Rant about Terrible Spaceships in Sci-Fi/Sci-Fantasy: Last Jedi *SPOILERS*

[NRSASD]

Full disclaimer: I actually really enjoyed the Last Jedi, and I have absolutely no interest in stealing the Last Jedi discussion thread's thunder. That being said, I have to rant about the Rebel Bomber from the movie. Be warned, HERE BE SPOILERS! If you haven't seen the movie, look away now!



The Last Jedi kicks off with a WW2-style Resistance (Rebel) bombing run on a First Order dreadnought. While WW2-style bombing runs are terrible tactics in general, I'm not going to talk about that. I'm focusing on the Rebel Bomber, because I can't think of a worse spacecraft in the history of Sci-Fi that I've ever seen.

Here's what I noticed:

-It's Slow: When seen alongside the X-Wings, it's clearly holding them back. Tie Fighters dash around it like it's stationary. A bomber's first defense is speed, but if that's impossible, it has to rely on...

-Armor: Which this bomber didn't have enough of. While it survived a few hits, direct hits managed to knock out its bridge or penetrate the hull with distressing regularity. If its going to be a ponderous duck of a spacecraft, it needed more armor than it had to survive.

-Unintegrated Bomb and Delivery Controls: All the important buttons on this bomber, the buttons that let this bomber be a bomber, are on a single handheld remote control. There don't appear to be any emergency (or even manual) overrides, which seems really odd. Both the bomb arming and the hatch doors are controlled by this one device, which brings up two issues that need to be addressed. One, if you lose the remote, you're in a world of hurt (case in point, the movie. Where this happens!). And two, I figured this ship was a salvaged retrofit that the Resistance got ahold of and modified to suit their needs. I'm not so sure, since the bomb arming and door controls are controlled by the same remote. That suggests somebody actually designed this ship as a combat vessel. Whaaaaat...?

-Its Profile: You want to present a small target to the enemy. Even AT-ATs have figured that out. The Rebel bomber is anything but small, which is especially deadly since it's so slow and poorly armored. Granted, one can argue it needed to be that big because of...

-Its payload: Credit where it's due, all those black orbs of death winking on was pretty cool. Unfortunately, arming your entire hold of bombs at the same time is really really stupid, but at least the movie gave it a fair demonstration of why. That's the only concession to verisimilitude with this spacecraft though, because this bomber has a... unique way of attacking its target.

-Gravity Based Delivery System in Space: Ummmm... what? Space has no gravity. Even in close orbit of a planet, there is only the tiniest shred of microgravity. How do the bombs fall out of the bomber? And fall they clearly do, since they aren't launched from their holding racks. I had two alternate hypotheses trying to explain how they fall, but I've shot those down. That led me to a third, and even more horrifying, possibility...

Spoiler: The two failed bomb dropping theories

Show

First Theory: The bombs are magnetic. Assuming bomb guidance doesn't get confused by ECMs or the planet's magnetic field, the bomber itself is just as constructed of ferrous metal as the Dreadnought they're supposed to hit. Since the bombs are armed in the launch bay (and not at a safe distance), there's no reason they wouldn't just detonate as soon as they were released.

Second Theory: Since the bomber has artificial gravity, the bombs are gravity based. If we assume the artificial gravity pulls everything not towards the center, but towards the bottom of the bomber (which it seems to, judging by how the remote fell). Once the bombs are released, they accelerate downwards until they pass the bay doors, where the artificial gravity has no influence. They continue on their merry way to the target, riding the momentum they've built up while falling inside the bomber.
This almost works, except the highest bombs in the rack will be moving faster then the lowest. Odds are really good they'll collide with each other before they reach the target, and set off a chain reaction that will torch their own bomber faster than you can say "Oh the Humanity!"

-The Bay Doors: Opening the bay doors while in the launch bay is pretty much guaranteed to be fatal. You're exposing the whole room to the void of space, so you don't want to do that while inside it. That's part of what makes Rose's sister so awesome; she (probably) realized that and did it anyways. So maybe, that's the bomb launch system. The bomber uses explosive decompression to launch its projectiles. That makes more sense than Gravity Bombing in Space right?

But wait, there's more. Remember, Rose's sister was the ventral gunner, not the bomb crew. Remember when she climbed the ladder up to the bomb crew's deck and passed through the airlock? No, you don't remember an airlock? Neither do I. That means, if the bomber opens its launch doors, it will guaranteed space at least one of its crew, if not all of them!

I don't remember if the pilot has a blast door between them and the launch bay, and I sure hope the ventral gunner does too, but on a ship consciously designed to kill at least one of its crew if nothing goes wrong that's an assumption I don't feel I can make.

It's possible there's a force field holding air in like they have on all the capital ship hangars, but those, without exception, are large and shiny. We see no such force field on this bomber.





