logo Sign In

imperialscum

User Group
Members
Join date
7-Mar-2013
Last activity
16-Jan-2022
Posts
3,205

Post History

Post
#1431704
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

yotsuya said:

imperialscum said:

yotsuya said:

Battleships were far from limited. They had a proven track record of being able to sink other ships and could bombard the shore at a fair distance. The Aircraft Carrier proved it was better able to sink other ships, but nothing beat a battleship pounding the shore. The last Battleships were retired in the 1990’s, after doing shore bombardment in every conflict up through Desert Storm. But it became more cost effective and accurate to use missiles so they were finally retired. The same way satellite photographs forced the retirement of the SR-71.

I would say that battleships were extremely limited for what they were designed for. Actually, they had a very poor track record. Since the emergence of HMS Dreadnought (which is where a modern battleship starts) in 1906 and until WW2, there was basically just a single noteworthy battleship engagement, i.e., Battle of Jutland in 1916. And in that engagement, torpedo boats basically already showed how useless battleships can be in their primary role. WW2 then finally sealed their fate as one of the most useless and expensive weapons ever.

To be relegated to shore bombardment role is like going from a king to a bagger. Not to mention it is a role that can be (and also was) done just as effectively by much cheaper cruisers, since shore bombardment is basically a suppressive fire rather than anything that would actually cause any physically damage to well dug in defenders.

Anyway, I think we went completely off topic now. 😃

Some things might seem off topic, but often circle back in a strangely logical way.

I think the Bizmark/Hood engagement was pretty significant. And our greatest ships have a history of shore bombardment that has been quite effective and necessary. Have you read the Marine song lyrics lately? You know those shores of Tripoli? USS Constitution and her sister ships bombarded the shore and were instrumental in the success of that engagement. The Star Spangled Banner was written about a ship bombardment of the shore. The area where the Battleships shone was the size and range of their guns, unmatched by anything prior to missiles except aircraft. So shore bombardment was not something they were reduced to, it was part of their purpose from the beginning. The bigger the gun the further out and the larger the shell. And a good team could get pretty accurate at the right distance.

But you are right that does stray from the Death Star. It didn’t need to be very accurate since it could destroy an entire planet. And even its version of shore bombardment, which we saw twice in Rogue One, didn’t need to be that accurate. Except it was. Direct hit on Jedda City and direct hit on the communications tower on Scarif. And in ROTJ, direct hits on several rebel ships. So again, we find the parallels and see that even for such an all powerful weapon, it can be toned down for lesser uses. Still, the rebels destroyed the first one and the second one because they can destroy planets. While under construction is an ideal time as it is more vulnerable. And in Palpatine’s arrogance, he has them finish the weapon, but not the shields. If that would have even stopped a ship from flying inside it. Why worry about finding a tiny exhaust port when you can just fly in and destroy it directly. Palpatine counted on his legion on the forest moon to keep his only protection safe. Oopsie.

I do not think Bismarck/Hood engagement was significant in the grand scheme. It was just overly popularised, in part due to the fact of extreme rarity of battleship-battleship engagement in the first place (adding to their obscurity). On top of that, in the end it was an antiquated biplane with a torpedo that crippled Bismarck. As for the shore bombardment, it did not significantly help in numerous landings in the Pacific. For example, on Tarawa and Iwo Jima, ships practically shelled every square meter for days and yet that did not weaken the defenders in the slightest for the Marines.

While we do not agree about the usefulness/uselessness of battleships, we are in complete agreement when it comes to DS2 in ROTJ. DS2 in Star Wars universe was infinity more useful than battleships in real life. So if they continued to build new battleships in real life, it makes complete sense that a new DS was built in Star Wars universe.

Post
#1431206
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

yotsuya said:

Battleships were far from limited. They had a proven track record of being able to sink other ships and could bombard the shore at a fair distance. The Aircraft Carrier proved it was better able to sink other ships, but nothing beat a battleship pounding the shore. The last Battleships were retired in the 1990’s, after doing shore bombardment in every conflict up through Desert Storm. But it became more cost effective and accurate to use missiles so they were finally retired. The same way satellite photographs forced the retirement of the SR-71.

