Bandai release schedule
- Thread starter TazMan2000
- Start date
If you are in the US, Hobby Lobby is carrying the TIE Striker now. After standard 40% coupon you can get it for $21.59
Edit: and I see that is a whole 40 cent savings over the current $21.99 price on Amazon. :lol
Edit: and I see that is a whole 40 cent savings over the current $21.99 price on Amazon. :lol
Yeah I saw Bandai models at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks back and I only remembered the TIE Striker price. You can get it cheaper, even with shipping online.
To me the TIE Striker is a boring and uninspired design. So many other TIE variants in the old EU they could have used for inspiration. That said I will probably still buy and build the kit someday as I love TIE fighters and have built every other TIE kit. 1/72 U Wing would be an instant buy for me.
I give the Rogue One crew credit for designing new ships. I would have loved to see TFA and have the TIE Avenger be the standard fighter. It looks like a direct descendant of Vader's TIE so it would work. I liked the TIE Striker, even though it might not be my favorite.
That would've made too much sense.
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
I actually liked the triangle-winged TIE variant from the Art of TFA book -- showing what Lucas and his designers were planning before JJ was hired and boldly decided just to recycle old designs. **swoon** He's a visionary...
Richard Baker
Sr Member
Love those ships!
That 'Art of' book is frustrating- so many great ideas discarded
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
Well, to JJ's credit, he was right. The fans didn't want new stuff, they wanted nostalgia. Basically the same X-Wings and TIEs and the Falcon. I guess there were a lot of raped childhoods that needed to be unraped. :facepalm The good news is that the discarded designs are still there and Lucasfilm has certainly gone back to old designs in the past. It would be nice to see these in action someday.
I'll gladly raise my hand as being in that crowd. My personal opinion is that the designs from the 70s-80s Original Trilogy time period were perfect. They matched the sets and attitude of the films, and I would've been more than happy had TFA stuck with that. I liked the new TIE fighter for those reasons. The new X-Wing is a horrible design, and makes no sense. That's why they didn't use it in the OT, and is why I can't bring myself to bother buying the models now. It makes no sense to put engine turbines that don't move and are cut in half.
Anyways, the designs for the OT were spot on and seemed more organic than anything else we've seen. The closest I can imagine is some of the ships from the old X-Wing games that came out in the 90's. And, to an extent, the Rogue One designs were pretty faithful. The new trilogy, and even the parts of the prequels seem like another universe when design is concerned.
The problem with Disney/JJ is that they've got a one-dimensional vision. Fans wanted nostalgia, maybe even the same ships (which would make sense). What they didn't want is the same plot. He and his associates slapped together a movie and screwed the entire trilogy in the process. I still have a lot of hope for the Last Jedi, though. I have gone fairly dark on spoilers, and my expectations are so low that I'll more than likely be pleasantly surprised.
Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
Dave, I can respect that. Where we differ, perhaps, is in the scope of the designs and how they fit into the Star Wars universe. Many fans want Star Wars to have a specific look -- which usually coincides with how reverential one is to the OT. To me, it's a too narrow criteria that results in all Star Wars ships seeming like the came off the same assembly line: plenty of greeblies, mostly straight edges, mostly light gray, lots of wear and weathering, etc. Lucas liked to throw curveballs and "a few new surprises" at the audience, both in terms of plot (especially in TESB), and in terms of design. Having established the look of the OT, he specifically didn't want to repeat himself when designing the PT. So we got curved shapes, yellow & chrome starfighters, and donut warships. There's an argument to be made that those designs are "wrong" for the Star Wars look, but I choose to think it's a big galaxy. I love the chrome Queen's starship specifically because it's NOT a hunk of junk like the Falcon -- which, in my book, makes the Falcon even more unique. There's something to be said for contrast. For TFA, I was just hoping for an evolution to the designs, not just a few minor tweaks to stuff that worked in the past. But, we all like what we like, so no one is really "wrong." :cheers
Zombie_61
Master Member
Looking at it from a "real world" perspective, the U.S. military has a number of aircraft still in use that were designed and introduced in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Many of them have been "improved" over the years, but they essentially still look very much like they originally did. And newly designed aircraft have been introduced during the last decade or so, so I don't have a problem with the mix of "old" and "new" in the recent Star Wars movies.
Richard Baker
Sr Member
IIRC the driving force behind the prequel ship designs was to show a higher level of technology, finessed into artistic flowing shapes. These movies were taking place at the height of the Great Republic, the original trilogy designs were to show a darker, more pragmatic time where ships and machines were built using simpler shapes and more brute force engineering.