The irony of this rant is that Rose's sister is actually my favorite scene in the film (Luke's showdown is also up there), but the more I think about it the more I can't stop. Please let me know what you think of all this. Agree, disagree, worry about my sanity, etc., just keep it civil and on topic.

Speaking of topic, I have a challenge for all of you, Dear Playgrounders. Find a worse spaceship than the rebel bomber, from Star Wars or anything really. Doesn't have to be grounded in hard science or even take itself seriously. Thanks for reading this rant!

[Hunter Noventa]

Those bombers really are absolutely awful. Though lots of star wars ships have things that open directly to space, they have magnetic containment fields that keep atmosphere in, while letting objects through.

I can't think of any other really bad spaceships off the top of my head, however.

EDIT: didn't notice that you'd mentioned the force fields right away. And yeah, those are big and shiny...but considering there are also personal magcon fields integrated into some flight suits, it might be that the capital ship fields are big and shiny because they're holding in that much more, compared to the relatively small amount of air in a bomber.

[Darth Credence]

You need to accept that physics in the Star Wars galaxy are radically different than physics in ours. For one thing, the entire galaxy has an atmosphere. That allows all of the ship sounds and the need for constant thrust on fighters. In addition, there has to be something like a galactic plane with gravity. All ships always follow that plane - you never see capital ships at weird angles to each other, but lined up like ocean ships. Accept that there is a galactic plane of gravity and atmosphere, and that works. If you can roll with that, then the bombers are what you get. If you cannot, then you need to complain about ships making noise, about flames in space, about buzz droids being swept off by the wind, and so on.

Let's compare to other ships, though. How about the Nostromo from Alien? The space ship with air ducts large enough for people to crawl through. We don't make air ducts that large on earth - you absolutely wouldn't waste that kind of space on a spaceship. And how does the gravity work in that ship? They were legitimately worried that the acid would keep falling and eat through the hull. Of course, the Prometheus is worse, considering it has a basketball court on it even though people should be spending most of their time in hypersleep.

Or the ship from the Black Hole. It's been a while, but I remember cavernous halls and stained glass everywhere. That just is not a good idea for a space ship.

Or how about the Enterprise? A separate phaser room where they wait for the orders from the bridge to actually fire - hope comms don't go down. Comms going down is a distinct possibility, as bridge consoles seem to explode at the drop of a hat. Only one way in or out of the bridge? Makes it awfully easy for a random genetic superman to take over the ship. The sheer number of other places that can cut off bridge control and take command of the ship seems like a bad idea, too. A quick bit of fiddling with the matter-antimatter bypass valve and the whole ship will blow up.

Spaceships in movies follow the rule of cool. If it looks cool enough, it goes in. Worrying too much about whether or not the design is practical just ends up making one not enjoy entertaining movies.

[Keltest]

I dunno, my take on those bombers is that they were desperately thrown together. They were basically boxes of bombs with a rocket strapped to them. The fact that they were awfully designed was part of the point. The resistance doesn't have even the same resources as the Rebellion did, really. They don't have a wing of Y-wings with proton torpedoes available, they just have a lot of regular bombs that they had to figure out a way to put on the enemy's capital ships.

[NRSASD]

You need to accept that physics in the Star Wars galaxy are radically different than physics in ours. For one thing, the entire galaxy has an atmosphere. That allows all of the ship sounds and the need for constant thrust on fighters. In addition, there has to be something like a galactic plane with gravity. All ships always follow that plane - you never see capital ships at weird angles to each other, but lined up like ocean ships. Accept that there is a galactic plane of gravity and atmosphere, and that works. If you can roll with that, then the bombers are what you get. If you cannot, then you need to complain about ships making noise, about flames in space, about buzz droids being swept off by the wind, and so on.

Spaceships in movies follow the rule of cool. If it looks cool enough, it goes in. Worrying too much about whether or not the design is practical just ends up making one not enjoy entertaining movies.

I agree, this isn't worth worrying about. And despite this rant, it hasn't gotten in the way of my enjoyment of the film, cause it's Star Wars. Star Wars, where Turbo Lasers function like plasma, fighting near lava isn't immediately fatal, and specifically designed ramming spaceships exist.

I do love the aesthetics of Star Wars though, and I find it fun thinking about how these ships would look and function in reality, because by and large, they would. They aren't efficient, but they aren't nonfunctional (except for the Rebel Bomber).

