BobBrown's SW discussions(split from Reference Sources)

[Illuminatus Primus]

One more Vympel, this one takes the cake.

NONE of these quite reasonable questions have been answered in ANY way by George Lucas. One might begin to suspect that he didnt really give much thought to what screenwriters call the 'backstory'. A few words scattered here and there would reveal the true situation without impinging on the story in any way - except to inform the audience that it IS a believable scenario ... unfortunately, this is lacking. Once again, Mr Lucas has shown himself to be far less of a creative luminary than the late great Professor Tolkein, or even B5's JMS.

Not only is Bob Brown know ALL of the EU authors are talentless apocryphal WEG-loving hacks, but he also knows Star Wars better then George Lucas. George Lucas is obviously a poor writer and obviously lost his nerve. Obviously George is too stupid to comprehend such simple literary elements as backstories and Tolkein and JMS are his great superiors. Clearly his site is the last bastion of Wars. Unpoluted by wanking apocryphal and prequel canon muck. Clearly we know who should have been made author of the Ep. II ICS and the writer for the next two prequels.

[Vympel]

Not only is Bob Brown know ALL of the EU authors are talentless apocryphal WEG-loving hacks, but he also knows Star Wars better then George Lucas. George Lucas is obviously a poor writer and obviously lost his nerve. Obviously George is too stupid to comprehend such simple literary elements as backstories and Tolkein and JMS are his great superiors. Clearly his site is the last bastion of Wars. Unpoluted by wanking apocryphal and prequel canon muck. Clearly we know who should have been made author of the Ep. II ICS and the writer for the next two prequels.

*Vympel on his ass laughing*

So, is it true that he was pissed that Saxton got to write the AOTC ICS?

I also loved it how he complained about how we'll never see the Trade Fed again and its yet more evidence of the poorly thought out nature of the prequels ... but ... OOPS ... they appear in Episode II don't they?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I haven't seen where he was irritated at Saxton yet, no. People told me was though.

[Sardaukar]

IG-88(formerly Phlutdroid) was originally described by Lucas as a "tarnished war droid" in the script and/or in the novelisation of tESB.
That's where Brown get's it from.

He is a bit of a zealot, but I can appreciate his desire to stick to pure canon, even though sometimes it's unreasoanable.

[Cal Wright]

IG-88(formerly Phlutdroid) was originally described by Lucas as a "tarnished war droid" in the script and/or in the novelisation of tESB.
That's where Brown get's it from.

He is a bit of a zealot, but I can appreciate his desire to stick to pure canon, even though sometimes it's unreasoanable.

I haven't seen the script so I can't say anything on that part. However it says nothing about it in the novelisation.

"A battered and tarnished chrome colored droid named IG-88 was also with the group. "

It's interesting to note that right after that it describes Boba Fett is clad in armor worn by warriors defeated by the Jedi during the Clone Wars. Oh well. Movies are higher than books.

[HemlockGrey]

Well, Jango was a warrior, and he was defeated by Jedi...

[Sardaukar]

I haven't seen the script so I can't say anything on that part. However it says nothing about it in the novelisation.

"A battered and tarnished chrome colored droid named IG-88 was also with the group. "

It's interesting to note that right after that it describes Boba Fett is clad in armor worn by warriors defeated by the Jedi during the Clone Wars. Oh well. Movies are higher than books.

Check out Starwars.com's description of IG-88:
http://www.starwars.com/databank/droid/ig88/index.html

[Currald]

From the Empire Strikes Back Script:

[quote=Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett] The group standing before Vader is a bizarre array of
galactic fortune hunters: There is Bossk, a slimy, tentacled
monster with two huge, bloodshot eyes in a soft baggy face;
Zuckuss and Dengar, two battle-scarred, mangy human types;
IG-88, a battered, tarnished chrome war droid; and Boba Fett,
a man in a weapon-covered armored space suit.[/quote]

Considering how innacurate the Bossk and Zuckuss desriptions are, and the complete absense of 4-LOM, I certainly wouldn't try to use this passage from the script as any sort of evidence, but there it is.

If I understand it correctly, the whole B^2 site shut-down fiasco was somehow related to doctored photos of Mace Windu's lightsabre in some magazine. Mr. Brown pointed some discrepancy out, and made a big contraversy about it. Dark Horse inserted a page-long explanation in some comic to rationalize the various weapon-switches Mace has undergone. Mr. Brown claimed that cheers were heard at "the Ranch" when his "site went black."

He said that some of his colleagues (and I'm paraphrasing, since I don't have copies) had "gone over to the dark side" or "collaborated" or something, which I inferred to mean Dr. Saxton.

