Darths & Droids IV: Not in Numerical Order

[Kantaki]

To the commentators: I think this scene is where the movie lost me, for just the reasons you pointed out. Why didn't Rey drive up right to her destination instead of dragging **** across the sand?

Spoiler: Episode VII

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Considering how her boss cheats her out of pay she might want to avoid him "buying" her bike too.
Wouldn't put it past him.

[sihnfahl]

Spoiler: Episode VII

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Considering how her boss cheats her out of pay she might want to avoid him "buying" her bike too.
Wouldn't put it past him.

Or just about anyone else in town looking for parts to sell.

It'd go from bike to scrap in fifty microseconds.

[Dire_Flumph]

Spoiler: Ep VII spoiler, Nima outpost security

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Given that Rey manages to run off with a whole spaceship protected by nothing more than a tarp, I think it's best not to overthink how security works in Nima outpost

[Kantaki]

Spoiler: Ep VII spoiler, Nima outpost security

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Given that Rey manages to run off with a whole spaceship protected by nothing more than a tarp, I think it's best not to overthink how security works in Nima outpost

Spoiler: That place had a name?*

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To be fair, at the time they had kinda bigger problems to worry about.
Some idiot brat taking the rustiest bucket of scrap in the sector for a joyride doesn't really compare.

*Silly question, I know. It's Star Wars.
Everything has a name and or epic backstory.
That bird Rey passed probably has a whole series about its epic desert adventures.

[Dire_Flumph]

Spoiler: Okay, it had two i's

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To be fair, the name was in the strip as well

I'm just saying, if my beater had a working set of military grade quad laser cannons, maybe I at least put a boot on it, like in Solo.

[SirKazum]

To the commentators: I think this scene is where the movie lost me, for just the reasons you pointed out. Why didn't Rey drive up right to her destination instead of dragging **** across the sand?

Eh... sequels gonna sequel. I don't think it's spoilery at all to say that a big problem with the new trilogy is that they put aesthetics and cheap flashiness over substance or even basic common sense, and this is but a small taste of that. But enough ST-hate curmudgeonry, I bet other threads already had more than enough of that

[dmmaus]

There are just as many stupid things in the original trilogy. People are just a lot more forgiving and less critical of them.

We have compiled a list of "Stupid things we need to explain" for each movie. Episode IV has the longest list by far, followed by Episode III, then VI, then VIII.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I gave up trying to explain things about Star Wars back when there were only three movies. But usually it isn't jarring enough to take me so far out of the movie I miss the next few minutes trying to figure out what the frack is going on.

[VoxRationis]

I'm going to weigh in on the defense of the movie and say that I think this Niima Outpost is perfectly plausible. The two-bit mining town is a cultural trope for a reason. There's a local resource of sufficient worth for export that people can make a living (if only just) exporting that resource and importing daily necessities. Presumably, the worth of decades-old star destroyer parts is such that it's not worth people moving in, but it's enough to keep the ration bars coming in (it's still mostly-refined metal, after all, at a minimum). Perhaps the worth of these parts has declined over the years (as the parts both worsened in condition and became more out-of-date compared to current technology), and people have moved away, leaving behind those who couldn't quite produce the resource surplus necessary to emigrate.

Moreover, the lack of wheeled vehicles doesn't surprise me, either. They'd be useless on the sand dunes, and there aren't a lot of dedicated vehicle-sized wheels in the Star Wars universe; the locals would have to cobble the wheels together from pipe segments or the like, which would be a fair amount of time and effort for something that would only be useful in the 20-meter trip from the outskirts of the settlement to where the parts are sold.

[keybounce]

To the commentators: I think this scene is where the movie lost me, for just the reasons you pointed out. Why didn't Rey drive up right to her destination instead of dragging **** across the sand?

Oh, don't worry. I'm looking at the answer to that in the comic that comes out on Thursday.

Sorry, I had a flashback to every single time I grab the first space I find at the entrance of the parking lot and having my wife point out every open space we pass on the way to the store.

You too.

We have compiled a list of "Stupid things we need to explain" for each movie. Episode IV has the longest list by far, followed by Episode III, then VI, then VIII.

That would be a good "intermission" post, actually.

How much of Episode 4's list was eventually explained in the rest of the series?

[dmmaus]

How much of Episode 4's list was eventually explained in the rest of the series?

In the movies? None. In our comics? Nearly all of them.

[b_jonas]

In the movies? None. In our comics? Nearly all of them.

Yes. Most of them are explained by the roleplaying framework: Sally invented a lot of the more silly settings in The Phantasmal Malevolence, Jim found the sci-fi bottle of air on an equipment list that the DM hastily wrote from an equipment list in a magical settings. Sometimes the annotation even helpfully points out that you're explaining something weird in the movie: a memorable one is #53 when the decoy queen orders the real Padmé to clean R2-D2. It's a pity you can't write that sort of annotation as easily now, with the blind comic viewing experience in progress. But perhaps you've been silently collecting all those comments, and will add them later during a rerun after Keybounce watches Rogue One.

