Star Wars 7 shit talk

It only just now occurred to me that there aren't really any computers (other than displays or communication consoles) in Star Wars and if there were they would accomplish many of the tasks that droids accomplish

I'm now imagining an alternate universe where Star Wars only first gets made in 2015 and R2D2 and C3PO are basically just smart phones

I don't think any of the little side stories outside of the movies have addressed when c3p0's memory was wiped between Eps 1-3 and 4-6, but I would like to think R2 kept his, making him the only character with real continuity throughout the whole saga

bad motivator tho

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, October 28, 2015 10:30 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

R5-D4 was a proto-slacker.

I believe on another thread somewhere we discussed that R2-D2 is the Owen Meany of Star Wars.

Also this guy http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/Darth_Vader/R2-D2_Fulcrum_of_the_Force.html

R2 also fixes shit on the X-Wing though. I always thought that was a weird conceit, but cool anyway -- that the x-wing has this little plug-and-play hole for a droid. Why wouldn't you just build whatever functionality the droid has into the x-wing?

Because updating your playlists on the spaceship itself is a pain. Easier just to have a droid that can rove back and forth from your desktop to the hangar bay, etc.

there are totally computers in star wars! they're just unseen mainframes, as in star trek and basically all scifi of the period. the garbage compactor scene in star wars is resolved by R2 plugging in to basically a random terminal to poll the computer as to whether our heroes have been found, and from there, shutting down every trash compactor on the detention level.

there's a pretty significant scene involving a targeting computer iirc

One of the first lines of dialogue is "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer!"

ok, I guess it's just been way too long since I've seen these movies.

I guess my main point is that there is lots of AI in Star Wars in the form of droids, but for some reason the computers themselves are not intelligent, which is a bit weird when you think about it.

Obi-Wan: How long before you can make the jump to light speed?

Han Solo: It'll take a few moments to get the coordinates from the navi-computer.
[the ship begins to rock violently as lasers hit it]

Luke: Are you kidding? At the rate they're gaining...?

Han Solo: Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the scene in Jedi when the Gammorrean Guard was looking up baseball scores on his Macbook.

They're all purpose-built machines though - all hardware, no real idea of software - the astromech slot is there so that when you want to upgrade your X-Wing, you get a smarter droid for the slot.

Hah, just went to check and Wikipedia sez: "The history of the personal computer as mass-market consumer electronic devices effectively began in 1977"

what proportion of under-30 fans of SW and Indiana Jones (not hardcore geeks, just y'know regular people) know that in '77 and '81, the selling line for both was "pastiches of old movie serials"?

Just the ones that dress like hip grandparents

I'm not sure who would know what movie serials are, and why.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.refinedguy.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F09%2FE.T.-Cereal-general-mills.jpeg&f=1

Those were better than

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100323121721/starwars/images/2/22/Cereal_Box_C3P0s.jpg

there is a great ilx post about C-3P0's lodged in my brain, no idea where/when it was though

ETs cerial looks like a bowl of tiny turds.

et's basically cocoa puffs, c3po's basically alpha-bits iirc. mr t's smoked both of them.

ET cereal presaged Reese's Puffs and is therefore the best.

And, yes, it was meant to look like you were eating a bowlful of ET's tiny turds.

Speaking of, I'm glad Lucas eventually started addressing this, but when did the SW gang ever take a shit? The logistics wrt like Chewbacca and Darth Vader are mindbending.

mr t's smoked both of them.

geez I hope he was okay afterwards

I'm glad Old Lunch is finally bringing this thread on-topic

Star Wars shit talk thread moving in an interesting direction.

So Mr. ETs were a combo option?

feel like the Endor moon trip probably settled a lot of questions about rebels in the woods

Think they are going to eventually do a 'ironic' mas special reboot?

they should remaster and rerelease the original xmas special just to fuck with lucas

Despecialized!

Speaking of, I'm glad Lucas eventually started addressing this, but when did the SW gang ever take a shit? The logistics wrt like Chewbacca and Darth Vader are mindbending.

― Hellmann's All-Beef Bolognnaise (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 28, 2015 5:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

figuring with Darth's organs all fucked up they rerouted all the sewage to the back of his head

also how high ranking was Vader as a manager? could he hire and fire or did he merely 'make recommendations'

what proportion of under-30 fans of SW and Indiana Jones (not hardcore geeks, just y'know regular people) know that in '77 and '81, the selling line for both was "pastiches of old movie serials"?

I think many fans of all ages know this factoid, but only as that - there's barely any frame of reference for "old movie serials" though! Not like those things are getting re-issued as criterion sets

It's a straight shot from Vader's meditation chamber to the trash compactor

Xposts

Also the main thing about computers in Star Wars is that almost nothing is networked! As mentioned, everything is either sort of a purpose-built mainframe or what we'd call a PLC / SCADA system, every node is airgapped and the only way to interface with things is to physically plug a thing into another thing. The prequels break this model occasionally, maybe because they're happening "before the dark times" but still, when all the battle droids turn out to be connected to one giant satellite brain via wireless, it rings false.

Probably some good excuses in there like Dune's prohibition on thinking computers, where once, some clever humanoids DID invent fly-by-wire technology and develop advanced drones that could communicate via an open, intergalactic "web" of some sort, and then it all ended in terrible devastation and forever after anybody who tried to get two droids to talk to each other without audibly beeping was immediately Sarlacc'd

vader basically alec Baldwin in glengarry glen ross afaict. Ed harris = that sneering admiral he choked in SW, spacey = tarkin, mitch and murray = the emperor

Note how R2-D2 is able to shut down all the trash compactors but the tractor beam and the weapons systems are completely off-limits. You have to basically be standing in the beam path of the superlaser to operate it, and well you all know about the tractor beam nonsense.

"luke, you've turned off your targeting computer!"
"huh, how did you know that?"
http://i.imgur.com/taoM0yp.png

Actually it was because R2 tweeted it

via audible beeps, into his radio

(is there a little feed into the helmet earpiece that lets pilots hear their astromech's beeping? I assume this is how it works)

Artoo-Retwoot

Kind of rude that Luke refuses to talk to R2 in his native astromech bleep bloop language

R2 usually just tells old Henny YOungman jokes

I wanna know how those Threepio cornflakes taste.

solder and cinnamon

there's a suggestion that computers and robots gossip with each other as well - "R2! how did you know the hyperdrive had been disabled??" "tweet twiddle beep" "the city's COMPUTER told you???" "twooooot"

Just realised the lame battle droids and destroyer droids might've come off a bit better if all their dialogue to each other had been subtitled bleeps and buzzes rather than that awful high-pitched Dr. Nerdlinger accent.

Out of grim interest I just looked for a video of the droids and came across the battle at the end of TPM, my god the CGI looks so basic it reminds me of something on an N64.