That being said, we've got a very interesting case study in how "Star Wars space" works, in the same movie no less: Leia's "Spacewalk". My opinion of that scene has no bearing on the following things it can tell us.

a. If space has atmosphere, which it seems to, it's extremely low pressure. When the bridge gets hit with Leia onboard, some of the damage is caused by explosive decompression, not just the explosion.

b. There is probably at least some O2 in space, since she regains consciousness while spaced. If you're unconscious, you try to breathe. If there was nothing out there, she would have asphyxiated. She couldn't have held her breath since she fell unconscious in between the explosion and waking up in space. This also explains the space fires.

c. Space is really bad for humans, atmosphere or no. Frost begins forming on her and she is rushed into intensive care immediately once she gets back on board.

d. While there may be a plane of orientation, there is no discernible gravity in space. Leia is passively floating in space when she wakes up. She is not falling, even slowly.

All of this means that a Gravity Based Space Bomber is an even worse idea, since you don't have any gravity but you do have air resistance.

While I agree all of those ships have gruesome and glaringly large inefficiencies in design, they still don't kill their own crew on a regular basis.

Those bombers really are absolutely awful. Though lots of star wars ships have things that open directly to space, they have magnetic containment fields that keep atmosphere in, while letting objects through.

EDIT: didn't notice that you'd mentioned the force fields right away. And yeah, those are big and shiny...but considering there are also personal magcon fields integrated into some flight suits, it might be that the capital ship fields are big and shiny because they're holding in that much more, compared to the relatively small amount of air in a bomber.

Good point! Have we seen what a smaller magcon field looks like? You could be right that the large and glowing force field is just a product of scale, not a requirement.

[Hunter Noventa]

Good point! Have we seen what a smaller magcon field looks like? You could be right that the large and glowing force field is just a product of scale, not a requirement.

Unfortunately they're only mentioned in the books as part of the flight suits we see in the movies. The scene is actually Wedge, out in space slowly freezing because the magcon field doesn't hold in heat very well while trying to keep a bomb from exploding. He's still tethered to his x-wing for power and air, so the magcon field won't go out, but I get the impression it's meant to hold in an amount of air that would keep you alive for a quick rescue operation.

So we know they can be small enough to go on a flight suit, but there's no description of the visual effect that I can remember.

[Peelee]

I dunno, my take on those bombers is that they were desperately thrown together. They were basically boxes of bombs with a rocket strapped to them. The fact that they were awfully designed was part of the point. The resistance doesn't have even the same resources as the Rebellion did, really. They don't have a wing of Y-wings with proton torpedoes available, they just have a lot of regular bombs that they had to figure out a way to put on the enemy's capital ships.

Except they buy ships from arms deers. The same armz dealers who can also sorry the First Order. One would assume if someone is supplying both sides, both sides can fish out some serious cash; if Al and Bob are racing against each other, and Al it's asking for brand new, top of the line racing cars while Bob is asking about '99 Hondas, it's probably not with my time to sell to Bob. If there Resistance is dishing out for X-Wings, then why are they putting thrusters on a box and calling it a Bomber?

This is ignoring the rest of the idiocy in that whole "arms dealer" issue, of course.

[Keltest]

Except they buy ships from arms deers. The same armz dealers who can also sorry the First Order. One would assume if someone is supplying both sides, both sides can fish out some serious cash; if Al and Bob are racing against each other, and Al it's asking for brand new, top of the line racing cars while Bob is asking about '99 Hondas, it's probably not with my time to sell to Bob. If there Resistance is dishing out for X-Wings, then why are they putting thrusters on a box and calling it a Bomber?

This is ignoring the rest of the idiocy in that whole "arms dealer" issue, of course.

Because until recently, they haven't had an urgent need for dedicated bombers. X-wings can drop proton torpedoes for smaller targets, and they had the republic fleet on speed dial if they had evidence that the First Order was preparing to go on the offensive with a big fleet.

But then the First Order nuked the republic fleet, so suddenly the resistance had a severe shortage of anti-fleet capabilities.

[Aeson]

Because until recently, they haven't had an urgent need for dedicated bombers. X-wings can drop proton torpedoes for smaller targets, and they had the republic fleet on speed dial if they had evidence that the First Order was preparing to go on the offensive with a big fleet.

But then the First Order nuked the republic fleet, so suddenly the resistance had a severe shortage of anti-fleet capabilities.

Given that the First Order apparently has the resources to build a bigger Death Star (seemingly in complete secrecy, at that), a bigger Super Star Destroyer, and a fleet of bigger Star Destroyers, I'd question whether the New Republic's fleet was ever all that significant an asset in the first place, especially considering that the New Republic is apparently such an insignificant power on the galactic scale that it's effectively out of the picture with the destruction of a mere five planets in a single star system.

[Hunter Noventa]

Given that the First Order apparently has the resources to build a bigger Death Star (seemingly in complete secrecy, at that), a bigger Super Star Destroyer, and a fleet of bigger Star Destroyers, I'd question whether the New Republic's fleet was ever all that significant an asset in the first place, especially considering that the New Republic is apparently such an insignificant power on the galactic scale that it's effectively out of the picture with the destruction of a mere five planets in a single star system.

