TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

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Mike DiCenso
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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon May 23, 2016 10:48 pm

I think the indications are that a majority of the people here enjoyed the movie overall, and I can't say from any technological standpoint that we saw anything really different from any other movie in the franchise. Turbolasers still look and act like turbolasers, blasters act like blasters, and droids are all the same pretty much. The Falcon does take a beating in this movie, unlike even TESB's famous asteroid field chase.

As for Starkiller base's shield:

Finn: How are we getting in?

Han Solo:
Their shields have a fractional refresh rate. Keeps anything traveling slower than lightspeed from getting through.

Finn: We're making our landing approach at lightspeed?


I'm not sure if there ever was a precedent one way or the other for this in the other trilogies or TV series. It just seems to be a mcguffin like Starkiller being able to fire through hyperspace, and maybe the two issues are related. Might be worth it to see if they are tied together in the Alan Dean Foster novelization.
-Mike

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Hernalt » Wed May 25, 2016 2:17 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:I think the indications are that a majority of the people here enjoyed the movie overall, and I can't say from any technological standpoint that we saw anything really different from any other movie in the franchise. Turbolasers still look and act like turbolasers, blasters act like blasters, and droids are all the same pretty much. The Falcon does take a beating in this movie, unlike even TESB's famous asteroid field chase.

As for Starkiller base's shield:

Finn: How are we getting in?

Han Solo:
Their shields have a fractional refresh rate. Keeps anything traveling slower than lightspeed from getting through.

Finn: We're making our landing approach at lightspeed?


I'm not sure if there ever was a precedent one way or the other for this in the other trilogies or TV series. It just seems to be a mcguffin like Starkiller being able to fire through hyperspace, and maybe the two issues are related. Might be worth it to see if they are tied together in the Alan Dean Foster novelization.
-Mike
Here's the rough model I work with so far:
Let alpha be the degree of difference between Lucas GFFA technology and real world technology.
Let beta be the degree of difference between Abrams GFFA technology and real world technology.
Let gamma equal beta minus alpha, or, Let gamma be the difference between the differences of Lucas, and Abrams, GFFA technology, and real world technology.

Now, at least on theforce.net, what falls under the category of Lucas GFFA technology is called "lore". It is part of the author reader contract that the reader shall suspend disbelief in order to import or accept the spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, motivationally, etc, etc valuable goods that the author may produce. In more reduced format, or going with the first order term, the author shall provide an emotional payoff at equal to or greater value than the costs of the suspension of disbelief. (Now, theforce.net does not lack for individuals capable of discussing at a technical level, but the anti-aircraft anti-rationalism anti-analysis fire coming from the left side, right side, bottom shelf, middle earth and lower back of that deflection tower, over there on theforce.net, renders an attack like this impractical, over there.)

So if I calibrate my own reaction to TFA, I find that I heavily weight the authority of the Source of Authority, Lucas, over the authority of some server of innumerable references, however nicely ordered, colored, listed, and presented, back to the Source of Authority. And so for me, and a large number of futily outnumbered individuals on theforce.net, the value beta, in terms of "hyperlightspeed weapon" and the value of alpha, in terms of "hyperspace" are extremely similar. We no more have hyperspace than we have hyperlightspeed weapons, and so, an attack on TFA on the basis of its depiction of technology vis a vis our reality is an act of performance, a bit of drama. That attack logically applies to any of Star Wars prior to Abrams, and NGT is there, just when you were wondering, and just in the nick of time, to set you straight on this highly controversial topic.

The general form of the outrage at TFA that I felt, and saw duplicated at TFN, was not of course that beta was high, because we all know alpha is high, but that gamma is high. Can I quantify gamma? I think it can be done after an exhaustive listing of liberties Abrams took with lore established in the six movies under Lucas. Now, are liberties in themselves a crisis, an apocalypse, a death of a franchise? No. Liberties are evolutions, permutations, logical consequences, that fall under the same rubric of the author reader contract. The author shall provide an emotional payoff at equal to or greater than the cost of the suspension of disbelief.

