StarDestroyer.Net BBS

From the VG footage, Artoo's legs aren't visible, but the boxes are there.

Hrm, so is the problem with the missing astromechs' lower halves resolved?

Mange the Swede wrote:That's beyond me as well. However, I think it's possible that the people making the CG model didn't have the actual ANH blockade runner model to use as reference as it was included in the "Art of Star Wars" travelling tour exhibition. I hope, but I know it will never happen, that they change the CG model and make changes (such as the round sensor dish) to a CG model with the proper proportions for the DVD release. I mean, both the Tantive IV and the Death Star are so iconic and they both looks a bit off in ROTS. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just being nit-picky.

Nah, I don't think you're being picky at all.
You don't need the original physical model to do a 3D model that resembles the original. All they'd have to do is use footage from A New Hope to do a mesh that's a reasonable fascimile of the Blockade Runner. Any decent 3D modeller can do that. They clearly didn't even try.

wautd wrote:Regarding clonetroop numbers, uniforms and colour pallettes

This may have been already stated, didnt have time to read ll those spoiler topics yet but:

IIRC, in AOTC a number of 1.2 million number of units was thrown. Offcourse, if we take 1 clone = 1 unit, we would end up with a rediculous small army so it was already suspected 1 unit = a larger group of clonetroopers. Now seen ROTS, apart from other uniforms, you could also notice they had different color palletes in their armor (blue, orange, red,...) so I'm fairly sure that one unit is a whole invasion force
example:
- army joining Obi Wan (orange pallette): 1 unit
- army reinforcing the Wookies: 1 unit
- armies we saw during "order 66": all different units

so imo 1 unit is (give or take) a handfull of acclamators/venators and all the troops and equipment in it, or in other words: a small army


That way, we get a more realistic number of troops for a galaxy spanning civilisation with millions of planets.

Offcourse, that makes it hard to believe these were all created at a single planet

I'm guessing a "unit" is roughly a battalion-size element. A battalion is the largest unit that is normally made up of one primary type of unit (i.e. light infantry, mechanized infantry, armor, howitzers, rocket launchers, helicopters) and the smallest unit which can normally function semi-independantly. Companies (the next smaller unit) have almost no integral logistic base (maybe a few ammo trucks and basic maintenance) while brigades are usually assemblies of different types of battalions. For example, 2nd brigade, 4th ID when I was there contained 2 tank battalions, 1 mechanized infantry, 1 155mm SP howitzer, 1 Forward support, and one engineer battalion, plus a scout company.

That's assuming clone organizations are similar to real world ones. In the scene where they discuss helping the wookies though, someone says "take a battalion to Kashyyyk". Like Task Force Smith ( a battalion size element) it would have been large enough to contain various elements for combat (most battalions include mortars as organic fire support) but small enough to deploy quickly.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:

Dalton wrote:And Luke's has the ability to sense pain. I read elsewhere in this thread that Anakin stuck his mechanical arm through a ray shield. Did he suffer ill effects or pain?

If that's regarding what occured in Clone Wars, then yes, he did. Anakin was screaming to holy hell.

I don't think Luke's hand is really any more advanced than either of Anakin's arms, just with different design philosophies and applications involved.

He was in pain, but not necessarily because of pain sensors. The rest of his body is still flesh and there were a lot of flashy lightning thingies flying around. The energy of the ray-sheild could have propagated along the mechanical arm to his flesh. This is supported by the fact that the other time we see Anakin (Vader actually) get his mechanical arm damaged (DSII, Luke chops-off the hand) he only appeared to experience pain initially, in the Clone Wars scene he screams in pain continously, up untill the ray-shield goes down. Curtiss Saxton has the following to say about the Death Star II scene:

Saxton wrote:The wrecked wrist hurt Vader initially, but apparently not the continual pain that a man would suffer from the amputation of a natural limb.

Like I said before, Luke's arm is meant as a replacement, esentially a civilian version. Anakin's arm is a military version with enhanced endurance and probably strength. Also, somebody said that Anakin's arms appear to be easier to do maintenance on.

I request that those involved in the discussion regarding Grievous' chest plates watch the movie again and view the events that occur shortly before Obi-Wan pries the plates apart: Grievous is lying prone on the landing platform, and Obi-Wan smashes the MagnaGuard electro-staff down on the torso plates, with what looked like enough force to break Grievous in two, outright. That's clearly when the armor plates were loosened.
Were you to pay attention to every single move, suspending your disbelief, (pretending that the outcome was not predetermined as in an unchanging movie), you'd think that that move might have ended the fight right there.