Apparently it's something of a point of order in the books between RotJ and TFA that the Republic was aggressively pacifistic, to the point of being self-defeating, which is why Leia left for form the Resistance in the first place, because they knew the First Order was lurking in the Unknown Regions, or something like that.

Oh and the Republic apparently rotated who was hosting the Senate/Government, and that was the system blown up in TFA. Would have been nice to tell us that little tidbit in the movie though.

[factotum]

Or how about the Enterprise? A separate phaser room where they wait for the orders from the bridge to actually fire - hope comms don't go down. Comms going down is a distinct possibility, as bridge consoles seem to explode at the drop of a hat.

Whether your first point is a thing depends who's writing the episode or movie. In the climactic battle in "Wrath of Khan", for instance, both phasers and photon torpedoes are fired from bridge stations. The thing about bridge consoles exploding is a particular bugbear of mine, though--in the aforementioned battle the Enterprise hits the Reliant with two photon torpedoes and some phaser fire, all of which hit the ship about as far away from the bridge as it's possible to get and two of which actually hit the same part of the ship (the port nacelle), yet this somehow results in everyone on the bridge being killed apart from Khan himself, who gets burned to a degree that kills him in minutes? If your method of transferring power around the ship has those consequences, find a different way to transfer power!

As for terrible ships in SF, I usually don't worry too much about realism when considering such things, because very little SF is remotely realistic anyway. The Enterprise is a really odd design when you think about it from a practical point of view--it has loads of spindly structural members connecting large parts of it together, so they have to invent a magic "structural integrity field" that basically stops the ship breaking apart whenever it accelerates! Similar complaints can be made about many other fictional spaceships, because Rule of Cool outweighs practical considerations.

[RazorChain]

If I was the emperor I would win Star Wars with my ships that would all be painted black so they'd be helluva hard to hit and then I'd just kill off the enemy big ships with my FTL torpedoes.

[Peelee]

Because until recently, they haven't had an urgent need for dedicated bombers. X-wings can drop proton torpedoes for smaller targets, and they had the republic fleet on speed dial if they had evidence that the First Order was preparing to go on the offensive with a big fleet.

But then the First Order nuked the republic fleet, so suddenly the resistance had a severe shortage of anti-fleet capabilities.

They had need of strike craft, medical frigates, capital ships, basically every type of ship except for bombers? Which, since this movie takes place almost immediately after the first, they had already had in the form of the boxy retrofitted ones?

Sorry, if you want me to buy that, you need a way better pitch.

[Mechalich]

The other thing about the bombers is that they are remarkably ineffective.

In the attack shown the First Order makes pretty much every possible mistake. They let Poe systematically destroy all their surface emplacements. They don't launch fighters of their own until way too late. They don't maneuver the dreadnought or any other smaller ships to intercept the bombers in any way.

And...the bombers are still entirely lost and just barely manage to reach their objective. If that was their performance under nearly ideal conditions then they're useless in an actual battle.

The only thing that makes sense for those bombers is that they were designed to strike as surface targets on planets. Their design makes slightly more sense from that perspective. Of course that brings to the question of 'why didn't you use those to attack Starkiller Base in the last film?'

I mean, I assume there's a time gap between TFA and TLJ (for the purposes of which the last shot of TFA doesn't actually happen until TLJ begins), but it can't be the three years that stretched between ANH and ESB, it's more like 3 weeks, maybe. The amount of time it takes Rey to get to the island, spend like maybe a week talking to Luke and then come back (since the actual chase part takes a day tops). Whatever the actual answer it's not enough time for there to be significant technological change.

However, this sort of thing is par for the course when it comes to TLJ's disregard for it's place in a trilogy and a larger franchise.

[Peelee]

The other thing about the bombers is that they are remarkably ineffective.

In the attack shown the First Order makes pretty much every possible mistake. They let Poe systematically destroy all their surface emplacements. They don't launch fighters of their own until way too late.

Don't forget when they do launch the fighters, Poe loses his weapons for a good bit, and yet the squadron of enemy fighters still cannot take him down. For he is the Suest of Sues. Damn, I hate Poe.

[Malimar]

buzz droids being swept off by the wind

Point of order: the battle where that happened was explicitly within the atmosphere of Coruscant, not deep space.

[GloatingSwine]

-Unintegrated Bomb and Delivery Controls: All the important buttons on this bomber, the buttons that let this bomber be a bomber, are on a single handheld remote control. There don't appear to be any emergency (or even manual) overrides, which seems really odd. Both the bomb arming and the hatch doors are controlled by this one device, which brings up two issues that need to be addressed. One, if you lose the remote, you're in a world of hurt (case in point, the movie. Where this happens!). And two, I figured this ship was a salvaged retrofit that the Resistance got ahold of and modified to suit their needs. I'm not so sure, since the bomb arming and door controls are controlled by the same remote. That suggests somebody actually designed this ship as a combat vessel. Whaaaaat...?

