Re: Star Wars & Star Trek

Well, it depends which show you watched.

Star Wars, yes. I recall reading somewhere that Lucas and his friends
used 
WWII movies as reference for the dogfights in Star Wars. Fighter-based 
combat also is used in the movies for plot purposes: since the story
focuses 
on individual characters, giving them individual ships is the best way
to 
handle combat. (It's one reason why anime likes battlesuits so much.)

Star Trek, the old show and Next Generation both use the silly "sit in
one 
place and blast the other ship" method of combat, mainly 'cause they
want to 
fit the fight on one screen, and don't have a big special effects
budget. 
(One of the big laughs, for me, in Wrath of Kahn was the line about
"Kahn's 
tactics clearly show two-dimensional thinking" - Star Trek always had 
two-dimensional combat, to that point!)

Deep Space Nine and Voyager, however, thanks to computer graphics, did
more 
interesting space combat. It's still slow (to give the characters time
to 
explain their plans to the TV audience) and ridiculously close-ranged,
but 
they are more active.

Star Trek, however, is "soft" science - the dictates of a plot generally

override the dictates of Real World physics and thinking. If you start 
poking holes in the inconsistencies of the show, you'll be poking all 
night...(Why don't they use realistic decontamination methods to avoid
alien 
infections? Why don't they have decent firearms, instead of the slow and

underpowered phaser? Why don't they have zero-gravity training in
Starfleet? 
Why are the Borg, supposedly an ultra-adaptable race, so dull and 
predicatable? Why do we beam the command crew down to every hostile
planet 
we come across?)

Have fun poking.

>Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 21:01:26 -0800
>From: Chris Connor <con9570@flash.net>
>Subject: starwars Vs. star trek

>
>millitary science.  In Star Trek you have large ships with heavy guns
>firing at
>each other from long range(more or less).  Star Trek naval warfare very
>closely
>resembles WWI battleship tactics.  In star wars you have carriers, the
>star
>destroyer with its TIE-fighter battle group, and rebel
>cruisers(correllian
>corvettes? mon calamari ships?) with X-wing and Y-wing battle groups.
>Star Wars
>therefore is similar to WWII naval tactics, carriers with fighter
battle
>
>groups.  As a little side note the dogfight scenes in star wars were
>made using
>film footage of WWII dogfights.  Yes I know in Star trek they use
>fighters, but
>the only time I have ever seem them was in DS9 during a couple battles
>in the
>war, and most of the ships were heavy battle cruisers(battle ships).
>And yes
>star wars does have big capital ships blasting at each other with big
>guns.
>What I am trying to show is the general use of naval forces in each of
>the
>universes.  Thought I might share my observations of these two popular
>Sci-Fi backgrounds.  I hope someone finds this interesting =).
>
>
>Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 11:51:51 -0500
>From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@interlog.com>
>Subject: Re: starwars Vs. star trek

>
>Actually, it doesn't really resemble much of anything. The ships don't
>maneouvre in lines or anything, even though that might make sense given
the
>weapon layout and the lack of 3D movement. The ranges are ridiculously 
>close
>for the weapons. There isn't much in the way of tactics except
"swarming".
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com