Predicting Rogue One's negative criticism

Hi guys,

I just wanted to give a new stimulus to this discussion.

There’s also another BIG reason why military equipment nowadays sees the light of day, besides being unnecessary, outdated when becoming active and possibly wrongly engineered for the mission profile in mind:

Economics

There are plenty of real life examples of equipment and vehicles paid by the government with public money to arms manufacturer (which the governments from different countries are also shareholder of). They are generating jobs, economics and creating products that they might sell also to other countries well.

Imagine a product manager from Sienar Fleet System, getting hold of a sales manager responsible for a business segment in the fighter branch of the outer rim or just some sector. Both approach some ambitious imperial officials, maybe including a fleet admiral, and convince them during a ‘sales conference’ on a casino planet (incl. booze & hookers) of the advantages of a certain TIE model with exceptional atmospheric performance to make sure their current project will be protected most efficient. Of course these guys will order a wing or two to prove they can make the right decisions in their job, getting the order signed by the responsible admiral. If their heads get ripped of later for their activates depends on their success. Sienar wants to sell stuff and uses every option possible, incl. marketing and (field) testing new models!

While being produced (and paid), some vehicles won’t reach the original planned numbers because of bad performance, exploding costs etc., and then they are left rusting in the yard later after just seeing some minor action. Not everything will make it through the process and become long time standard.

I’m not sure how this transfers to the millions of planets on SW, but I’m quite sure that with the culture of carrier planning Palpatine has established, high ranking officials will press through prestige projects just for the cause of it, backed up by the corporations like Sienar and KDY.

Of course for the cinematography, it’s because they never designed those vehicles already back in the 70’s and now they want to add new, cool ones as most fans have complained about TFA not giving any. And I must say, for me the U-Wing fits perfectly here in R1 including the reason that there was no mission profile in ANH, ESB & ROTJ that would call for them, if they were around at all. For continuous reasons, you can find some explanations if you want to. I can live with it and enjoy the new troops and vehicles a lot.

Personally, having A-Wings, B-Wings and now also the TIE Interceptor 4 years before ANH in Canon is watering the thing down for me. I was a friend of the idea, that there’s an arms race between the Empire and the Alliance and both sides are putting out new designs to get on top. And I liked the West End Games adventure Shantipole and the Verpines. Everybody having everything on hand already in the early phases makes it a bit boring imho.

So let’s ask Pablo, who in the new canon invented the A-Wing and produced it in the first place then when it wasn’t General Dodanna?!

 

At least for the A-Wings, they could have kept the sky (well, space) clear of enemy fighters, while the others do the rest. And they carry a payload of concussion missiles. Nothing for the exhaust port, but for TIEs.

In one Rebels Recon episode, they explained in the context of the A-Wings, that not every Rebel cell had all the equipment on hand, and that that was the reason they won’t show up already in ANH.

They had only one shot to prevent Yavin 4 from being destroyed, I don’t think they would have kept their space superior fighter at the garage at this point and let their X- & Y-Wing being shot down by enemy craft because they had a hidden Jedi-in training and a reluctant smuggler. But then, never tell me the odds!

 

Yep Alex I expect the deadly part.

 

I am talking to you like an adult matey, and I'm not negatively quoting you by any means... I'm just conversing with you. That's the whole point of the forum.

I would counter-argue with your points but there are a tonne of people on this thread already who are fighting the corner amazingly. No harm meant mate.

 

Again, you are making assumptions about a galaxy. You are assuming things in order to create logical fallacies. You are assuming the Rogue One tech is in full-scale production - that is a pure assumption made, not from a 'source' other than your own assumptions.

And we DO have facts regarding the Rebels - they indeed did have A-Wings prior to ANH. They are in Star Wars-Rebels. According to your logic, they should have been thrown at the first Death Star. They indeed had a B-Wing prototype, however, I will refrain from an assumption that it was in full scale production by a Rebel fleet because it was a prototype, just like I will refrain from the assumption that TIE Strikers are in full production when they are in the purview of one Director in charge of advanced weapon research - again, a fact from legitimate sources from a major motion picture within the SW timeline.

And we do have facts that state that, within canon, there were other Imperial strongholds where ships were being held and built during the Battle of Endor. The novels Aftermath and Young Stars explain that there were other Imperial forces throughout the galaxy. So your assumption that 'everything' was at the Battle of Endor is invalid.

You compared R2 on cement versus BB-8 on sand. Invalid comparison.

 

My friend I don't mean conversationwise I mean the two dislike negative quotes you slapped me with during our conversation.

