Bad Astronomy review of RotS is up

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-05-23 07:54am

Admiral Valdemar wrote:The ICS comment seems stupid too. Just because their weapons belch gigatons of energy per second doesn't make them insane. It's sci-fi last I checked with a several tens of thousands of year old civilisation.

What ICS comment?

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-05-23 08:53am

John M. Dollan wrote:
herzeleid wrote:
That may be, but 65 gigatons is in fact lower than the yields their shipboard weapons are capable of. The Incredible Cross Sections books for episodes II and III give yields of hundreds of gigatons for many heavy weapons, going as high as millions of gigatons for a specific gun on one class of Separatist ship (though these are more like siege guns and take something like thirty minutes to charge a single shot).

Remembering some of the "reference" books for Star Wars, Star trek, and other settings, I often wonder if the writers truly understand the meaning of or value of certain items, such as "megaton" for example.

apocolypse · Post by **apocolypse** » 2005-05-23 09:56am

In regards to the complaint of the Coruscant fire-fighting ships, and the water. It didn't look at all like water to me. If you look at the surface of the Invisible Hand, the substance appears to turn into something like a white foam when it hits the surface. Not sure what it is, but it definately didn't look like water to me.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-05-23 09:58am

Oh what a marvelous collection of utter twats:

oh good lord.

take the fanboy junk over to stardestroyer.net where it belongs.

john

So he decided to assign some arbitraily high numbers, then? **shakes head** I'm sorry. I enjoy Star Wars, I really do. But I simply have a hard time believing that these people are paying attention to what they are saying. I mean, if you have numbers that high for some of the ships, then why bother building a Death Star? For that matter, why bother building *ships*? It all smacks of munchkinism to me.

I'll simply enjoy the movies on the surface level, as I have a hunch they were meant to be enjoyed, and leave the technical interpretations to those who like to play "My ship-gun-universe is the Strongest."

...John...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-05-23 10:06am

DoctorObvious wrote:It shouldn't matter what their orbital velocity was. Since they're in the same frame of reference (ie Coruscant's gravity is effecting them all equally and the ships gravity generators have failed), once the ship started falling, they're in exactly the same situation whether the orbit was from velocity or repulsorlifts.

Only if the ship is accelerating downwards at precisely 1 G (or whatever the rate of gravitational acceleration is at their present altitude). If even part of its engines are still working it won't fall that quickly, so they will still fall relative to the ship.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-05-23 10:08am

So he decided to assign some arbitraily high numbers, then? **shakes head** I'm sorry. I enjoy Star Wars, I really do. But I simply have a hard time believing that these people are paying attention to what they are saying. I mean, if you have numbers that high for some of the ships, then why bother building a Death Star? For that matter, why bother building *ships*? It all smacks of munchkinism to me.

So this guy has never bothered trying to calculate how much power a Death Star actually needs? That's kind of sad for someone who's posting on an astronomy site when astronomy routinely calculates utterly fantastic numbers based on mathematics and observation of effects.

petesampras · Post by **petesampras** » 2005-05-23 10:35am

A question on Death Star energy.

The gravitational binding energy used as a basis for the minimum energy required to destroy a planet is defined ( i believe) as the energy required to accelerate every component such they will end up infinitely far away from each other ( assuming a closed system ).

Clearly this definition is dependant on what a 'component' is. If a component was, for example, an atom then gravitional binding energy would infact be higher than the minimum energy required to destroy a planet. Afterall blowing a planet into 100 chunks which are accelrated out to end up infinitely far away from each other would qualify as blowing up, but not gravitational binding energy.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2005-05-23 10:44am

Who is the poster Fearghul over there? Anyway, somebody make sure you pick up on this point by our beloved John;

John M. Dollan wrote:Yes, but I was talking about the previously quoted "millions of gigatons" for one of the *ships*. Oh, sure, the Death Star will have an ungodly amount of energy in order to destroy a presumably roughly Earth-massed planet (we don't know if the debris was scattered, but I would assume that it remained gravitationally bound and will reassemble over the next few centuries... though, really, I tend to think that the debris should have been vaporized). But a ship with that amount of fire power... it just doesn't ring true to me.

...John...

It was seen moving at a fraction of c, I think you can kiss the reformation good bye, point him to the DS planetary destruction page on the main site (here). Also the vaporise part is interesting; he obviously doesn't have an agenda if he's trying to increase the DS firepower.

Also suggest that he reads the following; Mike's site (along with Brian's Turbolaser pages), Curtis' site and come back after that and tell us that the numbers are made up out of thin air.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-05-23 10:47am

Crown wrote:Who is the poster Fearghul over there?