Now depending on one's investment in the lore, or the rules, set by the Source of Authority in his own universe, there is going to be a suspension of disbelief factor that is fiducially tared at the baseline technology of GFFA under Lucas. And so Abrams must provide emotional payoff that compensates his departures and deviations from Lucas GFFA in addition to the generally accepted cinematic overhead of departures from our movie-seat, overpriced concessions and soda reality.

So the question to pose here to this forum after that outline of a model for quantifying gamma is: Can anyone decompose the two vectors in their consumption of TFA, emotional payoff by all available means, and their tolerances for Abrams deviations from Lucas technological lore? I know that I cannot quantify my own unmovedness, unimpressedness, uninvestedness, of Abrams choices at the emotional front - it's just not a tractable problem. What I Can do is take empirical measures from other similar thinkers and see how they manage the emotional payoff vs suspension of disbelief costs, and see if they can trace How the money is flowing instead of just reporting a net profit. (If this forum has a majority favorable opinion of TFA, then most have a net profit in TFA.)

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue May 31, 2016 5:32 pm

Hernalt wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Hi.

Active members are outnumbered by bots here.
What do you mean?
I am trying to assess the degree to which this forum in general is pro-TFA. This forum bills itself as technically oriented, and of the variety of technical departures that any Star Wars takes, those in The Force Awakens are the most stark. (If I am requested to list examples then that probably tells me what I need to know.) So, does that starkness translate into this technically oriented forum being less favorable towards TFA? Or, is the proportion or percentage of TFA support on this forum the same as any of the other large forums, i.e., such as theforce.net?

Dead honest question.

Thank you for substantive insights.
It's Abramscience. It gives the hurts to me head.
There's only opinion to be given there I guess. The Starkiller base would have worked better if less insane in scope and only used later on. The big gun would have been a nice surprise in movie 2 or 3. Nice as, well, been there done that but at least a modicum of new stuff would have been retained for later use.
From a technical standpoint, it's utter nonsense. The hyperspace beams don't hyperspace. They project images in a way that makes no sense. They split for some reason, at some point, so that also requires an explanation. At least the uninspired EU superweapons sort of made sense, save for the icecream cone Suncrusher.
And from an industrial point of view, it's just retarded. Not only this requires far, far more power and resources from a faction that's only a fraction of the Empire, but it makes no sense from a practical point of view. Why even bother perforating an entire planet and having to make the entire tunnel solid enough to resist against gravity and pressure, instead of building a simple large bazooka in space?
Besides, storing that much mass and matter would prove far too dangerous for the planet itself and as I said earlier, harnessing a fraction of that power would be far more than enough to ruin several planets.
One could argue that it's the hyperspace trip that requires that, but building mobile space stations, smaller ones, would have been far more effective and affordable.

Btw, I think the hologram had the DS' size wrong, unless the Starkiller base is very small, which it seems to be by looking at the size of the poorly defended thermal regulator.

Techwise, little has changed. Ships have no passwords, no keys. That's why anybody can still a military craft or some freighter.

And the templarsabre still looks stupid.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue May 31, 2016 5:34 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:I think the indications are that a majority of the people here enjoyed the movie overall, and I can't say from any technological standpoint that we saw anything really different from any other movie in the franchise. Turbolasers still look and act like turbolasers, blasters act like blasters, and droids are all the same pretty much. The Falcon does take a beating in this movie, unlike even TESB's famous asteroid field chase.

As for Starkiller base's shield:

Finn: How are we getting in?

Han Solo:
Their shields have a fractional refresh rate. Keeps anything traveling slower than lightspeed from getting through.

Finn: We're making our landing approach at lightspeed?


I'm not sure if there ever was a precedent one way or the other for this in the other trilogies or TV series. It just seems to be a mcguffin like Starkiller being able to fire through hyperspace, and maybe the two issues are related. Might be worth it to see if they are tied together in the Alan Dean Foster novelization.
-Mike
They ought to be, but then why would Solo know this and not Finn?
They attended the same briefing and Finn has at least the privilege of coming from the faction that actually owns the big toy.