His plates were also damaged previous to that. In the last episode of the Clone Wars cartoon we get to see Grevious hand three Jedi their asses (though he had Magna Guard help) as he attemps to kidnap Palpatine. As he is making his escape Windu shows up, and Grevious pulls out four light sabers and turns around to face him. Mace gives him a "Do I look stupid?" face, extends his arm and force-crushes the General's chest. That is also why he was coughing all the time.

In the movie it is just said that there was "another million on the way" the extra million troopers could have been ready in a few more days or a few weeks for all we know and it does not rule out the possibility that there are many more Clones nearing the end of their growth and training cycles and that Clone production wouldn't just cease after the first 1.2 million.

Cykeisme wrote:Hrm, so is the problem with the missing astromechs' lower halves resolved?

Mange the Swede wrote:That's beyond me as well. However, I think it's possible that the people making the CG model didn't have the actual ANH blockade runner model to use as reference as it was included in the "Art of Star Wars" travelling tour exhibition. I hope, but I know it will never happen, that they change the CG model and make changes (such as the round sensor dish) to a CG model with the proper proportions for the DVD release. I mean, both the Tantive IV and the Death Star are so iconic and they both looks a bit off in ROTS. On the other hand, perhaps I'm just being nit-picky.

Nah, I don't think you're being picky at all.
You don't need the original physical model to do a 3D model that resembles the original. All they'd have to do is use footage from A New Hope to do a mesh that's a reasonable fascimile of the Blockade Runner. Any decent 3D modeller can do that. They clearly didn't even try.

Thanks. And about the Death Star, I can't understand that they got the plans right in AOTC, but came up with the result that was shown in ROTS. Well, I'll look a bit closer on it the next time I see ROTS in theater (or if I will wait for the DVD).

Cykeisme wrote:You don't need the original physical model to do a 3D model that resembles the original. All they'd have to do is use footage from A New Hope to do a mesh that's a reasonable fascimile of the Blockade Runner.

Actually, I believe all they would need is a copy of the Star Wars Chronicles, which shows the ship from multiple angles, and IIRC, we know they have access to that book, so they were just lazy or stupid, or both.

Adrian Laguna wrote:His plates were also damaged previous to that. In the last episode of the Clone Wars cartoon we get to see Grevious hand three Jedi their asses (though he had Magna Guard help) as he attemps to kidnap Palpatine. As he is making his escape Windu shows up, and Grevious pulls out four light sabers and turns around to face him. Mace gives him a "Do I look stupid?" face, extends his arm and force-crushes the General's chest. That is also why he was coughing all the time.

Yeah, I mentioned that on the "RotS Reviews" thread (along with the electro-staff blow) when some moron said that Grievous armor plates were useless because they could be pried apart. Forgot to repeat it on this thread, though, thx.

VT-16 wrote:Because that thing is not the Death Star. I don´t care how many times certain people whine that "Lucas says so" or "I don´t see anything different", that thing is NOT the Death Star and those people need glasses.

The stupidest thing is that Lucas did intend it to be the Death Star. This means that it's in the same category as the Tantive IV fuck-up, which as Spanky pointed out, is inexcusable.

Well, unless stupidity and laziness are excuses, in which case that tears my argument apart.

The stupidest thing is that Lucas did intend it to be the Death Star. This means that it's in the same category as the Tantive IV fuck-up, which as Spanky pointed out, is inexcusable.

Where did Lucas say this?

Pure Sabacc wrote:

The stupidest thing is that Lucas did intend it to be the Death Star. This means that it's in the same category as the Tantive IV fuck-up, which as Spanky pointed out, is inexcusable.

Where did Lucas say this?

Revenge of the Sith script wrote:DARTH VADER walks along the bridge to join the EMPEROR and GOVERNOR TARKIN. The camera PANS to reveal the huge frame structure which is the beginning of the DEATH STAR.

In case "suspension of disbelief" confuses anyone... within SoD, the fact that the frame looks different means that, if the SW universe were real and we were looking at visual evidence, it cannot be the Death Star.

Non-SoD? Yes, it's supposed to be the Death Star. It's just an inexcusable fuck-up on multiple levels I shall not go into.

