13 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:They only succeeded because the DS didn't bother to launch it's own fighters (excepting Vader's personal command). That level of incompetence wasn't something that should be able to be planned for, yet it's common enough in Star Wars stories (and hopefully less present in SW gaming).
Don't they? An officer reports the attack to Vader, and he tells him "get the crews to their ships". Nothing about them being his personal command.
13 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:Don't they? An officer reports the attack to Vader, and he tells him "get the crews to their ships". Nothing about them being his personal command.
The DS was supposed to house thousands of TIEs. From what we see on-screen, it appears that only 12 or so took part in the Battle of Yavin.
Okay, but that doesn't mean the TIEs that did launch were Vader's personal contingent.
Seems like a discrepancy between the scale of operations the movies actually show, and that which the background material describes. I tend to go with the movies.
9 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:Isn't that what the Rebel briefing on Yavin 4 is, though? Without it, and all the other pilots, Luke wouldn't have been able to succeed.
Okay, dirt-farming and THEN a single briefing (Shoot into this little box like it's a wharf rat). It's not the high-end, black-ops, special forces training expectation that some bring to the genre from, either their own backgrounds, or movies they've seen. That's the point I'm expressing.....that when I see fans going all critical-minded on what the 'correct' tactics are, or should have been, or how they could have been better or more realistic......it's just overkill when it's applied to entertainment. It is just a movie. It would be like taking the lyrics of a Top-40 love song off the radio and cross-referencing it against one's own romantic relationships or modern psychology to check it for 'accuracy' and 'realism'. Rogue One isn't a training film for special forces and doesn't pretend to be. It's just a movie.
8 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:Okay, but that doesn't mean the TIEs that did launch were Vader's personal contingent.
Seems like a discrepancy between the scale of operations the movies actually show, and that which the background material describes. I tend to go with the movies.
This is from the Battle of Yavin/Legends page of Wookieepedia: " The station commander, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin , dismissed the attack as futile and refused to deploy the station's vast TIE squadrons. Tarkin also refused to evacuate when his chief, Moradmin Bast , attempted to warn him that the Rebels may have found a weak spot in the station. But Darth Vader, realizing the material threat, ordered his personal fighter squadron to scramble on his own authority. "
There's nothing in canon that conflicts with this.
Just now, DurosSpacer said:Okay, dirt-farming and THEN a single briefing (Shoot into this little box like it's a wharf rat). It's not the high-end, black-ops, special forces training expectation that some bring to the genre from, either their own backgrounds, or movies they've seen. That's the point I'm expressing.....that when I see fans going all critical-minded on what the 'correct' tactics are, or should have been, or how they could have been better or more realistic......it's just overkill when it's applied to entertainment.
Except that Star Wars has brought that to this very medium. People wanting more don't have to bring in outside stuff when we have novels, comics, video games, and an animated series that did take Star Wars a bit more seriously than the movies did and applied a bit more scrutiny to how things were done. Right down to even featuring stuff that was high end, black ops, special force training material. Whether we're talking about the Clone Wars cartoon or the FPS video games that level of detail is in Star Wars and we can't pretend that folks who look at Rogue One with a critical eye are bringing in some outside ideas. They aren't, those ideas have been a part of Star Wars for decades now.
Just now, DurosSpacer said:Rogue One isn't a training film for special forces and doesn't pretend to be. It's just a movie.
Which doesn't remove it from critque.
1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:This is from the Battle of Yavin/Legends page of Wookieepedia: " The station commander, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin , dismissed the attack as futile and refused to deploy the station's vast TIE squadrons. Tarkin also refused to evacuate when his chief, Moradmin Bast , attempted to warn him that the Rebels may have found a weak spot in the station. But Darth Vader, realizing the material threat, ordered his personal fighter squadron to scramble on his own authority. "
There's nothing in canon that conflicts with this.
There's nothing that supports it, either. Ergo, out with the trash. Why care about a bunch of mostly awful novels that aren't even considered true anymore.
I mean, there's nothing in canon that conflicts with Vader having a secret torrid affair with Tarkin, either.
Or that Tarkin has tremendous body odor. Which was actually canon according to Legends.
Some things are so obviously stupid or bad that there is no point in even considering them.
