The Empire Strikes Out - Inside the Battle of Hoth

[Kleves]

An X-Wing can take more punishment.

Tell that to Porkins.

[Neil]

Shields don't seem especially useful for the fighters.  Even with them, a good burst of fire seemed to be fatal.  Besides, do we know that the TIE fighters don't have shields?

you can see it in the movies too, as well as in the game.  One good shot for a TIE fighter and it's dead.  An X-Wing can take more punishment.

Really?  I don't remember an X-Wing surviving a solid hit.  They seemed to burn up pretty easily in the trench run.  Luke survived a hit to his stabilizer, and Wedge lost his starboard engine, but everyone else just exploded.

[Neil]

It's a lot more pleasing aesthetically, and the core characters of the original trilogy are more distinct and enjoyable than their equivalents in Trek. 

I agree that the characters merit discussion.  I simply note that the setting is nothing but a fantasy, with any pretense to logic and "science" bolted on because the creators belatedly decided that they were going to pretend that this was an intellectual work.  Playing along with that obvious nonsense seems foolish to me, especially when there are superior works that are designed with the idea that fans want to take off the cover and see how the pieces work.

I don't accept your assertion that sci-fi is inherently superior to fantasy.

That said, I think that almost every work of fiction has certain 'black boxes' that can't easily be explained.

[Ideologue]

It's a lot more pleasing aesthetically, and the core characters of the original trilogy are more distinct and enjoyable than their equivalents in Trek. 

I agree that the characters merit discussion.  I simply note that the setting is nothing but a fantasy, with any pretense to logic and "science" bolted on because the creators belatedly decided that they were going to pretend that this was an intellectual work.  Playing along with that obvious nonsense seems foolish to me, especially when there are superior works that are designed with the idea that fans want to take off the cover and see how the pieces work.

I don't accept your assertion that sci-fi is inherently superior to fantasy.

That said, I think that almost every work of fiction has certain 'black boxes' that can't easily be explained.

Right.  I mean, taking Babylon 5, I don't think you can really say that telepathy/telekinesis and jump gates are intellectually superior to the Force and hyperdrives, given that all of the above are based on made-up nonsense (and are practically, albeit not exactly, identical in function).  At best, they may have been more coherently described and depicted.  And if coherence is all of what the intellectual value of a work is about, Star Trek taken as a whole is the ultimate in anti-intellectual garbage (and that argument has been made, usually by self-righteous ultra-nerds who think scientific fidelity or, more often, internal continuity is the beginning and end of all analysis or even possibility for enjoyment).

[Queequeg]

I agree that the characters merit discussion.  I simply note that the setting is nothing but a fantasy, with any pretense to logic and "science" bolted on because the creators belatedly decided that they were going to pretend that this was an intellectual work.  Playing along with that obvious nonsense seems foolish to me, especially when there are superior works that are designed with the idea that fans want to take off the cover and see how the pieces work.

I largely agree with you, but I don't think you acknowledged my point-that the Star Wars movies are gorgeous and innovative visually in a way that Star Trek never was. 

[Admiral Yi]

I largely agree with you, but I don't think you acknowledged my point-that the Star Wars movies are gorgeous and innovative visually in a way that Star Trek never was.

Oh come now.  You think Star Trek was not innovative?

[MadImmortalMan]

Right.  I mean, taking Babylon 5, I don't think you can really say that telepathy/telekinesis and jump gates are intellectually superior to the Force and hyperdrives, given that all of the above are based on made-up nonsense (and are practically, albeit not exactly, identical in function).  At best, they may have been more coherently described and depicted.  And if coherence is all of what the intellectual value of a work is about, Star Trek taken as a whole is the ultimate in anti-intellectual garbage (and that argument has been made, usually by self-righteous ultra-nerds who think scientific fidelity or, more often, internal continuity is the beginning and end of all analysis or even possibility for enjoyment).

You guys are thinking too much about it. The demarcation line between the two types of sci-fi as grumbler laid out is simply whether or not grumbler is a fanboy of it or not. 

[Razgovory]

I largely agree with you, but I don't think you acknowledged my point-that the Star Wars movies are gorgeous and innovative visually in a way that Star Trek never was.

Oh come now.  You think Star Trek was not innovative?

Visually innovative.  Star Trek was a TV show with a dinky budget.  Industrial Light and Magic wrote the book on modern special effects.

[Ideologue]

Whereas the VFX work on Star Treks I, II, III, IV, and VI was done by Industrial Light and Magic, so there's clearly no comparison.

[DontSayBanana]

Really?  I don't remember an X-Wing surviving a solid hit.  They seemed to burn up pretty easily in the trench run.  Luke survived a hit to his stabilizer, and Wedge lost his starboard engine, but everyone else just exploded.

Actually, most of them crashed after being disabled, Porkins included.

Actually, adopting a bit of EU makes things a LOT smoother for the Death Star construction time, even though it was written long before Episode III- the idea is that the one we see at the end of Revenge of the Sith is NOT the Death Star; it's a prototype built as a testing platform for the superlaser, kept quiet by using the gun on very remote planets.  Effectively, that's the first Death Star, the one in A New Hope is the second Death Star, and the one in Return of the Jedi is actually the third.

[Neil]

Porkins' ship was definitely coming apart around him on the last shot we saw of the cockpit.

[jimmy olsen]

Now here is some intellectualizing of a movie that doesn't need intellectualizing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9458558/Bruce-Willis-would-have-needed-a-bigger-bomb-to-stop-asteroid-scientists-say.html

[viper37]

Really?  I don't remember an X-Wing surviving a solid hit.  They seemed to burn up pretty easily in the trench run.  Luke survived a hit to his stabilizer, and Wedge lost his starboard engine, but everyone else just exploded.

They exploded after multiple hits, not just one shot.  And at least 2 survived while zero TIE figthers that were hit survived.

[Razgovory]

Now here is some intellectualizing of a movie that doesn't need intellectualizing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9458558/Bruce-Willis-would-have-needed-a-bigger-bomb-to-stop-asteroid-scientists-say.html

I imagine that not only would a Texas size rock be seen in time, it would have been documented decades ago.  I mean, a body of that size would be classified as a Dwarf planet.  People were spotting the big rocks of the asteroid belt in the early 19th century.

[grumbler]

I don't accept your assertion that sci-fi is inherently superior to fantasy.

I don't accept your assertion that I said anything about "inherently superior."

That said, I think that almost every work of fiction has certain 'black boxes' that can't easily be explained.

Of course it does.  And spending time trying to explain them is foolish, which is my point.