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Scruffy

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29-Nov-2005
Last activity
31-May-2016
Posts
625

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Post
#267986
Topic
Stupid Star Wars Questions
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/267986/action/topic#267986
Time
A catch-all topic for stupid Star Wars questions....

What was Vader a lord of?

Was he an earl or a duke or something? The EU establishes that he had several haunts throughout the galaxy, including Bast Castle on Vjun. Does Vader have his own personal planet? Or is he unlanded nobility, his title reflecting his role as a personal agent of the Emperor or a commander of the Imperial forces?

How could Tarkin have destroyed Alderaan?

Regional governors were supposed to have direct control over their territories. Tarkin was the governor of the Outer Rim. Alderaan was apparently in the Core. How did he get permission to destroy a Core world? The Core governor certainly wouldn't have allowed it. Maybe that's why Vader was there -- to lend a certain amount of Imperial authority to the Death Star's operations, or to secure approval for any mundicidal operations outside of Tarkin's area of responsibility.

Who reigns over the Alderaanian people?

After ANH, it's pretty pointless to claim that one reigns over Alderaan. But there's still Alderaanians throughout the Galaxy, and they still have something of a royal family. Who's the monarch? It's obviously not Princess Leia since, well, she's not Queen Leia. Did someone else ascend the throne? Did she decline the title? With the destruction of Alderaan as a functioning political entity, is the Alderaanian monarch chosen by constitutional principles or house law?

What was the point of Echo Base?

They accomplished nothing but (slowly) adapting some of their equipment to the cold, domesticating some tauntauns, and almost losing a valuable officer to exposure. Surely they could've found a nicer planet to set up on, or even a starship. You don't have to evacuate starships when Imperial probes find them. You just move them.

How did Han and Lando get general officer commissions?

I suspect the "maneuver at the Battle of Tanaab" had something to do with a lot of money finding its way into the Alliance treasury. After outliving his usefulness and being bled dry of credits, Lando got to put on the rank and was assigned to the ship least likely to survive the Battle of Endor. Dead men make better heroes. But what about Han? Did Mon Mothma intend to make a martyr out of him, too?

Why didn't the Imperial garrison reinforce the bunker on Endor?

Even if they were expecting the main attack at the shield generator, they had to have realized that a number of stormtroopers and soldiers were needlessly dying outside the bunker on the Sanctuary Moon. Couldn't they have launched a close air support sortie to drive off the Ewoks? Or spared a quick reaction force from the main body? As it turned out, the loss of the bunker destroyed the shield generator, too, so they really misidentified their centers of gravity on that one. Security through obscurity doesn't work when your "secure" location is built in the backyard of hostile natives.

Who is the father of Huey, Dewey, and Louie?

This one isn't really a Star Wars question, but it's kind of bugging me. Who is he, and why did he and Della leave the kids to Donald? Donald is hardly a fit parent, and they couldn't have known that he'd hand them off to his rich Uncle Scrooge, as Scrooge was still in seclusion when Della and her husband disappeared.
Post
#267936
Topic
Q: Death Star viewed from Endor
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/267936/action/topic#267936
Time
It wouldn't have been a nuclear winter. The nuclear winter theory posited that a large nuclear exchange, particularly one that tried to "dig up" buried missiles with multiple strikes, would send a great deal of the Earth into the Sky, reducing the amount of sunlight that reached the Earth. There was no nuclear exchange on Endor, just a big hypermatter-powered ball of metal blowing up in orbit. It would have been more like the K-T extinction event, but much more severe -- as big pieces of Death Star plowed through Endor's atmosphere, they would heat the air to the point where they generated radioactive bow shocks, set all the trees on fire, irradiated the Ewoks, then hit the planet's surface with many many gigatons of force. That obviously didn't happen, and there are a couple of theories as to why.
Post
#266532
Topic
Ep 3 death star !
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/266532/action/topic#266532
Time
Originally posted by: stossmo
so what could everyone be looking at instead of the death star prototype? I cant see Palpatine being in space for any old reason, but I would love for it to be something aside from the DS.
Maybe an editor can plug in something that is worth looking at, but isnt quite so heavy handed.....


