Tape?
the colossal tape library on which the Death Star plans reside
I know it's a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but tape hasn't been seen in SF films for 40 years. Do they have the old banks of big IBM tape drives twitching their reels?
Rogue One: This is the Star Wars back story you've been looking for
Rogue One is a fine addition to the cinematic Star Wars canon, and almost perfectly tailored for Register readers to mock. For those who've avoided the hype, the film takes place between Episode III and Episode IV, and tells the tale of how Death Star plans were acquired by the Rebel Alliance. Your correspondent caught a …
-
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 18:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Tape?
It was decided to install the Analyzer in four of our heaviest ships, so that each of the main fleets could be equipped with one. At this stage, the trouble began - though we did not know it until later.
The Analyzer contained just short of a million vacuum tubes and needed a team of five hundred technicians to maintain and operate it. It was quite impossible to accommodate the extra staff aboard a battleship, so each of the four units had to be accompanied by a converted liner to carry the technicians not on duty. Installation was also a very slow and tedious business, but by gigantic efforts it was completed in six months.
Then, to our dismay, we were confronted by another crisis. Nearly five thousand highly skilled men had been selected to serve the Analyzers and had been given an intensive course at the Technical Training Schools. At the end of seven months, 10 percent of them had had nervous breakdowns and only 40 per cent had qualified.
(Superiority - by Arthur C. Clarke)
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 04:56 GMT MacroRodent
Re: Tape?
The Analyzer contained just short of a million vacuum tubes
It is fascinating how even Clarke failed to foresee the advances in electronics and digital technology. In "Earthlight" (1955), on an observatory set on the Moon sometime in the 2100's, they still make astronomical photographs the old way, chemically, and one character actually observes this is one area where electronics will never take over... The transistor had already been invented in 1947, which was before "Superiority" was written (1951).
-
Friday 16th December 2016 00:55 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Tape?
"It is fascinating how even Clarke failed to foresee the advances in electronics and digital technology....The transistor had already been invented in 1947"
That's why it's called Science Fiction and not Future History. And even the best make mistakes :-)
I suppose it's possible he was aware of the results of an EMP and/or particle radiation on the new solid state electronics and that valves were more robust and the story was on the Moon....although it's unforgivable that he didn't foresee the recently invented transistor being scaled down such that 100's of 1000's on a tiny piece of silicon would supplant the chemical camera!
-
Friday 16th December 2016 06:13 GMT MacroRodent
Re: Tape?
That's why it's called Science Fiction and not Future History. And even the best make mistakes :-)
Sure, but in the case of Clarke, he is (or used to be) lauded as a visionary, and in some of his non-fiction writings (some passages in "The Lost Worlds of 2001" come to mind) he even congratulates himself on getting predictions right - so pointing out things he did not get is fair game, more so than in the case of other science fiction writers. (Said in a good-natured way: I am actually a Clarke fan, and as a teenager read almost every story by him I could lay my hands on...)
-
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 12:04 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: Tape?
"Then, to our dismay, we were confronted by another crisis. Nearly five thousand highly skilled men had been selected to serve the Analyzers and had been given an intensive course at the Technical Training Schools. At the end of
seven months, 10 percent of them had had nervous breakdowns and only 40 per cent had qualifiedthe course, 90 percent of them left to become freelance contractors."-
Thursday 15th December 2016 16:27 GMT earl grey
Re: Tape?
"Then, to our dismay, we were confronted by another crisis. Nearly five thousand highly skilled men had been selected to serve the Analyzers and had been given an intensive course at the Technical Training Schools. At the end of seven months, 10 percent of them had had nervous breakdowns and only 40 per cent had qualified the course, All of them had been replaced by lower paid H1B imports."
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 17:24 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: Looking forward to seeing that now
This is the film for me. I like my moral messages to be down to earth: 'Never go anywhere near a war zone, for any reason'.
I think in Apocalypse Now, the message also was "War can be pretty exhilarating at times, just don't be a civvie" or maybe even "You could have won this if you had sold your soul to War God". The play was written by John Milius who was not exactly anti-war even though he took Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", exposing colonialism as source to evidently expose muscular (and morally corrupt) interventionism.