--- Double Post Merged, Aug 11, 2016, Original Post Date: Aug 11, 2016 ---

First I did not compare R2 on cement and BB-8 on sand. Both were on cement stairs, R2 in Naboo and BB in Maz Kanata's castle. Second you say that I You are assuming things in order to create logical fallacies yet it is you who do this as your theories are the ones that don't hold moviewise. Let's use your own argument as a base. Let's assume that indeed you are correct in that the tech in Rogue One is not in full scale production. Now let's see how SW works so that we can prove that it is you who are creating logical fallacies to try to prove your point basing your logic on how things work in the real world.

The Republic was granted the Clone army in AOTC and only three years had passed before ROTS. Every single Clone seen in the new movie had already ditched the old uniform and was equipped with the new standard gear.


New ships were made constantly for the Republic and even most of the Jedi had ditched the old Jedi Starfighter for the new and improved model.


The Clones began their army with just simple gunships and in those three years they were already packing new ships as well.


Three simple years and look at how the tech advanced in the SW galaxy. Progress moves fast in SW and not slow like you seem to think. Now comes Rogue One. Let's pretend that RO is just a few weeks from ANH and that not even a year away. If indeed all this tech is just new and most are just prototypes as you say, it takes four years from ANH to reach ROTJ. Looking at how things advance in the SW movies and not by my way of thinking, everything in RO would already have been mass produced and would no longer be in the prototype phase. Tie Strikers would have been deployed in the second Death Star battle as one of their main functions is to defend important Imperial installations and it doesn't get more important than a Death Star with Sheev on it. Look at how things move in SW and not in the real world my friend and you will see that it is your logic that is flawed as you are just blindly defending RO by your assumptions and not by how things work in SW.

 

Invalid assumption. The Clone Army was in production for a decade.

Not only mischaracterizing the entire idea of 'not full scale production' but also discounting the similarities in technology advancement in peacetime versus wartime. The Clone Wars had vastly different tech throughout from AOTC to ROTS. However, from ROTJ to TFA, changes in militasry tech were barely distinguishable, so you are missing more canon material to explain away your assumed rules about the galaxy.

Your point regarding the starfighters used is also invalid because different Jedi used different starfighters - we do not see Anakin fly a 'Jedi starfighter' in AOTC, we only see Obi-Wan (or his droid rather) fly that model starfighter, which persists throughout the Clone Wars television series as the predominant Jedi starfighter leading to the suggestion that the ROTS starfighter was created - for ROTS. However, if you want to claim that CW is not good evidence, and that the ROTS starfighter design is 'evidence' of technology moving fast and not that different fighters would be available to different pilots, then answer me this:

Why, in ROTS, does Plo Koon fly the same model starfighter Obi-Wan uses in AOTC?
SOURCE: Screenshot of Plo Koon's starfighter right before his clones shoot him out of the sky - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/CT-55/11-9009
So using the two different starfighters as indication (ignoring the Clone Wars use of the original AOTC design) that technology moves fast is disingenuous. Of course, based on your prior posts questioning why smart people wouldn't use more advanced weaponry galaxy-wide, then I guess you're just going to say Plo Koon is an idiot old timer.

The photos you use to compare Clone ships are also invalid - those are two different ships with two different purposes, the first of which did not change whatsoever from Geonosis to the Battles of Coruscant and Utapau, so you completely ignore the lack of military advancement in landing ships. Zero advancement - so you have cherry picked a couple of dubious examples of military tech over other examples set to fit your assumption that there are some sort of 'rules' governing advancement of military technology in the SW universe. The non-presence of starfighters at Geonosis does nothing to bolster your assertion.

There simply were no Clone starfighters at Geonosis. Find one in the film if you want to use that argument - but there aren't any, or Anakin would have simply gotten in one and shot Dooku out of the sky (a preferable ending to that film for sure).

So you can either: (A) accept there is no governing rule about the advancement of technology in the SW galaxy and enjoy new things with explainable logic that we love discussing, or (B) you can continue to cherry pick military technologies from another galaxy to try to prove some sort of governing rule about the advancement of technology in the SW universe and ignore the presence of A-Wings in Rebels as part of a different rebel detachment (mirroring different starfighters used by the Empire in a specialized way in a specialized setting by a specialized project), the lack of advancement of starfighter tech in the 30 years between ROTJ and TFA, the 10 years of Clone Army development off-screen but in-script, and the use of the same exact landing ships and walkers from the beginning of the Clone Wars to the end of the Clone Wars.