In my unpublished script rewrite, they're looking at a secret KDY shipyard where the first batch of 100 or so Imperial Star Destroyers are under construction. I think that blends better into ANH; while the Death Star was a nonentity between RotS and ANH, the ISD became the face of the Empire.
Post
#266147
Topic
Ep 3 death star !
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/266147/action/topic#266147
Time
But there is still the question of why it took 20 years to build the Death Star in ANH, but less than 4 for the Death Star in ROTJ. Design issues maybe? The real answer is yet another problem with the prequels, but oh well.


It might not have taken 20 years to build the DSI. After reviewing the captured Separatist battlestation/DS-prototype/whatever, Palpatine might have decided he didn't want a Death Star. The DS was a weapon of political terror, intended to make a bold statement of Palpatine's supremacy over all Imperial member systems. But the immediate post-RotS era wasn't the right time for that. He still had to deal with his enemies in the Imperial Senate, reintegrate the Separatist systems, reconstruct the worlds devastated by the Clone Wars, rebuild and Imperialize the military, hunt down the surviving Jedi, and cement his reputation as a populist, "peace and security" ruler. Starting a superweapon at this point could tip his hand to his many surviving enemies.

Things had changed by the time of ANH. The Imperial Senate was on the way out, the Imperial military and navy were at the height of their prowess, and the Palpatinists ran the government and armed forces. Tarkin, who was obviously involved in the inspection of the Separatist battlestation/DS-prototype/whatever, had risen to the rank of Grand Moff and regional governor -- evidently a political/military executive directly below the Emperor. The Emperor's opposition had moved from the Senate hall on Coruscant to Alderaan and the Outer Rim. The conditions now made a Death Star program not just possible, but likely.

Most of the time used in the construction of the DSI probably went into setting up the supply pipelines, construction methods, and related technical expertise. Assuming that machinery survived the DSI's destruction, it could have been immediately reactivated to build the DSII. Setting up the industrial and bureaucratic machinery to build a Death Star would take a long time, but once it's up to speed, it might be harder to shut it down than to just start designing and building another.
Post
#266051
Topic
Ep 3 death star !
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/266051/action/topic#266051
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
The EU can come up with whatever contrived explanation it wants but the fact is that by the films themselves, nothing about either Death Star construction makes any sense. ... So how long has this thing been under construction for? Since the ten year period when Palpatine came into office? We don't know. Then its complete twenty years later


If you're just going by the movies themselves -- Episode III wasn't a film, it was a digital video -- then the "thing" wasn't completed 20 years later. The "thing" was abandoned and replaced with something else that had a different shape and a larger superlaser. The only way the RotS thing could be the Death Star is if they added another shell around the extant structure to make it oblate and make the superlaser dish larger, or if they tore most of it down and rebuilt it. Personally, I think the RotS battlestation was a prototype -- it was either spirited away to the Maw like the EU says, or it was tested to destruction long before the real DS project began.

I mean, realistically, you don't build just one of these things, put a Grand Moff aboard, and send it out to destroy things. You have to prototype and test the power systems, the propulsion systems, the computers, all kinds of stuff that's being done on a scale the Galactic culture had probably never done before. You have a test article that you're constantly rebuilding and stressing to its design tolerances, maybe for decades as mission creep and bureaucratic torpor sets in, then you mothball it and build the real thing.
Post
#265967
Topic
Ep 3 death star !
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/265967/action/topic#265967
Time
If you only look at the movies, the object in RotS and the Death Star I are, diagetically, completely different objects. The proportions of the RotS object don't match those of the Death Star. Unfortunately, behind-the-scenes comments by George Lucas and post-RotS Expanded Universe material indicate it was the Death Star*. In order to resolve this conundrum, you have to ignore the visual effects, ignore the EU and GL, or assume that it was taken apart and reconstructed at some point.

The standard online reference for the Death Stars is here.

* Or maybe the EU has decided that it was the Death Star prototype, later relocated to the Maw and repeatedly retrofitted by Bevel Lemelisk and Qwi Xux. I really don't know, or care that much.
Post
#261880
Topic
my memory isn't that bad, is it? (in SW '77 - Luke misses with the grappling hook?)
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/261880/action/topic#261880
Time
Anyway I think the people here who say it didn't happen can prove it didn't about as much as those of us who say it did.