LordOskuro wrote:Just a minor observation.... for ObiWan to be using force-enhanced strength, he didn't seem to do much damage to Grievious when hitting him with his fists, but ObiWan DID recoil with pain after hitting the metal plates.

Punching something and levering it apart are two different feats

In fact, the only instance I remember of this force-enhanced strength is Mace Windu punching Battle Droids on the Clone Wars cartoon.... wich, of course, is a bit exaggerated. Yes, Vader did some impressive strength feats on the Original Trilogy, but let's remember he had cybernetic arms.

What about Anakin's free-fall and joyride onto Zam's speeder? Do you think his hand is normally strong enough to handle grabbing onto an angular metal constrtuction going at hundreds of km/hr?

Firefox wrote:Regarding the Astromech fit problem in the Eta-2, on several reproductions of the craft (Revell model kit, Hasbro toy and Titanium Series craft [damn close to 1:72]), there seem to be a pair of boxes underneath the wings, corresponding with the droid socket. Could this be the "pocket dimension" discussed, and that the droid simply sits in a bucket?

EDIT: The portside box is barely visible in the Eta-2 cutaway in the ICS.

Its not big enough to support him though. There are a number of times (inside the deck of the Invisible Hand for example, when the fighters are on the ground) you can see the disparity. I think you can see it on Obi-Wan's fighter too (either when he's onboard the Venator going over the attack of Utapau with Cody, or when he lands on Utapau.)

What kind of disparity are we looking at? Is it the depth or overall size? Without seeing the movie again (which should be before this weekend), my only references are photos of the Revell model kit, and to a miniscule extent, the Titanium Series toy, though that portrays the Astromech as too small.

Firefox wrote:What kind of disparity are we looking at? Is it the depth or overall size? Without seeing the movie again (which should be before this weekend), my only references are photos of the Revell model kit, and to a miniscule extent, the Titanium Series toy, though that portrays the Astromech as too small.

The overall size of the speeder is fucking tiny (compare it to the size of a LAAT gunship, again whe Obi Wan is instrructing clone troopers in the Venator hangar.) but in this caze its a height disparity.

Mark S wrote:On that note, I'm not sure what the wording was in the movie but I would think that where they landed was a cleared docking field rather than an actual take-off/landing strip, since no ship seen in the movies has needed one.

I'm looking at a relatively-accurate script, and right after the Invisible Hand gets met by those firefighting speeders and they broadcast their intent to guide the ship in, Obi-Wan states "Copy that. Landing strip's straight ahead." It also looked, IIRC, like a conventional landing strip - elongated, no clutter, had that ill-fated control tower to one side, even might have had markings on it like those of modern strips. I'll have to wait until the DVD comes out, though.

It could be a special strip designed more for emergencies, though - if a ship's repulsors get knocked out, they could do an emergency landing right there.

Yes, in the movie they clearly say it is a landing strip, and the control tower is quite clear too, the ship rams right through it. It is either used for emergencies or for ships which don't have repulsors or their thrusters are optimized for forward acceleration at the cost of having to land like a modern aircraft.

Okay this part confuses me a bit. After reading Mike's comments about how obvious it is that Plagueis was Palpatine's master, etc... well call me stupid, but I didn't get that vibe at all in the theater and I thought I was paying attention. I was shocked to learn later (from the ROTS VD) that this is in fact supposed to be the case.

Granted, a few months back I remember hearing a quote from (dum dum dum!) SuperShadow that Plagueis was his master and was murdered by him, but I dismissed this as another one of his delusions.


Anyway, in the movie Sideous refers to Darth Plagueis the Wise as a "Sith Legend." His own master?? That'd be like George Bush Sr. talking about "the legend of Ronald Reagan the Great Communicator" to his son Dubya. "Who, dad?" "It's an old Republican Legend." Okay...

I know, Palpatine isn't the most truthful guy out there, but perhaps that part about Palpy not lying once in the movie should be revised (on page 2 I think it is).

Also, in the "story" he tells Anakin he talks about the ability to create life, etc, implying that not only did Plagueis KNOW HOW TO DO THIS but the apprentice learned this secret and then killed the master. If Palpy is the master, he knows the secret.

The conversation wouldn't have to imply that Plagueis was Palpy's master, since this "knowledge" could have been passed down from Sith to Sith, or that Palpatine had recently uncovered some old Sith knowledge from that past legend or something.

Anyway, officially Darth Plagueis taught Darth Sideous who killed him, but then why does he then later admit he doesn't have the knowledge?