 

Dude I'm not even going to bother continuing this conversation. You tend to avoid everything the movies show us and try to look intelectual to make your invalid points seen valid. All old tech reguarding the clone troopers gear was ditched in favor of new tech but you avoid this. You try to make an argument about Plo Koon's ship when this is equally invalid as I was aware of this and that's why I wrote ''most of the Jedi'' had ditched the old ship. Your arguments are flawed as this makes no sense. During the OT, new ships were being made and yet still by the time of ROTJ, you can still see old Y-Wings so this was never my main point. My argument is that tech evolves and that they are sticking advanced gear in a prequel just for all that to be non-existant in the future movies. You also try to justify you argument about the drop ships in Utapau but once again you fully miss the point and try to divert it. Drop ships were used there because the operation didn't need starfighters and it needed troops to be transported which is the function of the drop ship in the first place. Here read this yourself:

The Tie Striker had various functions one of which was guarding IMPORTANT Imperial bases. Can it get more important than ROTJ? Having this type of ship during that movie would have been very logical no matter how you put it. A-It would have been used to help during the Death Star battle. B-being a ship designed for in-atmosphere engagements it would have been the perfect craft to turn the tide in the land battle of Endor. Why loose to a bunch of primitive bears when you could have just blasted them from the sky and poof! End of story for the Rebel shield generator mission! I will leave it here cause you just want to defend RO blindly and you try to divert my points.

 

What 'old tech'? That's unclear.

You're saying a Y-Wing at the Battle of Endor proves that a Rebel fleet, with a hodgepodge of ships, proves that they would use, as a Rebel fleet, everything they had? Of course they would - they are the Rebels, they don't have the technological advantage - the same logic shouldn't apply to the Galactic Empire.

You then doubletalk about a ground operation not needing starfighters.....then say the Empire should have been using TIE Strikers on Endor, under a forest canopy in a battle with teddy bears that they could barely see, with their own ground troops in the way. Also, it clearly isn't a popular thing to use starfighters in atmosphere because there were no TIEs attacking Echo Base on Hoth - and the Alliance didn't use their starfighters either at Hoth. In fact, the only time we see ground attacks from starfighters in the live-action movies is in TFA (oh no, did I just find something 'new' in TFA?). Therefore, perhaps its just not a tactic used in the SW galaxy until better versions of starfighters that could operate in both vacuum and in-atmo environments, or perhaps the avionics weren't developed for close ground support (the US military didn't use F-4 Phantoms - the most advanced fighter in Vietnam - in close ground support because they had Huey helicopters)

I am not defending Rogue One blindly, in fact, I've only used canon material to justify pretty much everything about the PT and OT technology against a set of assumptions made about the "logic" of technological achievement or advancement in the SW universe that assumes advancement and use are universally constant, which is small-minded.

By the way, nowhere in the TIE Striker description does it say that the TIE Striker is more advanced or effective, or cost-effective (think Tiger tanks from Nazi Germany - advanced but couldn't be repaired in the field and couldn't be mass produced, hell, we can barely mass produce F-22's right now). It simply said it had two more laser cannons, and was faster (unknown whether this is universal or specific to in-atmosphere or in-vacuum). It actually doesn't say they were better and more effective in combat or even capable of close ground support in a forest canopy with an ability to target teddy bears lumped in with the Empire's best troops. Also, your timing regarding the TIE Striker's production is dubious. Death Star II wasn't in production until after ANH, which you would have to assume that the Empire would have had TIE Strikers available to be established on a new base, due to Endor not being a pre-existing base and established in secret - which, admittedly is a 50/50 assumption because nobody knew about DS2 until 'many Bothans died' but the base may had already been an out-of-the way secret research installation or just...there.

And if we are going to use Wookiepedia as a all-knowing source, then:
" The forest moon ofEndor was chosen as the initial construction site, while a secret hyperspace lane was carved to reach the system from the factory world of Sullust.[5] While initial progress was steady—with the Moff ensuring that all thermal exhaust ports were heavily armored—budget cuts, supply chain breakdowns and a lack of laborers soon conflicted with his schedule." SOURCE: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star_II

Therefore, its a safer assumption to make that the TIE Strikers just weren't mass produced in numbers enough to survive 5 years of a galaxy wide conflict due to sudden budget constraints so severe that the Empire couldn't even supply its own major project. Or we can continue to complicate a universe like George Lucas did with midichlorians, but we're past that.

 

Wow. You guys are waaway over thinking this.

 

ALL. OF. THE. ABOVE.
Complete with "I shouldn't have to watch a movie to understand a movie!!"
That's not on the list but it SHOULD be there.

Case in point:

 

I can see the "it doesn't feel like star wars" complaints coming a mile away.

 

I don't expect any negative criticism after what we saw in the latest trailer.

 

Let them rip away,