Star Trek vs. Star Wars vs. Babylon 5 Thread

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by monolith94
Boris - whereas Titanic revolves around the love story, the Ewoks are only a small element of the story.

Um, no, they are not, which is why it pisses a lot of SW fans off. The Ewoks are integral to the story, as without them, no Rebel victory. That's pretty damned important.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The Ewoks are integral to the story, as without them, no Rebel victory.

It's pretty sad when a ston age tribe of teddy bears is that critical to a military victory.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It's pretty sad when a ston age tribe of teddy bears is that critical to a military victory.

Hence why many SW fans loathe the Ewoks.

[The Mad Monk]

Re: Sci-fi in TV and Movies

Originally posted by pchang
is pretty lame about projecting the future of weaponry and warfare. Just take a look at Starship Troopers. In the book, each infrantry man is an incredible fighting machine armed with tactical nukes. In the movie, they might have spaceships, but they are no better armored and armed than current day US Army Rangers.

Have you ever seen the destructive power of the 30mm gun on an A-10 (firing depleted uranium rounds)? It is far more destructive than any sci-fi weapon I have ever seen on TV or the movies. Don't you think people who can regularly cross the distance between stars could do better than that for an infantry weapon?

Some other things that really bother me

Beam Weapons:
If they fire out a continuous beam of destructive power, why don't they ever sweep the weapon while firing?

Sometimes they do; in Wrath of Khan the Enterprise takes sweeping beam damage a couple time, and they took advantage of it at least a few times in later series. In B5, shadow vessels always swept their beam.

I think the logical reason most don't sweep is because with beam weapons, time on target = penetration; that is, longer it focuses on a single spot, the deeper it can penetrate and the more damge it can do. In most shows, shield and/or armor tech keeps up with the beam tech, so the extra penetration is needed. Sweeping would occur when the beam is powerful enough to do extensive damage without concentration -- like most Federation ships with shields down, the destroyer attack on passenger ships in B5, or shadow vessel attacks against...well, pretty much anything.

Smart Weapons:
Our hit rates have gone up by an order of magnitude in the last 20 years. Why do hit rates in the future stay the same or get worse?

Don't ask me to explain hand weaons, I can't.

However, shipboard weapons have to deal with much greater speeds and ranges than we have today; in addition, spoofing --fooling sensors -- probably has a lot to do with it as well (it certainly did in B5, where Earth vessels could not even target Minbari vessels.

Rapid fire:
Why are do most weapons of the future fire single shots? Even the ones that are rapid fire have a slower rate of fire than current day weapons.

You have to consider the power involved. Given a fixed, finite power source (to keep it simple), you can fire a single burst at x power (where x equals all avaible power in that time frame), or y bursts at x/y power. Power = penetration = damage, but higher rates of fire give a greater chance of any particular burst hitting, so the designers must strike a balance between the two.

Constant beam weapons are the ultimate in rapid fire, and consequently have relatively sucky penetration (as I noted above)

Over the Horizon:
Current day weapons routinely target enemies beyond the field of view (over the horizon). Why are weapons of the future limited to line of sight?

They're beam weapons. Short of banking one off a black hole, shooting around things isn't gonna happen.

Missles/torpedos are another matter, and in most sci-fi I've seen they manuver and track just fine, unless spoofed.

[joncha]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


Blake's 7 was fantastic.

I've never had the chance to watch Blake's 7. I've heard good things, though...

[monkspider]

The Ewoks definitely were the first signs of Lucas' decline as a film-maker, this is true. But despite this, RotJ was my favorite Star Wars movie ever.

what I am really curious about is if Lucas might take all the criticism of the prequels to heart, and really pour his heart into making an Episode III that is at least somewhat of the same quality as the originals. So that perhaps, he can retire on a postive note knowing that he brought back some of the old Star Wars magic. It's just like the old adage of film-making goes: your movie can have it's flaws, but if you wow them in the last act, you have will have a hit.