[Xihirli]

Maybe they charge for parking.

[Kantaki]

Okay, this?
This is how you use (minor) flaws right.

Also, nice to see Pete creating trouble for himself.
But what a drawback.
"Yeah sure, she's an awesome pilot, but don't let her pick the landing spot."

[137beth]

I look forward to the parking troubles being a running gag.

I don't think it's spoilery at all to say that a big problem with the new trilogy is that they put aesthetics and cheap flashiness over substance or even basic common sense,

That's just all of Star Wars. The first movie was a special effects demo with part of a narrative film duct-taped on top of it. Star Wars (the movies, at least) has always been about visuals first, everything else second or non-existent.

[Keltest]

I look forward to the parking troubles being a running gag.



That's just all of Star Wars. The first movie was a special effects demo with part of a narrative film duct-taped on top of it. Star Wars (the movies, at least) has always been about visuals first, everything else second or non-existent.

The Star Wars narratives have never been complex, but in the OT you could see how events followed each other in a fairly logical manner, and in the PT, you could see how the writers envisioned events following each other in a fairly logical manner, even if they failed to communicate it well. With the sequels, especially TLJ and ROS, things just happen out of nowhere for reasons.

[Xihirli]

Spoiler: Okay, it had two i's

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To be fair, the name was in the strip as well

I'm just saying, if my beater had a working set of military grade quad laser cannons, maybe I at least put a boot on it, like in Solo.

Spoiler

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Rey reveals that she worked on the falcon for An-Khar-Pullot (there’s no way I got the spelling right). So any security that was left in the Falcon - a password, a cut wire, something rigged to blow when you turn it on, Rey knew how to bypass it.

I’m gonna have to echo the giant here - instead of making up scenarios to make the movie not make sense, accept that we’ve only got a snapshot of the world to look at and either add in context that goes WITH what we see, or don’t worry about it. The guy’s thugs didn’t stop them while TIE fighters were firing on their outpost. The end.

Consider it like in Infinity War. We already know that the Infinity Stones can be tracked from the first Avengers movie, so Infinity War didn’t bother explaining it again. It just showed us that once Thanos had it narrowed down to the right planet, he could find the stones.

On today’s strip, I tend to dislike the “screw you, Pete” moments but this one’s alright. Clearly all in good humor.


And Keltest, TLJ absolutely runs on cause and effect. I’ve never seen that particular complaint for the film. Everything that happens in the movie has a “because” that is either easy to infer or shown on screen.

[Rogar Demonblud]

For another game with a Fatigue mechanism (and a fairly brutal one, IMS), memnarch, look up the Alternity game TSR put out a couple decades ago.

[dmmaus]

Thanks to everyone in this discussion! After the discussion in this thread about the ridiculousness of Rey's parking spot in #1859, I discussed it with our writing group and we came up with strip #1860, which we wrote and inserted before the next planned strip. We hadn't planned to address the parking spot in the comic, but you provided inspiration, and we came up with something that we can work into the greater story.

Give yourselves a pat on the back for being an inspiration!

[Keltest]

Everybody take a level of bard!

[b_jonas]

After the discussion in this thread about the ridiculousness of Rey's parking spot in #1859, I discussed it with our writing group and we came up with strip #1860, which we wrote and inserted before the next planned strip.

Wow. That's not something I hear often about Darths & Droids. Thank you for telling us.

[Dire_Flumph]

*Removed the exact text so I could get us out of spoiler territory*

Sorry, wasn't trying to dig at the sequels, the original point I was attempting to make was that it wasn't important to the plot, so the specifics of security, while they probably should have been there, weren't important to the scene and weren't worth worrying about.

And I agree, I love genre fiction, but since in a new setting they can't answer everything about it to an audience, even in book form let alone a 2 hour movie, you have to take some faith in the writers and meet them halfway. Usually that's not a problem for me, sometimes

Spoiler: *COUGH*

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Holdo Maneuver

it is. In the 90's I loved reading the Nitpicker's Guides by Phil Farrand, and as much as they were an interesting look at the production flubs and continuity errors in the Star Trek series, I took to heart a section in the 1st book called "The writers are always correct" where he would take some of the most egregious errors and look at how it could be excused in-universe. For example, in "Encounter at Farpoint", Riker asks directions to the Holodeck and the computer gives them. He then heads in the opposite direction and reaches the holodeck just fine. Obvious production flub, but Farrand actually concocted a funny and yet oddly plausible story for why the computer is giving out left and right reversed, the crew can't fix it with trying to get the ship underway and have just gotten used to it for now instead.