That'd be me.

Anyway, somebody make sure you pick up on this point by our beloved John;
It was seen moving at a fraction of c, I think you can kiss the reformation good bye, point him to the DS planetary destruction page on the main site (here). Also the vaporise part is interesting; he obviously doesn't have an agenda if he's trying to increase the DS firepower.

Also suggest that he reads the following; Mike's site (along with Brian's Turbolaser pages), Curtis' site and come back after that and tell us that the numbers are made up out of thin air.

*chuckles* Already pointing out some of the relevant stuff...he seems to be realizing that it's actually got a basis in reason now.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2005-05-23 10:50am

I think that any posters from our board that are over there should take it a little ... easy ... with him. I don't believe he is arguing with an agenda (just ignorance) - no use pissing off a neutral observer who is willing to change his mind if we can avoid it. hewhocaves on the other hand should be handled with extreme prejudice.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2005-05-23 11:38am

(OT: I didn't know that BadAstronomy direct linked to SD.net on their "James McCanney's Nonsense: Comets Turn Into Planet" page; he even calls it terrific.)

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-05-23 11:52am

Phil Plait may have a better opinion of SD.net than some of his forum patrons (I wouldn' be surprised if there are some closet trektards among them).

I'm floored by some of the idiocy I'm seeing there, though. The fact that they rely on "writer's intent" instead of visuals? Would they apply the same logic to fucking documentary footage? Imagine if you were to take film footage from some of our nuclear tests back to pre-Fermi days, and ask some scientists to review the footage. How would they react?

I used to peruse the BA forum, and it seemed okay, despite seeming to attract a good number of cranks, especially noticeable on the Against the Mainstream forum. Lots of steady-state, geocentrism, and electric cosmos nuts there.

petesampras · Post by **petesampras** » 2005-05-23 12:28pm

The fact that they rely on "writer's intent" instead of visuals? Would they apply the same logic to fucking documentary footage?

Starwars is not a documentry though. We know that everything we see is just special effects. Suspension of disbelief maybe assumed on this site, but there is absolutely no reason that people discussing elsewhere have to follow this. In general writers intent is a better way of analysing fiction since it does not require making false assumptions that what you are seeing is actually real.

I'm not denying it is fun to play suspension of disbelief and argue these things, but to accuse people on other sites of 'idiocy' for not treating footage which is known to be fake as a genuine documentry is not valid.

kheegster · Post by **kheegster** » 2005-05-23 12:30pm

Gandalf wrote:
Why didn't Obi Wan sense Anakin coming back in the elevator when they were trying to get to the Chancellor in the beginning of the movie? Instead, he was surprised, and actually drew his light saber! They make it clear through all six movies that people who are strong with the force can sense each other, and Anakin was still too untrained to be able to hide his presence.
This bugged me too.

This is assuming that the ability to sense other Force users is precise enough to give spatial information. Obi Wan could very well have been aware that Anakin was on the IH with him, but that doesn't automatically have to translate into him being able to keep track of Anakin's location.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-05-23 12:31pm

petesampras wrote:
The fact that they rely on "writer's intent" instead of visuals? Would they apply the same logic to fucking documentary footage?
Starwars is not a documentry though. We know that everything we see is just special effects. Suspension of disbelief maybe assumed on this site, but there is absolutely no reason that people discussing elsewhere have to follow this. In general writers intent is a better way of analysing fiction since it does not require making false assumptions that what you are seeing is actually real.

I made this film about a small green potatoe taking over russia...but my intent was to have fire breathing dragons subjugating mars....

You cannot judge anything objectively on a subjective thing such as intent...you can however objectively assess visuals.

I'm not denying it is fun to play suspension of disbelief and argue these things, but to accuse people on other sites of 'idiocy' for not treating footage which is known to be fake as a genuine documentry is not valid.

When they are accepting it as real enough to complain that it isnt real enough for their tastes...they're already accepting an anlysis of the footage AS IS...

petesampras · Post by **petesampras** » 2005-05-23 12:44pm

In a New Hope Obi-Wan and Vader fight a light sabre battle.

Based on the visuals they are appalling sword fighters.

Yet we know the writers intent that they are both Jedi masters and look beyond what we see.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2005-05-23 12:46pm

JediMaster415 wrote:On the Mustafar battle, I could've sworn that I saw what looked like shields on all the machinery. Maybe heat shields? That shield shimmer was still on the droid that Anakin hitched a ride with.

