How much sense does the Millennium Falcon's shape make? Or the ESB medical frigate? Or the Y-wings? Slave-1 Does the rebel blockade runner look like it could have done the Falcon's job?
Many of the classic OT ships don't make the slightest sense for their jobs. Some aren't very elegant. Some aren't even symmetrical.
Having OT cred means we will bestow them with rationalized excuses. But it's BS. We tear down the PT ships over far less.
I think the PT ships get "torn down" not because of issues with functionality, but rather with issues of consistency of aesthetics in keeping with the information we know about the Star Wars universe. So, for example, the Delta-7 Aethersprite Jedi Starfighter looks a lot like an A-wing, while the Eta-2 Actis Jedi Starfighter kinda resembles a hybrid of A-wing and TIE Fighter. So, how'd we end up with A-wings on one side and TIE fighters on the other? Likewise, the ARC-170 visually has some vague references to an X-wing, but doesn't naturally transition to one when you look at it. And the V-wing looks like nothing we've seen or see afterwards.
Then there are the other cultures' ships like the Vulture droids and the Naboo n-1 Starfighter. While you can argue that these are different cultures with different design aesthetics, visually they're jarring while watching the film. They don't look like what we've seen before, and it ends up looking like some other movie franchise.
Compare those with, say, the Z-95 (which very easily transitions to the X-wing visually), or Kylo Ren's evil bat-shuttle thing. Visually, those look like Star Wars ships. They "fit." They don't look identical to what came before, but you can see the influence of design on them. Granted, not everything in the Prequels is visually jarring, but a LOT about the design seems "cleaner" and "smoother" and such, whereas the later tech looks "chunkier" and "more beat up."
I'd say that one of the very few things that really makes sense visually is the design of the Clone Wars Y-wings with all the plating, as compared to the stripped-down version we see in the OT. THAT makes perfect sense visually, including explaining the "sleeker" vs. "more beat up" visual qualities.
I remember feeling very disappointed in the Phantom menace designs. They didn't fit in the same galaxy as star wars.
But then I had this realization that the reason is that those cultures we saw in the Phantom menace aren't around any more by time to the OT. they exist. But they aren't manufacturing anything.
Those movies were for us to bear witness to a society that slowly morphs into north Korea. a culture where only the militarized government is manufacturing anything.
The prequel designers knew what they were doing. As the prequels went on, we saw glimpses of the militarized government that led the OT.
(We also have to note that both cloud city and the calimari has strikingly different designs. Both would had worked very well in the prequels)
Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk
The cultures do exist, we just don't really see them in the OT. I mean, yeah, it makes sense that different cultures would have different design aesthetics, but when you're making a film franchise and telling stories within a chronology, I think it makes more sense to provide visual touchstones for viewers familiar with the previous entries in the story. I'd say that AOTC and ROTS do a better job of this, but they're still not quite "right."
By contrast -- probably because they basically just stole Ralph McQuarrie's sketchbook for their designs -- the Rebels cartoon really fits with the look of the OT, while also looking a little "sleeker" (like Ralph's original designs) in keeping with the PT's aesthetic.
The ARC-170 s-foils do actually make sense if you buy the explanation. They have guns that are several times as powerful as all four of the X-Wing's together so it makes sense to have a cooling system, which is what is exposed when the s-foils open.
I don't think the TPM ships were the greatest ever designed, but I disagree when people say they don't fit in the SW universe. They don't fit in the OT SW Universe and they're not supposed to. You could liken it to U.S. cars from the 60s and before to what we have now. The cars now look all the same (other than sports cars) and are made to perform well on the road. No one in 50 years is going to collect or remember a 2016 Chevy Impala, but they do remember a 57 Chevy. Those cars might not have been as fast, but they were flashier and looked great. That's the difference between a Naboo Fighter and a X-Wing fighter. The X-Wing is a fighter made to fight a war and looks were secondary, whereas the Naboo fighter is mostly for looks, but can function well if it has to.
I mean, we can come up with all kinds of explanations for why, no, no, it really DOES make sense, but I don't think that's really the point. (Although, admittedly, the Falcon pretty much has to be a TARDIS to have the interior and exterior "fit".) I think the real point is whether it visually works for the story you're telling. AT least with a story like Star Wars where the emphasis is on the "fiction" rather than the "science." Trek, I think, used to be much more concerned with its tech being "plausible." Star Wars was more about evoking an emotional response.
A bit like getting out of bed? Not a big deal.
Not quite. Getting out of bed has gravity all oriented the same way. YOU change your reference, but gravity does not. In the gun turrets, GRAVITY would have to change its orientation, and you'd feel it tug at your body as you got into the seat. It'd feel weird, no question.
But, again, so what? Lucas was trying to evoke the notion of a B-17 fighting off attacking Messerschmidts. Then the visual design team went with the "hamburger plus olive" design instead of the "Corellian Gunship" design, where the gun turrets might've made more sense.
