3 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

But whether they're unique isn't the issue, it's helmets.

Except we often see them without their helmets - that's kind of my point. The main clone characters are as individualised as the Jedi, and spend nearly all their non-battle time sans helmets, with their unique hair-styles and facial-hair-styles there to give visual clues on who is who.

2 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Nice idea and all. It just discredited by the fact that ANH explicitly stated that 30 Rebel Fighters started from Yavin 4 and that's it. 30 fighters, 3 squadrons, which are not even fully staffed against Vader's squadron which is just his escort from his ISD, while the death star itself has no fighters at all permanently stationed on it. R1 emphasised this even more as we see that the DS1 is runs basically right to battle from weapon tests, before fully operational or handed over to the imperial navy.

In this regard R1 is quite interesting, because it makes clear what was assumed long ago, that the control over the death star was Tarkin's pet project, something he sized control over and did not wanted to share with anyone else. And thus no navy escort nor larger fighter screen.

To add to that, Rebels latest episode make clear how much of a big deal for the other rebel cells are few military victories pheonix cell had. Not necessary in only in a good way, but pretty significant.

Well, an Imperial tells Vader "we count thirty Rebel ships and they're so small they're evading our turbolasers". [slipping into hypothetical mode] That's the attack wing. That's the group that are actually hitting the DS and causing damage. The others - the screening wings, the hundred or more fighters up high - aren't an issue; they're not even being attacked by the turbolasers. They're waiting for the inevitable launch of fighters, up high, where they can quickly dive down to intercept them. [/hypothetical mode]

There is ample evidence the DS has its own TIEs. There are TIE fighters constantly patrolling around it (including in R1); Solo says "We're coming up on their sentry ships" as they're escaping the DS and engaged by a flight of TIEs. Even the original novelisation of ANH has the exchange of something like "They let us go...it's the only explanation for the ease of our escape." "Easy? You call that easy?" "They only sent four ships - they could easily have sent a hundred." (I'm quoting from memory here).

I think it's a very thin limb to go out on to argue that the DS had no fighters of its own. My argument isn't that there was hundreds of Rebel fighters, just that there could have been, because we only see the battles in the original trilogy in microcosm. The other hundreds weren't important to the story being told, so we never saw them (also, Lucas didn't have a budget for that!).

44 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Except we often see them without their helmets - that's kind of my point. The main clone characters are as individualised as the Jedi, and spend nearly all their non-battle time sans helmets, with their unique hair-styles and facial-hair-styles there to give visual clues on who is who.

And we also see Imperials without helmets, yet stormtroopers and TIE pilots fulfill the criterion. It's not an absolute.

9 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

And we also see Imperials without helmets, yet stormtroopers and TIE pilots fulfill the criterion. It's not an absolute.

But the Imperials aren't protagonists. But you're right - it's not an absolute. As Captain Barbossa would say: "It's not so much a rule, as a guideline".

49 minutes ago, Daronil said:

But the Imperials aren't protagonists. But you're right - it's not an absolute. As Captain Barbossa would say: "It's not so much a rule, as a guideline".

Neither are the rebels involved in the space battle in Rogue One protagonists, and this whole tangent started with me not caring about them because the movie didn't do the work to make me.

EDIT: Rereading this, it may come off as confrontational, which is not my intention.

2 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Neither are the rebels involved in the space battle in Rogue One protagonists, and this whole tangent started with me not caring about them because the movie didn't do the work to make me.

EDIT: Rereading this, it may come off as confrontational, which is not my intention.

No, no - I hadn't read it as confrontational, Stan. Just a discussion (you should see my family's dinner-table discussions! )

On 3/9/2017 at 3:57 PM, Stan Fresh said:

Neither are the rebels involved in the space battle in Rogue One protagonists, and this whole tangent started with me not caring about them because the movie didn't do the work to make me.

EDIT: Rereading this, it may come off as confrontational, which is not my intention.

I defintely agree that if the movie had been little longer they should have given a character or two with the rebel fleet some attention. As it is the only characters seen in the movie with the fleet who we ever saw before Rogue One's climatic battle were Raddius, who we only saw for a few moments earlier in the movie, plus Leia, Captain Antilles, and Red and Gold Leaders who were all in A New Hope.

Another thing we learned from Rogue One....Imperial design is inherently stupid. Never mind the unnecessary need for a mole to plant a flaw in the plans (which is not at all needed in a construction that huge), just look at how they design their broadcast towers! Your daily maintenance guys have to climb a massive ladder, and then try and time their climb through an irising porthole, that serves no purpose! Seriously, why was that thing there?!?! It just opened and closed every 10 seconds, and accomplished nothing, other than to be a "hazard" for Jen to have to climb through.

I mean come on! If that's the standard level of Imperial engineering intelligence, the Death Star was probably riddled with dozens of fatal flaws just waiting to be exploited!

48 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Another thing we learned from Rogue One....Imperial design is inherently stupid. Never mind the unnecessary need for a mole to plant a flaw in the plans (which is not at all needed in a construction that huge), just look at how they design their broadcast towers! Your daily maintenance guys have to climb a massive ladder, and then try and time their climb through an irising porthole, that serves no purpose! Seriously, why was that thing there?!?! It just opened and closed every 10 seconds, and accomplished nothing, other than to be a "hazard" for Jen to have to climb through.

