My DVR picked it up, but I missed watching it last night *again* because apparently it wasn't on at it's usual time.
MYTHBUSTERS 2015 Season Thread
- Thread starter Christopher
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Another Star Wars special, and they're really stretching to find things in a fantasy series they can meaningfully test.
High ground: Man, that Revenge of the Sith footage looks really cheesy on TV. Adam and Jamie's version of Mustafar looked better than the CGI version. Anyway, why didn't Adam and Jamie just pull out the equipment they used from that myth about kendo fighting, where they used the same conductive-suit technique to register hits on each other? They didn't even mention that myth. Which is odd, since apparently the lightsaber technique they learned from the stunt guy is partly based on kendo, judging from something he said at one point. They even used a kendo mask in the climax.
I'm not sure I agree with their results. The person on the low ground always got the hang of it after a while, but the high-ground fighter got the first few hits in both trials. And in a "real" lightsaber duel, it would only take one hit to at least badly incapacitate your opponent, giving you an even greater advantage. So I think their test actually showed that the high-ground advantage was plausible.
Dodging blasters: Really, both the myths were variations on old ones -- we've seen dodging arrows and dodging bullets, and now it's dodging "blaster" bolts. There really wasn't anything new here either. Again, I wonder why they started from scratch instead of reusing a tried-and-true technique from the earlier myths. (How fast do paintballs move?)
The thing I noticed about the Star Wars footage is that the actors weren't even dodging -- they were just standing there or running in straight lines, and the blaster bolts were animated going elsewhere. So I'm not sure the myth was even properly formulated. The movie scenario doesn't show the heroes dodging blaster fire -- it shows Stormtroopers not being able to shoot straight.
But conversely, in that calibration trial of the dart-firing "blaster," it was bizarre to see a Stormtrooper being shot at and not being hit. That's just an inversion of the natural order of things.
High ground: Man, that Revenge of the Sith footage looks really cheesy on TV. Adam and Jamie's version of Mustafar looked better than the CGI version. Anyway, why didn't Adam and Jamie just pull out the equipment they used from that myth about kendo fighting, where they used the same conductive-suit technique to register hits on each other? They didn't even mention that myth. Which is odd, since apparently the lightsaber technique they learned from the stunt guy is partly based on kendo, judging from something he said at one point. They even used a kendo mask in the climax.
I'm not sure I agree with their results. The person on the low ground always got the hang of it after a while, but the high-ground fighter got the first few hits in both trials. And in a "real" lightsaber duel, it would only take one hit to at least badly incapacitate your opponent, giving you an even greater advantage. So I think their test actually showed that the high-ground advantage was plausible.
Dodging blasters: Really, both the myths were variations on old ones -- we've seen dodging arrows and dodging bullets, and now it's dodging "blaster" bolts. There really wasn't anything new here either. Again, I wonder why they started from scratch instead of reusing a tried-and-true technique from the earlier myths. (How fast do paintballs move?)
The thing I noticed about the Star Wars footage is that the actors weren't even dodging -- they were just standing there or running in straight lines, and the blaster bolts were animated going elsewhere. So I'm not sure the myth was even properly formulated. The movie scenario doesn't show the heroes dodging blaster fire -- it shows Stormtroopers not being able to shoot straight.
But conversely, in that calibration trial of the dart-firing "blaster," it was bizarre to see a Stormtrooper being shot at and not being hit. That's just an inversion of the natural order of things.
I assumed it was because they wanted something lighter and more flexible. The kendo suit was akin to a suit of armor, from what I recall; Jedi fight in robes. They only made a big deal about making the blade light, but it seems like a reasonable extension to me.
Adam and Jamie only had a day or two of training. Anakin and Obi-wan had years of experience and training. I think "what to do if you're on the low ground besides surrendering" sounds to me like something that training would cover!
They may have been thinking ahead towards trying deflection shots a la their guest. You couldn't do that with paintball rounds.
I don't remember what version of the Han-in-the-cantina scene they used - if it was one of the Special Edition ones where Greedo shoots and Han (badly) dodges or not. But other than that, you're right about the general approach in the films
I was going to say something about how that contradicts Obi-wan's line about how "only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise". But now that I think about it: we're never told that they're accurate, are we?
They didn't take into account that in cut scenes Obi-Wan was known as "High Ground" Kenobi for his proficiency at that vantage point. These will be in the Extra Special Versions released later this year. Note, that in ANH, Ben gets the high ground on the Tusken Raiders forcing them to flee.
