Lets talk all things Star Wars

[Joek3rr]

ESB did the same thing. The Empire was chasing the Falcon. Yet it's definitely better then TLJ.

In a broad sense they are the same. Yet the details are very different.

I really liked the whole drawn out space chase. When I was sitting in the movie theater and I realized that the movie was settling in to dwell on this chase for awhile. My mind immediately went to two old time sailing ships chasing each other. Kinda Master and Commander like. Which I thought was a cool thing to do with Star Wars ships considering we see them broadsiding each other in ROTS.

 

[sztriki]

Alright nerdy question for you guys.

What do lightsaber blades really look like?




So what I mean by this is... what would a lightsaber look like in real life. Are they really made up of a white core with a colored haze around them? Or are they just a brightly colored plasma blade and the white core is because it's supposed to be "blowing out" the camera? Like the way an FX lightsaber does?


What do you guys think?

I like the way they looked in the OT that the core was usually a bit coloured as well. That's how I would imagine it. It really looked like a beam of light even though it never casts any light. Vader underneath the staircase in ROTJ looks a bit odd not having any red on him but the blade itself still looks like light.
Never dug the prequel-look, always seemed like a quick photoshop job that I do in 10 minutes and it never looked lige light. The sequel look I like that it casts a light but the Graflex is way too deep blue in TFA. I really like how it looked in TLJ.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

And I found this gif. I remember seeing this on some ww2 documentaries we have and thought it's interesting. I believe it's B-24 that takes a direct hit from AA
View attachment 1030929

I remember seeing some show where they said that B-24 actually was hit by another B-24's bomb falling on it. I'm not sure if that's 100% true, but equally awful.

 

[Joek3rr]

I remember seeing some show where they said that B-24 actually was hit by another B-24's bomb falling on it. I'm not sure if that's 100% true, but equally awful.

It truly is. That's 11 people that probably didn't survive. Not to go to far off Star Wars, but have heard about the new documentary called The Cold Blue?

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Re: The chase. The problem is not that it was a slow-speed chase. The problem was that it was a high-speed chase without referents. Once they realized they were being tracked through hyperspace, they should've jumped to a protostar with a still-accreting planetary disc full of a lot of debris and radiation. Wouldve made for a more exciting chase all round, and they couldve used a different ticking clock -- time to cross the planetary disc rather than running put of gas.

But bonus points if one or another of the smaller ships did exhaust their fuel from red-lining the engines and fall behind to get blasted by the First Order or chewed up by debris.

Re: Lightsabers. The "core" is microscopically thin, per evidence in the OT. It's a standing plasma arc, distorted out from the hilt by something like the electron gun in the back of an old TV, "spinning" by having the arc handed off at superconducting speeds to the next node pair in sequence around the emitter aperture. The arc is electromagnetically collimated to near-one-dimensionality.

Spinning that fast means you have a cutting edge no matter which way you swing it. It also means, because it's effectively spinning at near-lightspeed, that it's throwing off large amounts of virtual photons. By their nature they're very transitory and have a rapid "decay" rate. So the blade is intensely bright at the center and the brightness falls off asymptotically as you move away from it. That's why they don't light up a room, again as seen in the OT.

The color comes from rate of spin affecting the virtual photons that hang around longer. Angular momentum blah blah blah. A more highly-tuned blade spinning closer to lightspeed will have its peripheral wavelength blue-shifted. A less highly tuned blade, such as made from inferior materials or without access to the proper tools, will be red-shifted.

 

[Ron]

It truly is. That's 11 people that probably didn't survive. Not to go to far off Star Wars, but have heard about the new documentary called The Cold Blue?

I had a chance to see it at the Fathom Events one night screening. It was incredible. They took footage shot by William Wyler (Ben-Hur) and his two fellow cameramen, who flew on several B-17 missions over Germany, and restored it beautifully. Sadly, one of those cameramen was shot down. The documentary itself is narrated by the veterans of those B-17s. It was awe-inspiring listening to their stories. You truly get a sense of what it was like to be part of a B-17 crew. I have to say it's kind of sobering to go from watching a superhero movie the week before and then to watch something like this. Talk about superheroes. If it were up to me, I would make it mandatory viewing for every high school history class so kids today understand the sacrifices these brave men made.

 

[Solos blaster]

PM in bound

Send my way too please!

 

[Halliwax]

Send my way too please!