In short, I'd agree that for the most part I have a lot more fun with Star Wars and its ilk by assuming that what happens on screen is justified in-universe, even if it looks like it shouldn't be, and trying to work out why that is rather than scoff at inconsistencies.

[Xihirli]

The concept that

Spoiler: TLJ

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hitting something at light speed can damage it

was too much for you? That's... the strangest breach of suspension of disbelief I've ever heard.

Spoiler

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hitting things at high speeds is how a LOT of weaponry works in the real world.

[Anonymouswizard]

I thought

Spoiler

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That hyperdrives worked by taking the ship out of realspace and putting it into another linked universe (hyperspace), like every other hyperdrive I've seen in fiction. Therefore the tactic shouldn't work because the FTL ship should never interact with the STL ship because it's not in the same place.

No, not even the SDSD Freudian Nightmare, because The Force Awakens removed the 'gravity fields stronger than blah pull ships into realspace' rule.

As to why ships entering hyperspace look like they have a sudden burst of acceleration? I just assumed it was getting across the idea that they were going really fast.

[Kantaki]

I thought

Spoiler

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That hyperdrives worked by taking the ship out of realspace and putting it into another linked universe (hyperspace), like every other hyperdrive I've seen in fiction. Therefore the tactic shouldn't work because the FTL ship should never interact with the STL ship because it's not in the same place.

No, not even the SDSD Freudian Nightmare, because The Force Awakens removed the 'gravity fields stronger than blah pull ships into realspace' rule.

As to why ships entering hyperspace look like they have a sudden burst of acceleration? I just assumed it was getting across the idea that they were going really fast.

Spoiler

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But the possibility of hitting stuff while in hyperspace was a thing even in A New Hope.
Okay, the worry there was more ending up inside a star, but it established the possibility.
It's the reason they mostly stick to specific routes through Hyperspace.
What happened in The Last Jedi just requires absolutely perfect timing.
And a good bit of desperation.
Trading a capital ship for a capital ship is not usually a good deal if the other guy has the bigger fleet.

[Morquard]

Spoiler: TLJ

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I always figured the Hyperdrive works by accelerating you to ridiculous speeds so you "punch through" into Hyperspace, since that's what it looks like they're doing. When a ship enters hyperspace it always looks like they're zooming off into the distance from relatively slow speed. So if you collide with something before you actually enter hyperspace, it goes kaboom.

As for the economics of it... yes sacrificing a capital ship to take out another is crazy. Normally, energy is mass times velocity. So even an X-Wing going to hyperspace should do crazy amounts of damage to a capital ship. What's kinda weird is that nobody ever did it before. So maybe that formula doesn't fully apply and it was really the fact that it was a big ship in its own.

[VoxRationis]

Spoiler: More discussions of spoilery tactics

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As a basic principle, the idea of hyperspace ramming makes perfect sense. However, the fact that it is not done implies that there's a reason (even if unstated by the writers) that it can't work, or else every general in the setting would keep at least a few light freighters filled with junk hanging around for this tactic. From my understanding, it used to be canon that you had to be a certain distance outside of a gravity well in order to use a hyperdrive, which serves to spoil suicide jumps as an offensive weapon. The writers of the sequels and Solo have completely ignored this; jumping either from or to the surface of a large body is done in all of them, to my recollection, and is treated as risky, but risky in the same way that flying an airplane through a tunnel would be, rather than risky in the sense of flying an airplane through a castle wall. That opens up the idea of hyperspeed ramming.
The notion I've seen bandied about that HSR is normally difficult to pull off seems dubious to me. Capital ships in Star Wars are plodding things in sublight speed, extremely slow to take any sort of evasive action, and this goes double for Imperial ships. Getting to the right position to pull it off should be easy, especially if one uses smaller craft to make it work. The sort of pod-shaped Rebel transports used in ESB were independently hyperspace-capable, and look to be the same or a similar model to those in TLJ, so it seems like Holdo could just have sacrificed a handful of them to accomplish the same thing at much lower cost. Indeed, there's no reason given for why the doomed frigates in the Resistance fleet don't try to turn about and ram, except to make Holdo's sacrifice more dramatic later on. It's fairly clear that when the idea is mentioned in RoS, the writers just didn't want to deal with the implications of the tactic.

[Xihirli]

So...