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I think Jamie and Adam should have tested the legendary Storm Trooper inaccuracy at shooting their blasters.
The way storm troopers use their blasters in episodes 4-6 is very similar to hip-firing a rifle in single-shot mode. This is something I have done more than a few times on the firing range. So I can tell you it is a very difficult shot to land, even if the target is as close as 30 feet away. In fact 9 times out of 10, I will miss the target.
Thus, my gut feeling is you don't even have to dodge the blaster shots. With the way the storm troopers are using their blasters, they are going to miss anyway.
The way storm troopers use their blasters in episodes 4-6 is very similar to hip-firing a rifle in single-shot mode. This is something I have done more than a few times on the firing range. So I can tell you it is a very difficult shot to land, even if the target is as close as 30 feet away. In fact 9 times out of 10, I will miss the target.
Thus, my gut feeling is you don't even have to dodge the blaster shots. With the way the storm troopers are using their blasters, they are going to miss anyway.
Makes sense, but I'm surprised they didn't even mention "We did this before with the kendo myth and now we're going to modify it."
Maybe, but it could still take time to get a feel for the terrain. That's something that would be worth testing. If the high ground does give an initial advantage that can only be overcome by taking the time to adjust to the terrain, that could be decisive.
I mean, one advantage to having the high ground is that you can see more of the terrain, so you can adjust to its vagaries more quickly. The test was of standing in place to fight, but Jedi battles often involve a lot of moving around and running and jumping. Whoever sized up the lay of the land more quickly could have an edge that way.
There's also Force jumping, which could be a factor in Jedi fights. The person on the low ground would have to move through the other fighter's saber arc to do a Force jump, but the person on the high ground could more easily dodge a swing to the legs with a Force jump. Although now we're getting into stuff that would be hard for the Mythbusters to test. (Maybe some kind of Hollywood flying rig? Or bungee cables?)
I thought they just animated in a shot from Greedo's blaster that straight-up missed at point-blank range. Which is one of the main reasons it came under such ridicule.
But I was thinking of things like the shot in Leia's rescue just before Han jumps into the hole to the trash compactor. Han is standing there on the right side of the screen for several seconds, a completely open target, but the blaster bolts are all flying down the corridor on the left side of the screen.
I was going to say something about how that contradicts Obi-wan's line about how "only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise". But now that I think about it: we're never told that they're accurate, are we?
Ooh, good one!
That would explain why they're so consistently off-target...Now, that would've been worth testing. Of course, it raises all sorts of questions about why they wouldn't be better-trained in the use of their weapons.
Come to think of it, they had an excuse in the original film, because Tarkin and Vader wanted Leia and her rescuers to escape to lead them to the Rebel base, so maybe the Stormtroopers were deliberately firing to miss. But that wouldn't explain the continued inaccuracy (as opposed to imprecision!) of their fire in the sequels.
The 1997 Special Edition had Greedo miss.
The 2004 DVDs changed it so that Han dodges.
I don't know if there were any changes for the Blu-rays.
Huh, I always thought the point of that "high ground" scene was that Anakin couldn't have jumped over the lava without being vulnerable to an attack from Obi-Wan (which is exactly what happened). Not simply that Obi-Wan had a better fighting position because he was a bit higher up on a hill. Which is why I was so thoroughly confused by the way they were testing it.
Of course like much of the prequels, it was a pretty clumsily written piece of dialogue to begin with (not to mention that there's no reason Anakin couldn't have simply jumped to either side of Obi-Wan first instead of straight at him like an idiot). Ultimately I get the impression the Mythbusters guys were just looking for an excuse to fight each other with lightsabers, and this was the only thing they could really think of.
As for the blasters, I did find that a bit more interesting, in that even as slow as the blaster bolts seem to move in the movies, they're still way too fast to ever duck out of the way of. Of course when it comes to that kind of thing, I think Trek is probably the much bigger offender, with how many times we saw people ducking out of the way of phaser fire in the various series and movies.
Of course like much of the prequels, it was a pretty clumsily written piece of dialogue to begin with (not to mention that there's no reason Anakin couldn't have simply jumped to either side of Obi-Wan first instead of straight at him like an idiot). Ultimately I get the impression the Mythbusters guys were just looking for an excuse to fight each other with lightsabers, and this was the only thing they could really think of.
As for the blasters, I did find that a bit more interesting, in that even as slow as the blaster bolts seem to move in the movies, they're still way too fast to ever duck out of the way of. Of course when it comes to that kind of thing, I think Trek is probably the much bigger offender, with how many times we saw people ducking out of the way of phaser fire in the various series and movies.