Jimbo's summoned data shoggoth says:
Milius had no desire to direct the film himself and felt that Lucas was the right person for the job. Lucas worked with Milius for four years developing the film, alongside his work on other films, including his script for Star Wars. He approached Apocalypse Now as a black comedy
Dodged a bullet here.
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 17:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
This a Star Wars based story designed to fit in betwixt Episode III and Episode IV. This is NOT Episode VIII.
I'm IN!!1! Been viewing all the trailers and other goodies this week. Am running a proper Episode IV thru Episode VII viewing each night up to the US theatrical release.
Plus a great article in the December Wired with John Knoll, Mr. Photoshop, and lead graphics guy at ILM now. The visuals are going to be top notch! Come ON! A daytime spaceship battle?! That's lighting taken to the extreme. Why do you think it's so easy to pull off battle visuals in the dark dark space regions? Because it's dark and you don't have to mess with lighting much. Except for explosions and such. This is going to look really good, and the story seems like a nice offshoot from our beloved SciFi franchise.
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 19:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
>This is the death star Luke blows. It is the same one that we first saw back in the 1980's.
I know because I was in the queueing in 1977 for it and when we got the front we the house full sign was plonked right in front of us. We had to wait for the next showing but at least we were first in and had our breath taken away.
I think they have been rather lazy and unadventurous not to advance to the story but going for the safe option again to reuse old material, I'll give full judgement after I've seen it and I sure hope I won't be as cheated as I was by J J Abrams rehashing a New Hope.
Now if someone were to film Ian Banks culture novels that would really excite me all over again just like 1977.
-
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 22:34 GMT Rusty 1
Re: Now if someone were to film Ian Banks culture novels
While the Culture novels might make fantastic source material for many hours/days/weeks of film, I suspect any such productions would suffer from the same problem as films made from Tolkien's work - I know in my imagination *precisely* what everything looks like, but everyone else has it wrong! FFS they filmed most of the stuff in New Zealand, but it happened in the woods just up the hill, over there.
There is so much detail to be absorbed, and personal interpretation to be applied, that a film by a 3rd party really will quash the enduring enjoyment. I've watched The Force Awakens a number of times, and I consider it bland and forgettable. I've read a number of Alistair Reynolds' works once and each is firmly imprinted on my mind.
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 11:54 GMT alferdpacker
Re: Now if someone were to film Ian Banks culture novels
I really want them to make Diamond Dogs. That would be both an excellent self contained sci-fi-horror film and also works as an introduction to that whole universe and some of the recurring characters.
If they handled the reveal at the end properly it'd knock the stuffing out of people.
-
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 14:32 GMT Dave Fox
Re: Now if someone were to film Ian Banks culture novels
Iain M. Banks.
His contemporary fiction was written under the name Iain Banks, and his Sci-Fi under the name Iain M. Banks!
And with a swish of his cape, Captain Pedant slinks back into the shadows, ready to strike again where least wanted!
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 03:13 GMT Mark York 3
I can sympathise
A mate of mine stopped to chat to a friend in the cinema queue causing more people to get in at the queue before us.
Result - Stuck at the near front (gazing at the posters for Salon Kitty helped pass the time) & missed the next episode (No videos in those days) of Doctor Who.
A week later it snowed & his younger brother had the Odeon cinema pretty much all to himself.
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 18:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Robes?
So cloaks serve the same role in Star Wars that red shirts serve in Star Trek?
And if they really wanted to be topical about passwords, there should be a geeky, sycophantic admin with dreams of moving up the Imperial career ladder, and his password should be "D4Rth AdmiNistrator" (And he should wear a cloak for no reason at all, other than hero worship.)
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 21:54 GMT Mark 85
Re: Robes?
Ooo, ooo, my new password! aDarth'trator I'll get respect! Thank you!
I'm guessing that password will soon be on the fore of the brute force password attacks:
"User is an admin?"
"Check."
"User is a Star Was fan?"
"Aren't they all?"
"Try aDarth'trator then."
"And... we're in...."
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 19:19 GMT EL Vark
Re: Robes?
