Quote from: Dumarest;976851"Megahit" doesn't equal good. American Graffiti is an okay movie that gets by mostly on nostalgia. THX 1138 I haven't seen. So maybe George Lucas wrote and directed three good movies from 1971 to 1977, assuming you're right about THX 1138. What's he done in the forty years since then?  Can you really compare that to Francis Ford Coppola?

You only need to make one great film (or write one great book, etc) to be remembered, Jean Vigo made one feature film, L'Atalante but is still much admired and talked about by film fans. Ultimately a director is more likely to be remembered for their best work not their least.

I think THX 1138 would still be remembered today in terms of top tier 70s sf films even if Lucas never made SW. I think it is easy to dismiss American Graffitti today because so many films imitated it, the original has a funky charm to me, it is a minor but important film in American film history.

Does that compare to Godather 1, 2 or the amazing The Conversation? Not for me, I consider those three films one of the best runs an American director ever did but my point was that both directors started off with a level of inspiration and skill and then seemed to have gone into significant decline creatively. But don't judge them by their worse work.

Quote from: Voros;980765Wow I never realized how 'fans' had obsessed over the supposed scientific flaws of that great ending shot of Empire. Instead of admiring the pop poetry of it all their obsessive love of pointless detail, hence their love of the mediocre 'expanded universe' material, drains all the joy out of it.

I like the original Star Wars. I never thought of it as "science" fiction. Why someone would worry about spinning galaxies but be okay with light sabers befuddles me.

As for the "expanded universe," I assume that means the new movies and comic books and novels and cartoons? As long as it has the Star Wars logo on it, quality doesn't matter. They're printing money. There are enough rabid Star Wars fans that anything will sell enough. Quite a phenomenon.

Quote from: Elfdart;979585No, the comedy is supplied by know-nothings like you who, basking in their own smug stupidity, assume they're looking at the whole galaxy -then fap away about your own superior knowledge of astrophysics or something. Which is funny, since Dr. Curtis Saxton, who really is an astrophysicist, points out that it's not described as the whole galaxy in the movies. One spin-off novel might suggest it's a shot of the Galaxy Far Far Away, but every other official source either uses vague terms like "the vastness of space" or describes it as a nebula:

If you read more than one of my posts, you might notice that for decades I assumed it couldn't possibly be supposed to be the galaxy because that would be annoyingly silly. I provided links to sources saying that various people producing the films said that it was supposed to be the galaxy,  etc. In any case my point was there has been a steady decline if caring if Star Wars stuff has any continuity.

QuoteOnce again, people who pretend to know everything make fools of themselves in front of those who really do.

I'm glad someone in production realized it must be something smaller than a galaxy. Of course, a real nebula would also have to be pretty darn small (compared to an actual nebula), and/or the fleet moving crazy-fast, for there to be any visible rotation unless it's a visualization or screen saver rather than what's actually visible.

How would you handle the following?

An authority, let's say the dominant empire, and a faction within that gains a powerful resource. What would stop the latter using its privilege in acquiring that reosurce to taking over the former?

Quote from: Dumarest;980823I like the original Star Wars. I never thought of it as "science" fiction. Why someone would worry about spinning galaxies but be okay with light sabers befuddles me.

In case you're actually interested, in my case it's because although I don't see how light sabres would work, I don't really mind going along with there being a weapon that works like they seem to, without needing to know how it works. I can follow a story with them and immerse a bit because they're just glowy hot sword things, that are understandable and self-consistent, and kind of interesting because they are weird but have some logic I can rationalize. The problem with the spinning galaxy view is that I have some grasp of how large a galaxy is and what it would mean for travel times if it were really possible to casually fly out to that viewing distance of a galaxy and get a nice rotating view of it. Compared to bragging about speed for "the Kessel Run" or having time to practice light saber fun on the way from Tatooine to Alderaan, it's silly to then be able to travel that fast, unless your tech makes speed/time/distance really irrelevant. It undermines the earlier-established notions that speed and distance have any meaning at all.

QuoteHan Solo: She'll make point five past lightspeed.

Well, to see something hundreds of thousands of light-years visibly rotate due to your movement around it, and to get out to that perspective, you'd need to be many thousand times better than that.

Quote from: Elfdart;979577Simple: the "outlaw" regions just aren't worth the trouble. There's nothing worth stealing, not enough sentient creatures to enslave and no strategic value to the place. For example, the impression I get from Star Wars is that Tattooine is such a shithole that neither the Republic nor the Empire would ever bother with the place were it not for a combination of luck/fate surrounding the Skywalker family.

I think the Hutts control those regions and the Empire works 'with' the Hutts under the knowledge that when everything else is dealt with they'll do away with the Hutts.

Quote from: Biscuitician;980832How would you handle the following?

An authority, let's say the dominant empire, and a faction within that gains a powerful resource. What would stop the latter using its privilege in acquiring that reosurce to taking over the former?

Taking over an Empire isn't easy.

Well, it can be. Killing the Emperor and becoming Emperor yourself can be fairly easy, but all you are doing then is replacing the Emperor. Emperors are often killed and replaced, due to dynastic conflicts and usurpers.