On the other hand, I believe the Mythbusters have shown in the past that it's difficult to hit a moving target. Dodging from a standing start at the moment your opponent begins to fire is an ineffective tactic, since they've already gotten the chance to aim at you; but if you start to run the moment you see your opponent, before they can begin to aim, then it could make you harder to hit -- though no doubt more so if you're running laterally to them rather than retreating down a narrow corridor.
I honestly never took Obi-Won's "I have the high ground," statement ah him literally saying "I'm on geographically higher location than you are which puts you at a disadvantage even though you could easily force-jump, twirl, or whatever in order to render null any advantage." I guess I took it as something along the lines of "taking the high road," that Obi-Won was saying he was the better person and the power of the Light Side gave him the advantage or at least made him morally feel good regardless of how things proceeded.
It's funny what Christopher said about the Mythbusters' slapped-together set looked better than the CGI abomination that was in the actual movie. I mean, yeah, it certainly had "flaws" in it given the time it was constructed in and on the very tight budget but it did overall look better and had a more "real" feel to it than Obi-Won and Anakin fighting in a giant green room and later had a bunch of planet-stuff added in afterwards that just ended up looking horrible. The "lava" the MBs came up with looked better than the "lava" in the movie.
I also agree with Christopher's observations that retrying the "high ground" tests so many times seemed to cancel-out any advantage, disadvantage or lack of either one's position had. It's another case of trying to be "scientific" by testing something enough to have a good data set to show a trend and have repeatable results but here that clashes with the concept of what was being tested. As said, Jamie and Adam had the advantage of being able to learn the other's tactics and weaknesses and how to exploit them. In a "real world" situation a strike with a lightsaber would be a lethal or near-lethal hit.
This probably should have been a test where Jame and Adam played an observational role and had a group of volunteers to come in and do the tests. Take two people, dress them in the Designer Suits by Faraday and pit them against one another and see who wind under the various conditions. But them through the test three times, each person being on even ground, low ground and high ground but in each scenario they're against another opponent so there's no way for them to learn the tactics of the opponent and how to exploit them. Each test ends on the first hit. Now, granted, this puts in more variables given the test subjects and who they're against will always be changing but I'd think if you did the test enough times you'd be able to see the trend on whether the saying was true or not and you've ruled out any biases or learning that'd crop up from people learning the tactics of their opponent.
Not much to say on the blaster myth. Interesting, I never realized the blasters were never referred to as "lasers" or anything of the sort. But I suspect in the "soft canon" of the various novels, tech manuals and other EU stuff (before the Disney de-con of all of it) somewhere "lasers" are mentioned. But interesting how Adam was able to figure out the speed of the blaster bolt, which turned out to be orders of magnitude slower than a normal bullet is; but still slow enough to not be avoidable. Though I agree with the criticisms given out by Christopher that in the movie our characters don't seem to be dodging the bolts the Storm Troopers just can't make a hit for shit!
Though I also wonder if this wasn't something addressed somewhere in the EU to sort of explain how Storm Troopers could be so "accurate" but also never seem to make a hit. Maybe there's some aspect to blasters that makes them "unaimable" because whatever energy-bolt is released can to easily be influenced by stuff enroute to the target. Maybe Storm Troopers are "so precise" because this "blaster bolt bias" they can account for more than your average shooter but it still means a majority of shots miss, but they hit more often than the average joe because of this "blaster bias."
I think of the "sniper rifle" myth where we're shown that the sniper, in order to hit Jamie, would have to aim at a spot several feet above him and presumably in any wind conditions would have to aim off to the side by quite some distance all to account for the bullet's fall enroute due to gravity and the wind changing it's direction.
Blaster bolts are affected by gravity fields, energy fields, whatever, between even short distances and this needs to be accounted for. On the spot, Storm Troopers don't have the benefit of a spotter to set-up a shot to account for all of the variables so the trooper has to just point and shoot. Experience and training means they're more accurate than the average shooter to account for all of these variables but they're still not 100% perfect, slight variables or movement means the bolt misses.
But, I'm blue-skying here.
It's funny what Christopher said about the Mythbusters' slapped-together set looked better than the CGI abomination that was in the actual movie. I mean, yeah, it certainly had "flaws" in it given the time it was constructed in and on the very tight budget but it did overall look better and had a more "real" feel to it than Obi-Won and Anakin fighting in a giant green room and later had a bunch of planet-stuff added in afterwards that just ended up looking horrible. The "lava" the MBs came up with looked better than the "lava" in the movie.