'kay, time to take you kids to school. The first time I came across the trouble with capes was Captain America #180 by Steve Englehart & Sal Buscema (both more associated with the Avengers, and Sal's big brother, John, designed the Vision). It was a post-Watergate world and Our Steve was deeply disillusioned, so gave up the red, white & blue underwear, and his shield, and struck out as... Nomad! On his very first mission, while chasing the baddies (Serpent Society types, if I recall correctly, it was 42 years ago), Steve stepped on his flowing cape with his heel and went arse over teakettle; tearing the offending affectation from his shoulders as the baddies escaped, having learned a valuable lesson. What works for Mighty Thor only works because he IS Mighty Thor (or she, lately). Moore & Gibbons may or may not have been aware of that one, but Byrd & co. should almost certainly have been. So, yeah, swipey-swipey. "Doth mother know you're wearing her drapes?"
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 16:00 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: Don't tell me Star Wars is suddenly great again?
These were good times! Computers were manageable, Batman was in the movie theaters, playboy gals were beautiful and the summer was hot & long.
Jimmy Carter was underappreciated. Then he got rogered by an October Surprise of military incompetence.
-
Thursday 22nd December 2016 20:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Don't tell me Star Wars is suddenly great again?
Re: Don't tell me Star Wars is suddenly great again?
These were good times! Computers were manageable,
Computers were bigger than skyscrapers,
Batman was in the movie theaters,
Do you mean Superman? There were no Batman films from 1967 to 1988. Or do you mean "Batman in Outer Space?"
playboy gals were beautiful and the summer was hot & long.
And now summers are hotter and longer. Sometimes - unless they're colder, wetter and shorter.
Jimmy Carter was underappreciated. Then he got rogered by an October Surprise of military incompetence.
I actually appreciate how much he accomplished after leaving office.
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 21:10 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: The sequel
Unfortunately the hijab factory workers turn out to be Zensunni, declare Jihad, upon which Fremen emerge from the galactic badlands and wreck the Empire's shit fiercely.
In the end, the Emperor is declared unfit for duty by the fanatics and replaced by a wiry juvenile badass. Then The Force is declared haram.
THE MERGED-UNIVERSE END!
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 20:50 GMT Matt Bryant
Gore? Good.
The Star Wars prequels were a bit too clean, they really didn't show the results of violence as much as even the original movie back in the 70s. Yes, I know they want kids to go without subsequently having nightmares, but I worry more about kids not realising violence is nasty, messy and painful rather than them becoming "desensitised".
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 21:55 GMT Dan 55
Re: Gore? Good.
You'd expect Luke would have been said, "Oh God, the fuckers burnt my aunt and uncle and dumped them outside the house! Why God, why?!" at least once. Or Leia is left with PTSD and flashbacks after being shut in a room with the floating needle drone and Vader and tortured.
They didn't really address the violence.
-
-
-
Wednesday 14th December 2016 22:07 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Yeah. It IS puerile crap.
Basically a coming-of-age adventure story from Japan with space fantasy elements.
But so what?
Go back to Wittgenstein then or check out Mr Plinkett here and even more here
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 11:50 GMT Uffish
Re: "the original Star Wars movie"
If you want to enjoy a movie you have to block out the inevitable crappification from the money botherers, the stars' quirks, the script re-writers committees and whatever else is involved in movie making.
Then you have to work out if the enjoyment is worth the effort. For me, seeing the first Star Wars, with 20th century switches doing fabulous things (hyper-drive, shields ...) and jedi swords, special effects and all that, was great fun and worth the ticket price but the story lines and drama of the whole Star Wars series has always been too overdone for me.
Icon because I was just wondering what the next one will be about.
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 18:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "the original Star Wars movie"
"Icon because I was just wondering what the next one will be about."
It's about how you can make a death planet with the same gaping security issues as the original 30 years before.
Thinking about it, maybe the Force Awakens should have been STAR WARS - THE INTERPLANET OF THINGS.
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 02:23 GMT Sampler
Quite possibly at the same screening with you Simon (George Street?) and I enjoyed it quite a lot - saying something given I really disliked the last one (and the three before that), it really is a way to show both how to do a modern Star Wars movie AND how to do a prequel properly.
There's still some pacing issues with it but my only real gripe is it denigrates the first movie.
