WTF People? #7 ("Star Wars"...and a few digressions)

Wow, I haven't written one of these for a while. I know it wasn't for lack of material either. Anyway, This evening I decided to go back and watch the original "Star Wars" movie just for the hell of it. Now I must explain, I have always been a big "Star Wars" fan, many of you who grew up with me already know this. Well, tonight when I watched it (after many years of not watching it) I couldn't help but be stunned by how bad it was. I don't just mean the acting either.

Since I brought up acting, I might as well start with that. First off, for a guy in his 20s Luke is a whiny little bitch. I think this is the base that the douche they picked to play Annakin in the newest 2 films, because that so-called actor because he made what is writtten as a fun and intelligent character into a stupid, sniveling, whiny little bitchwhore. Anyway, back to the original. Next we have Ben Kenobi. Actually he did pretty well, except for a jedi his swordplay was pathetic. Now Han was really just a talking head for the whole film with witty one-liners and a penchant for getting shot at. His character had no depth whatsoever. About the only character who was convincing was the charismatic princess. she was the only one who seemed to be an actual person who wasn't overacting the part. Now on to the Droids, chrome plated comic relief who somehow managed to quit their bickering just long enough to do just the right thing at the right time.

Now comes the part that REALLY bugged me: the technical side. Lets start with the physics of starflight (which seems to be conveniently forgotten here). First off, in space you can't hear anything because there is nothing to conduct the sound waves. All those cool sound effects like the Tie Fighters screaming by are totally bogus. I also noticed how every ship seemed to be confined to the motions of atmospheric flight. For example, when the fighters were flying down the trench of the Death Star, you had one lead fighter targeting the shaft while his two wingmen flew interference against their pursuers. All well and good, except they basically used themselves as meat shields when they could have fought back. According to physics, if they had simply cut their engines and turned around, they would continue in the same direction as before, but now they could shoot back at their pursuers. Since they are in the vacuum of space, they wouldn't be torn to pieces and crash. There was also the fact that it seemed every ship had their main engines on all the time. This simply produces constant thrust and acceleration in space and is kind of counter-productive.

Another thing that really bugged me was the ship designs. None but the Falcon are really suited for space combat. Lets start with the fighters. First we have the TIE fighter. Basically it is a small spherical cockpit with two small ion engines, two heavy turbolaser cannons, and two giant solar panel wings that basically provide an opponent with a huge target to shoot at. Now head on they have such a small profile that they would be hard to hit, but from any other angle they are stupidly vulnerable. Next we have the Y wing fighter. Basically it is very similar to the TIE figther except it doesn't have big wings and also has a large capacity for bombs or missiles. It also has a rotating turret which for some reason was never used in the movie to pick off the TIEs on their tail. Of all the fighters in the movie, the X wing starfighter was most suited for space combat. It too has a very small aspect ratio making it hard to hit, but it also has 4 cannons placed so as to make a sort of box around the target. the center of gravity is such that maneuvering it should be very easy and quick, despite what the movie showed. The larger ships are what really annoyed me because for warships, they are very poorly designed. One of the worst is the Star Destroyer. These things are unbelievably ill suited for space combat. The placement of their weapons is reminescent of surface ships that shoot to the side because they are dealing with gravity. Their field of fire is limited to almost completely lateral shots. Next we have the Correlian Corvette (aka Blockade Runner). Actually this one is rather well suited for it's purpose. most of the weaponry is forward mounted to provide a screen of fire towards any blockading ships, and 11 engines to give it considerable speed. However the huge ass this makes is also the weakness of the ship. If any ships get into pursuit, they have this huge glowing target to shoot at and the corvette can't shoot back. Now for the thing that bugged me the most: The Death Star. For a battle station it was surprisingly easy to get close to and destroy. Mainly this has to do with the gun emplacements and how they were severely lacking. Question: Why in the worlds would the heaviest turbolaser batteries have a field of fire ONLY parallell to the surface of a spherical battlestation? You would think you would have those pointed out towards oncoming capital ships where they might actually do some good. Also, I noticed that the fighters encountered only light resistance in their attack run. Han had two quad-laser turrets with fast servos on the Falcon. Both of these were Imperial design. Now why the hell didn't the Death Star have a shit-tonne of these installed all over the surface to deal with enemy fighters? They should have been able to make the space around the assault glow green with AA fire. I also can't help but noticed they dispatched a total of what, 10 fighters to deal with 30 attackers? The Death Star carried well over 1000 of the little bastards, What genius thought 3-1 odds were good enough? As I said, The Falcon was the only ship properly designed for space combat. It has two OUTWARD facing turrets on top and bottom to provide an almost spherical field of fire, plus a few fixed forward firing weapons for a little extra punch. In all of the Star Wars movies, I think the Falcon is the only well designed combat ship. Most of the other designs represent 2 dimensional thinking in a 3 dimensional environment., and most of the other designs look more suited for atmospheric or surface warfare rather than the hard vacuum of space.

The writing I also found lacking. There wasn't really any character development, or even meaningful interaction. Mostly they spent their time over-explaining the situation rather than actually interacting. They kept on making references to things that are supposed to be already known, but never actually were until a quarter century after the release of the first film.

In all, I still like Star Wars, but I can't help but be bugged by it. I could go on, but it is late and I have a headache now.