It is impossible to prove that it didn't happen. The "Didn't-Happeners" could go through every known archive on Earth, but the possibility would remain that there was an undiscovered archive, or that the footage was destroyed.

If it did happen, it would be fairly easy to prove. The "Did-Happeners" need only find one piece of film, or one video.

It's like a cryptid, or a ghost, or any other paranormal phenomenon. You can't prove that it doesn't exist, because demonstrating that something never existed anywhere requires the investigation of everything everywhen. You can't do it. But to prove something does exist requires only one verifiable, significant observation. That's why we believe in top quarks, black holes, and quantum tunneling, but not the missed grappling hook throw.
Post
#257582
Topic
Question about the Prequels
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/257582/action/topic#257582
Time
\Yes, it is wrong for you to like the prequels. And yes, it is a crime to say you like the prequels, under 46 USC 130. If you're lucky, you live in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction, and they'll set aside whatever sentence you get, but I hope they don't. Because bashing the prequels is much more important than the first amendment, from a social perspective. Historically, none of the great civilizations have ever admitted liking the prequels -- Greece, Rome, China, Duluth, the British Empire -- none ever said they liked the prequels.

The prequels are a bane upon civilization.
Post
#257051
Topic
Could the 2006 DVDs become collector's items?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/257051/action/topic#257051
Time
That seems logical, but the thing is, a collector's DVD market already exists. Certain Disney films go for high prices on Ebay, and MST3K the movie can be worth up to $100... and that's for the official DVD, which came in a cheapo cardboard case and had no extras to speak of. And this is despite there being a fan-made "special edition" which is filled with extras!


Yes, and those prices are suppressed by the fact that the materials are available elsewhere at a lesser price -- especially in the long run. Draw two sets of supply and demand curves for what we'll call the Legitimate Market and the Gray Market.

http://www.ofkaiser.com/transients/Legitimate.png http://www.ofkaiser.com/transients/Gray.png

On the left, we see the supply and demand curve for "legitimate" merchandise. The supply is fixed, because there was only a limited release of Star Widget. Let's say the demand is provided by legitimists, who demand "legitimate" merchandise, collectors, who speculate on the value of scarce items, and the ignorant, who aren't aware of the Gray Market.

On the right, we see the Gray Market. The supply is practically infinite; assume data copying, transmission, and storage is free. The demand is provided by illegitimists, who don't care much about copyright, and are also sufficiently online as to be aware of the Gray Market. Illegitimists can freely enter the market, both supplying and consuming, through P2P networks. Keep this in mind: Possessing one of these goods does not prevent others from possessing it, too, and the supply is correlated to the demand.

Over time, consumers move from the Legitimate Market to the Gray Market. (There's some movement in the other direction, too; in the case of out-of-print media, I'd bet it's mostly from Legitimate to Gray.) With every legitimate or ignorant consumer that moves from the Legitimate to the Gray market, the demand shifts left and the price of Star Widgets in the Legitimate Market drops, but it remains unchanged (practically free) on the Gray Market. Collectors are left trading plastic discs with each other. Over in the Gray Market, the supply grows or shrinks with the demand, providing just enough to maintain the equilibrium price (practically free).

http://www.ofkaiser.com/transients/Legitimate2.png

As for "stockpiling" Star Wars DVDs, that's just retarded. They're not valued consistently; Darth Fanboy might think the set is worth sixty dollars, but I'd value them around five, and less each year as more fan versions and official versions are released. Speculating on Star Wars DVDs is just gambling that there will be enough Darth Fanboys to keep the collectors' segment of the Legitimate Market afloat until such time as you're ready to cash in. There's much better ways to invest your money.

