neat!
What struck me about the preview video was how comfortably Liam Neeson slipped back into his stock-but-beloved mentor voice, whereas the voice actor for Obi-Wan seemed to be in an entirely different scene, regarding Qui-Gonn as a somewhat perplexing oddity. Zero real emotion in what should have been a pretty profound moment.
Thrawn was a Chiss, a species of aliens from the Unknown Regions. He was a brilliant military strategist and commanded the remnants of the Imperial Fleet in a series of stunning victories against the New Republic. His study of his enemies' artwork gave him insight into their thought processes and cultures, allowing him to create highly effective tailor-made strategies
Thrawn was a Chiss, a species of aliens from the Unknown Regions. He was a brilliant military strategist and commanded the remnants of the Imperial Fleet in a series of stunning victories against the New Republic. His study of his enemies' artwork gave him insight into their thought processes and cultures, allowing him to create highly effective tailor-made strategies
hahahahaha what
It's not unprecedented. The Muslims armies only managed to take Constantinople thanks to some very arduous and thorough lectures on Eastern Christian iconography.
Thrawn was a Chiss, a species of aliens from the Unknown Regions. He was a brilliant military strategist and commanded the remnants of the Imperial Fleet in a series of stunning victories against the New Republic. His study of his enemies' artwork gave him insight into their thought processes and cultures, allowing him to create highly effective tailor-made strategies
hahahahaha what
It's not unprecedented. The Muslims armies only managed to take Constantinople thanks to some very arduous and thorough lectures on Eastern Christian iconography.
In a universe as stupid as Star Wars, studying your enemies--instead of spending that valuable time charging at them with the hopes of chopping their arms off, literally--is nearly unheard of.
Granted, artwork seems a rather strange thing to study if you're attacking various human cultures. But hey, the Jedi are weird as fuck, and that works out well for them.
Ewoks in ROTJ and their subsequent win over a dedicated fighting force with advance technology was Lucas' take on the Vietnam war. The ruthlessness of the ewok tactics cannot be ignored as they obviously sent thier most inept and expendable tribe members into the battle first knowing that they would be quickly routed by imperial troops, thus leading the imperial troops deep into the forest in a disoraganized manner as they pursued the cannon fodder ewok troops. When they were out of position and exposed, the elite ewok commados struck, wiping out the imperial troops. The heads of the troops were later used as primitive drums celebrating the ewoks victory. Heart of darkness indeed.
Thrawn was a Chiss, a species of aliens from the Unknown Regions. He was a brilliant military strategist and commanded the remnants of the Imperial Fleet in a series of stunning victories against the New Republic. His study of his enemies' artwork gave him insight into their thought processes and cultures, allowing him to create highly effective tailor-made strategies
hahahahaha what
It's not unprecedented. The Muslims armies only managed to take Constantinople thanks to some very arduous and thorough lectures on Eastern Christian iconography.
In a universe as stupid as Star Wars, studying your enemies--instead of spending that valuable time charging at them with the hopes of chopping their arms off, literally--is nearly unheard of.
Granted, artwork seems a rather strange thing to study if you're attacking various human cultures. But hey, the Jedi are weird as fuck, and that works out well for them.
Studying the artwork to get an understanding of the culture and psyche of a species is pretty smart actually. I mean it's simplistic as fuck to think that a few pieces would give you a clue about the character of an entire planet, but as a talking point to lecture your second in command on the value of understanding the enemy better then they understand themselves... it's a pretty good speech.
Presumably the dude studied their art as part of a more well-rounded intelligence effort. And maybe he liked keeping a museum of prized art pieces from the planets he conquered.
Even something as simple as knowing whether an enemy general is conservative or aggressive can be very useful, and you might be able to learn that from a person's taste in art. You wouldn't want to use the same strategy against a Stonewall Jackson that you would use against a George McClellan.
Our choices in books, music, art, and design go to the core of who we are. "Taste can offer us a doorway into people's lives," says Sam Gosling, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You. "Taste reveals a lot about what someone values and needs to fill their life with meaning."
Thrawn's psychological exploits seem to be pretty broad-based, rather than specific stuff like "The enemy general is John Smith. According to his art collection, in 12 minutes he will deploy 2 flights of A-wings in a V formation as a fighter screen for a flight of Y-wings who will target our comm array."
