What's not discussed is the horrible radiation deaths those poor DeathStar Laser tech must have endured....watch the scene as the beam emits just meters from the firing crews.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
You do realize that Star Wars is *not* science fiction, right?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The Force saved them.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: You do realize that Star Wars is *not* science fiction, right?
Uh, how? Last I heard it was. Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Sarcasm flies past you faster than hyperdrive, young padawan.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
No. Science fiction takes into account things like this, and is solidly based in at least halfway-decent science. Lucas never intended to make SW science fiction in the true sense of the term. He basically did fantasy in a science fiction-type atmosphere. (This is often referred to nowadays as "science fantasy.")
This is not meant to be disparaging. I love SW and, despite my disagreements with many of his more recent creative decisions, have great respect for the talented Mr. Lucas. My point is simply that this sort of a discussion, while it would be valid if we were discussing Trek, is null in regards to SW. That isn't the point of it. The point is the mythology.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
You're free to define it that way for yourself, but if you think there's anything approaching consensus on this issue you're wrong. Genres aren't real in that idealized, forms in heaven sense, for one thing.
Posted by Nim the Plentiful (Member # 205) on :
Just because a story is have on mythology doesn't mean it negates any other characteristics inherent in it. Star Wars is Sci-Fi a lot.
You could say the story behind "The Matrix" is just mythology too, but they have lots of quantifiable and measurable data and plenty of hitherto-nonexistent tech, lending credence to the sci-fi label. Star Wars is science fiction in that they can do things there that you can't do normally, like create forcefields, fly faster than light and make a Waffen-SS Halloween costume look good. That it is set in another galaxy is irrelevant. Also, other sentient and culturally developed lifeforms except humans.
About the fallout of the Second Death Star, sure, if it is within the gravity field of the moon, the hemispheres of the station that exploded towards the moon should fall down on it.
You could of course argue that the insanely oxygen-rich atmosphere of Endor melted the bits away like so much Alka-seltzer, far more efficiently than our planet would, because well it's just so damn green. Whatever yanks your crank.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Interjection: Trek is no more solidly based on science than my demented great-grandmother's fantasy world where pigs fly and love is a holographic snowmobile and pink elephants are the force carriers of gravity.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Star Wars is science fiction in that they can do things there that you can't do normally, like create forcefields, fly faster than light and make a Waffen-SS Halloween costume look good. That it is set in another galaxy is irrelevant. New forum description- right there.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Sarcasm flies past you faster than hyperdrive, young padawan.
Kiss my bumper!
To re-inforce my original statement - I truely had no idea that SW was not considered science-fiction. I have always considered it so. Science fantasy? That's a new one for me too. Why would it be fantasy and not fiction though? What's the difference? Isn't it all three (science, fiction & fantasy)? Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
Steve Sansweet, Lucasfilm fan relations guru, gives a fairly good description.
Of course, he obviously hasn't watched Voyager, but that's neither here nor there.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Why would it be fantasy and not fiction though?"
Fantasy is fiction. Obviously.
Technically, science fiction is supposed to be a "what if?" story based upon some sort of potential scientific advancement.
Of course, since such stories are based in the future, and often involve space travel, it came to be that any story set in the future or involving space got called "science fiction".
So it just depends upon what definition you like. By the "traditional" definition, SW isn't sci-fi. It has nothing to do with science. The spaceships and robots and rayguns are just incidental. You could set the same general story in just about any setting. "Traditional" sci-fi would specifically focus on the consequences of some sort of scientific something-or-other. SW is actually just about the characters.
Now, of course, by that definition, many Trek stories wouldn't be sci-fi, either. So it just depends where you draw the line.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
And one could think we, here have no life - whoever compiled that page... deserves a personal visit from William Shatner. (Err to like, reiterate the SNL skit).
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Personally, I'm more concerned with:
quote: One thing never really discussed in RotJ
At what point do you want them to stop the end-of-double-trilogy celebrations and have Han say "Okay, all this dancing is well and good, but do these Ewoks know that they're all going to die? Eh?"
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
OK, so we have three potential endings for the film:-
Original, with muppets dancing around to ethnic oogah-boogah music
Special Edition, with muppets dancing around to Deep Forest-esque hippy crap music, accompanied with CGI-ed montage of whole ex-Empire partying down
Ultimate Special Edition, in which Rebels bugger off to establish new regime, leaving muppets to perish in fiery hail of death
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I'd actually buy the DVD editions if option #3 were included! Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Of course, the Ewoks were not muppets.
And the word Ewok isn't even in the film. Is it in the credits? Now that's effective marketing.
And, of course, proof that Star Wars was terrible right from the (near) start, rather than only becoming awful with the prequels. GRR. MAD. LUCAS BAD.