Oh, yeah. Remember laserdiscs? Laserdisc sets could run a few hundred dollars when they were first released. Unlike DVDs, they can not be perfectly copied. Search eBay for them now. And I guarantee you that a complete Definitive Collection is ten times the "collector's item" than a bunch of surplus special editions and the GOUT.
Post
#256642
Topic
Could the 2006 DVDs become collector's items?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256642/action/topic#256642
Time
Collectors of antiques or Star Wars things in general may, several decades from now, bestow upon them some sort of collectors' status. Until then, the best you can hope for is an irrational craze, like the early 90s comics speculation, but I don't see that happening. The fact that DVDs can be copied cheaply, perfectly, and by anyone kind of suppresses the demand for "rare" discs.

And yes, I bought multiple copies of Adventures of Superman #500, and I still have one in the unopened poly-bag. Never did get a bagged Superman #75, though I once saw the platinum edition hanging in a store in Tennessee.
Post
#256352
Topic
Leia's Role in the Rebellion
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256352/action/topic#256352
Time
I always concluded that Echo was the base of operations of the Rebel Alliance and their only base, at that.

They need at least one shipyard to maintain the fleet, logistical support areas, and even a conventional force fighting with the benefit of overmatch maintains multiple command posts. If I were designing a galactic rebellion, I'd divide it into cells based on political (rather than purely cartographic) boundaries, each with a cell CP and an alternate CP. Those cell CPs would report to a communications facility that would report to roving commands, i.e. top commanders and civilian command authorities on ships. We've seen that finding a ship that doesn't want to be found is nearly impossible, and the best Rebel ships can go toe-to-toe with the common Imperial Star Destroyer. In this scheme, "the Rebel base" -- be it on Dantooine, Yavin IV, or Hoth -- is an intermediary between the line forces and the "national" authorities. Because there's no reason for your authority to be based anywhere.

It satisfies me to think that Leia remained Princess Leia Organa and never took a military rank. I do not think that this disqualifies her from being part of the leadership of Echo Base, as she clearly is. Look at the way General Rieekan relates to her.

They seem cordial, but I don't think I saw anything indicating she was in his chain of command. I need to rewatch those scenes, though.

I further feel that it is a bit of a guess to say that all the highest ranking people were with the fleet. We don't even know that the fleet had been assembled by the start of ESB. If my conclusion that Echo Base was the one and only base of operations that the Alliance had is correct, I think it follows that the leadership of that base would be key members of the Alliance.


Perhaps I should have said navy instead of fleet? Anyway, the navy was necessary for the Rebellion's activities and ultimate victory, the leader of the navy flew his flag from Home One, therefore one of the highest-ranking members of the Rebellion was with the navy. Most of the general officers, flag officers, and obvious civilian authorities we've seen were meeting on a ship, not a planet or space station. The only deliberate attack we've seen was briefed on a ship. The Rebel Navy had the staying power, communications capability, carrying capacity, and mobility that both Rebel bases lacked, and was an ideal mobile command post for the Rebellion's leaders.

Besides, why would a general be in charge of ships? It doesn't make any sense!


General Solo commanded a small transport craft, and General Calrissian commanded starfighter groups. Both are traditionally appropriate for military (vice naval) ranks.
Post
#256307
Topic
Best battle of the Original Trilogy?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256307/action/topic#256307
Time
Endor. You've got two fleets, you know who's in charge of each fleet, each fleet's objective, each fleet's disposition, and it's easy for the casual viewer to distinguish the Rebels from the Imperials. It's also exciting and has lots of neat models and bright, colorful flashes. That's how a movie battle should be.

Hoth is a close second ... maybe tied. For most of the same reasons, just replace fleet with army (in the general sense of a land-based force).
Post
#256229
Topic
Leia's Role in the Rebellion
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/256229/action/topic#256229
Time
Some thoughts. Apologies for not attributing quotes, but you know who you are....

Come to think of it, though, I have no idea whatsoever what could have possibly happened in the ranks of the retarded rebellion to have the likes of Han Solo and Lando Calrissian promoted to generals. Not lieutenants, mind you, not majors. Freaking Generals. What in the universe could have happened between ESB and RoTJ to have Han Solo promoted from captain to general?