Emperors come and Emperors go, but the Imperial Bureaucracy carries on.

So, what's to stop the faction taking over the Empire?

Imperial Guard - You have to kill or depose the Emperor and the elite Imperial Guard protects the Emperor, except when it replaces the Emperor itself
Nobility - The Royal Family and assorted Nobles have powerful postions at court and don't want the Emperor replaced, as the new Emperor might appoint his own people, thus removing the Nobles from Court and nobody wants that, do they?
Legal System - Empires have Laws and those Laws might have views on replacing an Emperor
Cost - An Emperor is rich, I mean richer than filthy rich, he gives a lot of people money and spends a lot of money on the Royal Court, to become Emperor you need to do the same, are you rich enough to become Emperor?
Imperial Bureaucracy - Don't underestimate civil servants, if they don't want something to get done then they have a hundred ways of stoppoing it from getting done

Quote from: Dumarest;980823I like the original Star Wars. I never thought of it as "science" fiction. Why someone would worry about spinning galaxies but be okay with light sabers befuddles me.

As for the "expanded universe," I assume that means the new movies and comic books and novels and cartoons? As long as it has the Star Wars logo on it, quality doesn't matter. They're printing money. There are enough rabid Star Wars fans that anything will sell enough. Quite a phenomenon.

I always just stuck with the original movies. I read some SW comics in the 80s but that's about it. Of course I found the prequels dreadful but I wasn't that invested in the series anymore. I think the new films are fun.

The 'expanded universe' usually refers to all the paperback books they ground out over the years. I'm sure there are some pulpy gems in there (heard good things about Brian Daley's Han Solo books) but when I dipped my toe in I found it mostly dross.

They actually quite wisely jettisoned the EU just before the new film series so they didn't have to have their hands tied by the nutso fanbase.

Quote from: Biscuitician;980832An authority, let's say the dominant empire, and a faction within that gains a powerful resource. What would stop the latter using its privilege in acquiring that reosurce [sic] to taking over the former?

All of the other satrapies in the empire ganging up the faction.

As soon as you gain ground, all the others work together to limit your advance.

Quote from: Biscuitician;980832How would you handle the following?

An authority, let's say the dominant empire, and a faction within that gains a powerful resource. What would stop the latter using its privilege in acquiring that reosurce to taking over the former?

Quote from: soltakss;980841Taking over an Empire isn't easy.

Well, it can be. Killing the Emperor and becoming Emperor yourself can be fairly easy, but all you are doing then is replacing the Emperor. Emperors are often killed and replaced, due to dynastic conflicts and usurpers.

Emperors come and Emperors go, but the Imperial Bureaucracy carries on.

So, what's to stop the faction taking over the Empire?

Imperial Guard - You have to kill or depose the Emperor and the elite Imperial Guard protects the Emperor, except when it replaces the Emperor itself
Nobility - The Royal Family and assorted Nobles have powerful postions at court and don't want the Emperor replaced, as the new Emperor might appoint his own people, thus removing the Nobles from Court and nobody wants that, do they?
Legal System - Empires have Laws and those Laws might have views on replacing an Emperor
Cost - An Emperor is rich, I mean richer than filthy rich, he gives a lot of people money and spends a lot of money on the Royal Court, to become Emperor you need to do the same, are you rich enough to become Emperor?
Imperial Bureaucracy - Don't underestimate civil servants, if they don't want something to get done then they have a hundred ways of stoppoing it from getting done

Quote from: Black Vulmea;980984All of the other satrapies in the empire ganging up the faction.

As soon as you gain ground, all the others work together to limit your advance.

That, and you having one resource doesn't even come close to competing with the Empire, which has hundreds of different kinds of resources;).

Some sort of WMD situation if the setting allowed it.

Basically big bad empire has enough WMDs to destroy smaller state 150 times. Smaller state has enough WMDs to effectively cripple empire or damage it so badly a rival power can move in and  conquer it. Or if the evil empire's military and central government is smashed badly the people will overthrow it.

Big bad empire  demands smaller state surrender.

Smaller empire replies "Fuck you."

Big evil empire says "surrender or we destroy you a dozen times over!!!"

Smaller empire says "launch your attack and we'll destroy you once."

Big evil empire: "well, damn..."

Quote from: Dumarest;978747Given that you think Tombstone is the best Western ever and Fear and Loathing is the best American novel of the 20th century, your opinion carries no weight. Heck, Tombstone wasn't even the best Western of 1993.

I'm curious. What do you think was better?

Quote from: Bren;981600I'm curious. What do you think was better?

I'd rather watch Bad Girls, silly as it may be, over Tombstone. The latter takes itself too seriously and I found it a bore. The only part I found even watchable was "I'll be your huckleberry."

Looking at the list of Westerns in 1993 I'm just going to rewatch the best Western of 1992.

Quote from: Bren;981607Looking at the list of Westerns in 1993 I'm just going to rewatch the best Western of 1992.

I think I stayed at Best Western a couple of times.

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