RotS: worried about the space battle (very minor spoilers)

[Vympel]

You might think it strange that I'm worrying about same, but from everything I've heard about the Battle of Coruscant so far, I'm not so sure it's going to be what I'm hoping for.

The problem with the RotJ battle was a lack of the big ships really doing anything impressive or really battling each other- too much focus on fighters, which, while cool, is not really appropriate considering this is a battle between two fleets.

Now we have the Battle of Coruscant- which appears to me from the script/novel to be nothing but following Anakin and Obi-Wan through the battle (with them fighting as little as necessary against other fighters) while big ships all around them blow the crap out of each other, until they finally get to the Invisible Hand, and that's pretty much the end of the battle (until later when the Invisible Hand is again fired upon and starts its catastrophic de-orbit).

That's not what I was hoping for- I wanted some focus on the big ships doing their thing for once, not to once again seem them in passing as we follow the fighters, irrespective of all the extra detail and sheer numbers.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

You might think it strange that I'm worrying about same, but from everything I've heard about the Battle of Coruscant so far, I'm not so sure it's going to be what I'm hoping for.

The problem with the RotJ battle was a lack of the big ships really doing anything impressive or really battling each other- too much focus on fighters, which, while cool, is not really appropriate considering this is a battle between two fleets.

What could they do? This is a film. You can only take up a few seconds with ship fights, like in Sink the Bismarck.

"Fire!"
Boom.
(Shells falling)
Splash

"Shoot!"
Boom
(Shells falling)
Splash

"Fire1"
Boom
(Shells falling)
Splash-splash-boom-boooooooooommmmmmmm

"The Hoods' gone!"

Yeah, how exciting... sad, but movies just don't do ship fights very well.

I find it more annoying that no one mentions the Gunners and ships in the books either. As Piggy pointed out in Wraith Squadron, no one remembers the Captain or Gunner of the Home One at Endor, but they remember Wedge Antilles.

[Stravo]

Why is anyone surprised if this is the case? GL has always been far more concerned about characters and story developments than he does about space battles and the tech side of things. Endor was a tantalizing hint of what a full blown space battle can be like in Wars, the other films have all had space battles take place off screen or not at all. I'm sure part of the reason he focusses on fighters and smaller battles is that the audience can empathize more with small group of fighters or seeing the hero involved in a fight over big massive ships shooting at each other.

Unfortunately franchises like B5 consistently do space battles better in terms of fleet engangements.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I hate to say this, but plot dictates that no big ship to ship combate will be seen on screen...

Plot dictates that as soon as the movie starts, we must follow our main characters on their paths to their goal, upon reaching said goal, we shall follow them away from the main battle.

That’s it… I had hoped against hope for something different... but the only way to ever have a dramatic ship to ship battle scene, is if Main characters had been on a Capital ship under attack.

All StarWars battles have been on the scale of the fighter, because Lucas wants us to think we could be that ONE person who makes all the difference.

Face it… Lucas has a Fighter Fetish…

[Vympel]

What could they do? This is a film. You can only take up a few seconds with ship fights, like in Sink the Bismarck.

"Fire!"
Boom.
(Shells falling)
Splash

"Shoot!"
Boom
(Shells falling)
Splash

"Fire1"
Boom
(Shells falling)
Splash-splash-boom-boooooooooommmmmmmm

"The Hoods' gone!"

Yeah, how exciting... sad, but movies just don't do ship fights very well.

I find it more annoying that no one mentions the Gunners and ships in the books either. As Piggy pointed out in Wraith Squadron, no one remembers the Captain or Gunner of the Home One at Endor, but they remember Wedge Antilles.

I'm not talking about going inside the big ships or anything like that, though they could do it now and then (specifically to show some Captains and Admirals)- a few brief clips, but what I am talking about is the little "action sequences" we see in the RotJ battle whenever we go back to space in the film- it's all fighters flying here and there, capital ships doing nothing of consequence, just sitting in the background. Why not a relatively long, non-fleeting instance of capital ships really pummelling each other to destruction? Of course, the film may well have this (beyond the loss of the Invisible Hand) but I find it unlikely.

[Vympel]

Unfortunately franchises like B5 consistently do space battles better in terms of fleet engangements.

Naturally- it can be done, the argument that movies can't do them very well simply doesn't fly. Watching huge ships smack each other around is just as gratifying as watching fighters flit here and there. All the footage I've seen so far is Anakin & Obi-Wan flying by or through cool looking shit ... but all too brief.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

All StarWars battles have been on the scale of the fighter, because Lucas wants us to think we could be that ONE person who makes all the difference.