I also agree with Christopher's observations that retrying the "high ground" tests so many times seemed to cancel-out any advantage, disadvantage or lack of either one's position had. It's another case of trying to be "scientific" by testing something enough to have a good data set to show a trend and have repeatable results but here that clashes with the concept of what was being tested. As said, Jamie and Adam had the advantage of being able to learn the other's tactics and weaknesses and how to exploit them. In a "real world" situation a strike with a lightsaber would be a lethal or near-lethal hit.
This probably should have been a test where Jame and Adam played an observational role and had a group of volunteers to come in and do the tests. Take two people, dress them in the Designer Suits by Faraday and pit them against one another and see who wind under the various conditions. But them through the test three times, each person being on even ground, low ground and high ground but in each scenario they're against another opponent so there's no way for them to learn the tactics of the opponent and how to exploit them. Each test ends on the first hit. Now, granted, this puts in more variables given the test subjects and who they're against will always be changing but I'd think if you did the test enough times you'd be able to see the trend on whether the saying was true or not and you've ruled out any biases or learning that'd crop up from people learning the tactics of their opponent.
Not much to say on the blaster myth. Interesting, I never realized the blasters were never referred to as "lasers" or anything of the sort. But I suspect in the "soft canon" of the various novels, tech manuals and other EU stuff (before the Disney de-con of all of it) somewhere "lasers" are mentioned. But interesting how Adam was able to figure out the speed of the blaster bolt, which turned out to be orders of magnitude slower than a normal bullet is; but still slow enough to not be avoidable. Though I agree with the criticisms given out by Christopher that in the movie our characters don't seem to be dodging the bolts the Storm Troopers just can't make a hit for shit!
Though I also wonder if this wasn't something addressed somewhere in the EU to sort of explain how Storm Troopers could be so "accurate" but also never seem to make a hit. Maybe there's some aspect to blasters that makes them "unaimable" because whatever energy-bolt is released can to easily be influenced by stuff enroute to the target. Maybe Storm Troopers are "so precise" because this "blaster bolt bias" they can account for more than your average shooter but it still means a majority of shots miss, but they hit more often than the average joe because of this "blaster bias."
I think of the "sniper rifle" myth where we're shown that the sniper, in order to hit Jamie, would have to aim at a spot several feet above him and presumably in any wind conditions would have to aim off to the side by quite some distance all to account for the bullet's fall enroute due to gravity and the wind changing it's direction.
Blaster bolts are affected by gravity fields, energy fields, whatever, between even short distances and this needs to be accounted for. On the spot, Storm Troopers don't have the benefit of a spotter to set-up a shot to account for all of the variables so the trooper has to just point and shoot. Experience and training means they're more accurate than the average shooter to account for all of these variables but they're still not 100% perfect, slight variables or movement means the bolt misses.
But, I'm blue-skying here.
I'm not sure if that's the case in SW, but it's pretty universal in mass-media sci-fi to refer to any glowing energy bolts as "lasers" even when they clearly move far slower than light. Heck, Star Trek abandoned doing that after the first pilot because Roddenberry figured audiences would be too savvy to believe that lasers could act in such an unrealistic way, but clearly he gave audiences too much credit for science education -- or maybe too little credit for suspension of disbelief.
I hate to ruin a joke by explaining it, but the exchange that ATimson and I were having earlier is predicated on the fact that "accurate" and "precise" are not synonymous. Precision is about how narrow your error bars are, while accuracy is about whether the right answer is within your error bars. If I say that pi is between 3 and 4, that's accurate, but not at all precise. If I say that pi is exactly 3.99999999997, that's extremely precise but not at all accurate. (Body temperature is another example. An accurate statement would be that average human body temperature is around 37 Celsius, but since 37 C converts to 98.6 Fahrenheit, that extra digit of precision created the inaccurate belief that it's an exact, constant value. It would be more accurate to say it's around 98-99 F than to insist on the precise 98.6 figure.)
In the case of shooting, accuracy would mean that you hit what you're shooting at, while precision would mean that your shots have a very compact grouping. What you're describing is (relative) accuracy, but it sure isn't precision.
Assuming a blaster bolt is made of some kind of particles with mass (as it would have to be if it travels slower than light), it would curve downward under gravity at the exact same rate that a bullet or a ping-pong ball would. Over the distances shown, it wouldn't be significant.