I don't know.
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
Um... you guys do realize that conclusion about this "Endor holocaust" is based on the false assumptions, right? Posted by School of Nim (Member # 205) on :
Yes, there is no death star. My mother taught me that when I was but a babe.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
Anything that involves the death of millions of Ewoks is fine in my book.
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
I dunno.. I could see a planet or moon or star exploding, causing a lot of havoc, but a huge space-station probobly wouldn't affect the planet much. Sure, there would be a lot of radiation, but there's a lot of radiation in space anyway... the atmosphere would filter it out. Another thing to consider is that endor is a moon, so the large planet that Endor orbits would also have a lot of radiation.. making the DT2's explosion just a drop in the buchet. Think of what would happen if it where in Jupiter's orbit.. it would be hard to notice the difference.
Posted by The Captain from M.I.K.E. (Member # 709) on :
DT2 = Death Tsar II ?
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
Yeah, it's that big armored space station from Tsar Wars Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
False assumptions? The Death Star was freaking huge. There would be lots of dust. A good bit of it would hit the moon. That much dust hitting any habitable world would suck mightily for anything living there. Which one's the false assumption?
And there wasn't apparently any planet Endor was orbiting. There's some explanation for this that I don't recall right now.
Posted by ulTRS magDOS (Member # 239) on :
DROP IN THE BUCHET
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega: False assumptions? The Death Star was freaking huge. (...) Which one's the false assumption?
The first one. Death Star 2 diameter was 160 km, not 900 km, as Dr. Saxton assumes.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Even a 160 km station (assuming only 1/5 entered the atmosphere) would cause immense damage: greater than any asteroid impact for certain. We're talking about millions of tons of mass.
That means lotsa dead everything on whatever continent the bulk of wreckage landed on and some fun global climate changes are in store for those furry canibalistic little fucktards.
That's with no radiation seeping through to the planet.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
The size of the second Death Star is one of those Star Wars topics that really makes me want to punch people and call them nerds (unlike the Executor-size argument, where I'm quite happy to stick my foot in the 16 mile catagory. Unless it was 16 km. I forget.)
My general science is shaky, but wouldn't a great deal of the mass of the Death Star have been consumed in that Great Big Explosion? And wasn't a lot of the Death Star hollow? And wasn't a lot of it not built yet? Surely those factors would bring down the amount of mass actually hitting Endor.
And apparently it was suppossed to be a rogue moon that had left the orbit of it's planet. Of course, that doesn't explain why it had managed to keep it's ever so nice climate and all.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Of course, the Ewoks were not muppets.
And the word Ewok isn't even in the film. Is it in the credits? Now that's effective marketing.
And, of course, proof that Star Wars was terrible right from the (near) start, rather than only becoming awful with the prequels. GRR. MAD. LUCAS BAD.
I don't know.
Lots of things are in Star Wars that aren't mentioned. "TIE Fighter" isn't said until Return of the Jedi. "Star Destroyer" isn't said anywhere in A New Hope. X-Wing is said once in the entire trilogy (in The Empire Strikes Back), and Y-Wing, A-Wing and B-Wing aren't said at any point. "Tattooine" isn't said at any point in "A New Hope", nor it "Tusken Raider", and "Coruscant", "Palpatine", and Leia's surname weren't mentioned at all in the original trilogy.
And yet we know them all. Crazy.
Oh, and to address the "Star Wars was rubbish before the new films came out", I would say that the opening of Jedi is as bad as anything in The Phantom Menace. Jabba's Palace is just dull. But the end of the film with Luke, Vadar and Palaptine was as good as anything in The Empire Stikes Back. Yes.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
My general science is shaky, but wouldn't a great deal of the mass of the Death Star have been consumed in that Great Big Explosion?
Well, an explosion tends to blow things out, not consume them. Being an explosion. And matter can neither be created nor destroyed, so it's gonna go SOMEWHERE.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, perhaps it was a special explosion that managed to convert most of the matter into energy. And the Ewoks were simply irradiated.
And they mutated into much taller, hairier creatures, and resettled their race at a point in the distant past. Thus making Endor the Wookiee homeworld it was originally intended to be.
Or, well, maybe not.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: But the end of the film with Luke, Vadar and Palaptine was as good as anything in The Empire Stikes Back. Yes.
As long as you can fast-forward through all the scenes of idiotic teddy-bears handily taking out the Empire's elite forces, anyway.
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Even a 160 km station (assuming only 1/5 entered the atmosphere) would cause immense damage: greater than any asteroid impact for certain.
That's why Rebel Fleet moved to shield Endor against any debris.