As a design concept I think the OT ships and tech did very well. I personally do not care for most of the designs but that is just a matter of personal preference.
As to what is the driving force behind what we are seeing in the newest trilogy, well I do not recall ever hearing one. It might be buried in the Art of TFA book, I will need to look through it again.
As a design concept I think the OT ships and tech did very well. I personally do not care for most of the designs but that is just a matter of personal preference.
As to what is the driving force behind what we are seeing in the newest trilogy, well I do not recall ever hearing one. It might be buried in the Art of TFA book, I will need to look through it again.
For me the prequel design were very art deco. lots of streamlined shapes and curves
The original trilogy was very 70's big blocky homemade muscle car like designs
I think they did a great job in capturing the feeling of golden age of sorts vs a post galactic civil war look of cobbled together vs industrial mass production of the empire
The original trilogy was very 70's big blocky homemade muscle car like designs
I think they did a great job in capturing the feeling of golden age of sorts vs a post galactic civil war look of cobbled together vs industrial mass production of the empire
I don't think the Prequel ships were more high tech. They just had more art and design put into them. I think people think they're more high tech simply because they couldn't make the cockpits look like the 70s sets because it was being show to 90-00s viewers. People, apart from diehard SW fans, would have said "Those sets look like crap!" So yes the cockpit readouts and things look fancier, but the OT ships are a newer evolution so they just look clunkier because they were designed with function over form.
I had a huge problem with that, too. Compounded by the fact that I have both an aviation and an engineering background. If you are going to do physics with a twist - do physics with a twist. If you are going to do magic and fantasy - do magic and fantasy. But for the love of all that is good, make up your mind and do one or the other. Otherwise, what you have is not a 'universe', but rather a collage of disjoint 'stuff'. Those impossible engines manage to violate every rule, for no conceivable reason except to be a little but different.
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Hunk a Junk
Sr Member
In fairness, Star Wars has always been a hybrid of both. It's a story of spaceships and old wizards inspired by WWII, Vietnam, samurai movies, Arthurian legends, NASA, racing, anthropology, mythology, politics, poop jokes, Flash Gordon, slapstick, where a Sasquatch is a space pilot. It's a mash-up of a lot of different things, which is a big part of its broad appeal. My beef with fans (and I'm speaking broadly here) is that they too often want to pigeon-hole Star Wars into their specific interests. If they're a Tolkien fan, they want Star Wars to be Lord of the Rings in space. If they're more into WWII and military stuff, they want it to be just battles and combat. For them, everything else feels "wrong." For all his flaws, George liked to mix things up. A swing band musical number? Sure! A 3-foot muppet being a powerful wizard? Why not? Sometimes it worked, sometimes less so. But he tried new things -- which, for me, is where TFA fell way short.
I can appreciate that. I just would've preferred an "evolution" along the lines of the Acclimator>Venator>ISD or the two Jedi fighters>TIE fighters or the ARC-170>X-Wings. Some design elements should definitely carry over, but I think they could've pushed it and been a little more original. The fact that they didn't, I think, says a lot about their goals for the film: first and foremost get the fans angry about the PT back aboard the franchise. That wouldn't have been the goal I preferred because I think fan service should be limited, but there's over 2 billion reasons why they're right and I'm wrong.
robn1
Master Member
My only problem with the T-70s is the goofy way front/back the wings split, it's pretty cool otherwise. As for the engines remember it's a spaceship not a jet, just because the front ends look like turbines doesn't mean they are. I tend to think of them as a ram scoop like the Bussards on Trek ships to replenish fuel.
The TIEs seemed like reasonable updated versions, much like real world planes don't change much. But the color scheme was a bad choice, a variation of the OT colors would have looked better.
The TIEs seemed like reasonable updated versions, much like real world planes don't change much. But the color scheme was a bad choice, a variation of the OT colors would have looked better.
That's all fine and well, but you can't put something that's supposed to go in circles and not make it go in circles. Not only did the OT designers change McQuarry's design to have 4 circle engines, but they also didn't put turbo fins in them. I can imagine one of them saying "I love this ship, but this is stupid and wouldn't work. Let's do this instead" and we have the X-Wing.
Those engines just can't be explained away, in my humble opinion, and it just come down to a lazy quick design change. It's like a booger in a person's nose, and why I can't bring myself to buy the model. I would never be able to stop from looking at it.