I would say that battleships were extremely limited for what they were designed for. Actually, they had a very poor track record. Since the emergence of HMS Dreadnought (which is where a modern battleship starts) in 1906 and until WW2, there was basically just a single noteworthy battleship engagement, i.e., Battle of Jutland in 1916. And in that engagement, torpedo boats basically already showed how useless battleships can be in their primary role. WW2 then finally sealed their fate as one of the most useless and expensive weapons ever.

To be relegated to shore bombardment role is like going from a king to a bagger. Not to mention it is a role that can be (and also was) done just as effectively by much cheaper cruisers, since shore bombardment is basically a suppressive fire rather than anything that would actually cause any physically damage to well dug in defenders.

Anyway, I think we went completely off topic now. 😃

Post
#1430795
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

SparkySywer said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

Servii said:

I personally think most of the issues people point to are fairly surface-level stuff that doesn’t really damage the movie as a whole. A second Death Star makes sense in-universe.

Return of the Jedi is a great movie, but I kind of think this is a stretch. The last one didn’t work, why would a second one with essentially no changes work this time? Palpatine gets a surprise attack on the Rebels I guess, but he still dies, they still lose the Sanctuary Moon, and the loss on Endor doomed the Empire.

Just because your expensive military hardware is destroyed in a battle, you do not simply stop making that hardware. When a country lost a capital warship during the World War I or World War II, they did not just say “oh that did not work, let’s stop building new ones” or “oh that did not work, let’s just stick to building small torpedo boats instead”.

If capital warships were incredibly expensive and had a well known, easily exploitable weak point that leads to total, irreparable destruction, they probably might have said that.

Except that the weak point you refer to was not well known (it took Alliance a great effort to find out about it), and it was not easily exploitable (without a pilot with rare force abilities it was impossible to do it, as clearly shown in the film).

By Return of the Jedi, it was well known, and it’s clearly easily exploitable because they easily exploit it the second time.

And besides, who says they did not fix it for the DS2?

The indie arthouse kino filme known as “Return of the Jedi”

The only reason why ships could fly inside it was because it was only 1/4 finished by the time of ROTJ.

In other words, not fixed. Edit: Or, as Yotsuya says, you could view it as them replacing one easily exploitable weakness with another that’s even worse. But if you take Rogue One’s word for it (maybe you do maybe you don’t), they literally did jack to fix the problem.

No matter which way you slice it: The core of the Death Star was too easy to put bombs inside of. Fair mistake, people harp on ANH too much for it. You have to exhaust heat somehow, and it literally took magic powers to take down the First Death Star. But they made it a thousand times easier for the Second. No excuse.

This is an extremely silly argument. It is basically like saying that a car model does not have wheels and doors, while looking at an unfinished example at the beginning of production line in a factory. Of course, unfinished DS2 had weaknesses, but it was not designed to be unfinished…

Now going to my analogy, unlike DS in Star Wars, real-life incredibly expensive capital warships (i.e., battleships) did actually have several well known, easily exploitable weak points, i.e., against attacks from relatively inexpensive aircraft or torpedo boats. Yet they were still building them for decades after those weak points were evident.

I’m no military tactician, but I imagine it’s because they aren’t actually easily exploitable. At least, I hope not. Because if they are actually sending capital warships with weaknesses so easily exploitable they get murked before they manage to even do anything (like the DS2 did), military waste is a much, much bigger issue than I thought it was.

In general military is huge waste of money purely from economy point of view. Most weapons that are built are never even used once. But in rare cases when you need them, they might save your country. Same with the battleship type of warships. Even though they were proven completely useless, they could have somehow turned out critical in some unforeseen situation, therefore countries could not gable with its safety. In the end, hindsight is 20/20.

Post
#1428782
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

SparkySywer said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

Servii said:

I personally think most of the issues people point to are fairly surface-level stuff that doesn’t really damage the movie as a whole. A second Death Star makes sense in-universe.

