Star Wars: The Clone Wars CGI Season 2

[Mike DiCenso]

Just watched "Lethal Trackdown", the season finale.

1. Coruscant has Utapau-esque tubes to underground areas well away from the skyscrapers. It's not clear how extensive these are, but basically it takes us to never-before-seen underworld areas (literally). The areas are big enough to require some floating taxis and look to be kilometers in width at least. And this is all constructed or at least walled, mind you . . . there are no exposed rock faces that I saw.

It seems like they wanted to present it as being worse than the seedy surface of Coruscant beneath the skyscrapers, but if anything I'd say this was just dirty and not as well-lit.

The access tubes were maybe a kilometer wide (just guessing) and extremely deep . . . I'd guess 20 kilometers, minimum. There's a shot of the speeder descending and the hole up top is just a dim moon of light way up there.

Suffice it to say that even the existence of this one tube is enough to significantly impress regarding the industrial capacity of the Republic . . . after all, before it was simply a planet with construction all over it, but now there's the possibility of significant subsurface activity.

It is impressive. However what were the timescales involves in turning Coruscant into it's present form? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? As far as the purpose of these tubes, it may be that they serve a much more critical purpose; heat sinks. Yes, as we know, one of the big criticisms of the whole planet-spanning cities of science fiction is how is waste heat transfered out of these systems? This could be part of some vast heat sink system that keeps things circulating around and out of the system in some manner that goes beyond our current understanding of thermodynamics.
-Mike

[Mith]

Just watched "Lethal Trackdown", the season finale.

1. Coruscant has Utapau-esque tubes to underground areas well away from the skyscrapers. It's not clear how extensive these are, but basically it takes us to never-before-seen underworld areas (literally). The areas are big enough to require some floating taxis and look to be kilometers in width at least. And this is all constructed or at least walled, mind you . . . there are no exposed rock faces that I saw.

It seems like they wanted to present it as being worse than the seedy surface of Coruscant beneath the skyscrapers, but if anything I'd say this was just dirty and not as well-lit.

The access tubes were maybe a kilometer wide (just guessing) and extremely deep . . . I'd guess 20 kilometers, minimum. There's a shot of the speeder descending and the hole up top is just a dim moon of light way up there.

Suffice it to say that even the existence of this one tube is enough to significantly impress regarding the industrial capacity of the Republic . . . after all, before it was simply a planet with construction all over it, but now there's the possibility of significant subsurface activity.

It is impressive. However what were the timescales involves in turning Coruscant into it's present form? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? As far as the purpose of these tubes, it may be that they serve a much more critical purpose; heat sinks. Yes, as we know, one of the big criticisms of the whole planet-spanning cities of science fiction is how is waste heat transfered out of these systems? This could be part of some vast heat sink system that keeps things circulating around and out of the system in some manner that goes beyond our current understanding of thermodynamics.
-Mike

I thought it was just a metaphor of where the prequels came from.

[Trinoya]

Things of special note: The lightsaber attack on slave 1 was very fast and quick... much faster than say the attack on the blast doors in TPM. Can we safely assume that slaves one armor is not comparable?

Next: Slave 1 once again showed EXTREMELY poor accuracy, even with a master gunner like Boba. R2 wasn't exactly dodging and certainly isn't a Jedi.


As well as: I find it very interesting that the response time was as fast as it was, with apparently no difference in time scale on the planet itself... (IE: It still looks to be roughly the same time of day). Either Courscant is very VERY close or perhaps a new evaluation of hyperspace speeds is in order.

[2046]

1. Yes, Slave I's hull at that point can be assumed weaker than the multi-layer blast doors.

2. R2 was dodging quite a bit at times, but at other times not so much, and Slave I was firing way off either way.

3. Coruscant really should not be close. Therefore we must assume either (a) it was not the same day or (b) hyperdrive was really fast in this episode.

Consistency with the rest of canon demands the first choice, unless we wish to assume that fighter hyperspace rings allow for breakneck hyperspace speeds impossible for most ships, even those later considered to be really fast.

[Mith]

Well, logically a fighter should be able to move faster in some instances given that in Shadow of Malevolence we're basically told that smaller ships/fighters can plot courses more effectively than larger ships.

[Mike DiCenso]

Yes, since we know now thanks to the CGI TCW that hyperspace, like Star Trek's warp drive, is limited by navigational concerns, we can assume that there is something like that in play here.
-Mike

[Trinoya]

I think that is the best explanation... although it makes the imperial disregard of fighters that much more laughable if they can be used to tactically out maneuver capital ships.

[Mike DiCenso]

The Empire only scoffed at the idea that a snub fighter could be any threat it's Death Star battlestation. They seemed to hold a very different idea when it came to their vastly smaller captial ships such as the star destroyers.
-Mike

[2046]

We've seen fighters and bombers kick starship butt in Star Wars many times now (thanks to AotC's gunship missiles versus fuel cells, Y-Wing bombers versus Munificents and the Malevolence, and Vulture fighter-walkers blowing the crap out of Venators, et cetera).

If we then assume that fighter hyperdrives are superquick on top of that . . . well, I guess we end up with WW2.

But still, a fighter getting from the Outer Rim to Coruscant? Maybe if he was picking up fuel or new hyperspace rings at assorted locations . . . but then we're still stuck with him passing up logical points of contact (e.g. space stations and such).

Otherwise, we must assume a hyperlane that's a straight shot to Coruscant that went unseized by the CIS forces and which was the only plausible way for R2 to escape the planet and get to Republic-held skies. That's a stretch story-wise, and is also akin to imagining a carrier-based WW2 fighter flying to Washington range-wise.

It just doesn't make sense, even if we assume badassery in the speed department.

And even if we do, we'd have to ask why other small ships like Amidala's yacht are so much slower.

[Praeothmin]

Started watching the first season of TCW, and one thing struck me:
The Y-Wings, while taking a short cut through the Nebula, suffered from the same issues as the E-Nil and Reliant in TWOK, that is inoperable sensors and targetting devices...

Also, the Malevolence needed to go around the Nebula in Hyperspace, and it took some time because the Nebula was enormous.
But the fighters, going through the Nebula in realspace, crossed hlaf the disctance faster then the Malevolence in Hyperspace...
Are we in multiples of C in realspace in SW now????
And they didn't seem to go to fast, because nothing was flashing by at superluminous speeds, and those monsters didn't move too fast either...

[Mike DiCenso]

A starfighter travelling fast from the "Outer Rim" to Coruscant is impressive, but we must bear in mind that in the real canon of SW, this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that we know from the maps displayed in the Jedi Library as well as the one on Queen Amidala's yacht that the location of the Outer Rim is not the actual edge of the SW Galaxy, but somewhere between the edge of the galactic nucleus and the the edge. Where GL canon Coruscant lies in between there and the Outer Rim boundries is anyone's guess.

The "Shadows of Malevolence" speed issue with the Y-wings and the Malevolence is just one of those weird SW inconsistancies we have to deal with, along with the Millenium Falcon 's trip from Anoat to Bespin in TESB where without hyperdrive, the journey should have taken months or years to accomplish.
-Mike

[2046]

Warp drive, hyperdrive . . . oh for an FTL drive that doesn't move at the speed of plot!

[Mike DiCenso]

Exactly!
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Warp drive, hyperdrive . . . oh for an FTL drive that doesn't move at the speed of plot!

Completely off topic: did you receive my PM? :)

[Praeothmin]

Warp drive, hyperdrive . . . oh for an FTL drive that doesn't move at the speed of plot!

The Improbable Drive from "The Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy"...
Its speed determines the Plot, not the other way around... :)