Plus he seems to be pretty capable even without the art stuff. He doesn't need art to siege Coruscant with cloaked asteroids, or to come up with the idea of using SDs in feint attacks.
It's also worth noting that this wasn't some bullshit "oh he has this painting that is why I win" quick d.e.m. It is implied that the guy spends ALL his spare time studying art. He was probably the Galaxies greatest art historian at the time of his death.
Ewoks in ROTJ and their subsequent win over a dedicated fighting force with advance technology was Lucas' take on the Vietnam war. The ruthlessness of the ewok tactics cannot be ignored as they obviously sent thier most inept and expendable tribe members into the battle first knowing that they would be quickly routed by imperial troops, thus leading the imperial troops deep into the forest in a disoraganized manner as they pursued the cannon fodder ewok troops. When they were out of position and exposed, the elite ewok commados struck, wiping out the imperial troops. The heads of the troops were later used as primitive drums celebrating the ewoks victory. Heart of darkness indeed.
This might have worked if the Ewoks weren't tiny and using stone weapons to laser blasters. If they were man sized, or close, and had rudimentary blasters and there were like, 500,000 of them (and a hundred of them died for each imperial killed) it might be a better analog
Honestly they existed to make toys. I mean I'm told Star Wars metals are some kind of durasteel crap that's super strong right? Well what would 2 logs smacking together do to an Abrams Tank? Absolutely fuck all, at worst they'd wreck the treads and give the guys inside some concussive injuries. What do they do to an AT-ST? Squish it like an egg
Ewoks in ROTJ and their subsequent win over a dedicated fighting force with advance technology was Lucas' take on the Vietnam war. The ruthlessness of the ewok tactics cannot be ignored as they obviously sent thier most inept and expendable tribe members into the battle first knowing that they would be quickly routed by imperial troops, thus leading the imperial troops deep into the forest in a disoraganized manner as they pursued the cannon fodder ewok troops. When they were out of position and exposed, the elite ewok commados struck, wiping out the imperial troops. The heads of the troops were later used as primitive drums celebrating the ewoks victory. Heart of darkness indeed.
This might have worked if the Ewoks weren't tiny and using stone weapons to laser blasters. If they were man sized, or close, and had rudimentary blasters and there were like, 500,000 of them (and a hundred of them died for each imperial killed) it might be a better analog
Honestly they existed to make toys. I mean I'm told Star Wars metals are some kind of durasteel crap that's super strong right? Well what would 2 logs smacking together do to an Abrams Tank? Absolutely fuck all, at worst they'd wreck the treads and give the guys inside some concussive injuries. What do they do to an AT-ST? Squish it like an egg
I wouldn't be so sure about that. There's only so much you can do to mitigate raw momentum.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
It's also worth noting that this wasn't some bullshit "oh he has this painting that is why I win" quick d.e.m. It is implied that the guy spends ALL his spare time studying art. He was probably the Galaxies greatest art historian at the time of his death.
He probably earned the Star Wars-equivalent of a PhD when he graduated from a senior staff academy upon becoming an Admiral (before being a Grand Admiral). That's how it works on Earth in an academy.
Granted, it was in art history, apparently...
Then again, he also created an entirely new, stable, self-sufficient sovereign entity on the fringes of space that outlived much of the old Empire. He obviously knew something about civil management. He might have combined the two.
Ewoks in ROTJ and their subsequent win over a dedicated fighting force with advance technology was Lucas' take on the Vietnam war. The ruthlessness of the ewok tactics cannot be ignored as they obviously sent thier most inept and expendable tribe members into the battle first knowing that they would be quickly routed by imperial troops, thus leading the imperial troops deep into the forest in a disoraganized manner as they pursued the cannon fodder ewok troops. When they were out of position and exposed, the elite ewok commados struck, wiping out the imperial troops. The heads of the troops were later used as primitive drums celebrating the ewoks victory. Heart of darkness indeed.
This has got to be one of the worst cases of wishful thinking I've ever seen. Ewoks were about merchandising, it doesn't really go beyond that.