Return of the Jedi is a great movie, but I kind of think this is a stretch. The last one didn’t work, why would a second one with essentially no changes work this time? Palpatine gets a surprise attack on the Rebels I guess, but he still dies, they still lose the Sanctuary Moon, and the loss on Endor doomed the Empire.

Just because your expensive military hardware is destroyed in a battle, you do not simply stop making that hardware. When a country lost a capital warship during the World War I or World War II, they did not just say “oh that did not work, let’s stop building new ones” or “oh that did not work, let’s just stick to building small torpedo boats instead”.

If capital warships were incredibly expensive and had a well known, easily exploitable weak point that leads to total, irreparable destruction, they probably might have said that.

Except that the weak point you refer to was not well known (it took Alliance a great effort to find out about it), and it was not easily exploitable (without a pilot with rare force abilities it was impossible to do it, as clearly shown in the film). And besides, who says they did not fix it for the DS2? The only reason why ships could fly inside it was because it was only 1/4 finished by the time of ROTJ.

Now going to my analogy, unlike DS in Star Wars, real-life incredibly expensive capital warships (i.e., battleships) did actually have several well known, easily exploitable weak points, i.e., against attacks from relatively inexpensive aircraft or torpedo boats. Yet they were still building them for decades after those weak points were evident.

Post
#1427251
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

SparkySywer said:

Servii said:

I personally think most of the issues people point to are fairly surface-level stuff that doesn’t really damage the movie as a whole. A second Death Star makes sense in-universe.

Return of the Jedi is a great movie, but I kind of think this is a stretch. The last one didn’t work, why would a second one with essentially no changes work this time? Palpatine gets a surprise attack on the Rebels I guess, but he still dies, they still lose the Sanctuary Moon, and the loss on Endor doomed the Empire.

Just because your expensive military hardware is destroyed in a battle, you do not simply stop making that hardware. When a country lost a capital warship during the World War I or World War II, they did not just say “oh that did not work, let’s stop building new ones” or “oh that did not work, let’s just stick to building small torpedo boats instead”. Even after it was crystal clear that a battleship are completely worthless compared to an aircraft carrier, countries still continued to build them. So the argument that Empire should not build another death star just because the first one was lost is beyond ridiculous.

While one might argue that DS2 is unoriginal from story perspective, it is very logical from in-universe military and logistics perspective, which is backed up by numerous real history examples.

Post
#1427250
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

Servii said:

I think a lot of OT fans in particular view RotJ as the point when the franchise started to tip in a direction they didn’t like, with George apparently exerting a greater degree of creative control and leaving less room for collaboration. Some say that it marked the beginning of George “selling out.” Often, people back this up with comments from Gary Kurtz or Lawrence Kasdan, who were both clearly unhappy with the direction taken in the story, wanting a more downer ending that challenged the audience. George wanted a more clear-cut happy ending, of course, and I think that was the right call in the long run.

I would say “a few OT fans” rather than “a lot of OT fans”.

Post
#1425856
Topic
Return of the Jedi is grossly misunderstood
Time

I do not get the original post. ROTJ is still rated among top 100 films of all time on IMDb (which arguably the most relevant film rating site out there). You cannot take a few outliers and then generalise based on them.

Hoop28 said:
and given the ewoks a bit more of a threatening appearance, I.E. armor, sharp teeth, sharper weapons, I doubt you’d see people complaining about them much.

Humans do not have much of a threatening appearance either. Humans do not have sharp teeth and they look and act quite silly and harmless compared to for example a bear or a shark, yet humans are infinitely more dangerous than anything that actually looks threatening. Also, for the most of the modern history, humans did warfare without any armour and were basically dressed like clowns on battlefields (e.g., Napoleonic Wars, etc.). To quote Kyle Katarn: “so I guess looks don’t count for much”.

Post
#1413182
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

Omni said:

Pretty sure George didn’t give a shit about him either, hence how he died on ROTJ. I must say, with as much Boba Fett fanboy-ism going on after Mando, I like his silly death scene more and more - we shouldn’t be thinking too much of the bad guys, focus on the heroes, dammit!