Anyway, silly controversies aside, most of the actual content of the articles is very interesting. The Y-Head Corvette article sent me on a long hunt for obscure ships in the OT, which has proved to be rather fruitful. His Blockade Runner page taught me (among other things) the difference between a Blockade Runner and a Corellian Corvette. The Millennium Falcon page has probably the most elegant set of deck plans for the Falcon I've ever seen. The R2-D2 page has a map of R2, with each little arm, gadget and sensor labeled. The Trade Federation military section outlines the type of network in use by the Federation during the Battle of Naboo in detail. The other ship pages have a lot of interesting design history, plans, etc.
He's not a complete purist. He seemed interested in the oddly-colored lightsabres in some of the comics, so I guess he must take them into some account.
He is highly opinionated, and more so as time goes on. I think that he thinks that the Lucasfilm marketing arm is deliberately trying to quash the sort of fan research that he is engaged in. After seeing the lightsabre combat section of the Episode 2 Visual Dictionary, I can see his point. Reynolds essentially tried to "overrule" Brown's lightsabre combat pages, written by an experienced kendo player, with the silly ramblings of an archaeologist with no swordfighting experience.

[Jim Raynor]

Mr. Brown and the people at his old forum were the biggest groups of SW canon purists, EU haters, cynics, and conspiracy theorists I've ever seen. Despite their disdain for the EU for some of its contradictions with the canon films, they were all to pull wacky ideas out of their asses. They typically favored ideas that "made sense" practically if the SW universe was dark, gritty, and "realistic."

Examples (summarizing)

1. After TPM, there was a discussion about why Qui-gon didn't disappear like when Obi-wan and Yoda died. Some guy thought that the Jedi were cloned during the Clone Wars, and that they developed this as a defense mechanism to deny their enemies of their genetic material if there was no way they could escape capture. Obviously, this is before AOTC came out, so his entire idea about cloned Jedi was crap. Never mind the fact that Yoda did this, despite there being zero possibility of him being cloned on Dagaboh.

2, After WOTC took over the SW rpg and came up with stuff for the prequels, people were talking about what era they preferred playing in. Robert Brown, stating this as if it were hard facts, said he preferred playing thousands of years before the classic trilogy, when the Jedi were hunting down and purging all other force users in the galaxy.

3. The article posted on this board about the Rebels being narco-terrorists was received quite well there.

[Vympel]

Mr. Brown and the people at his old forum were the biggest groups of SW canon purists, EU haters, cynics, and conspiracy theorists I've ever seen. Despite their disdain for the EU for some of its contradictions with the canon films, they were all to pull wacky ideas out of their asses. They typically favored ideas that "made sense" practically if the SW universe was dark, gritty, and "realistic."

Examples (summarizing)

1. After TPM, there was a discussion about why Qui-gon didn't disappear like when Obi-wan and Yoda died. Some guy thought that the Jedi were cloned during the Clone Wars, and that they developed this as a defense mechanism to deny their enemies of their genetic material if there was no way they could escape capture. Obviously, this is before AOTC came out, so his entire idea about cloned Jedi was crap. Never mind the fact that Yoda did this, despite there being zero possibility of him being cloned on Dagaboh.

2, After WOTC took over the SW rpg and came up with stuff for the prequels, people were talking about what era they preferred playing in. Robert Brown, stating this as if it were hard facts, said he preferred playing thousands of years before the classic trilogy, when the Jedi were hunting down and purging all other force users in the galaxy.

3. The article posted on this board about the Rebels being narco-terrorists was received quite well there.

I posted that article- however I didn't agree with it.

Sounds like a bunch of crazies to me!

[Connor MacLeod]

I swear I am the only one to be laughing at most of you for some of the statements made here.

[Cpt_Frank]

Hey, how about instead of trolling, you actually post something useful?

[Connor MacLeod]

Hey, how about instead of trolling, you actually post something useful?

You mean something useful is being posted in this thread?

[Darth Wong]

Robert Brown has had a fair share of personal problems over the past few years. Somewhere along the line, he became ... difficult.

His methodology is meticulous, but he often betrays the mentality of a creationist in that he tends to look for problems he can use as excuses for 90-degree course changes, rather than trying to reconcile them. It's one thing to simply dislike the prequels as movies, but there's a hostility in his words that comes from something deeper.



DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH AIRING OF DIRTY LAUNDRY



I don't want to get into too much detail, but I used to E-mail on a mailing list with him regularly, and before AOTC came out, he started trashing me at every opportunity, eventually ranting that I'm part of the grand conspiracy to destroy his work (I later learned that he is sympathetic to many of the anti-scientific philosophical arguments that have been brought up and annihilated in the SLAM forum).

In our last correspondence, he insisted that the application of force requires energy even if there is no displacement. I told him that work = force times displacement. He argued that this simply felt wrong, and made a lot of desperate analogies to try to prove his point. I demolished each in turn, and then he began ranting that I am an insufferable elitist who has proven to be totally irrational because I would not "compromise" toward his position, thus betraying a stubborn and unreasonable mindset. He then said that I was not worth talking to ever again and kill-filed me.

I'm not making this up; there are others on that list who can attest to what I'm saying; he seriously kept up a long exchange trying to argue that static force = work: a childish idea that everyone should already be disabused of before leaving high school.