I think that is the override, because the flight crew were all dead.

Spoiler: The two failed bomb dropping theories

Show

First Theory: The bombs are magnetic. Assuming bomb guidance doesn't get confused by ECMs or the planet's magnetic field, the bomber itself is just as constructed of ferrous metal as the Dreadnought they're supposed to hit. Since the bombs are armed in the launch bay (and not at a safe distance), there's no reason they wouldn't just detonate as soon as they were released.

The bombs themselves don't need to be magnetic, they just need a magnetic launch system in the rails that accelerates them out of the bay. (TIE Bombers have that, it's how you see them bomb an asteroid in ESB).

-The Bay Doors: Opening the bay doors while in the launch bay is pretty much guaranteed to be fatal. You're exposing the whole room to the void of space, so you don't want to do that while inside it. That's part of what makes Rose's sister so awesome; she (probably) realized that and did it anyways. So maybe, that's the bomb launch system. The bomber uses explosive decompression to launch its projectiles. That makes more sense than Gravity Bombing in Space right?

But wait, there's more. Remember, Rose's sister was the ventral gunner, not the bomb crew. Remember when she climbed the ladder up to the bomb crew's deck and passed through the airlock? No, you don't remember an airlock? Neither do I. That means, if the bomber opens its launch doors, it will guaranteed space at least one of its crew, if not all of them!

Rose's sister is fine in the open bay, clearly there are forcefields holding the air in. Which is the case in, well, basically every hangar bay we ever see in Star Wars.


Now, the level bomber was dumb, it was slow and vulnerable and they all died for no reason. But the idea that an inertia propelled unguided munition still has a higher payload in the space future is still sound. It just should have been dive bombers not level bombers.

[Kitten Champion]

Star Wars takes the "WWII in SPACE!!!" concept a bit too far. It's why I choose Star Trek in the Star Wars v. Star Trek arguments that occasionally appear, people in Star Trek don't even need to look at things in order to target them effectively.

I was actually shocked in The Force Awakens that the First Order had reasonably useful homing missiles, that blew my whole worldview of what's possible in a universe of FTL space ships and sapient robots wide open.

[Sapphire Guard]

the specs, for anyone interested.

[Chen]

The bombs are electromagnetically launched and there is a magnetic containment field to keep the air in. The bombers were apparently holdovers from the end of the Galactic Civil War and apparently was mainly for planetary or base bombardment.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/MG-10..._note-TLJ_VD-0

They really should have showed the bombs being "launched" at speed rather than making it look like they were just falling. I mean why would you use what visually looked like 1G acceleration when you have electromagnetic launchers?

Also both the bombers AND xwings are hyperdrive equipped so why didnt the cruiser just jump away anyways and have the bombing squad rendez-vous with them? Its not like the cruiser was providing any fire support. It was just sitting there waiting to be shot if the bombing run failed.

[KillingAScarab]

The bombs themselves don't need to be magnetic, they just need a magnetic launch system in the rails that accelerates them out of the bay. (TIE Bombers have that, it's how you see them bomb an asteroid in ESB).

Even if electromagnetism weren't involved, you can just say "This is how it looked in The Empire Strikes Back," and call it a day. Just add a glow over the individual bombs to obscure how they operate.

Rose's sister is fine in the open bay, clearly there are forcefields holding the air in. Which is the case in, well, basically every hangar bay we ever see in Star Wars.

Yep. Ever since the Death Star, where the Millenium Falcon is right next to a giant open portal to space, but the scanning crew has no protection against vacuum.

Now, the level bomber was dumb, it was slow and vulnerable and they all died for no reason. But the idea that an inertia propelled unguided munition still has a higher payload in the space future is still sound. It just should have been dive bombers not level bombers.

There was a reason. It was to blame Poe, even though he didn't design them.

the specs, for anyone interested.

Thanks for that.

Also both the bombers AND xwings are hyperdrive equipped so why didnt the cruiser just jump away anyways and have the bombing squad rendez-vous with them? Its not like the cruiser was providing any fire support. It was just sitting there waiting to be shot if the bombing run failed.

To be fair, the First Order constantly forgets that their ships have hyperdrives, too. If they didn't, they would have sent one of the star destroyers in the fleet just one light year away to turn and jump again to be in front of the Resistance. Just like the fleet hiding behind the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi.