Having some cliché grand duel for Boba Fett’s death would be boring and stupid in my opinion. I think they way his death was done in ROTJ was great actually. It is kind of a homage to how some of the famous gunslingers of the old west died (e.g., Wild Bill was shot in the back, etc.). It kinda points to the fact that, in the end, no matter how good and skilled your are, eventually your luck will run out and one bad luck moment and you are gone in this kind of business.

Post
#1412882
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

fmalover said:

Strip away all the supplementary material, and judging him exclusively on the movies, I must say Boba Fett is amongst the most overrated characters in Star Wars.

The only thing he has going for him is the undeniably cool looking suit of armour. Apart from that he does absolutely nothing noteworthy, and in TESB they only call him “bounty hunter”, just to show how little Lucas thought about him.

I sincerely don’t understand why he’s so popular with fans as he’s pretty much a nothing character.

You should never look at any specific character in isolation (unless there is only one character in the whole film). The interactions and relations to other characters is also important. Carefully leveraging on the established characters is a great tool that enables to build up a character that cannot afford a lot of screen time. In the case of Boba Fett, it is the interaction with Vader that really establishes the character. Pretty much everyone is scared shitless of Vader in ESB, and yet Boba Fett does not seem to be. Furthermore, it seems that Vader even has some reasonable degree of respect for him. This a perfect example of how to maximise the limited screen time by respectfully leveraging on the established characters.

Of course, this tool can also easily be used in a disrespectful manner to crap on the established characters and ruin them (go to ST for a reference).

Post
#1411927
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

Servii said:

But, you’ll admit that some films are simply poorly made and poorly written, right? There may not be some inherent metric for judging a film’s quality, but the fact that we keep trying to create metrics to assess films (Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDB, etc.) shows that we are aware of inherent quality differences between the movies we watch.

Film’s qualities are subjective. We can personally think “some films are simply poorly made and poorly written”, and nothing is wrong with that, but that will only be a subjective opinion. What Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDB, etc. are creating is simply a generalisation of multiple opinions, which ends up as a sort of a popularity score.

It’s like how we know the Mona Lisa is a better work of art than a child’s drawing. The child’s parents may have a greater subjective attachment to their kid’s art, but it’s almost universally understood that the Mona Lisa is better conceived and better executed as a work of art…

No, we do not know that the Mona Lisa is a better work of art than a child’s drawing. I will first have to see the child’s drawing, then I will judge. Saying things like “we know the Mona Lisa is a better work of art than a child’s drawing” and “it’s almost universally understood that the Mona Lisa is better conceived and better executed as a work of art” is either pretentious, or basically being brainwashed (herd behaviour), or both.

…even thought we have no way of quantifying that.

You have just contradicted yourself.

Post
#1411844
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

theprequelsrule said:

imperialscum said:

theprequelsrule said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

rocknroll41 said:

Servii said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve already seen opinions of TFA and TLJ improve.

The OT is revered because it’s a well made set of films.

Art is subjective. If the OT was as objectively well-made as you say then why did places like Time Magazine and Empire Magazine shit on ESB when it was new? We also mustn’t forget that a lot of people also crapped on RotJ up until TPM was released.

Art is subjective, and the quality of a movie is subjective. But the OT is undeniably popular, and not simply just because it’s old or because le Star Wars fans are le dumb. It’s also incredibly influential, in a way the PT and ST, like them or not, never will be.

Agreed completely. As I stated so many times on these forums, films are purely subjective, there are no two ways about it.

Still OT has something special that extremely few films ever had or ever will.

To say “purely subjective” is a rather extreme position. There may be an element of subjectivity, but there objective elements. Is Britney Spears as good a musician as Mozart?

I think you do not understand the basic concept of objective/subjective. As a scientist and an engineer, I have a very clear idea of what objective and subjective is. The definitions of objective and subjective are actually pretty simple. Objective is something that can be quantifiable by a metric. On the other hand, subjective is something that cannot be quantifiable.