Edited by Stan Fresh1 hour ago, DurosSpacer said:Okay, dirt-farming and THEN a single briefing (Shoot into this little box like it's a wharf rat). It's not the high-end, black-ops, special forces training expectation that some bring to the genre from, either their own backgrounds, or movies they've seen. That's the point I'm expressing.....that when I see fans going all critical-minded on what the 'correct' tactics are, or should have been, or how they could have been better or more realistic......it's just overkill when it's applied to entertainment. It is just a movie. It would be like taking the lyrics of a Top-40 love song off the radio and cross-referencing it against one's own romantic relationships or modern psychology to check it for 'accuracy' and 'realism'. Rogue One isn't a training film for special forces and doesn't pretend to be. It's just a movie.
I think a bit of convincing tactics would improve many action movies. Look at how wonderful it is when action movie protagonists use their head. The classic example for me is the first Bourne movie, in which the character grabs one of those fire emergency evacuation plans from a wall during a chase and uses it to find his way around a building.
But Star Wars definitely leans more towards pulp, yes. I dislike the techno-thriller stuff many of the novels and RPGs bring to the franchise. It's incompatible with the movies, and only serves to point out their flaws when the two genres rub up against each other.
5 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:Some things are so obviously stupid or bad that there is no point in even considering them.
Like The Force Awakens, the Aftermath series, Heir to the Jedi, and quite a bit of the rest of Disney's take on SW? Yeah, the crappy end of the new stuff sucks as bad as the crappy end of the old. OF course, there's still some good stuff in all of it.
3 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:Like The Force Awakens, the Aftermath series, Heir to the Jedi, and quite a bit of the rest of Disney's take on SW? Yeah, the crappy end of the new stuff sucks as bad as the crappy end of the old. OF course, there's still some good stuff in all of it.
It's okay for you to feel that way, but I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion we are having. Can you explain?
4 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:It's okay for you to feel that way, but I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion we are having. Can you explain?
Sure. I told you the version of the story that I believe is correct, from a certain point of view. You dismissed it because it's not served to you with a Disney seal. To me that Disney seal isn't worth a thing.
54 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:Sure. I told you the version of the story that I believe is correct, from a certain point of view. You dismissed it because it's not served to you with a Disney seal. To me that Disney seal isn't worth a thing.
You'd already brought up the Legends label, so I don't feel like I did the dismissing there. I view non-movie stuff only as useful if it makes the movies better. If it conflicts with them, or undermines them, as the stuff you quoted does, I don't see the point of caring about it beyond having a laugh at how trashy it is.
I mean, if your problem is that the Death Star's TIEs weren't launched, but only a non-movie source states that the TIEs we see aren't from the DS, why give a crap about it?
Edited by Stan Fresh
Just now, Stan Fresh said:You'd already brought up the Legends label, so I don't feel like I did the dismissing there. I view non-movie stuff only as useful if it makes the movies better. If it conflicts with them, or undermines them, as the stuff you quotes does, I don't see the point of caring about it beyond having a laugh at how trashy it is.
I mean, if your problem is that the Death Star's TIEs weren't launched, but only a non-movie source states that the TIEs we see aren't from the DS, why give a crap about it?
Why not? It makes more sense than anything else we have to explain rough spots in the movies.
Anyway, it's a point of view thing. We see different values in different things. I only responded initially because you wanted to know where I got my information about those being Vader's personal squadron. I gave it to you, so like it or not, you have your answer.
4 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:Why not? It makes more sense than anything else we have to explain rough spots in the movies.
Oh. The way you talk about it doesn't come off like this explanation increases your enjoyment of the movie. If it does, that's cool, sure.
On 3/2/2017 at 4:13 AM, HappyDaze said:RPG players notoriously plan far less than what the Rogue One raid involved.
In fairness though, the standard player character plan "attack and overwhelm the enemy because we have better stats and stronger gear, and the game system gives us extra advantages because we're the heroes" is a perfectly solid plan, just not a realistic one.
Edited by DasharrOn 3/2/2017 at 4:13 AM, HappyDaze said:
19 hours ago, HappyDaze said:They only succeeded because the DS didn't bother to launch it's own fighters (excepting Vader's personal command). That level of incompetence wasn't something that should be able to be planned for, yet it's common enough in Star Wars stories (and hopefully less present in SW gaming).
You know assume that that the experimental station had fighters. We see the unfished death star in Rogue One, we see it bastically doing weapon tests and the chain of command unclear, but definitely no involving the imperial navy. Rogue One firm established something which was assumed since decades: The Death Star had no escort fleet or navy support because Tarkin did not wanted to had over his toy to the military. And the Grand Moff itself was a civilian governeour, one with a great military past, but not one with a military command. The death star most likely had not a single TIE-Fighter of its own, and Vader's squadron was all that was on the deathstar. It became a 12 TIEs vs 30 Rebel Fighters scenario, because Tarkin was arrogant enough to assume his toy was invincible.