Face it… Lucas has a Fighter Fetish…

We know he has a fighter fetish. The message he really is giving us is that unless you happen to be that one lucky man, nothing you do matters or will be remembered.

[McC]

It's a problem I've always had as well. I love the technology, the war, the ships. I often think that I'd love to see a 10 minute all-CG slugfest between two sci-fi fleets with no characters at all. But then I realize that it wouldn't matter without the characters. I only like the slugfest 'cause the characters have a stake in the outcome (and thus so do I). Hence why we'll never really get a fleet battle slugfest

[Dangermouse]

In addition to what others have said regarding plot and character development:

Following the battle from a fighter POV is exciting visually. It allows for a wide range of shots and flybys, and perhaps more importantly, it adds an element of speed to the film. Two of the shots I remember most visually are from Star Wars in which we see the approach shot of the ywings/xwings to the trench in ANH, and the shot of the Millenium Falcon flying along the Executor's side wall in ESB. The contrast of the fighters moving against the backgrounds of the Death Star or the Executor made me really appreciate both the size and speed of Star Wars.

With fighter POVS, it is easy to create that illusion of speed and manuever for the audience since you show the fighers flying past the larger capital ships, and then cut back to first person POVs pans and wire-type shots, and further draw in the audience. The ANH shot is a great example of this since, for me a least, it really makes you feel as if you are heading toward and flying down the trench. The shots are simply exciting to watch.

It would be great to see more cap ship combat but other than the crossing broadsides between Cap Ships as well as the background combat in ROTJ, I can't personally think of a great way to do this visually.

Edit: Grammer x2. Yes, I suck.

[Illuminatus Primus]

It becomes even worse to do realistic naval battles visually pleasing and with good pacing and excitement. If there were many more examples of aesthetically pleasing SW battles, we might be reduced to a Trekkish example where it really does appear that our capital ships can only engage each other at a kilometer or two or less.

[Crossroads Inc.]

It becomes even worse to do realistic naval battles visually pleasing and with good pacing and excitement. If there were many more examples of aesthetically pleasing SW battles, we might be reduced to a Trekkish example where it really does appear that our capital ships can only engage each other at a kilometer or two or less.

:neo: Whoa. :/neo:
Gack, I hadn't thought about that.. Th..That would be HORRIBLE!

[Dangermouse]

It becomes even worse to do realistic naval battles visually pleasing and with good pacing and excitement. If there were many more examples of aesthetically pleasing SW battles, we might be reduced to a Trekkish example where it really does appear that our capital ships can only engage each other at a kilometer or two or less.

Agreed. Other than perhaps showing long distance firing and reaction shots, conveying long range combat is hard. I suppose you could interweave opening salvos (both firing and reaction) with having the two fleets close ala ROTJ but as IP says, it is really hard to visually show Stars Wars ranged combat without sacrificing aesthetics.

We saw a glimmer of cap ship combat in the trailer but again, that was at point blank range and perhaps not what Vympel and others are looking for.

[Vympel]

Close range slugfests are fine, I'd just like to see some focus on them for once.

[Old Plympto]

I believe cap ship slugfests can be used in lieu of full starfighter combat to raise adrenaline levels during the Battle of Coruscant.

As we follow the two main characters, they can be ordering the fleet to do this and that as they close in to the Invisible Hand, as opposed to shooting at Vulture droids and shaking off buzz droids. Oddball's red squadron's only order is to take out enemy fighters / missiles closing in on the two Jedi.

Just imagine the two of them, concentrating on giving orders on the cap ships, oblivious to the Vulture droids, Tri-fighters and missiles getting blown away from them left and right. They see the Hand try to bank left, they tell Venators #1 and # 2 to move accordingly to box in the ship. They see two Munificents approaching Ven #2 from behind and alert Ven #3 to take out the Munificents. Cue a HTL fusillade that cuts the two CIS ships in half.

Other frigates try to cut off the heroes, they inform the fleet and barrages from dozens of kilometers away start to pound at the smaller cap ship blockade, killing a few ships. The survivors launch more droid fighters ar the two, but they squadrons just get decimated by the turbolaser blasts from the Venators at long range.

The remaining droid fighters close in on the heroes, but without any warning Red Squadron drop behind their tail, blowing them away to oblivion...