Those logs had neither the mass nor the velocity needed to fuck with anything worth calling "armored" though. We saw that they're just wood, we saw the distance they swung and we know Endor's gravity is about normal. That scene is just silly.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
Those logs had neither the mass nor the velocity needed to fuck with anything worth calling "armored" though. We saw that they're just wood, we saw the distance they swung and we know Endor's gravity is about normal. That scene is just silly.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
The thing is, the Ewoks could have won that battle in a relatively plausible manner. But it would have involved hordes of Ewok men, women and children charging the Storm Troopers and overwhelming them by sheer weight of numbers. Of course, that would have led to large piles of Ewok corpses. The Iranians used this tactic in their war against Iraq, with some succes.
You'd have to assume Ewoks are robotic, fearless and not susceptible to a collapse in morale. And that there are enough of them close by to make a human (Ewok) wave attack possible.
Modern Man on
Aetian Jupiter - 41 Gunslinger - The Old Republic
Rigorous Scholarship
Those logs had neither the mass nor the velocity needed to fuck with anything worth calling "armored" though. We saw that they're just wood, we saw the distance they swung and we know Endor's gravity is about normal. That scene is just silly.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
The thing is, the Ewoks could have won that battle in a relatively plausible manner. But it would have involved hordes of Ewok men, women and children charging the Storm Troopers and overwhelming them by sheer weight of numbers. Of course, that would have led to large piles of Ewok corpses. The Iranians used this tactic in their war against Iraq, with some succes.
You'd have to assume Ewoks are robotic, fearless and not susceptible to a collapse in morale. And that there are enough of them close by to make a human (Ewok) wave attack possible.
Based on what we see of their psyche, they seem like they would somewhat plausibly be able to be whipped up into a battle frenzy to do that though.
I mean shit, isn't this like the exact way the American civil war got fought?
Ewoks in ROTJ and their subsequent win over a dedicated fighting force with advance technology was Lucas' take on the Vietnam war. The ruthlessness of the ewok tactics cannot be ignored as they obviously sent thier most inept and expendable tribe members into the battle first knowing that they would be quickly routed by imperial troops, thus leading the imperial troops deep into the forest in a disoraganized manner as they pursued the cannon fodder ewok troops. When they were out of position and exposed, the elite ewok commados struck, wiping out the imperial troops. The heads of the troops were later used as primitive drums celebrating the ewoks victory. Heart of darkness indeed.
This has got to be one of the worst cases of wishful thinking I've ever seen. Ewoks were about merchandising, it doesn't really go beyond that.
They are savage beasts.
I agree with you, but I bet my above argument has been advanced before.
Those logs had neither the mass nor the velocity needed to fuck with anything worth calling "armored" though. We saw that they're just wood, we saw the distance they swung and we know Endor's gravity is about normal. That scene is just silly.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
The thing is, the Ewoks could have won that battle in a relatively plausible manner. But it would have involved hordes of Ewok men, women and children charging the Storm Troopers and overwhelming them by sheer weight of numbers. Of course, that would have led to large piles of Ewok corpses. The Iranians used this tactic in their war against Iraq, with some succes.
You'd have to assume Ewoks are robotic, fearless and not susceptible to a collapse in morale. And that there are enough of them close by to make a human (Ewok) wave attack possible.
Based on what we see of their psyche, they seem like they would somewhat plausibly be able to be whipped up into a battle frenzy to do that though.
I mean shit, isn't this like the exact way the American civil war got fought?
No, there were a number of skilled tacticians in the ACW.
Maybe part of the problem is we see both the Old Republic and Imperial militaries at their most corrupt. One of those "Tales of..." books has an AT-AT pilot reporting how vulnerable the legs are, but his report gets shut out because it's politically inconvenient.
Basically, they're like the US military in the 1930s telling Billy Mitchell to shut up about the Japanese one day bombing Pearl Harbor because "a plane can never sink a battleship!" Or the folks nowadays screaming about how if we don't have the F-22 then China will gain air superiority by showing Top Gun clips.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
Those logs had neither the mass nor the velocity needed to fuck with anything worth calling "armored" though. We saw that they're just wood, we saw the distance they swung and we know Endor's gravity is about normal. That scene is just silly.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
The thing is, the Ewoks could have won that battle in a relatively plausible manner. But it would have involved hordes of Ewok men, women and children charging the Storm Troopers and overwhelming them by sheer weight of numbers. Of course, that would have led to large piles of Ewok corpses. The Iranians used this tactic in their war against Iraq, with some succes.