I've tried to justify that in my head, and it's very difficult. Best I can come up with is Lando bought his commission. He probably still had pull in the tibanna gas trade after losing Cloud City, and the EU says spin-sealed tibanna gas is a vital component of blaster technology. A few million liters of that stuff, and you get nominal command in an attack -- of course, they put you in a broken-down hot-rodded freighter with a copilot who doesn't even speak English

I'm still trying to figure out Han's commission. I think he was addressed as "Captain Solo" in ESB because he was skipper of the Millennium Falcon; he seems to report directly to General Rieekan, which supports the idea that he's a highly-stationed civilian contractor and not a military captain. How'd he become a general? Probably Leia has some sort of commissioning authority from Alderaan, and she made him a general in the Alderaanian Armed Forces to shut him up about what went down in the south passage. The Alliance forces used that as a courtesy title, but continued treating him like the civilian ship-driver he was. (In any case, he and Chewie needed some kind of rank for the Endor mission, or they could've been shot as spies. Instead of Rebels.)

(Solo was commissioned for h)elping to destroy one of the galaxy's most notorious gangsters.

Elliot Ness took down Al Capone, but they didn't pin stars on his shoulders. A single operation, no matter how elegantly planned, doesn't demonstrate one has the managerial and operational skills necessary to be a successful general officer. (And Solo was frozen in carbonite when that operation was planned.)

Military rank isn't handed out as a reward for instances of merit; rank comes with responsibility and authority, and one must demonstrate that they can fulfill their responsibilities before assuming a rank. We never saw anyone do anything that would merit a promotion to general; probably because generalship doesn't make for good action-adventure movies.

Rebellions are not always about combat. For it to be successful, a rebellion needs allies. Some allies are easy to come by, others are not. She was known as an excellent diplomat.

If she was a diplomat, how come she was billeted with the combat forces at Echo Base*? She should've been on the Mon Calamari fleet with Mon Mothma, planning strategic alliances, visiting potential allies, and showing them the strong face of the Rebellion. Lurking in an ice cavern, feeding tauntauns, that doesn't get diplomacy done.

My guess for Solo is that he was given the rank of General for the operation of destroying the shield generator. He was the most qualified for the operation, so he was made general.


Was Solo in command of that operation? I thought he was in command of the shuttle, and General Madine led the actual operators on the ground. I don't know what possessed the shuttle command crew to leave their craft behind and go sneaking through the woods like they did. I can see Luke wanting to go because he's a Jedi with a destiny, and Chewie would want to go to protect Luke and because he likes trees. Of course Han would have to go with Chewie, and Leia would want to go with Han because she loves him. Artoo would follow Luke, and Threepio still belongs to either Luke or Leia, which means ... I guess I answered my own question. In any case, you don't need a general to fly a shuttle, even if it's on an important mission and carrying another general.

As for Leia, her father was one of the founders of the rebellion. She has been involved in it since she was a child, more than likely, and has done many things, not just a courier. So she is a very high ranking offical in the rebellion, and has done many things for them before ANH.


Yes, she has done many important things for the Alliance in the past. Then her homeworld when kablooie, her father became atoms, and she got downsized out of her job on Coruscant. That makes her quite unlikely to do important things for the Alliance in the future. That is unromantic and realpolitik, but, well, the first syllable in realpolitik is real. The scions of monarchs of disestablished realms rarely have much political or social power. Do you see King Constantine of the Hellenes rallying many Greeks to his cause? What about the heirs of the Romanovs? The son of the Shah? As right as these people may be on whatever moral issues they may favor, as much authority as they may have had in the past or today if things had gone differently ... they are quite politically impotent, now. As was Leia was once everything she stood for and the bases of all her power went away.

To be fair, Luke was no longer officially affiliated with the Rebellion. But why didn't Leia get a promotion? In fact, why was she not ranked at all? Was it her diplomatic status? Does the EU address the non-military nature of her rebel participation?


I'm not sure Luke was formally unaffiliated with the Rebellion. He had a lot of time in between ESB and RotJ to clarify his status with his superiors, and it wouldn't surprise me if he stayed on the rolls as a standby reservist or something like that. On the other hand, he might've resigned his commission as some sort of Jedi thing. (The EU says he continued as a starfighter officer, but was given liberal time off to do Jedi things.) But I agree, if Han and Lando are generals, Luke and Wedge at least need to be marshals.

