Message-ID: <1931@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jun-83 18:41:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1931
Posted: Wed Jun  8 18:41:14 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jun-83 10:41:51 EDT
Lines: 86

-	From: Heiny.henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
	What bugs me is: if Darth and Luke can fly, why didn't the Emperor?

Neither Luke nor Darth has ever been shown flying; they have always had
something to push off from.  When Luke dropped into the carbonite pit in
TESB, for example, he clearly dropped all the way in and then came
leaping out.  If you watch closely as the Emperor falls into the shaft,
you can see that he never touches the sides, so he had nothing against
which he could push off.  (Even so, it still seems wrong to get rid of a
super-moby bad guy by tossing him into a pit!)

	From: Morrill.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
	In ANH, Darth Vader was the altimate bad guy, evil to the core.
	I don't even recall any reference to a superior evil (the emperor).

When DV walked into the meeting of the Generals, he announced that the
Emperor had dissolved the Senate, thereby removing the last vestiges of
the old Republic.  I agree that DV's subservience to the Emperor became
more and more pronounced as the trilogy progressed.

	From: "KEN MOREAU AT CLOSUS c/o" 
	The only "continuing" character among all episodes is Yoda, since
	he has certainly been around for the first trilogy, and there is
	nothing to suggest he won't be around for the next one.

Lucas once claimed that the only characters present in all nine episodes
would be the droids; in fact, the movies can largely be viewed as a
story told by C3PO, which makes his synopsis in RotJ particularly
amusing.

	From:   "PAUL KARGER at ULTRA c/o" 
	When shuttle craft land on the Death Star (twice), the landing bay
	is clearly open to space, yet the troops lined up for review have no
	trouble breathing.  If there is an invisible force field keeping in the
	atmosphere, there is no mention of it in either the book or the film.

I figure there has to be a force screen.  It would be more believable if
there weren't people in the docking bay when ships come and go, implying
that the force field is brought down at such times.  Indeed, in RotJ it
looks as though the bay is empty when DV's shuttle enters; the watching
personnel are in a separate viewing deck, and the honor guard isn't
shown until after the ship has landed.  But in A New Hope, there were
people in the bay when the Falcon escaped from the Death Star.  Sigh.
Another theory says that all ships use artificial gravity to carry
around a pocket of air with them, which also explains how they are able
to make whooshing noises as they go past.

	How is it that Vader did not notice that Leia was "strong with the
	force" or adopted for that matter, when she was being interrogated
	in SW IV?  He had plenty of time to work, she was drugged, and
	was tortured.

He did comment on it:  "Her resistance to the mind probe is
considerable."  I agree that it is surprising he didn't make more of it
at the time.

	From: Robert Amsler 
	I throughly enjoyed the walkers. They are, in fact, something
	which the military is looking into. They were new and innovative.
	The forest sleds were bizarre. I couldn't decide whether they had
	automatic obstacle avoidance or not.

The walkers are neat special effects -- a friend pointed out to me that,
since they are always matted in, how did they film the scene where one
of them drags a bunch of Ewoks on a rope? -- but they are absurdly
fragile, especially given that they are supposed to be "all-terrain
vehicles".  Besides, antigravity seems to be cheap in this culture, so
who needs these silly things with clumsy legs?

As for the sleds, our conclusion was that they must be semi-automatic,
guided by the rider's vision; there's just no way anybody could control
a manual sled at those speeds.  And of course, it means that when you
look over your shoulder you're likely to run into a tree . . .

In general, the Empire's combat technology and personnel were sillier
than ever in RotJ.  We've already seen that storm trooper armor doesn't
protect against blasters.  We now see that doesn't even protect against
arrows!  We also see why nobody worries much about blasters -- one of
them hits Luke's hand and just burns away the artificial skin, doing no
damage to the circuitry within.  (My computer should be so sturdy.)  And
finally, we see that a storm trooper can't hit a rebel sitting on a log.
. . .

But I enjoyed it anyway!

	-- Don.