Star Wars The Clone Wars Season Five News and Discussion

[Christopher]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

---

Interesting visuals with the void, you could definitely see every bit of the CG textures for better and worse. When the droids first emerged from the downed ship it looked damned near real though!

I read that the episode's look was inspired by the art of the late Jean "Moebius" Giraud, but... what look? There was nothing much to see except a featureless salt flat. Maybe the comets at the beginning, the birds, and the town at the end, but I didn't see anything I recognized as particularly Moebius-esque (though I'd forgotten about the influence until after I saw the episode, so I wasn't really looking).

I'm still not enjoying the characters in this sequence. Didn't we see Col. Gaskon and WAC go through this exact same arc last week, the colonel starting out contemptuous of droids and learning to respect WAC? It wasn't very interesting the first time either.

And help me out here with the SW-verse hyperspace physics. Since when did a ship have to drop out of hyperspace because of an obstacle in their path in normal space? Isn't the whole point of hyperspace that you bypass such obstructions completely? I know from canonical dialogue that you have to worry about coming out of hyperspace inside a star or planet, but I figured it was only a problem if you came out -- that if you stayed in hyperspace, you could just pass "through" any such obstruction. So the setup for the episode made no sense to me.

[Gep Malakai]

Christopher wrote:

---

And help me out here with the SW-verse hyperspace physics. Since when did a ship have to drop out of hyperspace because of an obstacle in their path in normal space? Isn't the whole point of hyperspace that you bypass such obstructions completely? I know from canonical dialogue that you have to worry about coming out of hyperspace inside a star or planet, but I figured it was only a problem if you came out -- that if you stayed in hyperspace, you could just pass "through" any such obstruction. So the setup for the episode made no sense to me.

In Star Wars physics (at least in the Expanded Universe), there's this thing called a "mass shadow," which is basically the influence a planet or star's gravity well has on hyperspace. They do bad things if you get near one. I haven't seen this week's episode, so I don't know if they made it sound like the ship would run into the physical planet itself, but what you're describing sounds like it was intended to be the other thing.

They've been part of the EU for a good decade or more, so the idea's been around for a while even though the movies never mentioned it.

[lennier1]

Gep Malakai wrote:

---

In Star Wars physics (at least in the Expanded Universe), there's this thing called a "mass shadow," which is basically the influence a planet or star's gravity well has on hyperspace. They do bad things if you get near one. I haven't seen this week's episode, so I don't know if they made it sound like the ship would run into the physical planet itself, but what you're describing sounds like it was intended to be the other thing.

They've been part of the EU for a good decade or more, so the idea's been around for a while even though the movies never mentioned it.

That explains the scene.

Basically, during hyperspace travel the ship had to react to several objects in normal space (not just a planet's mass).

[Christopher]

Couldn't they have just changed course?

[lennier1]

Christopher wrote:

---

Couldn't they have just changed course?

If it's anything like Trek they'd probably need massive amounts of energy to divert a FTL jump mid-flight.

[Christopher]

lennier1 wrote:

---

If it's anything like Trek they'd probably need massive amounts of energy to divert a FTL jump mid-flight.

Umm, no; aside from a single pretty terrible Voyager episode (with the line "Faster than light, no left or right"), Star Trek has never depicted it as difficult to change course during warp travel.

[Drago-Kazov]

It was still a bad episode. i hope we will have Gregor show up in the next episode.

[Mr. Adventure]

Christopher wrote:

---

Umm, no; aside from a single pretty terrible Voyager episode (with the line "Faster than light, no left or right"), Star Trek has never depicted it as difficult to change course during warp travel.

My impression from the Star Wars-verse (and mind you I've never given it any real thought) is that once the course is laid in that you are pretty much committed to it. Are there any examples of steering at all? Given Han's dialogue about the importance of properly plotting the course and the way hyperspace is depicted that's how I figured it worked.

[Christopher]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

---

My impression from the Star Wars-verse (and mind you I've never given it any real thought) is that once the course is laid in that you are pretty much committed to it. Are there any examples of steering at all? Given Han's dialogue about the importance of properly plotting the course and the way hyperspace is depicted that's how I figured it worked.

That's a good point. SW hyperspace does seem like it's basically a "jump" type of drive, despite being non-instantaneous -- you set a course for a particular point and that's where you end up.

I guess WAC just wasn't that great a pilot and he set the wrong course. Or maybe that comet swarm was unanticipated because the system was uncharted.

[Timelord_Victorious]

I think that's the whole point of established hyperspace lanes in Star Wars, to avoid hazards like this and why it's extremely dangerous to explore unknown regions.
You fly more or less blind in FTL and it takes hundreds of years to establish a reasonably save rout which then gets shared with the rest of the galaxy.
At least those people in the galaxy you like, because they can also be a strategic advantage to move around warfleets as quickly as possible.

[Enterprise is Great]

I had root canals that were less painful then this week's episode. I almost didn't finish it. it wasn't funny or interesting in any way.

[billcosby]

Yep, another stinker. Pity, as the visuals were top notch. I especially like the water effect at the end, the idea that water would reflect the hue of any sky. And the buildings/structures in the Void were kind of neat.

Too bad we were subjected to that asshole micro corporal again. He's worse than Jar-Jar. He never shuts up. As Christopher mentioned, didn't we go through the whole he-learns-respect-for-droids thing last week? And having him jump around screaming like an idiot for most of the 22 minutes was gut-wrenching.

I was rewatching (and thoroughly enjoying) the season 2 dvds this week. Is it possible that the series is somehow now more aimed at little kids? Is this is Season of the Children? The episodes from season 2 were very sophisticated in story and seemed to have had a more adult flavor to them.

IMO, Season 5 in general (besides the premiere and the finale of Ahsoka's lightsaber building arc) is turning out to be the most unsatisfying season so far.

[Enterprise is Great]

I've enjoyed this season until the last 2 episodes. Someone please tell me that we're done with this Droid arc as of this episode.

[Mr Light]

Call me crazy but I liked these two droid episodes, I even found the second episode amusing...

[billcosby]

The droids are fine. But it's Gascon who is dragging this story down. Does anyone like him? He is the big mouth know it all... I get it, that's his character BUT part of making characters that you care about is making them likeable. If Gascon ends up a grease spot under some droid's foot at the end of this 4 story arc then I wouldn't be sad.

What a dick. Comic relief is exactly supposed to provide relief, but the only thing I could do was go back to more season 2 episodes to cleanse the palette.