Spoiler: TLJ and the Original Trilogy

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None of those are actually complaints about the movie it's in. The main question is "why didn't anyone do this before?" with a side of "I assumed light speed worked this way but either it doesn't or that's also dangerous if you hit someone with it."
And in TLJ, we do have an alright understanding of why nobody's done this before. It was never a good idea until then.
When Holdo turned her ship around, she came into range of their cannons in the process. This is directly addressed when Hux orders them not to switch targets. So none of the other rebel ships while they were fleeing could have done it firstly, and secondly they were being pursued by a lot of ships. In fact, after Holdo heavily damage their fleet, the First Order pursuit of the Rebels continued after brief confusion and a coup. So hitting them with a rebel cruiser would have done nothing. Now, using a light fighter may have been something to try, but the first thing the First Order did after arriving was blowing up all of the Resistance's light fighters before they could get out of the hanger.
For the other movies, it doesn't require too much thought there either. The Death Star is heavily armored and they need to get a specific spot in said Death Star to do much. Sure, you might do damage, but it's highly unlikely that it will stop the cannon from firing unless you get the exhaust port, and at the point where you have a shot lined up why aren't you just bombing it like they did? In the Empire Strikes Back, there's never really a good moment for it. There's usually more than one target to worry about, and during the bulk of the movie everyone we're following is in one ship. Can't really sacrifice one ship to save the rest when the one ship you're in has the princess and the guy who doesn't really do self-sacrifice piloting it.
For Return of the Jedi, the thought might be "well, that Death Star was still being built. So couldn't you just aim for the middle and go to town?" And maybe. Lando had to weave around a lot of things to get to the core though, so it seems unlikely. Then there's the fact that for the first half of that battle, the Rebellion thought that the Death Star II wasn't able to fire yet, so there wasn't really any urgency that would warrant hitting it (and also it had a force field). By the time they learned they were up against a "fully armed and operational battle station" they were scattered, scared, and once again I don't think there was any guarantee they'd hit anything that would keep the laser from firing. I mean, apparently they can manage the laser with only half a death star. Who knows how many redundancies that thing had?
I feel no reason to go through the prequels or JJ Abrams's work since... I mean, you all know why. Off the top of my head, there are a few times in the Prequels that it would have been an alright idea, but for some of the others there was a rescue mission involved, which is hard to synchronize with a kamikaze attack, and the bulk of the time the Good Guys are fighting in the first two movies they are the entirety of the non-evil military in the entire Galaxy, which makes me think that there wasn't a dedicated force or enough discipline for that level of self-sacrifice (and/or aiming) in the ranks. But the sequel trilogy basically ignores the prequels anyway except when it doesn't (where'd the midichlorions go?), and figuring out the demarcation line doesn't sound like fun.

For JJ Abrams, I'd like to point out that they do kill something by accelerating to light speed while it's in the process of eating them. And Finn is panicked at approaching a planet at light speed, so hitting something while going that fast is definitely a possibility. Therefore any failure to capitalize on this idea in his movies is on Abrams's head.
He is my enemy, after all. I can't throw him a bone every time.

[Dire_Flumph]

*Facepalm*

Sorry, I really didn't mean to start something there.

Spoiler: A certain TLJ tactic and why it bothers me

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Okay, basically like many I got into Star Wars/Trek/Galactica (the original)/etc as a kid and it got it's hooks into me. It gave me an interest in space and I started enjoying learning about space and how it works. Do that and you find out that those shows you love...aren't really that accurate when it comes to science. And that's okay. As I said before, you just take on faith that's whats on screen is justified in-universe even if it seems like it doesn't conform with how we know the physics of space works.

And then someone has to use a hyperdrive to ram one ship into another ship. Not because it wouldn't work, but because now you're wondering "WHY HAVEN"T THEY BEEN DOING THIS THE WHOLE TIME!!??". We see hyperdrives are pretty common in the Star Wars universe. Strap one onto a decent sized asteroid with a droid brain to steer, and suddenly you wonder why you even need to build a Death Star because an object like that moving at even a decent fraction of the speed of light will do the job just fine. An X-Wing sized craft should be able to hyper-kamikaze a Star Destroyer, no problem, so why are they such a threat?

And that's what instantly bugged me about that scene. They did it without any consideration of how this completely breaks some of the basic foundations of how the series works. Space Battles shouldn't look like World War II fighter plane footage. They do in Star Wars because that's a lot more visually interesting than droid ships hyper-ramming other ships, and you accept that as long as it's internally consistent. Mass Drivers on that scale would be an absolute terror of space combat as any reasonably scientific sci-fi story would tell you. The only explanation you can possibly make is the one they brought up in Rise of Skywalker, "We can't do it all the time because it was a 1000 to 1 desperation tactic that only worked that one time because of reasons".

So that's just it. I don't, in the end, care what the justification is in-universe to why hyperspace ramming isn't a common thing. It happened this time, and I'm just going to overlook it. But I wish authors would think these things through a bit more at times.

[Xihirli]

Spoiler: ROS

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The are a lot of ways to not have to deal with it in your movie. One is to not jump through hoops to tell the same tired old plot from Episodes IV, VI, and VII that requires a bunch of fighters to go shoot one weak point to win the battle. Maybe Abrams could have done that if <words to the effect of: he lacks the creativity to do so>