Are there some elements of films that can be quantifiable by certain metrics? Yes, there are. For example, like how many words from the script were faithfully reproduced in the actual dialogue in the film (you will get a percentage score). However none of the elements that are quantifiable really matter when we think about “how good the film is”. When we say “how good the film is”, we pretty much think of purely subjective elements. So what I said still essentially holds true.

And yes, Britney Spears can be as good a musician as Mozart, since it completely depends on an individual opinion. Music is also an art and therefore completely subjective thing too. Unless you will come up with objective metrics, such as “notes per second”, to quantify “goodness”, which does not make sense at all, as it does injustice to some of the great minimalist composers, like John Adams.

So taste cannot be measured? Talent can’t be measured? At least not by any quantifiable metric? Editing skill and decisions in film making, the pacing of the script, quality of special effects, composition of shots? These are all subjective by your definition, yes?

Yes, to all your questions.

But, like I said, I am a scientist and therefore very open-minded. If you provide me quantifiable metrics for all those things you listed, I will gladly change my mind (not to mention you will invent something spectacular that no one has managed to so far in human history). Until then, it is yes to all your questions.

Post
#1411772
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

theprequelsrule said:

imperialscum said:

SparkySywer said:

rocknroll41 said:

Servii said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve already seen opinions of TFA and TLJ improve.

The OT is revered because it’s a well made set of films.

Art is subjective. If the OT was as objectively well-made as you say then why did places like Time Magazine and Empire Magazine shit on ESB when it was new? We also mustn’t forget that a lot of people also crapped on RotJ up until TPM was released.

Art is subjective, and the quality of a movie is subjective. But the OT is undeniably popular, and not simply just because it’s old or because le Star Wars fans are le dumb. It’s also incredibly influential, in a way the PT and ST, like them or not, never will be.

Agreed completely. As I stated so many times on these forums, films are purely subjective, there are no two ways about it.

Still OT has something special that extremely few films ever had or ever will.

To say “purely subjective” is a rather extreme position. There may be an element of subjectivity, but there objective elements. Is Britney Spears as good a musician as Mozart?

I think you do not understand the basic concept of objective/subjective. As a scientist and an engineer, I have a very clear idea of what objective and subjective is. The definitions of objective and subjective are actually pretty simple. Objective is something that can be quantifiable by a metric. On the other hand, subjective is something that cannot be quantifiable.

Are there some elements of films that can be quantifiable by certain metrics? Yes, there are. For example, like how many words from the script were faithfully reproduced in the actual dialogue in the film (you will get a percentage score). However none of the elements that are quantifiable really matter when we think about “how good the film is”. When we say “how good the film is”, we pretty much think of purely subjective elements. So what I said still essentially holds true.

And yes, Britney Spears can be as good a musician as Mozart, since it completely depends on an individual opinion. Music is also an art and therefore completely subjective thing too. Unless you will come up with objective metrics, such as “notes per second”, to quantify “goodness”, which does not make sense at all, as it does injustice to some of the great minimalist composers, like John Adams.

Post
#1411690
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

SparkySywer said:

rocknroll41 said:

Servii said:

Rodney-2187 said:

I’ve already seen opinions of TFA and TLJ improve.

The OT is revered because it’s a well made set of films.

Art is subjective. If the OT was as objectively well-made as you say then why did places like Time Magazine and Empire Magazine shit on ESB when it was new? We also mustn’t forget that a lot of people also crapped on RotJ up until TPM was released.

Art is subjective, and the quality of a movie is subjective. But the OT is undeniably popular, and not simply just because it’s old or because le Star Wars fans are le dumb. It’s also incredibly influential, in a way the PT and ST, like them or not, never will be.

Agreed completely. As I stated so many times on these forums, films are purely subjective, there are no two ways about it.

Still OT has something special that extremely few films ever had or ever will.

Post
#1410754
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

SparkySywer said:

JadedSkywalker said:

Its his story and its in no way collaborative. The stories are his and very personal.

Star Wars is my go to example I use when I want to talk about how movies are a collaborative art form, because of how much the Original Trilogy is not just George Lucas’s work.