Damn, the script is so bad. This information is precisely what should have been delivered during the briefing, if Abrams and co had bothered to watch their fucking classics.
There, the entire success of the mission seems to hinge on something entirely improvised. Not to say pulled out of nowhere.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue May 31, 2016 5:54 pm

Hernalt wrote: So if I calibrate my own reaction to TFA, I find that I heavily weight the authority of the Source of Authority, Lucas, over the authority of some server of innumerable references, however nicely ordered, colored, listed, and presented, back to the Source of Authority. And so for me, and a large number of futily outnumbered individuals on theforce.net, the value beta, in terms of "hyperlightspeed weapon" and the value of alpha, in terms of "hyperspace" are extremely similar. We no more have hyperspace than we have hyperlightspeed weapons, and so, an attack on TFA on the basis of its depiction of technology vis a vis our reality is an act of performance, a bit of drama. That attack logically applies to any of Star Wars prior to Abrams, and NGT is there, just when you were wondering, and just in the nick of time, to set you straight on this highly controversial topic.
Yes. The hyperspace beam isn't illogical per se. It's the way it's depicted that is problematic. Not the idea, but the form.
It's also a cheap trick.

And they're right on the absurd minimalism.
Because Abrams apparently had to pee over all of Lucas' works like if he had been ordered to make a SW whilst at the same time show who is the master now (rubbing salt into the wound), everything is MORE.
So the Death Star is bigger, and the Rebels are fewer, therefore increasing the contrast between both forces.

So the question to pose here to this forum after that outline of a model for quantifying gamma is: Can anyone decompose the two vectors in their consumption of TFA, emotional payoff by all available means, and their tolerances for Abrams deviations from Lucas technological lore? I know that I cannot quantify my own unmovedness, unimpressedness, uninvestedness, of Abrams choices at the emotional front - it's just not a tractable problem. What I Can do is take empirical measures from other similar thinkers and see how they manage the emotional payoff vs suspension of disbelief costs, and see if they can trace How the money is flowing instead of just reporting a net profit. (If this forum has a majority favorable opinion of TFA, then most have a net profit in TFA.)

Lucas was a good world builder but sucked big donkey balls at script writing, especially when he became rich and fat. Many of his ideas, when it came to execution, were awful too, as proven in the PT, but his directing style was good enough and conservative for SW, which didn't need all the Fast n Furious shit you get these days.
Abrams on the other end understands nothing and can't be arsed to create a credible universe. His directing is obviously more modern, more dynamic; good enough for an action movie. And that's all. Everything else good is solely due to the gifted people around him and the tons of money this overrated hack gets handed for making movies.
It's hard to want to analyze a movie which is certainly nothing more than a cynical cash grabbing project. When I see the crews who operated on the production, I can only speak of waste.

Out of Disney, in the hands of people who would have been more careful, perhaps more in love with the universe, we may have had something solid.
This doesn't mean there aren't good ideas in TFA, but it's too late.
Even if the sequel is good, it's not going to erase TFA.
TFA is such a travesty that they use a the classical briefing-before-suicidal-mission moment to make fun of the OT. It should pay hommage to it but actually ridicules it. Yes, it is insulting. You don't mock the OT. You show your due respect and try to be just as good.
Besides, it's a trilogy made by unrelated people. There's no sign that there's one large vision for the entirety of it.
And hell to that, it's Disney in charge now. The same shitbags ready to roll out a full trilogy of Han effin' Solo!
These guys only see money, they underestand nothing else. They're oblivious to greatness and beauty. They see a popular character, they think he's worth an entire set of movies.

This is getting so bad that I may very well focus uniquely on the OT and perhaps even return to the original versions, to purify my enjoyment of SW for whatever is left of it.

I'm also more interested in the Rogue One movie because, well, it offers more of the Empire at a very important time for these series. It won't be anything beautiful but it's the best you'll have to expect: a polished EU movie. It will have clichés (it already has a shaolin monk), but at least we'll get more of the Imperial warmachine on the big screen, the thing we always wanted. And that will be all about it. Nothing else. I have no expectations, I'll watch it for the eye candy and for memories of old places seen in a freshier setting. Period.

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