Yep, apprently heat shields or something blocking the lava. After Anakin hit a console there was a warning shot that showed sheild levels dropping on that platform they went fighting on.

Firefox · Post by **Firefox** » 2005-05-23 12:47pm

petesampras wrote:In a New Hope Obi-Wan and Vader fight a light sabre battle.

Based on the visuals they are appalling sword fighters.

Yet we know the writers intent that they are both Jedi masters and look beyond what we see.

Obi-Wan was an out-of-practice old hermit who had just come out of hiding on a desert planet. Vader is a hulking cyborg who is most certainly not in top physical form for a human. Pretty obvious from visuals, and a straw you're trying to grasp.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-05-23 12:52pm

petesampras wrote:In a New Hope Obi-Wan and Vader fight a light sabre battle.

Based on the visuals they are appalling sword fighters.

Yet we know the writers intent that they are both Jedi masters and look beyond what we see.

Light saber combat is mainly based on pregognition (seeing your enemy's moves before they happen) rather than dexterity. This is out and out disingenious of you. In any case, there is no valid reason to "look beyond what you see" in the case of asteroid vapourization and shielding and suchlike so your example is a red herring anyway.

petesampras · Post by **petesampras** » 2005-05-23 01:21pm

Light saber combat is mainly based on pregognition (seeing your enemy's moves before they happen) rather than dexterity. This is out and out disingenious of you.

OK. Fair enough, but there are countless films which feature poor or average sword fighting from people in the film that are supposed to be experts or legends. I'm saying that when you encounter something like that in a film it makes more sense to take the writers assumption that they are experts rather than the visuals that they are not.

How about a low budget sci-fi film where you see supposedly rigid metal scenery wobble? Do you look past this or treat it as something that happened in the movie?

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-05-23 02:37pm

petesampras wrote:
Light saber combat is mainly based on pregognition (seeing your enemy's moves before they happen) rather than dexterity. This is out and out disingenious of you.
OK. Fair enough, but there are countless films which feature poor or average sword fighting from people in the film that are supposed to be experts or legends. I'm saying that when you encounter something like that in a film it makes more sense to take the writers assumption that they are experts rather than the visuals that they are not.

How about a low budget sci-fi film where you see supposedly rigid metal scenery wobble? Do you look past this or treat it as something that happened in the movie?

Yeah, obviously we give the story the benefit of the doubt sometimes. Glitches happen, this is a no-brainer. That is not the goddamn issue. The issue is that by default, we go by the visuals. For instance, there is no reason to doubt that asteroids dozens of meters across were vapourized by the Star Destroyers as showed by the visuals. Based on this we can infer their firepower.

There is no glitch or error or other reason to doubt this unless the maximum firepower is conclusively shown to be much less elsewhere. Contrast this with the budget movie example you mentioned: there is ample reason to conclude that rigid structures do not wobble, from common experience. Turbolasers on the other hand, cannot be as easily assessed since they do not exist in reality, thus the only thing we have to go by are the events in the movie. Here, the only possible contradictions are those shown. Since there never was an event shown that indicated that TLs absolutely cannot rate several megatons (not to be confused with "they can yield less optionally"), we must conclude that they can rate megatons.

Any attempt to doubt this usually comes with assertions of disbeleif that the firepower could be this high (even if the Death Star clearly exploded a planet) and is disingenious. Moreover, attempting to divine "writer's intent" is generally a useless exercise that leads nowhere since such evaluations are highly subjective.

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-05-24 12:26am

Who is herzeleid over there? Anyone from here? He/she needs to tone it down a bit. BadAstronomy != SD.net.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2005-05-24 02:32am

I would like to note that AOTC and TESB should eliminate all of these nonscensial "TL's can't be tha powerfull" arguments, people should do the math.

First of all we have the guns of the Slave-1, easily kiloton range weaponry, you can just scale from there.
Secondly the seismic charges which give us on screen firepower in the gigatons.
The missile fired after Obi-Wan which is easily many many megatons.

So here we have a small ship packing a bigger whallop than all of planet earths nuclear arsenal, ON SCREEN! And people have problems believeing that a ship magnitudes more massive with individual gun turrets larger than slave-1 itself cannot be 200GT?

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-05-24 02:35am

People are having a problem accepting the idea of SOD, actually.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-05-24 05:13am

McC wrote:People are having a problem accepting the idea of SOD, actually.

And also with the concept of insults...it seems backhand and indirect insults are fine but saying someone is thick for making stupid statements without evidence is not....what fun...