Good Sci-Fi involving SPACE Fleet Battles (all forms)

[andrewgpaul]

I'm sure we had this discussion about stock footage before All I can say is, it never bothered me.

The EA ships' main guns seemed to have a pretty decent traverse - at least along the vertical plane (the two examples I can think of are the Agamemnon shooting White Star 1 in Jupiter's atmosphere and the Omega shooting defense satellites in the climactic battle of season 4.

The invisible Sharlins bugged me, too, though. even if for some reason the capital shpis don't have cameras (which would be pretty fucking stupid), a Starfury flight could spot for them, no?

To give them their dues, most capital ships would actually hit what they were shooting at, unlike plenty of other shows (like that anime clip Patrick linked to). The exceptions I can think of are fighters and White Stars, both of which have fixed-forward guns and manual pilot control.

One thing that does really annoy me is the 'realistic spaceflight' wankers. Only 2 ships ever behaved like that - the White Stars and the Starfury fighters. Everything else flew about like an X-Wing (as did the aforementioned ships, half the time). Not to mention how the hell the Earth destroyers decelerated without any thrusters on the bow.

[Starglider]

Not to mention how the hell the Earth destroyers decelerated without any thrusters on the bow.

The Starfuries are actually the only reaction-thrust-powered tv/movie spacecraft I can think of that have visible reverse thrusters consistent with their observed decceleration rates (i.e. comparable to their main engines). The neo-BSG vipers supposedly have powerful reverse thrusters in those things that look like air-intakes, but I don't recall seeing them firing. Excepting the pods in 2001 I suppose.

[andrewgpaul]

Yeah, you're right. The EA capital ships, as well as the Narn, stand out for me because they're about the only two nations in B5 who don't use magic 'gravitic' drives. After all, the Minbari don't have any visible engine exhausts.

[Uraniun235]

I remember the "lifted from oBSG" footage in B5 mentioned earlier. It was used in the first season when the Raider fighters attacked the station. I think they largely abandoned that footage in later seasons but it was still pretty egregiously blatant.

Not to mention how the hell the Earth destroyers decelerated without any thrusters on the bow.

The Starfuries are actually the only reaction-thrust-powered tv/movie spacecraft I can think of that have visible reverse thrusters consistent with their observed decceleration rates (i.e. comparable to their main engines). The neo-BSG vipers supposedly have powerful reverse thrusters in those things that look like air-intakes, but I don't recall seeing them firing. Excepting the pods in 2001 I suppose.

We saw reverse-thrust applied in neoBSG's The Hand of God, where Apollo was flying through the conveyor shaft.

[Patrick Degan]

I'm afraid not; I've only seen the Japanese version with a friend who had a pile of fansubs. Not to cast any aspersions, though; I checked out a Star Blazers clip on Youtube and it looked like it was still fun, and if I'd seen it on TV before I probably would have watched it.


Since we're posting Youtubes, here's a battle from the Harlock movie Arcadia of My Youth. Youtube

It's a one-on-one duel with the ships trading broadsides... admittedly, a touch ridiculous, but the style is fun (although the picture is a bit dark). I tend to prefer the battles from the 1978 Space Pirate Captain Harlock TV series but I'm not seeing any of those on Youtube at the moment.

"Harlock, when we meet in Hell, let us drink together as friends."

Classic.