So chalk that up as another lie... either he was lying when he said Plagueis really taught the knowledge to his apprentice, or was lying later when he said that he didn't really know how to do those amazing tricks like preventing people from dying/creating life with the Dark Side of the Force.

Good luck!

Kurgan wrote: Anyway, officially Darth Plagueis taught Darth Sideous who killed him, but then why does he then later admit he doesn't have the knowledge?

LOL, you're saying he "admitted" he didn't know how to use the power? You and what evidence? Before he stated that the pupil had learned ALL of Plagueis' secrets! I guess that means he ADMITTED HE KNEW!

He did admit he didn't have the knowledge, don't you remember? He says "only one has learned it" (paraphrase) but he's sure that together they can discover the secret.

Kurgan: Bear in mind that at that point in the movie, Anakin wasn't aware that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, and he might have started to wonder if Palpatine told him "oh, one of the newer Sith Lords was named Darth Plagueis, and he had all these cool powers...". After all, the Jedi Order itself knows very little about the current Sith; what business does Palpatine have knowing more, and if he does, why hasn't he told them? OTOH, if it's supposed to be some ancient legend, then itmakes sense that Palpatine might know it (if he has an interest in the subject, he could have found it in an archive somewhere), and since it has little relevance to the current Sith, he has no reason to make a big issue out of this fact.

One detail I noticed- when Anakin shot out the shield on the hanger bay, that should've promptly vented a shitload of atmosphere. However, it didn't vent enough to discomfit them when they came springing out of their fighters.

Thoughts?

Petrosjko wrote:One detail I noticed- when Anakin shot out the shield on the hanger bay, that should've promptly vented a shitload of atmosphere. However, it didn't vent enough to discomfit them when they came springing out of their fighters.

Thoughts?

Maybe the shield was more for preventing boarding than actually keeping an atmosphere and that there was a seperate system designed for atmospheric containment which remained unaffected? Or something like that?

Sharpshooter wrote:Maybe the shield was more for preventing boarding than actually keeping an atmosphere and that there was a seperate system designed for atmospheric containment which remained unaffected? Or something like that?

I could buy that, sure.

Petrosjko wrote:

Sharpshooter wrote:Maybe the shield was more for preventing boarding than actually keeping an atmosphere and that there was a seperate system designed for atmospheric containment which remained unaffected? Or something like that?

I could buy that, sure.

EU backs this up, two seperate shields for the docking bay, once is specificly designed to keep oxygen and pressure in

GeneralTacticus wrote:Kurgan: Bear in mind that at that point in the movie, Anakin wasn't aware that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, and he might have started to wonder if Palpatine told him "oh, one of the newer Sith Lords was named Darth Plagueis, and he had all these cool powers...". After all, the Jedi Order itself knows very little about the current Sith; what business does Palpatine have knowing more, and if he does, why hasn't he told them? OTOH, if it's supposed to be some ancient legend, then itmakes sense that Palpatine might know it (if he has an interest in the subject, he could have found it in an archive somewhere), and since it has little relevance to the current Sith, he has no reason to make a big issue out of this fact.

Okay, so he could have been lying that it was some "ancient legend" and was actually just a few decades ago. Still, Mike should jot that down as an untruth by Palpy.

I've been speculating that the "legend" part might still be true, that is if we're forced to accept that Plagueis taught Palpatine and then was killed by him and it's the SAME Plagueis he talks to Anakin about, perhaps Palpatine is just really really old (this gets into the disguise thing), much older than he looks, and this helps explain it. If I were an Immortal, and I remembered my good friend Gen. George Washington, I could still rightly talk about him as a legendary figure to a modern person.

I figured right off the bat that he was BSing to Anakin about the "powers" that Plageuis had. Later he talked about finding the secret, well perhaps he just never learned the secrets and that was the lie, or he was just never able to make it work (a half truth). Or something...

Anyway, it's late. Perhaps he meant Darth Pelagius, who felt that Sith were actually basically good, and using Free Will could choose to stay on the path of righteousness (obviously something an evil dude like Sideous who was into fate and stuff couldn't tolerate!).


The other possibly confusing point (or plot hole) is where the Trade Federation leaders suddenly trust Lord Sideous again, despite Dooku's claims of their "betrayal by the Dark Lord" in AOTC (the betrayal supposedly occuring at the time of the events of TPM or shortly thereafter). Either Dooku was lying or something happened to get him back in their good graces so they just stupidly trust him.