You'd have to assume Ewoks are robotic, fearless and not susceptible to a collapse in morale. And that there are enough of them close by to make a human (Ewok) wave attack possible.
Based on what we see of their psyche, they seem like they would somewhat plausibly be able to be whipped up into a battle frenzy to do that though.
I mean shit, isn't this like the exact way the American civil war got fought?
The American Civil War was fought with Napoleonic tactics in an era of far superior weaponry, that's what lead to the massive casualties. Not crazy berserker troops charging or whatever.
The Ewoks fought with crude tribal stuff, if we really need a real world analogy I'd go with Zulus vs. British.
People keep using this word in relation to the Ewoks. I do not think it means what they think it means.
–noun
1. the eating of human flesh by another human being.
2. the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of its own kind.
3. the ceremonial eating of human flesh or parts of the human body for magical or religious purposes, as to acquire the power or skill of a person recently killed.
4. the act of pecking flesh from a live fowl by a member of the same flock.
5. the removal of parts, equipment, assets, or employees from one product, item, or business in order to use them in another.
6. the acquisition and absorption of smaller companies by a large corporation or conglomerate.
3 is ambiguous, but if taken in context of 1 and 2, eating humans is not cannibalism. Humans eating Humans, or Ewoks eating Ewoks would be cannibalism. Ewoks eating Humans is just being carnivorous and getting an upper hand on a species that's used to being at the top of the food chain.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
The American Civil War was fought with Napoleonic tactics in an era of far superior weaponry, that's what lead to the massive casualties. Not crazy berserker troops charging or whatever.
The Ewoks fought with crude tribal stuff, if we really need a real world analogy I'd go with Zulus vs. British.
Except you'd have to stretch even that analogy to give the British armoured tanks, planes (since space ships can perform bombardments and whatnot), and armour meant to be capable of stopping lasers or something.
Also, the Zulus would have to be up to the average Brit's kneecap.
Those logs had neither the mass nor the velocity needed to fuck with anything worth calling "armored" though. We saw that they're just wood, we saw the distance they swung and we know Endor's gravity is about normal. That scene is just silly.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
The thing is, the Ewoks could have won that battle in a relatively plausible manner. But it would have involved hordes of Ewok men, women and children charging the Storm Troopers and overwhelming them by sheer weight of numbers. Of course, that would have led to large piles of Ewok corpses. The Iranians used this tactic in their war against Iraq, with some succes.
You'd have to assume Ewoks are robotic, fearless and not susceptible to a collapse in morale. And that there are enough of them close by to make a human (Ewok) wave attack possible.
Based on what we see of their psyche, they seem like they would somewhat plausibly be able to be whipped up into a battle frenzy to do that though.
I mean shit, isn't this like the exact way the American civil war got fought?
While it would make it more plausible... come on
The stormtroopers defeated an army of actual robots, robots who had lasers
Has anyone ever seen the movie The Pentagon Wars? I'd watch the shit out of a Star Wars version of that with the AT ATs and the AT STs
Holy shit that would be phenomenal
They missed a real opportunity for some gold with the AT-AT development mission in empire at war.
"As you can see lord vader, the AT-AT is impervious to all forms of... *AT-AT trips and falls over and explodes, camera immediately cuts away*... enemy fire, did I mention the emperor's cousin has a controlling stake in the defense subcontractor that designed the legs?"
Has anyone ever seen the movie The Pentagon Wars? I'd watch the shit out of a Star Wars version of that with the AT ATs and the AT STs
Robman, you just want us to talk about the Bradley IFV, don't you?
Though yes, a Pentagon Wars type film about the development of the X-Wing or something would be awesome. And it ends with the whole design team defecting, the rest of the corporation swearing to destroy them for using all their funds and research to build it, and Kelsey Grammar bursting a blood vessel.
Then scene change, with an X-Wing being in a TIE Fighter's sights for a split second and exploding, just like they do in the films.
Or some sort of documentary film on the laying down and deployment of the Executor, or one of its sister ships, but those are just my favorite designs. IMPS: The Relentless kind of wanders into that area at times, which is one of the many reasons its great.
The American Civil War was fought with Napoleonic tactics in an era of far superior weaponry, that's what lead to the massive casualties. Not crazy berserker troops charging or whatever.