[Illuminatus Primus]

In our last correspondence, he insisted that the application of force requires energy even if there is no displacement. I told him that work = force times displacement. He argued that this simply felt wrong, and made a lot of desperate analogies to try to prove his point. I demolished each in turn, and then he began ranting that I am an insufferable elitist who has proven to be totally irrational because I would not "compromise" toward his position, thus betraying a stubborn and unreasonable mindset. He then said that I was not worth talking to ever again and kill-filed me.

That was truly the most bizarre thing I've ever heard.

I DID know that as a freshman in High School.

Jesus, he is kind of loose in the head there.

[Jim Raynor]

What's the SLAM forum?

[Vympel]

What's the SLAM forum?

Science, Logic and Morality.

[His Divine Shadow]

Below you will find an image from TESB, of the bounty-hunting droid IG-88. *WHY*? ... you may well ask ... everyone knows IG-88 was an assasin droid, one of five which escaped from a rouge experiment etc etc ... well, I'm going to tell you that I believe that NO IT WASNT SO ... I believe that IG-88 is typical of various forms of war-droids used in the pre-Imperium period. It was obviously a fully functional independant droid equipped for heavy combat. I believe that IG-88 is probably a 'destroyer-class' war droid who survived whatever wars it was built for, and over the years (without mind-wipes) developed a complex and cunning personality. the droid has since made its way working as a bounty hunter, a task requiring considerable intelligence.

The 'rougue assisain' story is pure apocryphal gibberish, it has NO BASIS in canon 'fact' - growing out of the relatively recent 'tales of the Bounty Hunters' anthology sponsored by KJA, it can be dismissed out of hand. Far more likely is that this droid, or indeed (if you feel attrracted to the 'multiple IG's theory) a GROUP of them, survived some war and went on to carve a career for themselves. After all, the official site write up on battle-droids makes it quite plain that the Neimoidians are not the only race to deploy military droids, ... indeed if the Droideka is the product of another planet, CollaIV. This then proves that military droid research was occuring in multiple parts of the galaxy at different times.

Asshole. No even circumstancial evidence. He accuses them of ignoring canon fact, but can't even recognize Lucas' failures nor how Lucas' SoTE said anything about IG-88 (even his name) that would make the backstory untrue or unreasonable. What a crock of shit.

With all that "canon 'fact'" gibberish he sounds like DarkStar...

[His Divine Shadow]

I swear I am the only one to be laughing at most of you for some of the statements made here.

You disagree? Elaborate?

Edit:
Spelling errors(yeah, I realize it's late)

[Durandal]

In our last correspondence, he insisted that the application of force requires energy even if there is no displacement. I told him that work = force times displacement. He argued that this simply felt wrong, and made a lot of desperate analogies to try to prove his point. I demolished each in turn, and then he began ranting that I am an insufferable elitist who has proven to be totally irrational because I would not "compromise" toward his position, thus betraying a stubborn and unreasonable mindset. He then said that I was not worth talking to ever again and kill-filed me.

You can expend energy without actually doing work. Some guy could push on a wall of the Empire State Building and do no work, but he does expend energy, even if none of it is applied in a useful fashion.

[Illuminatus Primus]

His pushing is a force applied to the wall, but that's a force, not energy. Energy (or Work, as we're talking about that) = Force x Displacement. Period.

There IS a reason the joule is just the equivalent of a Newton meter. It's the two multiplied. Force times displacement.

[Durandal]

His pushing is a force applied to the wall, but that's a force, not energy. Energy (or Work, as we're talking about that) = Force x Displacement. Period.

There IS a reason the joule is just the equivalent of a Newton meter. It's the two multiplied. Force times displacement.

Not all energy must come in the form of useful work. If that was the case, we wouldn't have efficiency problems. Pushing against the wall requires energy, but that energy goes to waste, making it a wasteful exercise, much like running in a circle. The net displacement is zero, so the net work in zero, but energy was expended, but not work was done.

[Darth Wong]

You can expend energy without actually doing work. Some guy could push on a wall of the Empire State Building and do no work, but he does expend energy, even if none of it is applied in a useful fashion.

True, but that is merely process inefficiency, and is not what we were talking about.

Much as you would like to believe that Bob Brown has not lost his grip on reality, I brought up the issue of human body inefficiency. He retorted with a balloon analogy, arguing that the air inside a balloon must constantly expend energy in order to exert pressure against the balloon wall. Other examples such as springs were mentioned, and in every case, he insisted that some kind of energy must be constantly expended in order to maintain this constant application of force.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Perhaps he thought Lucas was a bitter old hack, and decided to become one himself. Still, much of his older research is great. It's only recently that he's been acting like this. Perhaps he just doesn't like how Lucas is doing the PT. He's a canon purist, and doesn't like things like "technological inconsistency" in the prequels.

[Vympel]

Perhaps he thought Lucas was a bitter old hack, and decided to become one himself. Still, much of his older research is great. It's only recently that he's been acting like this. Perhaps he just doesn't like how Lucas is doing the PT. He's a canon purist, and doesn't like things like "technological inconsistency" in the prequels.

Percieved technological inconsistency