Gotcha

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

It truly is. That's 11 people that probably didn't survive. Not to go to far off Star Wars, but have heard about the new documentary called The Cold Blue?

No I had to look it up. I was going over and watching anything off of HBO at my parents, but they ditched it a couple years ago.

I had a chance to see it at the Fathom Events one night screening. It was incredible. They took footage shot by William Wyler (Ben-Hur) and his two fellow cameramen, who flew on several B-17 missions over Germany, and restored it beautifully. Sadly, one of those cameramen was shot down. The documentary itself is narrated by the veterans of those B-17s. It was awe-inspiring listening to their stories. You truly get a sense of what it was like to be part of a B-17 crew. I have to say it's kind of sobering to go from watching a superhero movie the week before and then to watch something like this. Talk about superheroes. If it were up to me, I would make it mandatory viewing for every high school history class so kids today understand the sacrifices these brave men made.

The problem in the U.S. at least, is that they are teaching to the tests and not necessarily what kids should know. I think in all my elementary through high school, all major U.S. wars were extremely basic. I think if kids learned more about the people they would be more interested in the subject. That's what always interested me, not that the pilots/soldiers could kill a bunch of people, but that you take some average 18 year old farm kid and he turns into a hero. Of course I loved history class, so some kids just hate that anyway.

 

[ThreadSketch]

Re: Lightsabers. The "core" is microscopically thin, per evidence in the OT. It's a standing plasma arc, distorted out from the hilt by something like the electron gun in the back of an old TV, "spinning" by having the arc handed off at superconducting speeds to the next node pair in sequence around the emitter aperture. The arc is electromagnetically collimated to near-one-dimensionality.

Spinning that fast means you have a cutting edge no matter which way you swing it. It also means, because it's effectively spinning at near-lightspeed, that it's throwing off large amounts of virtual photons. By their nature they're very transitory and have a rapid "decay" rate. So the blade is intensely bright at the center and the brightness falls off asymptotically as you move away from it. That's why they don't light up a room, again as seen in the OT.

The color comes from rate of spin affecting the virtual photons that hang around longer. Angular momentum blah blah blah. A more highly-tuned blade spinning closer to lightspeed will have its peripheral wavelength blue-shifted. A less highly tuned blade, such as made from inferior materials or without access to the proper tools, will be red-shifted.

...Now this is the kind of obscenely nerdy stuff I would've liked to see in those "Science of Star Wars" books I read over the years.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

...Now this is the kind of obscenely nerdy stuff I would've liked to see in those "Science of Star Wars" books I read over the years.

Obscenely nerdy is probably the most concise personality description for me. I wish I could take credit for this, though. Actual physicists noodles this out back in the mid-'90s, and it's been refined since as we've learned more about high-temperature superconductors and quantum weirdness. This is the short version.

I do think I might've cracked transporters, though...

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

For the first time (as far as I know) we see something in the scene we have never seen before. Can you name it?

View attachment 1030819

Getting back to my flight helmet discussion. My take away from what we see on screen is that when the helmet is not in use inside the craft, the helmet stores the mic and connection cord within.

I tend to believe that in the Star Wars universe, the cord makes a physical plugin connection to the ship as it seems they try to keep Star Wars tech old school as much as possible. It could also be possible it might function as antenna and links via a network. If you check out the eFx helmet, they do have a cord hanging from the helmet with a weird metal greeble at the end. I am unclear if the intent is for that be a Star Wars looking jack plug, or some sort of antenna.

So going with this line of thinking, Rey's helmet is of course from wreckage. We can assume that the helmet is not in good working order or else the mic and cord would have retracted into the helmet.

I know this might not be interesting. It's just thoughts I have knocking around inside my head and need to let them out.

 

[Joek3rr]

Getting back to my flight helmet discussion. My take away from what we see on screen is that when the helmet is not in use inside the craft, the helmet stores the mic and connection cord within.

I tend to believe that in the Star Wars universe, the cord makes a physical plugin connection to the ship as it seems they try to keep Star Wars tech old school as much as possible. It could also be possible it might function as antenna and links via a network. If you check out the eFx helmet, they do have a cord hanging from the helmet with a weird metal greeble at the end. I am unclear if the intent is for that be a Star Wars looking jack plug, or some sort of antenna.

So going with this line of thinking, Rey's helmet is of course from wreckage. We can assume that the helmet is not in good working order or else the mic and cord would have retracted into the helmet.

I know this might not be interesting. It's just thoughts I have knocking around inside my head and need to let them out.

