Of course, as Mr. Spock didn't say about the various franchises' ship designers, Spock: [They are] intelligent, but not experienced. [Their] pattern indicate[s] two dimensional thinking. Edit: sorry, the strikethrough function gets really sticky on a touchscreen, didn't notice that.
Yes well in a realistic universe a shield would do absolutely nothing, since it it is magnetic based to counter beam based attacks so... All they would have to do, is create and install large artillery weapons in the holodeck with the safety turned off and poof...totally obliterated Death Star. (Yes I just equated the Death Star to the Borg, but the shields are pretty much vulnerable to ballistics and explosives that are not light frequency based due to magnetic.)
Star Wars had two basic types of shields. Ray shields and deflector shields. The ray shields were the type that stopped light and energy weapons, and deflector shields dealt with kinetic attacks.
And if we go with the cannon of Star Wars, going faster than light speed in a ship Kamikaze style, shields mean nothing as far as kinetic energy is concerned. So Star Trek would still figure a way to win by science alone. Cause when you apply real science to the Sci-fi, a 'shield' will not deflect everything, since it is not based around fantasy plot demands, and is therefore only good at deflecting things in the spectrum that are affected by electro-magnetics. So particle accelerators would be useless against such shielding and irradiating the people inside, but high speed kinetic weapons would be more than capable of causing damage. The one who can smash through the armor hull the fastest would be the victor. So long as they took out critical systems for keeping the ship habitable and functional. Win for kinetic energy weapons.
Ah, but in a space opera, even the laws of nature are subservient to the plot, so Star Wars still wins.
And in Star Wars, even the laws of nature in the universe are subservient to the plot. Do I have to watch Last Jedi again just to double-check on that goddamn friendship bracelet plot hole?
I kick all your asses with Kyp Duron's SunCrusher. The ship is the weapon. Perfect shape, perfect mass, zero silhouette. Even the layman knows the quantum armor on the Enterprise would pancake the ship even if it was only one particle thick. What a crock!.
I enjoyed Bab-5 muchly, though at times the series was a little... claustrophobic? And it leaned into religion a little more than I typically prefer in my Science Fiction. If I'm honest, I think 50% of what kept me watching was the few episodes where Lennier (Bill Mumy) makes an appearance. Not your standard, off-the-shelf, Hot Alien Dude™ perhaps, but there was something about his unfailing devotion to Delenn, his laser-straight perfection as an acolyte, that just begged for some Lennier/Male Babylon 5 New Recruit OC super-duper-smutty fanfiction. ETA: Actually, never mind the OC. How did I forget about Geribaldi and his gritty, vaguely Brooklynesque demeanor? Yeah, Lennier/Gerbaldi FTW.
Actually, one of the first things I liked about B5 was the fractures within the government. The Federation was Always Good, the Empire Always Evil, but in the Babbleverse (I assume that's the correct term, I shun FanXs) there were Problems several decades before the other 'verses detected them.
While I agree with this in full, for me this facet was overshadowed by Sinclair's exit and Sheridan's entry into the show. Bruce Boxleitner verges on self-parody in his role as the classic Blond Übermensch commander of Bab-5, fresh from his tour as captain of the Love Boat. He's not exactly Zapp Brannigan, but close enough to be distracting.
I loved them all, for different reasons! The original Star Wars is one of my favourite movies of all time. The next two were good as well. Then it all started to go south for me. I never took them to be serious sci-fi. They were (and I think they were intended to be) comic-book sci fi. Fun, in other words. I loved most of the incarnations of Star Trek, although there were gaps in my watching. Some of them I've not watched all that often, but I've always enjoyed them. I liked the attitude. To explore, but not to interfere. I wish. I came very late to Babylon 5. I got it on DVD and saw it there. I really liked it a lot, although I've never been moved to rewatch it. But some of the characters ...whose names I've forgotten now ...were excellent. And I loved the idea of these huge space stations, rather than colonised planets. In fact, I think that might be a more realistic way to look at what humans can do about living in space. I thought the remake of Battlestar Galactica was magnificent ...except for the storyline, which turned out to be pants. But the characters were fantastic (until they started having personality transplants) and the situations were truly gruelling. Pity about the haphazard story conception, though. By the end, I was pointing and laughing. Such a shame. But still, one of the most memorable sci-fi series of all time. I watched Stargate SG1 a few times during its run, but it never grabbed me. I mean, it wasn't awful or anything, but it just didn't engage my interest much. Loved Firefly, but probably for the same reason I loved Star Wars. It was fun, and meant to be fun. My favourite? My All-Time-Favourite? Farscape. Nothing beats Farscape, for me. I have two DVD sets of it, in case one goes wonky. I watch it frequently, and love it every time. That's a series (if you include Peacekeeper Wars ...the four-episode 'finale' which they were finally allowed to make, after the initial cancellation) that followed through on all its promises, yet took a few unexpected turns. And the climax was utterly gripping, with no surety as to who would survive and who wouldn't. Some did, some didn't. Perfect. Perfect, in that its imperfections (and there were some) didn't really matter. The acting, the production values, the story ideas ...just superb.
I wonder (just thinking out loud here) if the Aussie provenance of that show has anything to do with your personal enjoyment. I loved, loved, loved that show too, and I have this pet semi-theory about the sibling cultural link between the U.S. and Australia. Not long ago I saw a Sci-Fi film called The Osiris Child, also from Australia. Sweet Jebus, Daniel MacPherson is insanely beautiful! But - his beauty aside - what captivated me about that film was the near-parallel (and the near, not exact, part is so important) cultural cues that film tapped into. The dirty, dusty, couldn't be paid to be refined, cowboy exuberance of that film 100% tapped all my American notes. I think Farscape is similar in many ways. It's big and loud and couldn't be paid to care about self-depreciation or formulaically faux-politesse. Those are all good things to me.
Yeah, gotta say I don't care for Discovery, and never seen Enterprise, but Worf covers all this pretty well.
I've been a fan of Aussie cinema since the late 1970s, when I first discovered it. Aussies have the ability to present a story that is free of sentimentality, with characters who all have real flaws. They're not 'edgy' characters so much as realistic ones. While many of their films have 'happy' endings, they aren't Disneyesque. The minds that conceived Farscape were Americans, including Brian Henson, Rockne O'Bannon and David Kemper. It was when Aussie producer Matt Carroll entered the scene that the Aussie element came in, and the show got shaped to be filmed and produced in Australia. It was an excellent development. I love the show's lack of predictibility. And the fact that much of it was so wackaroni, yet they never lost sight of the really serious themes. And it really was about Earth, as most great sci-fi tends to be. We're left with the unanswered question: when Earth finally does 'join' the rest of the Universe, what will humans bring to the mix? Understanding and expertise and chutzpah, like Crichton had? Or something much more sinister?
This is a Farscape episode that still sends chills down my spine. I would love it if it were required watching at every high school around the world. So much truth in it.