I don't really think Lucas cares enough to try anymore, in fact, I don't know if he is even still capable of making a good movie if he wanted to. In fact, some of the things I have heard about Episode III sounded really cheesy, but who knows? You just never know.

[Edan]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


Blake's 7 was fantastic.

If you like Blake's 7, you should watch Terry Nation's other creation, Survivors (at least, the first season) if you ever get the chance.

A man-made virus wipes out 99+ percent of the planets population, and the survivors have to learn to survive the collapse of civilization.

[monolith94]

"Um, no, they are not, which is why it pisses a lot of SW fans off. The Ewoks are integral to the story, as without them, no Rebel victory. That's pretty damned important."

But not AS important as Titanic's love story. The Ewoks were a plot device, Leo and Kate WERE the plot.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Tuberski




You actually finished a game?!?!?!?!

ACK!

actually, I have a bink/smacker player(well, I do have a small galaxy game that I "finished").

[Whoha]

Continuous mod costs 25% more space and only gives you a small bonus to tohit %'s, so its not so widely used.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by monkspider
The Ewoks definitely were the first signs of Lucas' decline as a film-maker, this is true. But despite this, RotJ was my favorite Star Wars movie ever.

what I am really curious about is if Lucas might take all the criticism of the prequels to heart, and really pour his heart into making an Episode III that is at least somewhat of the same quality as the originals. So that perhaps, he can retire on a postive note knowing that he brought back some of the old Star Wars magic. It's just like the old adage of film-making goes: your movie can have it's flaws, but if you wow them in the last act, you have will have a hit.

I don't really think Lucas cares enough to try anymore, in fact, I don't know if he is even still capable of making a good movie if he wanted to. In fact, some of the things I have heard about Episode III sounded really cheesy, but who knows? You just never know.

He'll win back alot of people if he dedicates atleast a half an hour examining why the gungans aren't in 4 5 or 6.

[Straybow]

Non-exhaustive ratings

ST movies in rank order: II, IV, III, VI, I. V not worth rating. As a group they win over SW.
ST series in rank order: Original, DS9, TNG; Voyager barely worth rating. Enterprise not worth rating.

SW movies in rank order: SW (IV), RotJ (V). Others not worth rating. SW wins for ground-breaking effects, so much so that I feel sorry for people who didn't live the experience of seeing it for the first time.

B5 was good for a change-up. Interesting to have a series with a closed story line that didn't get ridiculous.

Andromeda got ridiculous in the first season, and has grown moreso with each season. Nothing else on TV late night Sunday, otherwise I woudn't watch.

Blade Runner—coolest sci fi movie to date, a real plot, possibly the best cinematography for sci fi to date.

2001—broke ground, shattered old space opera mold.

Forbidden Planet—broke out of the old space opera mold. Excellent cinematography and a real plot.

The Day the Earth Stood Still—again a break from the space opera genre. A tad preachy, but in such a surprising way.

Outland—shotguns in space. Somewhat realistic look on near future space exploitation. Traveller, anyone?

[The Mad Monk]

Outland—shotguns in space. Somewhat realistic look on near future space exploitation. Traveller, anyone?

I played that, Megatraveller and Striker.

Built a hell of a lot of ships and vehicles.

[Gibsie]

Lexx owns all

[RGBVideo]

Re: Star Trek vs. Star Wars vs. B5

Out of those three, B5 was the best, I guess (An ok soap opera). Best scifi-series I can recall at the moment ever watching were the good episodes (2/3 were pretty much ****) of The Outer Limits (90's remake, haven't seen any of the older ones).

Re: Sci-fi in TV and Movies

Originally posted by pchang
is pretty lame about projecting the future of weaponry and warfare. Just take a look at Starship Troopers. In the book, each infrantry man is an incredible fighting machine armed with tactical nukes. In the movie, they might have spaceships, but they are no better armored and armed than current day US Army Rangers.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein was just a piece of mental masturbation made by a paranoid American (who couldn't get laid enough), looking for ways to counter the üntermenschen commie menace (chinamen which bred like bunnies).

Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven was a parody. I hope.