[Bohandas]

-The Bay Doors: Opening the bay doors while in the launch bay is pretty much guaranteed to be fatal. You're exposing the whole room to the void of space, so you don't want to do that while inside it. That's part of what makes Rose's sister so awesome; she (probably) realized that and did it anyways. So maybe, that's the bomb launch system. The bomber uses explosive decompression to launch its projectiles. That makes more sense than Gravity Bombing in Space right?

But wait, there's more. Remember, Rose's sister was the ventral gunner, not the bomb crew. Remember when she climbed the ladder up to the bomb crew's deck and passed through the airlock? No, you don't remember an airlock? Neither do I. That means, if the bomber opens its launch doors, it will guaranteed space at least one of its crew, if not all of them!

I don't remember if the pilot has a blast door between them and the launch bay, and I sure hope the ventral gunner does too, but on a ship consciously designed to kill at least one of its crew if nothing goes wrong that's an assumption I don't feel I can make.

It's possible there's a force field holding air in like they have on all the capital ship hangars, but those, without exception, are large and shiny. We see no such force field on this bomber.

Perhaps they're expected to hold onto something like in that one scene from The Empire Strikes Back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaWUsIOLDoE#t=04m03s

[Blackhawk748]

The bombs are electromagnetically launched and there is a magnetic containment field to keep the air in. The bombers were apparently holdovers from the end of the Galactic Civil War and apparently was mainly for planetary or base bombardment.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/MG-10..._note-TLJ_VD-0

They really should have showed the bombs being "launched" at speed rather than making it look like they were just falling. I mean why would you use what visually looked like 1G acceleration when you have electromagnetic launchers?

Also both the bombers AND xwings are hyperdrive equipped so why didnt the cruiser just jump away anyways and have the bombing squad rendez-vous with them? Its not like the cruiser was providing any fire support. It was just sitting there waiting to be shot if the bombing run failed.

Well that deals with one bit of stupidty, sadly it doesnt fix the fact that the way it drops bombs is inefficient as hell. Since it drops them in a strange corkscrewing manner instead of Back to Front, bombs fall on already occurring explosions.

And this still doesnt deal with the fact that they fly at like 5 mph, have terrible turret placement, have basically non-existent shields, and look like a flying Tic Tac container with a submarine on top. Seriously, it looks stupid as hell. Especially when we could have had this:

Spoiler: the K-Wing

Show

While the turret placement still isn't amazing, its far more covered, the K-Wings shields are triple the strength of a Y-wing and it can hold over 18 Proton Torpedoes or exchange that for similar weapons. Plus it doesnt look stupid.

Also, if anyone wants to make their head hurt, watch how frelling stupid the Empire is at The Battle of Jakku. Also, the Rebellion sommehow took back the majority of the Galaxy in a bout a year after Endor. Don't ask me how, but thats what happened now.

And to keep this more on topic: I give you, the TYE-Wing (aka the DIE Wing). Its utter and complete crap. It has no redeeming qualities and it doesnt even look good. Not to be confused with the Y-TIE, which is a legitimately good starfighter.

[Mechalich]

Also, the Rebellion sommehow took back the majority of the Galaxy in a bout a year after Endor. Don't ask me how, but thats what happened now.

I feel like this choice was made largely out of deliberate contrarianism. One of the most significant and best executed plot points of the Legends EU as a whole was the idea that the destruction of the Empire was a long and drawn out affair post-Endor and that it took over a decade for the New Republic achieve unquestioned dominance and half that again to receive an actual surrender and even then there was still a little enclave of the galaxy that remained Imperial. In terms of WWII analogies this actual makes sense. The Battle of Endor is therein analogous to the Battle of Midway - a decisive turning point that made the outcome clear, but with a whole lot of war left to be fought afterwards. Instead of differences in ship and aircraft production capabilities, the Star Wars scenario trades on the accumulating loyalty of the balance of the galaxy's productive planets. In the extended analogy the Thrawn campaign would be the Solomon Islands and his subordinate Pellaeon' ultimate defeat at Champala would be the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

The thing is, while you can change the particulars of the gradual destruction of the Imperial Remnant, any effort to run out that particular plotline unfolds in roughly the same fashion - the Empire gradually gets ground down despite the occasional temporary reversal of fortune. Presumably unwilling to openly duplicate the Legends timeline, they broke as strongly as possible from that idea.

One thing this choice does explain, at least, is that since there was a long period of peace as opposed to an extremely prolonged galaxy-wide military conflict between New Republic and Remnant we have an excuse for why the largely same ships are being used in the ST as were used in the OT. I can't say I understand this choice though, it's always seemed like a huge failure of merchandising opportunity. I already have a model X-wing. I've had it since high school. I don't need a new one, or an A-wing, or another Millennium Falcon.

