The Death Star from Star Wars (spoilers ahead)

[kennbo]

Ecstatic, say it ain't so. You aren't one of those Big Dig naysayers, are you? I hope you were just being funny. As I see it 15 billion over 15 years, or approximately 1 billion/yr to employ a lot of people, improve the aesthetic of the city, and, at least temporarily, improve traffic flow is nothing compared to 1 billion for a B-1 bomber.

[Ecstatic]

Is the tally up to 15 billion now? I lost count. No, I'm not a naysayer, but I am a critic. A bevy of bad decisions have been made on the big dig, going back to the late 80s. The biggest is probably the decision, made nearly 20 years ago now, to not buy the land to either side of the big dig which would have allowed for proper tunnel-inside-a-tunnel construction instead of the poorly executed approach (to save that expense) which led directly to the massive leaks in the slurry wall. Perhaps you can dispute that, but the shortcuts taken along the way which amount to shoddy construction and engineering are scarcely excusable. Yes, overall it's a good thing, and I think Boston and Mass in five years' time will have virtually forgotten the headaches and expense up to this point, but I think the parallels with the Deathstar as a construction project of massive scope requiring two decades to complete are valid.

Gus, that moon photo is amazing. That HAS to be the original for Lucas' conception!

[kennbo]

Watched Return of the Sith last night. Not impressed, kinda anticlimactic. As far as suspension of disbelief issues go, that whole opening scene aboard the droid general's ship had several unbelievable problems with it. 1)Where did the gravity come from when it started pitching? It had to have it's own gravity generator to stop people and objects from floating around, so it should be able to spin 360' without anyone noticing. If the gravitational field generator was knocked out, then people would have floated around, instead of sliding as the ship pitched.2) When the general ruptured the seal on the command deck, the sudden decompression should have had a far more dramatic effect on the human Jedi, and in a heartrbeat, without any repair to the breach, the decompression stopped.3)How do you land such a huge ship when more than half the damned thing has disintegrated? 4) How could all those Jedi masters not sense a sith lord in their presence? On the other side of the galaxy they can sense a shift in the force when other Jedi are dying, yet they can't sense the negative energy of a sith lord 5 feet away from them? I could go on, but why bother. The first movie was the best, all the others got skewed by an over emphasis on special effects and marketing and the substance of the story suffered.

[NickTheQuick]

Kenbo, here's your answer.......It's a fucking movie. A movie about jedis, wookies, spaceships the size of few city blocks all very believable, but gravity OMG????

Personally my favorite is the Return of the Jedi. All the newer ones don't do much for me. Besides like Danny Glover said "I'm getting too old for this shit".

[brickcitybrother]

4) How could all those Jedi masters not sense a sith lord in their presence? On the other side of the galaxy they can sense a shift in the force when other Jedi are dying, yet they can't sense the negative energy of a sith lord 5 feet away from them?

Best question bar none.

[jt money]

4) How could all those Jedi masters not sense a sith lord in their presence? On the other side of the galaxy they can sense a shift in the force when other Jedi are dying, yet they can't sense the negative energy of a sith lord 5 feet away from them?

Best question bar none.

Doesn't Yoda give some short answer like his vision is clouded by the dark side of the force in Ep. 2?

[jt money]

oh, btw, what bothered me more, was that in "A New Hope" Obi-Wan knew nothing of R2 or Threepio. He acted as though he had never seen them before. Also, in 20 years, how did Obi-Wan go from being like 30, to looking like he was well over 80?

In ESB, Obi-Wan says to Yoda, "That boy was our last hope." And Yoda tells him there is another. How did Obi-Wan forget about the sister?

[Ironhead]

The answer that's developed over time( i.e.- Lucas made it up to answer critics) is that the Sith ways were so different from that of the Jedi that they'd be undetectable unless using the force within a certain proximity of them, I believe.

[Vicki Richter]

I've just suffered through Episode 3, at the end of the film we see the Death Star under construction, we know that Luke will blow it up in Episode 4. But wasn't Luke like, in his late teens or very early twenties?

The Imperial Empire spent 15-20 years building the Death Star? In E4, Space Nazi Peter Cushing mentions that it is now fully operational.

Not exactly busting their ass building it where they?

Also in Return of the Jedi, Death Star no 2, was under construction, yet at no point do we see any one working on it.

No shit a blond kid toppled the Empire!


mds

#1 - Yes it did take that long to build. Hello! It was a prototype planet killing device the size of the moon. How long do you think that would take to build. I mean... lets be realistic... I've seen highway projects last 5 years and that isn't shuttling all the parts and pieces into outter space. I think 20 years is conseravative.

#2 - All the scenes took place in areas where the construction had been completed or was near completion. Obviously they had oxygen.

You didn't give any spoilers. This all makes complete sense. Since you just now saw Episode III you aren't a real fan of the genre and should stick with Battlestar Galactica on Sci Fi.

[Vicki Richter]

oh, btw, what bothered me more, was that in "A New Hope" Obi-Wan knew nothing of R2 or Threepio. He acted as though he had never seen them before. Also, in 20 years, how did Obi-Wan go from being like 30, to looking like he was well over 80?

In ESB, Obi-Wan says to Yoda, "That boy was our last hope." And Yoda tells him there is another. How did Obi-Wan forget about the sister?

Obi-wan knew, but all the jedi masters were dead. Hello? How is Leah going to learn the force with Luke dead as well? Nobody would be there to train her. Yoda pointed out that there was another...

It would be like someone saying, "How can we continue TS porn if Vicki Richter retires?!?!" Obviously there are other possibilities and some rational person would say, "You're right we can't" and TS pornography would cease to exist.

OK so it's not like that at all, but you get my point.