I mean come on! If that's the standard level of Imperial engineering intelligence, the Death Star was probably riddled with dozens of fatal flaws just waiting to be exploited!

I just figured that the iris hatch opening and closing on its own was due to damage done by K smashing the station he was at and/or any incidental systems being mucked up in the larger attack. It never once occurred to me that such activity was standard operating mode for the hatch.

Meanwhile, Krennick was able to access the platform apparently from an elevator. No need for the maintenance guys to go through what Jyn did.

22 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

I just figured that the iris hatch opening and closing on its own was due to damage done by K smashing the station he was at and/or any incidental systems being mucked up in the larger attack. It never once occurred to me that such activity was standard operating mode for the hatch.

Meanwhile, Krennick was able to access the platform apparently from an elevator. No need for the maintenance guys to go through what Jyn did.

Yes but there was very clearly a ladder built there, that lead directly to that iris, so they assumed somebody might need to traverse the tower that way, without an elevator. Plus we don't know if it was working properly or not. Considering everything else was working normally up to that point, without direct damage from blaster fire, I'm assuming that's just the regular way it was operating. Considering we've seen in Phantom Menace, a set of energy barriers that open/close in set patterns, there's at least some precedent for it to be the normal way it was operating. Also, it just screams Galaxy Quest level of "why is this here?!?" to me, which always amuses me. I remember laughing out loud when I saw it in the theater.

19 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Yes but there was very clearly a ladder built there, that lead directly to that iris, so they assumed somebody might need to traverse the tower that way, without an elevator. Plus we don't know if it was working properly or not. Considering everything else was working normally up to that point, without direct damage from blaster fire, I'm assuming that's just the regular way it was operating. Considering we've seen in Phantom Menace, a set of energy barriers that open/close in set patterns, there's at least some precedent for it to be the normal way it was operating. Also, it just screams Galaxy Quest level of "why is this here?!?" to me, which always amuses me. I remember laughing out loud when I saw it in the theater.

Sure, it was obviously designed as A means of ingress and egress, but didn't appear to be the primary means.

The station K was at had some degree of interface with and control over the data archive area. It's not unreasonable to conclude that his smashing the console to prevent the Imperials from getting to Jyn and Cassian could have caused that hatch to short out.

2 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

Sure, it was obviously designed as A means of ingress and egress, but didn't appear to be the primary means.

The station K was at had some degree of interface with and control over the data archive area. It's not unreasonable to conclude that his smashing the console to prevent the Imperials from getting to Jyn and Cassian could have caused that hatch to short out.

It's also not unreasonable to conclude that the writers and director added it simply to add extra tension to a scene that was pretty dull (watching her slowlyclimb a ladder). I mean it's not like the Star Wars universe isn't filled with tons of examples of terrible designs when it comes to machinery. Retractable catwalks without handrails, bottomless pits underneath hundreds of important mechanical devices and switches, giant energy walls capable of killing/burning people who touch them (and stopping a lightsaber), opening up and closing in the middle of what could easily be mistaken for a walkway. Building a space station out of a hollowed out planet, incapable of sustaining life, and sticking people on the surface of it. Blasting out all the energy/radiation of a STAR (that somehow fits inside a planet that is a fraction of the size), and then blasting it out while people stare at it from only a few hundred miles away at best. Without eye protection or radiation suits. I mean, the safety of the worker is not a high priority when it comes to Star Wars designs.

Is having some iris opening and closing really that far fetched in a universe with this level of engineering incompetence?

btw, i'm only jokingly making fun of this part. I don't really care if it's actually on purpose to be goofy like in Galaxy Quest, or supposed to imply damage to the system. Since neither theory is actually backed by the movie, it's all speculation. I prefer my speculation on the grounds that it amuses me more than the other one.

I hear ya. It just never stuck out to me the way it did to others.

On 09/03/2017 at 10:15 AM, SEApocalypse said:

Occam's Razor.

Vader chased the Tantive IV to Tatooine and one day later Han, the guy who made the Kessel Run in 12 Parsecs was already on the way to Alderaan. Tarkin is supposed to have orders to destroy Alderaan regardless of Leia's cooperation.

Which leaves the slower Death Star not really much time to get to Alderaan before Han arrives.

Except that we know the Death Star wasn't at Alderaan when Episode 4 begins. Tarkin orders it to Alderaan after Vader reports that Leia is resisting interrogation.

On 3/9/2017 at 1:03 AM, Stan Fresh said:

You mean the mustache, right?

Nope:

On 3/13/2017 at 6:24 AM, KungFuFerret said:

Seriously, why was that thing there?!?! It just opened and closed every 10 seconds, and accomplished nothing, other than to be a "hazard" for Jen to have to climb through.

Clearly they were installed because Episode 47 had them.

17 hours ago, Desslok said:

Clearly they were installed because Episode 47 had them.

Yep, that was exactly what ran through my mind while I was watching it in the theater. I've stated this many times when I mention this utterly silly bit of R1, but it does bear repeating. I genuinely laughed out loud in the theater when this part happened, and it rang out in the relatively silent audience. Since you know, the scene wasn't intended to be comical, it just came across because...well...chompers.

The one bright spot was when I turned to my wife and said "This episode was badly written! Why are these even here?!" she got it and laughed with me.