The thing about these bombers is that they're actually the first truly new ship introduced in the ST. I guess we get the dreadnaught and the Supremacy in this film too, but none of the Rebel capital ships are new - the Raddus looks just like any other Mon Cal cruiser. They slightly modified the AT-ATs to give them gorilla arms instead of camel legs. I guess you can count the speeders from the salt planet, but those are painfully unimpressive. The PT was way more inventive when it came to throwing around new ship designs.

[KillingAScarab]

One thing this choice does explain, at least, is that since there was a long period of peace as opposed to an extremely prolonged galaxy-wide military conflict between New Republic and Remnant we have an excuse for why the largely same ships are being used in the ST as were used in the OT. I can't say I understand this choice though, it's always seemed like a huge failure of merchandising opportunity. I already have a model X-wing. I've had it since high school. I don't need a new one, or an A-wing, or another Millennium Falcon.

The thing about these bombers is that they're actually the first truly new ship introduced in the ST. I guess we get the dreadnaught and the Supremacy in this film too, but none of the Rebel capital ships are new - the Raddus looks just like any other Mon Cal cruiser. They slightly modified the AT-ATs to give them gorilla arms instead of camel legs. I guess you can count the speeders from the salt planet, but those are painfully unimpressive. The PT was way more inventive when it came to throwing around new ship designs.

One of the complaints against the prequel trilogy was that everything looked too new. The textures available for CGI at the time and implemented therein were incredibly shiny. Even the podracers looked like they had fresh coats of paint.

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While the ski speeders from Crait were painfully unimpressive to you, I think they were still better than what 1999 had to offer to make something look lived-in. I think half the point of those was that they looked like they were about to fall apart. That retractable monoski doesn't really serve a purpose. It was another moving part that's about to fail, and implied a lower flight ceiling until Rose slipped past whomever was in charge of continuity.

[Blackhawk748]

I feel like this choice was made largely out of deliberate contrarianism. One of the most significant and best executed plot points of the Legends EU as a whole was the idea that the destruction of the Empire was a long and drawn out affair post-Endor and that it took over a decade for the New Republic achieve unquestioned dominance and half that again to receive an actual surrender and even then there was still a little enclave of the galaxy that remained Imperial. In terms of WWII analogies this actual makes sense. The Battle of Endor is therein analogous to the Battle of Midway - a decisive turning point that made the outcome clear, but with a whole lot of war left to be fought afterwards. Instead of differences in ship and aircraft production capabilities, the Star Wars scenario trades on the accumulating loyalty of the balance of the galaxy's productive planets. In the extended analogy the Thrawn campaign would be the Solomon Islands and his subordinate Pellaeon' ultimate defeat at Champala would be the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

The thing is, while you can change the particulars of the gradual destruction of the Imperial Remnant, any effort to run out that particular plotline unfolds in roughly the same fashion - the Empire gradually gets ground down despite the occasional temporary reversal of fortune. Presumably unwilling to openly duplicate the Legends timeline, they broke as strongly as possible from that idea.

One thing this choice does explain, at least, is that since there was a long period of peace as opposed to an extremely prolonged galaxy-wide military conflict between New Republic and Remnant we have an excuse for why the largely same ships are being used in the ST as were used in the OT. I can't say I understand this choice though, it's always seemed like a huge failure of merchandising opportunity. I already have a model X-wing. I've had it since high school. I don't need a new one, or an A-wing, or another Millennium Falcon.

The thing about these bombers is that they're actually the first truly new ship introduced in the ST. I guess we get the dreadnaught and the Supremacy in this film too, but none of the Rebel capital ships are new - the Raddus looks just like any other Mon Cal cruiser. They slightly modified the AT-ATs to give them gorilla arms instead of camel legs. I guess you can count the speeders from the salt planet, but those are painfully unimpressive. The PT was way more inventive when it came to throwing around new ship designs.

It has to be, the problem is it doesnt make a whole lot of sense. Where did they get the ships? Where did all the Imperial Ships go? Hell it took 2 years in the EU to take Courascant, how did you conquer the Galaxy faster than that?

[Keltest]

It has to be, the problem is it doesnt make a whole lot of sense. Where did they get the ships? Where did all the Imperial Ships go? Hell it took 2 years in the EU to take Courascant, how did you conquer the Galaxy faster than that?

Maybe they didn't. Maybe Snoke or whoever founds the First Order grabs as many imperial assets and troops from the core worlds as possible, packs up and heads into the outer rim. They sit there, planning, stockpiling resources and reorganizing, generally staying out of mind of the New Republic, who are suddenly overwhelmed with the peacekeeping duties the imperials had just abandoned, on top of forming a government. They still show up occasionally, just enough to get some people like Leia concerned, but not enough to prompt a major response. Meanwhile, out beyond where the New Republic can really afford to care, the First Order has an army and is working on Starkiller Base, while the New Republic is mostly busy sending their military forces to keep control of piracy and reacting to their little raids. Their actual strength is kept secret until theyre ready to sneak attack with Starkiller and cripple the New Republic's military power, then follow it up with all the imperial military power that was never properly dealt with.