As for Leia ... she probably enjoyed her civilian status. Even the free-wheeling nature of a Rebel fighter may have been too regimented for her. As a civilian, she could've placed herself above the entire military establishment by acting as "civilian oversight," like a civilian in the American military who thinks their GS paygrade is a rank. I don't see a career politician, formerly of high-ranking Imperial status, subordinating herself to the military establishment.

* Who really was stationed at Echo Base? All we really see is some equipment, some speeders, a few officers, and a bunch of animals. Was it a secure communications relay? A resupply waypoint for passing Rebel ships? Were they planning on mining the ice for potable water?
Post
#255967
Topic
Leia's Role in the Rebellion
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/255967/action/topic#255967
Time
Somewhat inspired by another thread...

At the beginning of A New Hope, Leia is some kind of big-shot courier in the Rebellion. She's aboard the Tantive IV with the Death Star plans, evidently both as custodian of those plans and to provide the ship with consular (or higher) immunity. She seems to be the spokesperson for her father, a high muckity-muck in the Rebellion from the beginning; Alderaan probably supplies a lot of the funds and materiel for the Rebellion. She's also an Imperial Senator, giving her a certain amount of access on Coruscant. She's a little bit Benjamin Franklin, a little bit Benedict Arnold, and a little bit Jefferson Davis.

Fast-forward to the time of Empire Strikes Back. Alderaan has been destroyed, and the influence of its people in the Rebellion marginalized. There's an Alderaanian diaspora throughout the galaxy, but Leia isn't organizing that. (Note she retains her HRH style throughout the Trilogy; someone else in the Royal Family outranks her.) The Emperor has probably maneuvered one of his lackeys onto the Alderaanian throne. The Imperial Senate has been dissolved. Leia has been outed as a Rebel. She can no longer act as an open courier, no longer has access to most of Alderaan's power, no longer has access on Coruscant.

So why do they keep her around? She's got a pretty face, but she doesn't put out. She can shoot, but she doesn't go on missions. She confuses and angers the civilian contractors. My guess is, she's still valuable to the Alderaanian cells of the Alliance for propaganda reasons. That's why she's schlepped from Yavin IV to Echo Base. So she can make encouraging videotapes to be played on the Holonet equivalent of YouTube. Look at the warrior-princess soldiering on at the front lines. But she's not important to the Alliance as a whole; that's why she's not enjoying the good life with Mon Mothma on the Calamarian fleet.

Of course, things changed by Return of the Jedi. She was an undercover special forces operator. And Han and Lando were generals, and the Falcon was a starfighter, and so forth and so on. The less said about that, the better.
Post
#254012
Topic
McCallum on Jar Jar & Kids before TPM came out
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/254012/action/topic#254012
Time
I know I missed most of this conversation, but ...

Originally posted by: Go-Mer-Tonic
1) Obviously Lucas isn't surrounded by people who won't question him, as McCallum himself questioned Lucas about his use of Jar-Jar in TPM.

McCallum wasn't questioning whether Lucas should rape film, simply how hard and whether or not to use lube.

2) Lucas knew exactly what kind of reaction he would get from Jar-Jar, yet he used him anyway.


I know exactly what kind of reaction I will get when I make my dog evacuate on my neighbor's lawn; I don't do it precisely because that reaction isn't worth the minor joy I get in annoying people.
Post
#253270
Topic
Star Wars most inconsistent plot point, in my opinion: Star Wars Lethal Alliance game
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/253270/action/topic#253270
Time
Let's see, first, I think, we had Kyle Katarn responsible for stealing the DS plans (Dark Forces, right?).
Then, we've got Bria Tharen involved in the theft. The 2 have been conveniently combined to say Kyle only grabbed part of the plans OR that Katarn transmitted the plans to Toprawa and Tharen was then responsible for passing them to Leia on the Tantive IV.


Katarn? Tharen? Who are these people? The Death Star plans were intercepted by listening post Ax-325 in the Cron Drift, thanks to the efforts of brave pilots like Keyan Farlander.