The Ewoks fought with crude tribal stuff, if we really need a real world analogy I'd go with Zulus vs. British.
Except you'd have to stretch even that analogy to give the British armoured tanks, planes (since space ships can perform bombardments and whatnot), and armour meant to be capable of stopping lasers or something.
Also, the Zulus would have to be up to the average Brit's kneecap.
The Zulus were also fairly well organized and practiced decent tactics.
The infantry combat could easily be fixed, just retcon the Ewoks to have poison-tipped weapons in that battle. Stormtrooper armor isn't chain mail. The black parts are cloth, easy to pierce with a blade or spearpoint. Just slap some poison on those little Ewok hatchets, and they can kill stormtroopers easy.
There's already examples of Ewoks using poison in the (ugh) Ewok Adventure stuff.
One domesticated boar-wolf chased Cindel and Mace Towani through the forest after they left the home of Deej Warrick, trapping them inside the hollow of a tree trunk. In the morning, Deej and his three sons Wicket, Widdle, and Weechee went searching for the children and found the boar-wolf lurking in the vicinity. Deej and his two elder sons fought the creature using spears. The boar-wolf was ultimately felled by Wicket, who shot it with a poisoned dart from a blowgun.
The infantry combat could easily be fixed, just retcon the Ewoks to have poison-tipped weapons in that battle. Stormtrooper armor isn't chain mail. The black parts are cloth, easy to pierce with a blade or spearpoint. Just slap some poison on those little Ewok hatchets, and they can kill stormtroopers easy.
That would mean they would have to be insanely good at aiming.
Has anyone ever seen the movie The Pentagon Wars? I'd watch the shit out of a Star Wars version of that with the AT ATs and the AT STs
I would write, direct and edit such a film.
This does raise an interesting point, though. You get a bunch of Star Wars smart-asses together and invariably someone is going to point out how laughably terrible Imperial engineering is. The whole exhaust port business and so forth. From a practical standpoint, everything the empire has ever made is idiotic. But artistically, it's all brilliant.
One of my favorite aspects of the production design from those original films is that the look of Imperial technology perfectly characterizes the empire and the universe the films are trying to portray. Of course the Death Star's only weakness is something as trivial as an exhaust port. The people who built it never thought a few scrappy teenagers could make a difference. Their hubris assumed an assault by a giant fleet.
And the AT-ATs. Impractical? Yes. Scary as fuck? Yes. Huge, impractical, intimidating - just like the empire. The TIE fighters? Seemingly scrapped together out of papier machet, but the fact that they look mass produced and place so little value on the life of their pilots says everything about their scope and power.
So yeah, rare example where implausibility in the plot is actually a pretty worthy trade off for characterization via visuals, which is essentially what these films live on.
Has anyone ever seen the movie The Pentagon Wars? I'd watch the shit out of a Star Wars version of that with the AT ATs and the AT STs
I would write, direct and edit such a film.
This does raise an interesting point, though. You get a bunch of Star Wars smart-asses together and invariably someone is going to point out how laughably terrible Imperial engineering is. The whole exhaust port business and so forth. From a practical standpoint, everything the empire has ever made is idiotic. But artistically, it's all brilliant.
One of my favorite aspects of the production design from those original films is that the look of Imperial technology perfectly characterizes the empire and the universe the films are trying to portray. Of course the Death Star's only weakness is something as trivial as an exhaust port. The people who built it never thought a few scrappy teenagers could make a difference. Their hubris assumed an assault by a giant fleet.
And the AT-ATs. Impractical? Yes. Scary as fuck? Yes. Huge, impractical, intimidating - just like the empire. The TIE fighters? Seemingly scrapped together out of papier machet, but the fact that they look mass produced and place so little value on the life of their pilots says everything about their scope and power.
So yeah, rare example where implausibility in the plot is actually a pretty worthy trade off for characterization via visuals, which is essentially what these films live on.
Except both X-Wings and TIE Fighters are near-suicide missions. Think hard, and recall every appearance of an X-Wing in combat. Now take out the ones flown by Luke himself. With the exception of Wedge, every one of those fighters is a hilarious death trap. TIE Fighters explode with one or two direction shots, sure enough. So do X-Wings, despite being allegedly shielded and armored--unless Luke is one.