The other people who worked on the OT didn’t just help Lucas realize his vision, they created part of the vision themselves. It’s not just that Star Wars would have failed without them, Star Wars just wouldn’t have been Star Wars without Ralph McQuarrie, or Marcia Lucas, or Gary Kurtz, I could keep going.

Hell, if you look at what happened behind the scenes of the Empire Strikes Back, it’s clearly not just George Lucas’s movie. While Lucas was working on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Irvin Kershner shot the movie in such a way that Kershner’s vision would be the most prevailing in the final cut. Often there was only one or two (usable) takes, and when there were more, there was not that much variation in them. Lucas was essentially unable to make his own movie out of ESB.

This is also why Richard Marquand was hired for RotJ. Marquand was a weaker, much less experienced director, but he wouldn’t have the balls to do what Kershner did. He also micromanaged a lot more with RotJ, as opposed to Empire, where he rarely even showed up on set.

The only way you can look at Empire and say it wasn’t a collaborative project, is if you’re being cheeky and making some comment on how adversarial Kershner and Lucas’s relationship got toward the end.

This is ultimately why I like new Star Wars much better than the prequels. The prequels are what happens when you take everyone but Lucas out of Star Wars. John Williams is the only person (besides Lucas) I can think of off the top of my head who was there for both the OT and PT, but even his input was severely neutered, especially in 2 and 3, although that’s a long story all on its own.

For better or worse, Star Wars is being made by the fans now. The fans may have wildly different ideas of what Star Wars is, they might even have downright dumb ideas of what Star Wars is, but they have a more holistic view of what Star Wars is.

You should probably read what you actually quoted before you reply. JadedSkywalker did not say that the whole OT is mostly Lucas’ work. He/she said that story of OT is.

No one can argue OT as whole was not a collaborative effort, because it was a highly collaborative effort (even tough Lucas might have had the final word on things). But I would agree with JadedSkywalker that story (in a detailed scene-by-scene sense, not just outlines) is mostly Lucas’ contribution.

Post
#1407950
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

If the OT was released in today’s climate, it would receive the exact same level of ridicule as the prequels and sequels.

That is highly unlikely. I would argue that most of us (even within this forum) first saw OT years or tens of years after its initial release and it still evoked the same overwhelmingly positive reactions. Actually some of us even first saw OT as 1997 SE and it still did not change that positive reaction.

It is not “today’s climate” (whatever that means) to be blamed. ST is just crap and it so no matter in what climate you put it in.

Post
#1407942
Topic
Unpopular Opinion Thread
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

I don’t think they’re any more flawed, at least not significantly. While some flaws are certainly objective, others are very subjective.

Actually only a very few flaws are objective (i.e., measurable and quantifiable) and most of them are irrelevant, such as for example: incorrect grammar (where you can quantify to a grammar rules) or some object in the scene that was not intended to be there (the film makers admit they did not want it there).

All other “flaws” that people actually care about are purely subjective opinions and not flaws per se. For example, if one says that the dialogue is bad, the is purely subjective because there is no objective measure to quantify dialogue quality. Except for maybe grammar mistakes and how well it follows written script; none of which is usually referred to when they say that the dialogue is bad.

So when people say that a film is flawed, they are just trying to make their subjective opinion sound more than what it actually is; a subjective opinion.

Post
#1405750
Topic
Anyone else dislike Rogue One? I feel like the only person.
Time

Hoop28 said:

Not to start an argument but at least TFA and the “subsequent garbage” had characters that grew and you came to care about, and were more than faces with a single trait.

Characters that grew? Rey was a Mary Sue from the beginning and grew into an even bigger one. Then they ruined Finn, which was pretty much the only remotely interesting character in TFA. Not to mention they ruined all OT characters.

R1 is not really supposed to have much character growth anyway, since it is set over a very short period of time.

Hoop28 said:

and you came to care about, and were more than faces with a single trait.

I came to care about them? Sorry but I did not. On the other hand, I did at least slightly care about the lead characters in R1.