You probably already know this. I was just watching some scenes from the Battle of Hoth. I noticed at the start of the battle, cord come out right under mic similar to ANH. Other times it comes out further back. And in one shot the cord goes behind his neck.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

You probably already know this. I was just watching some scenes from the Battle of Hoth. I noticed at the start of the battle, cord come out right under mic similar to ANH. Other times it comes out further back. And in one shot the cord goes behind his neck.

As I mentioned before, as a prop, the mic is not part of the helmet but instead a headset worn under the helmet. If it is a Racal Amplivox RA-150 Minilite headset like used on the Falcon, the cord is located by the point of origin of the mic so the cord could easily fall forward or be swept back.

Even if it is not the same mic, I would image most similar single ear headsets are designed similarly.

If we want to go back to the fictional world of Star Wars where the cord is part of the helmet and is automatically retracted and deployed when needed, then the point of origin would similar. We can also speculate that the fictional helmet, like real headset has the ability to install the comma on the left or right side depending on the preference of the user.

Or even removing the rubber mic piece like seen in The Empire Strikes Back.

 

[Joek3rr]

As I mentioned before, as a prop, the mic is not part of the helmet but instead a headset worn under the helmet. If it is a Racal Amplivox RA-150 Minilite headset like used on the Falcon, the cord is located by the point of origin of the mic so the cord could easily fall forward or be swept back.

View attachment 1032683

Even if it is not the same mic, I would image most similar single ear headsets are designed similarly.

If we want to go back to the fictional world of Star Wars where the cord is part of the helmet and is automatically retracted and deployed when needed, then the point of origin would similar. We can also speculate that the fictional helmet, like real headset has the ability to install the comma on the left or right side depending on the preference of the user.

How'd they mount them? Cause it looks like, though it's hard to tell that they come from behind the ear cups.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

How'd they mount them? Cause it looks like, though it's hard to tell that they come from behind the ear cups.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you, I don’t think the prop guys mounted the comm set into the helmet. I believe they are simply wearing the headset and then wearing the helmet over it. The helmets are not fitted with real flight helmet ear cups. They foam they are using appears to allow more room around the ears an that would allow for the wearing of a headset underneath.

 

[Joek3rr]

That’s what I’m trying to tell you, I don’t think the prop guys mounted the comm set into the helmet. I believe they are simply wearing the headset and then wearing the helmet over it. The helmets are not fitted with real flight helmet ear cups. They foam they are using appears to allow more room around the ears an that would allow for the wearing of a headset underneath.

So going through some scenes. Red Leader's mic is definitely not a part of helmet. But Gold Leader's is definitely a part of his helmet. Look the shot of him in Rogue One.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

So going through some scenes. Red Leader's mic is definitely not a part of helmet. But Gold Leader's is definitely a part of his helmet. Look the shot of him in Rogue One.

Not sure what you see. Can you tell me and show me why you think that?

 

[Joek3rr]

Not sure what you see. Can you tell me and show me why you think that?

Its coming out from beneath the ear cups.

 

[Mara Jade's Father]

Its coming out from beneath the ear cups.

View attachment 1032710

It’s entirely possible. Most of what I am doing is speculative anyhow. Maybe for this actor, his head was too big and the headset with helmet did not work. They could have just removed the side component an jammed it between the liner and the shell, maybe add little tape for security.

I really should have started this conversation back on an older thread that I started. If you go to it, you will find some links and images showing the insides of actual screen used helmets. There is no standard for the liners. Some look to have partial pads, some look to have a type of helmet liner. I am sure that a lot of it has to do with the reusing of the shells from one movie to the next and some just being for background characters. Probably some needed repairs from on to the other. Also, I tend to think that for both scenes, the liners were removed and the skull caps worn. Luke’s liner/ ear cups look to change from movie to movie.

Question about Earpads in X-Wing style pilot helmets

For the longest time, when people were building X-Wing helmets, they made them with black earpads (when they did add earpads). Even the mini Riddel helmet of the late 90s used black. Then the first time I remember seeing a helmet with tan was the eFx version. Since then, tan has been the...

www.therpf.com

The point I am driving at is that based on the helmet liner and how and what it actually is. It may determine how they put comm unit under the helmet. I could even argue that Gold Leader still might be wearing a headset but the liner is made in such a way it allows the cord and mic to be threaded between the shell and partial liner.

Like I said, all speculation.