Fighter warfare in old Star Wars is quick, brutal, and lethal. X-Wing pilots are basically on suicide missions every time they're sent out (unless they do something that doesn't involve shooting anyway), if the movies have their say. Even the Rebel infantry, who have yet to win a battle (on camera) have a better survival rate--what with them being marched away, apparently alive, as prisoners. Rebel pilots just end up being spots on the sides of Death Stars or Star Destroyers--no wonder that guy was so effective in blowing up the Executor, the man was set up for a suicide mission anyway.
The EU would tell a different story, of course. The EU also gives us stuff like TIE Defenders and Missile Boats and E-Wings and stuff. But in the films, being a fighter pilot in Star Wars sucks unless your name ends with "Skywalker" means you are dead (again, Wedge being the exception). You spend about 5 minutes in actual combat, before being mowed down by a turret or another fighter.
Speaking as a seasoned player of the computer game X-Wing v.s. Tie FIghter, I can assure you Synth that the only suicide missions that actually took place where when other pilots flew against me.
Witch_Hunter_84 on
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten in your presence.
Speaking as a seasoned player of the computer game X-Wing v.s. Tie FIghter, I can assure you Synth that the only suicide missions that actually took place where when other pilots flew against me.
If the actual battles in Star Wars were like those in X-Wing vs TIE Fighters, we wouldn't be having this conversation. They'd involve fighters flying in space completely empty except for other fighters and an ugly platform, doing endless circles around eachother. And tiny 2D sprites of space debris.
Don't get be wrong, I still have fond memories of that game, but the dogfighting wasn't exactly like the films. Probably why anti-capital ship missions or raids were much more fun than interception.
Then again, any X-Wing that got in front of me in a TIE Interceptor, or vice versa, was dead in two salvos anyway. So maybe it is true to the films.
Speaking as a seasoned player of the computer game X-Wing v.s. Tie FIghter, I can assure you Synth that the only suicide missions that actually took place where when other pilots flew against me.
If I remember correctly, out of all those Rebel fighters sent up against the Death Star, the only three official survivors are Luke, Wedge, and The Guy You Are When You Play X-Wing. Who later on became a Jedi.
Speaking as a seasoned player of the computer game X-Wing v.s. Tie FIghter, I can assure you Synth that the only suicide missions that actually took place where when other pilots flew against me.
If I remember correctly, out of all those Rebel fighters sent up against the Death Star, the only three official survivors are Luke, Wedge, and The Guy You Are When You Play X-Wing. Who later on became a Jedi.
Guy no. 3 was mysterious absent for the movie. Pretty sure he locked himself in the hangar lavatory and missed the whole battle.
If that happened to me, I would certainly have made up the same story. "I was there too, guys! It was awesome! On the...uh...Death Ship? Death World? The big thing that just exploded!"
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
Speaking as a seasoned player of the computer game X-Wing v.s. Tie FIghter, I can assure you Synth that the only suicide missions that actually took place where when other pilots flew against me.
If I remember correctly, out of all those Rebel fighters sent up against the Death Star, the only three official survivors are Luke, Wedge, and The Guy You Are When You Play X-Wing. Who later on became a Jedi.
It's funny how as technology progresses the ideas in old movies are so silly. I'd send a million predator space drones at the death star now.
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kinda neat!
What struck me about the preview video was how comfortably Liam Neeson slipped back into his stock-but-beloved mentor voice, whereas the voice actor for Obi-Wan seemed to be in an entirely different scene, regarding Qui-Gonn as a somewhat perplexing oddity. Zero real emotion in what should have been a pretty profound moment.
How did the rest of the scene fare?
I won't lie, I was excited to hear about his inclusion, but I haven't been following Clone Wars so I didn't tune in.
It's not unprecedented. The Muslims armies only managed to take Constantinople thanks to some very arduous and thorough lectures on Eastern Christian iconography.
In a universe as stupid as Star Wars, studying your enemies--instead of spending that valuable time charging at them with the hopes of chopping their arms off, literally--is nearly unheard of.
Granted, artwork seems a rather strange thing to study if you're attacking various human cultures. But hey, the Jedi are weird as fuck, and that works out well for them.
