Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[Riceball]

To get things back on topic. It always annoys me in (mostly) sci-fi where they have Admirals commanding captaining their own flagships. This doesn't happen in real life because they're too busy commanding their fleet, this is why they have Falg Captains who are in direct command of the flagship, allowing the Admiral to treat their flagship as just another ship in their fleet.

 

[Cephus]

To get things back on topic. It always annoys me in (mostly) sci-fi where they have Admirals commanding captaining their own flagships. This doesn't happen in real life because they're too busy commanding their fleet, this is why they have Falg Captains who are in direct command of the flagship, allowing the Admiral to treat their flagship as just another ship in their fleet.

That assumes that the command structure is the same. In a lot of things, you have like Grand Admirals who do all the command work at the top. When you have as many ships as they do in some of these worlds, there are going to have to be additional layers in the command structure.

 

[batguy]

Darth Vader flies a TIE fighter at Yavin.

President Lone Starr flies an F-18 in 'Independence Day'.

It's a standard problem in Hollywood.

In real life most of the hands-on involvement is for people lower down in the ranks. The top brass's energies and bodies are too valuable for that. But having them sitting in chairs & talking all day is not good for the storytelling.

Nobody wants to watch a 'Top Gun' sequel where 50yo Maverick is a high-ranking officer and never flies a plane anymore.

 

[Richard Baker]

Darth Vader flies a TIE fighter at Yavin.

President Lone Starr flies an F-18 in 'Independence Day'.

It's a standard problem in Hollywood.

In real life most of the hands-on involvement is for people lower down in the ranks. The top brass's energies and bodies are too valuable for that. But having them sitting in chairs & talking all day is not good for the storytelling.

Nobody wants to watch a 'Top Gun' sequel where 50yo Maverick is a high-ranking officer and never flies a plane anymore.

I like how TNG tried to address this with the 'Away Teams'- keep Picard on the Bridge and have others directly deal with the situation,
It was not executed consistently and later mostly ignored but it was a good attempt...

 

[greenmachines]

I like how TMG tried to address this with the 'Away Teams'- keep Picard on the Bridge and have others directly deal with the situation,
It was not executed consistently and later mostly ignored but it was a good attempt...

Ditto. I felt the same as the series started.

 

[The Goon]

...Nobody wants to watch a 'Top Gun' sequel where 50yo Maverick is a high-ranking officer and never flies a plane anymore.

No, they leave that for one of his "too cool for the room" former wingmen who has been promoted out of the cockpit and behind a desk.