Quite a bit more work has been done to NoLettersHome.Info (the Star Wars: The Clone Wars technology review), though much remains to be done. By the time season two rolls around here shortly I'm sure I'll still have two-thirds of the first season left, but that's okay.
Comments, suggestions, and contributions are welcome. There should be enough content in there now for the flavor to be pretty obvious.
Generally speaking, this show has been fantastically in keeping with the films.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Excellent work! I want more on the "new" Y-Wings, if there be any. Always liked the guys more than the X-Wings. Wish we'd seen more of them in action in the movies!
Mark
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
22 pages so far, are you sure that will be munificent for season 1?
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
From Wookieepedia, reprinting mentions of the Y-Wing circa the time of its first appearance:
Designer Russell Chong spearheaded the ship's development. "The Y-wing was a really fun project, bringing it back fully faired," he says.
When Joe Johnston refined the Colin Cantwell and Ralph McQuarrie Rebel Alliance Y-wing designs for construction into a visual effects model for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, he posited that the starship was once a sleek vessel that was chopped and stripped like a hot rod by Rebel Alliance technicians. The BTL-B is apparently the stock version of the "stripped-down" Rebel ships.
According to Chong, "We back-engineered the Y-wing and turned it back into a bomber. I took images of the actual Y-wing model from the files at Lucasfilm and I designed our new version over it. We revitalized the bubble turret that Colin Cantwell and Ralph McQuarrie had developed. All the body panels are very much the same as the original Y-wing. I did my best to give it the same styling and the same look as the original Y-wing." Multiple views of a BTL-B.
The early Cantwell concept models built of the Rebel Y-wing featured an immense bubble turret dome for a gunner to sit in. The limitations of bluescreen technology at the time made such a dome impractical. Concerning the original turret design, Chong states, "I didn't want to use the actual bubble turret with the single laser canon in the original Ralph McQuarrie illustration because it was too bulky and interrupted the sleek lines of the ship so I opted for a more aerodynamic design similar to the WWII B-17 and B-25 top turret."
(You can see the old turret on the slideshow here.)
Personally, I think they added too much to the Y-Wing design, because since we've already seen the underlying structure it's easy to see how much of the outer hull is just sitting on top of probably-unnecessary space.
In any case, the Y-Wing's always been a favorite of mine if for no other reason than the fact that if you paint the front hemisphere of the engines red and give it more of an outer hull, it wouldn't be surprising to see it flying around a starbase in Trek's 23rd Century. Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
The EU is trying to spin it as the Y-wings in the Clone Wars are a different model than the Rebels' Y-wings, but the on screen evidence proves otherwise.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Oh, there's no real end to the wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the hardcore EU-philes. Their issue is not going with Lucas's repeated statements that the EU is one of "two" "separate" "parallel" "universes", every quoted term being one he's used (with "universe" after it or the other words before it) to describe the EU, with some others besides.
Star Wars EU author and fan favorite Karen Traviss has even quit the EU given the fact that her extensive Clone Wars-era work is not being recognized by the series.
The problem is that Licensing (the folks that make the EU) have always tried to suggest that the EU is the truth of the Star Wars universe and plugs in effortlessly to the Lucas work and not detract from or alter it at all. That's their own internal canon policy. Except that plug-in idea not quite true, never has been, and there have always been retcons in play. It got worse when the prequel trilogy came out, and then got way worse after the prequels ended and they thought the Clone Wars era was fair game.
But then Lucas decided to get involved in a big way with TCW, to the point that he and others have said it's part of his film universe (unlike the EU), and so the way-pro-EU folks are seeking the head of Lucas as we speak, and Licensing's continuity guy is, I think, still in shock.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The EU guys need to get the hell over themselves. I recall the old Splinter of The Mind's Eye novel which came out before ESB- It features a page or two of Luke longing for Leia's affections...and not in that "brother/sister" linda love either.
(shudder)
Novels getting rendered nonviable is nothing new in SW or ST- it's the nature of a franchise.
Besides, a LOT of the EU stuff is utter and complete shit. Like a comatose Luke "posessing" young Jacen Solo so he can fight a "darkforce dragon". Yeah, like you'd want to keep that. Or Sith Lord's ghosts turning apprentice Jedi evil. ...or pretty much every other crappy thing- like the Sun Crusher or the Eclipse class super-dooper-fanboy class stardestroyer.
The Heir to The empire stuff was good (and Lucas personally read and approved Zahn's novels first) but it opened a horrible can of worms, which ate into the sweet sweet core of the SW universe almost as much as the dialogue from The Phantom Menace.
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Well, in fairness, the EU has done some crappy things, but I have to say that I much prefer the way Anakin is presented in The Clone Wars. I just watched TPM and AotC the other day back-to-back, and dear sweet heavens Anakin was an arrogant whining spoiled brat in the latter.
The CGI show is set within a short time after AotC, and he never seems to whine at all. But, then, he's also been made Jedi Knight, so perhaps that's some of it, too . . . the brat got what he wanted. But sill, they show him as a much more mature individual.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Well I can't bash the EU to much; I do enjoy the games and some of the comics, plus some stuff from the EU has made its way into the Canonverse. Like the name Coruscant for the Galactic Capital.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
You mean Trantor. Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Oh my mistake, must be that Mule again.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
A man of 'direct action' to the end.
Posted by Josh (Member # 1884) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: Well I can't bash the EU to much; I do enjoy the games and some of the comics, plus some stuff from the EU has made its way into the Canonverse. Like the name Coruscant for the Galactic Capital.
The EU has produced some great characters like Jerec, Kyle Katarn and Thrawn, but since the rebirth of the franchise with Episode 1 the universe has really beaten itself to death. There are basically 3 plot points that are repeating themselves in every era of story they tell.
- Oppresive force whipes out Jedi/enslave the Galaxy - Protagonists rise up and take them down - Said protagonists are overcome by the bad guys once again and the cycle repeats.
I like some adaptations of characters more in the EU like Boba Fett, but by large a lot of it feels like a giantfanboygasm
Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Oh, then you'd hate the Legacy era. Basically they just jumped forward 100 years or so, and everything's pretty much the same as it was circa A New Hope, again.
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
*cough, cough* MW:Dark Age *cough,cough*
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
quote:Originally posted by Guardian 2000: Oh, then you'd hate the Legacy era. Basically they just jumped forward 100 years or so, and everything's pretty much the same as it was circa A New Hope, again.
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