Obi-Wan sees the Hand buring full throttle trying to get away. He orders three Venators to fire on its engines to disable it. Cue more explosions and fiery debris. Four other Venators pace the Hand and tractor the ship, immobilizing it.

More CIS cap ships come into the picture trying to blast away at the 4 tractoring Venators, but blasts from the long range Venators hammer at them, putting a damper on their plans to release the Hand.

As the battle reaches a fever-pitched crescendo, the two heroes' fighters blast the miniscule number of the remaining droid fighters in their path and swoop into the Hand's hangar bay!!!!!!





Damn! So many Venators to write up there. Need more Acclamators and Dreadnaughts and Carracks!!!! I think I might have just wet myself writing that.

[McC]

<snip>

That was really fucking exciting

I guess it can be done...

[Deathstalker]

This looks promising. The model is nice, but the background provides hope. Lego ship at Celebration III

[Vympel]

That background picture does look pretty kickass- http://www.fbtb.net/images/c3/c3sd.jpg

Not to mention that's one cool lego- though it appears the level of detail was insufficient to capture the trench guns visible in the ICS.

[VT-16]

I noticed on the seven min clip, they added more bolts to the "close quarters" fighting scene from the first teaser trailer, as well as seeing alot of action around the fighters as they zip past various ships. Then there´s the scene of Clones getting sucked out of a collapsing ship and seeing cannon-crews in general (which they have talked about over and over again). This is definitly more capital ship-oriented than the Battle of Endor.

[Vympel]

Yeah, I noticed more bolts in that 3/4 birds-eye shot as well- as for the gun crews, the attention to detail from what little we've seen seems really good- in the trailer, watch the quick shot of the Clonetroopers getting blown up- you see the Separatist bolt coming in (run it through with your arrow keys, it'll take less than a second on just "play") and blast through the wall to the side of one of the gun "windows". A Loyalist ship gun blast hits the shielded "window" dead on, and they take care to show the shield "glow" around the window flicker and fail.

[VT-16]

I also liked the attention to detail when the Munificent frigate (at least I think it was that) blows up after a SPHA-T cannon attack, spews debris everywhere and the Venator that shot it gets hit... and it does NOTHING! Muhahahaha

[Lancer]

It becomes even worse to do realistic naval battles visually pleasing and with good pacing and excitement. If there were many more examples of aesthetically pleasing SW battles, we might be reduced to a Trekkish example where it really does appear that our capital ships can only engage each other at a kilometer or two or less.

Battle for Coruscant in Clone Wars, where you have two huge fleets of capships unloading into eachother, and they're close enough that some of them are actually crashing into eachother.

[VT-16]

and they're close enough that some of them are actually crashing into eachother.

That´s because the Separatist ships keep pouring out of Hyperspace right on top of other vessels, it´s poor calculation on the ship commanders´ part.

[NecronLord]

It becomes even worse to do realistic naval battles visually pleasing and with good pacing and excitement. If there were many more examples of aesthetically pleasing SW battles, we might be reduced to a Trekkish example where it really does appear that our capital ships can only engage each other at a kilometer or two or less.

It's far from impossible though. Again, B5 did it pretty well now and then.

[Meest]

Well we do get a few interior shots of the gunners, but yeah I agree that we should see some command bridge orders being shouted out ala Admiral Ackbar. I hope they do what should've been done to ROTJ's scene, once Ackbar gives the concentrate fire on the SSD we actually see it, stuff like that works, shows the character responsible while adding scope and size to the actions.

[The Original Nex]

You might think it strange that I'm worrying about same, but from everything I've heard about the Battle of Coruscant so far, I'm not so sure it's going to be what I'm hoping for.

The problem with the RotJ battle was a lack of the big ships really doing anything impressive or really battling each other- too much focus on fighters, which, while cool, is not really appropriate considering this is a battle between two fleets.
. . .

That's not what I was hoping for- I wanted some focus on the big ships doing their thing for once, not to once again seem them in passing as we follow the fighters, irrespective of all the extra detail and sheer numbers.

The main reason IMHO for this is that George Lucas likes fast-paced chase scenes (a passion going back to his car racing days). He doesn't care all that much for big fleet battles, with lumbering capital ships blasting away at eachother, being the main focus. He wants the chase to be the main focus. Thats why he has so many dog-fights, chase scenes and races with Fighters.v.Fighters, Pod-Racing, Submarines.v.Sea Monsters, etc.

GL likes the thrill of a high speed chase sequence, so that's what his vehicular action sequences often detail.