A charged particle beam, e.g. a proton beam, would be susceptible to deflection by a magnetic field, which would be a good basis for a defense -- maybe a personal deflector field. It would also be subject to "bloom," the tendency of its like-charged particles to repel each other and cause the beam to spread outward and dissipate quickly. A neutrally charged particle beam wouldn't have these issues.
Of course, in a universe where physical laws applied plausibly, a particle beam would travel a hell of a lot faster and the whole question of dodging would've been moot to begin with.
The scripts use the term "laser" all over the place. But on-screen, the handheld weapons are consistently only referred to as "blasters".
For capital ships, the Death Star's weapons around the trench are referred to as "turbolasers". The identical batteries on Star Destroyers are just called "lasers" by Han in ESB (which was presumably shorthand).
This leaves open the fighter craft. Technically, their weapons aren't given a name on-screen (that I can find in the scripts). The snowspeeders' weapons are referred to as "blasters". Presumably fighters, being around the same size, should also have blasters; but all the supplemental material chose to dub them lasers instead. Probably because it sounds cooler.
That said, the supplementary material also described the mechanics for "lasers" as being identical to blasters. So despite the poor name they at least didn't pretend that they were really lasers.
Is this a bad time to bring up the "laser sword" reference in The Phantom Menace?
Typically blaster bolts are ignited tibanna gas, assuming the new canon keeps the same tech background as the old one (which seems to be the case so far).
Ouch. Sticking "turbo-" on the front of something spacey or futuristic is one of the lamest forms of technobabble. How in the heck can a laser be driven by a turbine? There's no fluid pressure of any kind involved in generating a laser beam. And no, no, don't tell me, I'm sure that fandom or the EU has made up some kind of elaborate handwave to rationalize the term, but it's still a silly term to begin with.
Why would "lasers" sound cooler? Lasers are commonplace items these days. They're in our DVD players and we use them as cat toys. Granted, cat toys are cool, but not in the sense I think you're talking about.
Is this a bad time to bring up the "laser sword" reference in The Phantom Menace?
Weren't they originally going to be called that in the early The Star Wars drafts? And they are called that in the Darths and Droids webcomic, which retells the movies as if they were RPG campaigns.
So basically a sort of plasma bolt? I think those are subject to magnetic deflection. Or do you literally mean ignited gas, in which case it'd be more like the flame of a blowtorch? That's not the sort of thing that would behave like a projectile; it would tend to go upward rather than forward because it's so much hotter/lighter than air, and would dissipate quickly. (A flamethrower's flame travels forward because it's actually a stream of burning liquid, and even so, it doesn't have that much range.) So, yeah, ignited gas doesn't make much sense as an explanation.
The big 
for me was the measured speed of blaster bolts at only 140 mph. That's 205 feet per second. Only about 18% the speed of a 9mm bullet. I know it was only an animated special effect, and designed so directionality could be seen by the audience. But that's pitiful.
for me was the measured speed of blaster bolts at only 140 mph. That's 205 feet per second. Only about 18% the speed of a 9mm bullet. I know it was only an animated special effect, and designed so directionality could be seen by the audience. But that's pitiful.
Heck, that's toward the low end of the speed range for bows and arrows.
It's a good thing I know that SW is just meant to be a fantasy rather than a credible SF universe, or I'd have to wonder why anyone would deliberately design a beam weapon to fire so slowly.
It's a good thing I know that SW is just meant to be a fantasy rather than a credible SF universe, or I'd have to wonder why anyone would deliberately design a beam weapon to fire so slowly.
I have a theory -- maybe it was just meant they were supercharged blasters. It seems lasers fired from the ships (assuming the trench laser speeds are the same as from fleet carriers) travel bigger distances faster than the 130 to 140 MPH a hand-held blaster does, so the beams must be going faster, hence "turbo".
"Oh, and "It's over Anakin! I have the high ground! And no -- only I am capable of jumping to the high ground! I know you could jump to the other side and just get away, but clearly it's over Anakin!"
The turbine doesn't drive the laser, it's an emergency source of power to supplement the normal reactors in case a higher rate of fire is needed to combat smaller and faster starfighters instead of capital ships. Think of it like switching from electric to gas on a hybrid vehicle when you need a little extra boost of power for driving on the open road as opposed to being in traffic.
This may be the nerdiest sci-fi technology technobabble post I've ever seen you make.
I said "don't tell me." I should've known someone would anyway.
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