The long running geek meme of why would the Death Star have an exhaust port, design flaw etc.. is what's been used to create the central storyline here, only, it's not a design flaw, it needs to vent gas into space, so it needs an exhaust port, but it's a tiny exhaust port - they remark on how impossible a shot it is and how the guy using targeting computers fails, impacting on the side, this builds up for Luke using The Force(TM) to shoot his guided missiles (given they make a ninety degree turn) and what an astounding achievement this is, he managed to defeat the enemy against the near impossible odds.
Now, now he just got lucky, made the shot set up by Hannibal. So, like the prequels and the awful sequel, it carries on the tradition of ruining the original movies that bit more.
They need to move away, there's a big and rich universe to set all kinds of stories in, they don't have to carry on flogging the dead horse of the originals and ruining our memory of them with each blow.
The Peter Cushing special effects though are remarkable, I guess we're not far away from seeing any actor from any period appearing in films to come, that could really be something, finally, the Arnie vs Stallone fight scene we've always wanted, back in their '80's looking bodies, and not the spitting image muppets they've aged into..
-
Saturday 17th December 2016 14:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Now, now he just got lucky, made the shot set up by Hannibal. So, like the prequels and the awful sequel, it carries on the tradition of ruining the original movies that bit more.
I don't see this. This part of the story at least works: There is a design flaw which has eluded Imperial Auditors, and it's all about getting the details out about the fact that it indeed exists and how to exploit it.
Now you just need someone really hardcore to actually use.
Luke was TOLD to use this flaw, but still succeeding was a great deal.
-
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 10:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Just a failure to notice...
... that the best spies are high-ranking insiders (or anyway people with enough access, often mostly "unnoticeable" ones) ... most of the most top secrets project were stolen without much blood shed. Exfiltrating data may take time, you need to go unnoticed.
But of course people don't want a cunning story, they want laser blasts.
Yet, I still have to understand how the Death Star can travel in space... given any other spaceship in SW has clearly visible rear engines... (Tie fighters don't have then, and can't travel much)
Anyway, I would have connected to the station WiFi to stole the plans... and run a ransomware on Darth Vader systems. Giving him a hint it was Jabba, or course..
-
Thursday 15th December 2016 10:51 GMT Aladdin Sane
Re: Just a failure to notice...
Sienar Fleet Systems TIE fighters (note capitalisation) are powered by Twin Ion Engines, whereas the Incom T-65 X-wing starfighters are powered by fusial thrust engines. Since we've not seen the back of either iteration of Death Star, we can't say what kind of sublight propulsion it uses. Some sources (http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ds/propulsion.html) claim that the nozzles may have been too small to spot from the distances we normally observe the battle stations from.
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Friday 16th December 2016 14:57 GMT Snarf Junky
It was excellent
Finished work early yesterday and took my seat in an almost empty cinema and was taken back to being a kid watching Empire Strikes Back in the Quinton Essoldo.
The fighing is dirty, the characters likeable (or not as the case may be) and it's a good old galactical scrap. A nice few nods to previous films such as the two gents from Mos Eisley that Jyn bumps into.
All in all I thought it was terrific and can't wait to see it again.
-
Saturday 17th December 2016 13:26 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: It was excellent
This.
I couldn't get back into it as much as in the 70s/80s evidently but it was still awesome in a retro way.
Reanimating Peter Cushing ... that was great!
Two notes:
1) This movie shows that the Empire is run by management types through and through. They like to infight, look out for themselves only, are persistently nasty and think they can run the infrastructure without the engineers who built it or even the plans to the machinery for that matter.
2) Sadly, at one point the movie got the feel of an adventure game (push that button, insert this thing here, now get to that unreachable control point some feet away). Plus, characters far too often plunge into action blindly where no chance of success can possibly exist. Nobody does that in real life, this makes things look cartoonish. (Like landing on Naboo then finding a magical ship in an underwater city in a pond that brings one tho the other side on the planet through the planet core... yeah, a likely development)
-
-
-
Sunday 18th December 2016 15:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Bad CGI? It's still kinda, sorta imperfect but we are now far from this Lovecraft citation: His expressionless face was handsome to the point of radiant beauty, but had shocked the superintendent when the hall light fell on it—for it was a wax face with eyes of painted glass. Some nameless accident had befallen this man.
-
Biting the hand that feeds IT