Besides, the Rebels in a new hope had an exit strategy, blow up the thing and get out and don't even bother to engage the death star with their fleet, just use those fighters. Blowing up the thing was a good way to get out. The Rebel fleet had as well some exit ways and used the Tantive IV to execute on of those plans. It really is just the R1 crew, the one with K-2SO, the one with a crew who was just a days ok hell bend on surviving no matter what, who totally blew it. They are the one who's successful plan will make them still die.
BTW, Pablo now stated that the Rebels send everything and the kitchen sink to Scarif while playing with X-Wing and Armada models.
Naturally like in all Rebels Recon, spoilers to the last Rebels episode.
I've found that in most cases, Star Wars films only show "bits of the battle" - the stuff that's relevant, which usually translates as the stuff the PCs (or main characters) are directly involved in.
Battle of Yavin? There were actually hundreds of Rebel fighters involved, but only a couple of squadrons tasked with the run on the exhaust port. Up over the DS, there were hundreds more fighters running interference and holding off the vast numbers of TIE fighters. Do we see it? Nope, 'cos it wasn't important. But it makes sense.
Battle of Hoth? There were likely a lot more than the half-dozen or so walkers and two dozen or so snowtroopers involved in the attack, considering it was made by a Super star destroyer and at least a half-dozen or so ISDs. But we only see the bits surrounding the main characters, with a bit of extra footage shown to really demonstrate how the Empire is Striking Back.
Battle of Endor? Again - dozens of capital ships on both sides, but maybe 10 - 20 actual starfighters shown. But the implication is the battle is bigger, just not shown.
Anyway...that's how I run things in my games (new to FFG, but been playing / GMing Star Wars since 1st Edition WEG). It allows PCs to be involved in major actions without knocking canon aside (as an example, one of my friend's characters was flying an X-Wing, but not part of the run on the trench, during the Battle of Yavin. Red Five was about to launch his torpedoes when Raven Six (my friend's guy) realised the superlaser would fire before Luke got the chance. So he made a kamikaze run on the main focusing crystal, disrupting it and forcing the DS gunners to switch to a secondary backup...hence the second "Stand by..." in the movie, buying enough time for the farmboy to fire his astonishing shot...:) )
EDIT TO ADD: Actually, having just spotted SEApocalypse's video of "Rebels" up there, that reminded me. SWR is a demonstration of what I'm talking about - they often make a big deal of "capturing the proton bombs" being necessary to saving the Phoenix cell. Then they have a mission where they steal, like, ten proton bombs. TEN bombs? Hardly a game-changer in the grand scheme of things, but reflective of the "PC / Main Character Microcosm". We see a tiny representation of the large scale - it humanises it and makes it relatable. With the whiz-bang CGI visual effects of the prequels, we could see massive scale battles...but they meant little. "Good-guy" ships blowing up meant little to us, emotionally, because we didn't know them. We didn't know Porkins, but he had a name , so when he died, we felt it. Even Red Leader's death meant something because we'd seen him say stuff and do stuff. If there is a fault to showing everything , I think this is it - it's too big. Just like hearing about a million people dying in a natural disaster has less of an emotive impact than hearing about fifteen dying in a bus crash (because we can picture fifteen dead people, but not a million), when the numbers are too big, our emotive brain switches off.
Wow...that went longer than was intended!
41 minutes ago, Daronil said:With the whiz-bang CGI visual effects of the prequels, we could see massive scale battles...but they meant little.
That's actually one of my issues with Rogue One's space battle. Who are these people, and why should I care about them?
1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:That's actually one of my issues with Rogue One's space battle. Who are these people, and why should I care about them?
Because you could see their faces? That's always been the Star Wars standard for which troops you should care about and root for.
1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:That's actually one of my issues with Rogue One's space battle. Who are these people, and why should I care about them?
Gold Leader, Red Leader?
8 hours ago, HappyDaze said:Because you could see their faces? That's always been the Star Wars standard for which troops you should care about and root for.
That theory fails to explain clone troopers.
18 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:That theory fails to explain clone troopers.
No it doesn't. You were never supposed to care for the clones, just for the Jedi that led them.
Just now, HappyDaze said:No it doesn't. You were never supposed to care for the clones, just for the Jedi that led them.
That's blatantly untrue. Large chunks of The Clone Wars are built around the troopers. Some of them even have Jedi as antagonists.