Studying the artwork to get an understanding of the culture and psyche of a species is pretty smart actually. I mean it's simplistic as fuck to think that a few pieces would give you a clue about the character of an entire planet, but as a talking point to lecture your second in command on the value of understanding the enemy better then they understand themselves... it's a pretty good speech.
Presumably the dude studied their art as part of a more well-rounded intelligence effort. And maybe he liked keeping a museum of prized art pieces from the planets he conquered.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200906/what-your-stuff-reveals-about-you
Thrawn's psychological exploits seem to be pretty broad-based, rather than specific stuff like "The enemy general is John Smith. According to his art collection, in 12 minutes he will deploy 2 flights of A-wings in a V formation as a fighter screen for a flight of Y-wings who will target our comm array."
Plus he seems to be pretty capable even without the art stuff. He doesn't need art to siege Coruscant with cloaked asteroids, or to come up with the idea of using SDs in feint attacks.
This might have worked if the Ewoks weren't tiny and using stone weapons to laser blasters. If they were man sized, or close, and had rudimentary blasters and there were like, 500,000 of them (and a hundred of them died for each imperial killed) it might be a better analog
Honestly they existed to make toys. I mean I'm told Star Wars metals are some kind of durasteel crap that's super strong right? Well what would 2 logs smacking together do to an Abrams Tank? Absolutely fuck all, at worst they'd wreck the treads and give the guys inside some concussive injuries. What do they do to an AT-ST? Squish it like an egg
I wouldn't be so sure about that. There's only so much you can do to mitigate raw momentum.
He probably earned the Star Wars-equivalent of a PhD when he graduated from a senior staff academy upon becoming an Admiral (before being a Grand Admiral). That's how it works on Earth in an academy.
Granted, it was in art history, apparently...
Then again, he also created an entirely new, stable, self-sufficient sovereign entity on the fringes of space that outlived much of the old Empire. He obviously knew something about civil management. He might have combined the two.
This has got to be one of the worst cases of wishful thinking I've ever seen. Ewoks were about merchandising, it doesn't really go beyond that.
Plus how the fuck did the Ewoks even get those logs into position. This would be like a collossal Pyramid building stone moving effort for them and we're lead to believe they just strung this up ad hoc in a few hours.
You'd have to assume Ewoks are robotic, fearless and not susceptible to a collapse in morale. And that there are enough of them close by to make a human (Ewok) wave attack possible.
Rigorous Scholarship
Based on what we see of their psyche, they seem like they would somewhat plausibly be able to be whipped up into a battle frenzy to do that though.
I mean shit, isn't this like the exact way the American civil war got fought?
They are savage beasts.
I agree with you, but I bet my above argument has been advanced before.
No, there were a number of skilled tacticians in the ACW.
Maybe part of the problem is we see both the Old Republic and Imperial militaries at their most corrupt. One of those "Tales of..." books has an AT-AT pilot reporting how vulnerable the legs are, but his report gets shut out because it's politically inconvenient.
Basically, they're like the US military in the 1930s telling Billy Mitchell to shut up about the Japanese one day bombing Pearl Harbor because "a plane can never sink a battleship!" Or the folks nowadays screaming about how if we don't have the F-22 then China will gain air superiority by showing Top Gun clips.
Less cannibalism in that one.
Why I fear the ocean.
The Ewoks fought with crude tribal stuff, if we really need a real world analogy I'd go with Zulus vs. British.
People keep using this word in relation to the Ewoks. I do not think it means what they think it means.
3 is ambiguous, but if taken in context of 1 and 2, eating humans is not cannibalism. Humans eating Humans, or Ewoks eating Ewoks would be cannibalism. Ewoks eating Humans is just being carnivorous and getting an upper hand on a species that's used to being at the top of the food chain.
Except you'd have to stretch even that analogy to give the British armoured tanks, planes (since space ships can perform bombardments and whatnot), and armour meant to be capable of stopping lasers or something.
Also, the Zulus would have to be up to the average Brit's kneecap.
While it would make it more plausible... come on
The stormtroopers defeated an army of actual robots, robots who had lasers
Holy shit that would be phenomenal
They missed a real opportunity for some gold with the AT-AT development mission in empire at war.
"As you can see lord vader, the AT-AT is impervious to all forms of... *AT-AT trips and falls over and explodes, camera immediately cuts away*... enemy fire, did I mention the emperor's cousin has a controlling stake in the defense subcontractor that designed the legs?"
