I know this is my inner Star Wars geek talking, but to me, Star Wars is all about the backwater frontier. Tatooine is a bleak awful desert, but that’s what’s made it a central spot for the underworld. I’m actually very curious to see what a post-Jabba Tatooine is like in the new movies. But I agree that they shouldn’t spend much time there. I hope they get places like Nar Shadaa if they want to show the shady side of Star Wars.
me too!
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Ships flying low over water, dark cloaked figure in snowy woods- wait, is this a Harry Potter crossover?
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I think it gets mentioned in the “Expanded Universe” material, but I’m not sure what justification there is. I’m told the premise is that technology has been fairly static for thousands of years.
But it’s a surprisingly common trope in space opera that technological progress stops or slows to a crawl.
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Why should they comment upon it if they don’t have anything to say in this regard?
How about this? What you are noting are technological differences of the 20th century. The development of technologies has not always been so brisk, it has been increasing. More innovation in the 20th century than in the 19th, which was more than the 18th, etc. In pre-history, the state of human technology remained on the same level for thousands of years at a time.
Since Star Wars takes place such a “long time ago”, we could suppose that the same technological stasis of pre-history applies here.
Or, if you prefer, that Star Wars was deliberately based upon a retro-age of 1930s-era implausible tech, so we could see giant spacecraft, gibbering robots, and ana(r)chronistic visuals such as people dueling with laser swords. The whole franchise is based on tropes which were already decades old even in 1977. Is there any point to continually re-updating its retro-futurism?
Or, perhaps we can get Lucas’ Trade Federation to give a presentation on the economics of Star Wars technology!
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That´s probably exactly what went through JJ Abram´s head one millisecond before he accepted the offer.
Wow, that was a bad trailer. Luckily it impressed 12 year old me, or I just ignored it and saw the movie anyway.
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Eh, I thought it was ok. I especially appreciated that it couldn’t rely on nostalgia for the previous entries to sell its product.
Just needs more Lux Aeterna.
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It’s a teaser trailer. It worked.
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I kind of remember some handwaving about this in the Wizards of The Coast d20-based Star Wars RPG. It’s been a while.
Here is someone who has done some photoshop work to address the crossguard problem.
I’m not too clear on the time intervals, but those can be cleared up.
It’s not fair to compare these things to cars or aircraft because those were emerging technologies, and those just develop faster than other technologies, but it might be fair to compare watercraft.
As long as it’s still possible to repair and upgrade the YT-1300, I don’t see why anyone would scrap the Millenium Falcon. According to one of the Brian Daley novels, it’s had its control systems replaced at least twice.
This is George Lucas’s aesthetic. he didn’t just leave that behind when he finished American Graffitti.
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The problem with trying to impose an innovation curve on star wars is that there’s already a class of SF that does this–post singularity fiction.
Take accelerando, for instance. In the book, the solar system is dissassembled into a matrioshka brain. The inhabitents exist as superhumans of immense computational power, and doing things like exploring other star systems means that you leave the technological curve, and risk almost certain obsolescence, and therefore pawn-like status, due to latency.
Star Wars is set in a universe where Matrioshka Brains don’t exist, and not every planet is as connected as Coruscant. Although hyperspace gets rid of the latency that woukd make Galactic politics impossible, I think that post singularity individuals would still find it intolerable, unless they had a pressing need to escape.
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That’s true, especially when we’re talking about the first half of the 20th century. But the aircraft metaphor works to support the advanced age of the Falcon. The Boeing 747 was first built 45 years ago, and is designed to have a service life of 35,000 cycles (takeoff/flight/landing is one cycle). Most commercial carriers fit in several short-haul flights a day, but if you flew twice a day, it’d take just under 48 years to achieve 35,000 flights. And that’s with 20th century technology.
Yes indeedy. Though Luke’s “what a piece of junk” is meant to convey the somewhat ad hoc nature of the Falcon’s maintenance and upgrade schedule (it’s not part of a well-maintained commercial fleet, after all, at least not anymore), it’s instead an example of a tried-and-true light freighter foundation that lends itself to extensive customization and hotrodding.
There are lots of things about the Star Wars franchise that don’t make any sense, but the age of the Falcon isn’t really one of them, if you ask me.
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Accelerando represents quite well the kinds of sci-fi worldbuilding which I wish movies had the guts to tackle. Instead, we get decades of “Rocket Robin Hood” type nonsense.
Yup. It’s thematically very appropriate. It’s old and a bit ramshackle but lovingly cared for, and so modded it has become something special. Bit of an extreme Cuban 50s Chevy/Mad Maxian counterpoint to the shiny and new stuff from the Empire. And yeah, it’s not like they’re coming out with new tech at 20th century Earth levels.
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And that’s a very conservative number of cycles, since 747s carry people around and exist in a highly regulated milieu. A freelance smuggler owner-operator in the relatively lawless depths of space doesn’t have an FAA or the possibility of lawsuits to worry about.
There aren’t too many 747s of that vintage flying around though. That said, the fifth one built is still going though - in Iran!
My experience of old 747s is that they require a lot of maintenance to keep going and have quite a few…quirks. Much like the Falcon!
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