The Empire Strikes Out - Inside the Battle of Hoth

[DontSayBanana]

Also, the battle in Return of the Jedi was far more plausible.  It was a large Alliance fleet, and several of the ships comprising the battle group could plausibly defeat star destroyers given sufficient superior training.  The turbolaser turrets on star destroyers were slow to track and had low rates of fire.  The Imperials also had a fondness for dropping overwhelming numbers of TIE fighters into the fray (each star destroyer carries 72 of a combination of TIE fighters, TIE bombers, and TIE interceptors.  Given a conservative 3:1 ratio of TIEs to rebel fighters in a big fight confined to a relatively tight space, the TIE pilots simply couldn't have had as many shot opportunities without worrying about friendly fire.

[Ideologue]

I'll take Kirk, Spock, and McCoy over Luke, Han, and Leia.

Star Trek TOS suffered from hackneyed 60's writing, incredibly obtuse morality, bad science and godawful storylines. ROMANS NAZIS AND GANGSTERS IN SPACE OH MY

But the interplay between Kirk, Spock and McCoy as characters was by far the best element of the series;  Spock's spiritual conflict between his humanity and his Vulcanism, his emotion and his logic, alone could've been a centerpiece, but the interaction between McCoy's moralism and Spock's logic--not just with one another on numerous occasions, but as equally weighted counterbalances to Kirk's command decision-making, not in a struggle for Kirk's soul but more as the Super-Ego and Ego to Kirk's Id--made for much better three party chemistry than Lucas' half-incestuous trilogy triangle.

And yes, I just dropped Kazantzakis' "dual substance of Spock" on you people, goddammit.  Spock as Christ figure, bitches.  Lucas couldn't come up with anything like that, even with all his cribbing of Joseph Campbell.

All of which made them entertaining and interesting, but it wasn't till the movies that they granted them a third dimension beyond their archetypes, replete with the loss of children, friends, enemies, valued material objects, and ultimately their entire way of life, when peace was made with their greatest foe in order to offshore jobs and dismantle the manufacturing base in return for Klingons purchasing Federation debt.

[Neil]

And that's why the new movies are less satisfying.  The diminuation of McCoy takes away from the series.

[Ideologue]

I just couldn't understand why they let someone who was, from their perspective, clearly a sociopath take over the ship.  SO YOUR MOM'S DEAD HUH FEELIN' SAD?

Though an overweening style and not a small amount of wit made Trek 11 an excellent movie to experience the first time, it seemed sort of hastily written, which has really hampered rewatch value.

I think the one out in May will be better, even if it appears to be a retread of Space Seed.

[CountDeMoney]

All of which made them entertaining and interesting, but it wasn't till the movies that they granted them a third dimension beyond their archetypes, replete with the loss of children, friends, enemies, valued material objects, and ultimately their entire way of life, when peace was made with their greatest foe in order to offshore jobs and dismantle the manufacturing base in return for Klingons purchasing Federation debt.

No, they didn't.  If anything, they polarized the friendship between Spock and Kirk and, as Neil said, marginalized McCoy.  There was no third dimension introduced:  none of the films portrayed the interpersonal conflicts that the TOS did among the characters.
So there.

[The Brain]

You guys sure like your stories.

[Neil]

Poor McCoy was out of his times.  As CdM said, he represented convenntional morality.  So what purpose does McCoy when he's being written in a time when people don't have much of a concept of morality?

[The Brain]

For God's sake Neil, he's a doctor a not a representative of morality.

[viper37]

No, we know that the Imperial fleet is superior to the Rebel one, probably on a ship to ship basis.  "We won't last long against those star destroyers".

At that point, there is a Super Star Destroyer.  By the time the Death Star is destroyed, the SSD is gone and so is at least on of the ISD, IIRC.

TIE Interceptors were definitely there.  They were created for the movie.  I don't think that the Rebel fighters are that much better than the Imperial equivalents.

TIE Fighters have no shields but are a bit faster than X-Wings.
TIE Interceptors are way faster than the X-Wings but they lack shields.
Y-Wings are slow bombers.
But the A-Wing is faster than anything in the imperial fleet and it has shields.

[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?

[Grinning_Colossus]

He's basing that on the old Star Wars space fighter games. TIE fighters were just pieces of shit in those games.

[Neil]

Yeah, and while those were great games, I'm not sure they're 100% accurate in their description of space combat in Star Wars.

[DontSayBanana]

TIEs are meant to be fast.  They're a cockpit sitting on an engine, so there isn't much room for shields; X-wings are at least twice as large with the additions of the larger laser cannons, hyperdrive, and shield generators.

Y-wings might be slow, but there's a lot of mass in the design- it seems it would take quite a bit of digging before getting to vital internals or ordnance mags.

The B-wings were the actual threat; as heavily armed for ship-to-ship as an X-wing, faster and at least as agile, but with a far smaller profile to hit, most of which wasn't essential components (the thrusters and cockpit together are smaller than an A-wing; given the thrust vectoring, I'm assuming a B-wing could stand the loss of at least one of it's strike foils).

ETA: Also, let's not forget how shitty the Imperial gunnery staff was.  It was an Imperial gunner that lost the Executor, not a Rebel pilot.  The second that gunner hit the A-wing, he turned it into a missile aimed straight at the bridge, which was obviously the CIC for the Imperial fleet.  If there had been any threat awareness and threat management, they would have fired along the flight path to force the fighter to change its approach.

[Neil]

The TIE fighters don't really seem smaller.

[CountDeMoney]

And you guys give me shit about taking this stuff too seriously.  Geez.