Robman, you just want us to talk about the Bradley IFV, don't you?
Though yes, a Pentagon Wars type film about the development of the X-Wing or something would be awesome. And it ends with the whole design team defecting, the rest of the corporation swearing to destroy them for using all their funds and research to build it, and Kelsey Grammar bursting a blood vessel.
Then scene change, with an X-Wing being in a TIE Fighter's sights for a split second and exploding, just like they do in the films.
Or some sort of documentary film on the laying down and deployment of the Executor, or one of its sister ships, but those are just my favorite designs. IMPS: The Relentless kind of wanders into that area at times, which is one of the many reasons its great.
The Zulus were also fairly well organized and practiced decent tactics.
There's already examples of Ewoks using poison in the (ugh) Ewok Adventure stuff.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boar-wolf
The AT-ST log-crushing is tougher to fix.
I would write, direct and edit such a film.
This does raise an interesting point, though. You get a bunch of Star Wars smart-asses together and invariably someone is going to point out how laughably terrible Imperial engineering is. The whole exhaust port business and so forth. From a practical standpoint, everything the empire has ever made is idiotic. But artistically, it's all brilliant.
One of my favorite aspects of the production design from those original films is that the look of Imperial technology perfectly characterizes the empire and the universe the films are trying to portray. Of course the Death Star's only weakness is something as trivial as an exhaust port. The people who built it never thought a few scrappy teenagers could make a difference. Their hubris assumed an assault by a giant fleet.
And the AT-ATs. Impractical? Yes. Scary as fuck? Yes. Huge, impractical, intimidating - just like the empire. The TIE fighters? Seemingly scrapped together out of papier machet, but the fact that they look mass produced and place so little value on the life of their pilots says everything about their scope and power.
So yeah, rare example where implausibility in the plot is actually a pretty worthy trade off for characterization via visuals, which is essentially what these films live on.
Heir to the Empire 20th year Edition cover
Except both X-Wings and TIE Fighters are near-suicide missions. Think hard, and recall every appearance of an X-Wing in combat. Now take out the ones flown by Luke himself. With the exception of Wedge, every one of those fighters is a hilarious death trap. TIE Fighters explode with one or two direction shots, sure enough. So do X-Wings, despite being allegedly shielded and armored--unless Luke is one.
Fighter warfare in old Star Wars is quick, brutal, and lethal. X-Wing pilots are basically on suicide missions every time they're sent out (unless they do something that doesn't involve shooting anyway), if the movies have their say. Even the Rebel infantry, who have yet to win a battle (on camera) have a better survival rate--what with them being marched away, apparently alive, as prisoners. Rebel pilots just end up being spots on the sides of Death Stars or Star Destroyers--no wonder that guy was so effective in blowing up the Executor, the man was set up for a suicide mission anyway.
The EU would tell a different story, of course. The EU also gives us stuff like TIE Defenders and Missile Boats and E-Wings and stuff. But in the films, being a fighter pilot in Star Wars sucks unless your name ends with "Skywalker" means you are dead (again, Wedge being the exception). You spend about 5 minutes in actual combat, before being mowed down by a turret or another fighter.
Would this be retconned to reflect all the stuff that has come out since then? I wonder.
If the actual battles in Star Wars were like those in X-Wing vs TIE Fighters, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Don't get be wrong, I still have fond memories of that game, but the dogfighting wasn't exactly like the films. Probably why anti-capital ship missions or raids were much more fun than interception.
Then again, any X-Wing that got in front of me in a TIE Interceptor, or vice versa, was dead in two salvos anyway. So maybe it is true to the films.
If I remember correctly, out of all those Rebel fighters sent up against the Death Star, the only three official survivors are Luke, Wedge, and The Guy You Are When You Play X-Wing. Who later on became a Jedi.
Guy no. 3 was mysterious absent for the movie. Pretty sure he locked himself in the hangar lavatory and missed the whole battle.
If that happened to me, I would certainly have made up the same story. "I was there too, guys! It was awesome! On the...uh...Death Ship? Death World? The big thing that just exploded!"
It's funny how as technology progresses the ideas in old movies are so silly. I'd send a million predator space drones at the death star now.