And if teddy-bears can handily take out the Empire's "elite forces", then there's no reason to assume that Rebel fleet failed to protect Endor Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: A-Wing and B-Wing aren't said at any point
I never understood why they were called B-wings. They look more like Ts.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kazeite:
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Even a 160 km station (assuming only 1/5 entered the atmosphere) would cause immense damage: greater than any asteroid impact for certain.
That's why Rebel Fleet moved to shield Endor against any debris.
And if teddy-bears can handily take out the Empire's "elite forces", then there's no reason to assume that Rebel fleet failed to protect Endor
Shield Endor with what exactly?
It would've entered the atmosphere within an hor (at most) of the core being destroyed. If the Rebels had something that powerful, they'd have used it to shield thei capital ships from the super-laser.
Not that any "laser" should have done shit anyway, but I digress...
I suppose you could make a story of a daring race to the giant DirectTV dish/shield emitter to somehow (with Wesley Crusher's help) reverse the shield to deflect debris away from Endor.
Assuming they get past the AT-AT's guarding the dish (the ones that do NOTHING in the movie).
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
Ah, but Wedge's X-Wing and the Falcon were armed with patented Deep Impact anti-comet bombs that can blast celestial objects into harmless visual effects.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Suuuure! I forgot that SW vs. ST site that decalres a STar Destroyer's got enough powerin a single blast to destroy the multiverse based on cheaply composited VFX.
Silly me.
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Shield Endor with what exactly?
Shield Endor by destroying debris with their fire and using tractor beams to deflect them.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Again, matter can't be created or destroyed. You shoot an incoming chunk of metal, you'll melt it, break it into two chunks, something, but it'll still be headed for the moon and it'll still be lots of dust in the atmosphere when it gets there. If you do that to an asteroid or something that's far enough away you MIGHT actually deflect it, but this debris would have hit Endor within minutes. And tractor beams would only work if you had freaking lots of them, because we're still talking about millions of tiny chunks. If they had that many tractor beams, they could play eight-ball with the death star.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Science Fiction Fantasy.
Posted by School of Nim (Member # 205) on :
Kazeite: "Shield Endor by destroying debris with their fire and using tractor beams to deflect them."
Yes, we know how splendid that worked with the Bozeman.
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
One question first: what happens with the matter that was vaporized?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Anakin Skywalker wasn't quite dead yet, so he and Luke combined their Force powers to deflect all the debris away from Endor. And then Anakin died.
See, it even explains why we never saw him disappear like Obi-Wan and Yoda.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"That's why Rebel Fleet moved to shield Endor against any debris."
The fleet moved because getting caught in the explosion would have been a Bad Thing for the ships in it.
"what happens with the matter that was vaporized?"
In the real world, it'd have been converted into energy. Lots and lots of energy. Enough to reduce Endor to a lifeless rock.
In the real world.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kazeite: One question first: what happens with the matter that was vaporized?
It was turned into vapor, inhaled and caused severe ling damage to all nearby. It's why Boba Fett wears that goofy helmet.....and why Vader's resperation is so labored. Tusken Raider particles are murder on the lungs after a few years (it's why they wear those goofy masks). I'm not saying they excrete harmful particles, but man, they probably smell really bad. Lousy arabs, always kidnapping white wome...er...did I say "arabs"? I meant "sand people".....yeah, George, "sand people". Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: You're free to define it that way for yourself, but if you think there's anything approaching consensus on this issue you're wrong. Genres aren't real in that idealized, forms in heaven sense, for one thing.
I know I am late here, but actually, in the Star Wars circles i hang out in (theforce.net, etc..), the consensus IS that Star Wars is "Science Fantasy" and doesnt have any real basis in real science.
Its pretty much futile to try to analyze Star Wars from a scientific perspective.
Theres a fantasy aspect to the series that other scifi (Star Trek, Stargate, etc) doesnt have.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Yet....those same circles will drone on and on about technological superiority over other genres when it suits them. Yes, it's pointless but most debate over fictional tech is.
Posted by Kazeite (Member # 970) on :
In the and, I think that Endor survived precisely because of all those big chunks and lots of debris.
Why? It's simple. Impact of big chunks would've an almost immediate catastrophic impact on the area with Rebel commandos, and small debris would've shielded surface from light.
The fact that we can see trees standing straight and stars while standing on the moon surface, several hours after DS2 explosion certainly suggests that either debris rain was not as deadly as it seemed, or that Rebel fleet indeed managed to shield Endor against most of the damage.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Not to mention THERE WERE TWO AMAZING MOVIES WITH EWOKS ON THEM!!
Which must have occured post Jedi, of course, because otherwise would Wicket have freaked out, if he remembered that little girl and the Wilford Brimley and the speedy rat-monkey?
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