[KillingAScarab]

Maybe they didn't. Maybe Snoke or whoever founds the First Order grabs as many imperial assets and troops from the core worlds as possible, packs up and heads into the outer rim. They sit there, planning, stockpiling resources and reorganizing, generally staying out of mind of the New Republic, who are suddenly overwhelmed with the peacekeeping duties the imperials had just abandoned, on top of forming a government. They still show up occasionally, just enough to get some people like Leia concerned, but not enough to prompt a major response. Meanwhile, out beyond where the New Republic can really afford to care, the First Order has an army and is working on Starkiller Base, while the New Republic is mostly busy sending their military forces to keep control of piracy and reacting to their little raids. Their actual strength is kept secret until theyre ready to sneak attack with Starkiller and cripple the New Republic's military power, then follow it up with all the imperial military power that was never properly dealt with.

From what I just skimmed on Wookiepedia, this seems pretty much what happened, except it wasn't the Outer Rim the faction went to. It was the Unknown Regions, which haven't been mentioned in movies, but have apparently been around since a suplement to Heir to the Empire. Idea being, black holes and whatnot keep people from entering it, but the borders are mapped. I also noticed the date uses 34 ABY for the destruction of Starkiller Base. 34 years after the Battle of Yavin is quite a bit longer than I had thought.

[Velaryon]

Star Wars has always been fond of its impractical vehicle designs with unnecessary moving parts just to look cool. What's the purpose of X-wings having movable wings? Why do AT-ST's and AT-AT's have such a high center of gravity, leaving them vulnerable to toppling over? Why do Star Destroyers have not only their shield generators but their bridges stuck out from the main bulk of the ship in a highly vulnerable location? Obviously it's all Rule of Cool in action, but from a practicality point of view, Star Wars ships are almost all terrible designs.

On top of that, space in Star Wars doesn't work like space in our galaxy at all, what with the huge fiery explosions, audible battle sounds, battles mostly taking place in 2-D despite having no obvious reason not to utilize the third dimension, and now apparently gravity is a thing in deep space too. You either have to assume that the physics of space in the Star Wars galaxy are different from ours, or accept that nobody writing for Star Wars has any idea how space works and just choose to live with it.

Still though, the bombers are an incredibly poor design, even within the weirdness that is the Star Wars galaxy. Storing them all vertically so that the bombing crew has to travel up and down a ladder to do their thing? Having everything controlled by a remote with nothing built into the piloting console and no redundant systems? Lack of atmosphere in the bombing bay? All of that on a lumbering, unwieldy ship that moves slower than a Hutt on a bicycle and presents the largest possible vertical profile for attackers to hit. That whole scene was totally contrived and it's quite clear that the ship's awful design was based on facilitating the drama of Paige (a.k.a. Rose's sister) having to go through all that trouble to drop her payload.

I thought that was one of the clumsier parts of the film, though Paige's heroic sacrifice was an emotionally powerful (if horribly contrived) moment.

Except they buy ships from arms deers. The same armz dealers who can also sorry the First Order. One would assume if someone is supplying both sides, both sides can fish out some serious cash; if Al and Bob are racing against each other, and Al it's asking for brand new, top of the line racing cars while Bob is asking about '99 Hondas, it's probably not with my time to sell to Bob. If there Resistance is dishing out for X-Wings, then why are they putting thrusters on a box and calling it a Bomber?

This is ignoring the rest of the idiocy in that whole "arms dealer" issue, of course.

Not necessarily. For an arms dealer to profit, there have to be two or more sides in conflict with each other. If the First Order has all the weapons and the Resistance has nothing, the First Order wins the day pretty quickly and the arms dealers are no longer needed.

It makes sense for arms dealers to play both sides as long as they are able to remain out of the conflict. Not only does it give them twice as many customers, but they can sell higher-quality merchandise to the wealthier side (the First Order apparently), and then sell off their older, cheaper stock that the high rollers don't want to the side that doesn't have as many resources (the Resistance).

[Peelee]

It makes sense for arms dealers to play both sides as long as they are able to remain out of the conflict. Not only does it give them twice as many customers, but they can sell higher-quality merchandise to the wealthier side (the First Order apparently), and then sell off their older, cheaper stock that the high rollers don't want to the side that doesn't have as many resources (the Resistance).

The Republic took back the Galaxy for 30 years though. How can they be the poor ones in this scenario?

I will say in fairness that I saw it for the fourth time today, and with every viewing, the things I didn't like bother me less and less. Its right behind the original trilogy for me now. And every time it cuts to Luke on the rock during his duel, I get shivers. That was absolutely fantastic.