World in the Satin Bag

One of the things that I find interesting about the criticisms of Star Wars is when people tend to misunderstand or misrepresent what the series is about or what happens within the series. Sometimes this has to do with people over analyzing or simply people being idiots.Mulluane of Dragons, Heroes, and Wizards recently brought to my attention this post by Richard Risch that somewhat irritated me with the ways in which Risch criticized Star Wars for its failures to succeed as a piece of science fiction–he argues that Star Wars is more of a science fantasy than anything else.Now, to be fair, I have little argument against Risch’s points. He is correct in placing Star Wars in the science fantasy category. Lucas’s series is not at all a true science fiction story and is a prime example of why the “just because it has spaceships doesn’t mean it’s science fiction” rule is a good one to follow. What I take issue with are the examples Risch uses and the fallacies in logic that come with them. I suppose the best way to go about this would be to go one piece at a time.First this: Sadly though and even more important, authentic fighter tactics were lacking, and at times, … purely ignored. This was made quite evident by the attack on the exhaust port via the death trench. Using your fighter to block an enemy fighter (on your six o’clock), is suicidal in real warfare. That is in reality how most fighters get shot-down. A logical tactic would have been to keep a circling flight of fighters above, waiting to engage any bandits making a run for your dive-bombers. But then, that would have not lent well to the story, would it? My initial contention with this part of his argument is his reference to the suicidal tactic of blocking an enemy fighter with your own fighter. If you’ve seen the movie it’s pretty darn obvious that the folks doing the blocking are, in fact, being suicidal. They’re there to basically be annoying. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, sure, but I don’t think Risch really addresses the reality of the setting. Perhaps this all isn’t much of a contention, but from the start I already had issues with the assumption that the rebels in Star Wars were doing anything other than being suicidal decoys…I think a far more accurate criticism, one which Risch only touches on briefly here, would be to point out the idiocy behind the whole idea of having to travel down a long trench. The film never mentions any rational behind this tactic and really, as Risch says, it’s there for the pretty-fying of the story.Then there’s this: Added to this, was the attack on the exhaust port (which was purportedly ray-shielded) with photon torpedoes (borrowed from Star Trek). Funny thing, a mass of photons is considered ray. (Photon energy is produced by an electron dropping from a higher orbit to a lower orbit as it travels around in an atom.) Therefore, how could photon torpedoes be realistically considered the weapon of choice for this attack? Well, as was mentioned in the comments of his post, the Star Wars folks used proton torpedoes, not photon torpedoes, meaning that no actual “stealing” was involved (in theory). But regardless of the name, Risch’s point is one worth taking up. Why must we assume that the names for all things within a fictional universe have to be related to the things they represent? For example, if I have a fish torpedo, does that mean the torpedo has to be made out of fish? Or shaped like a fish? Does it have to smell like a fish or make a fish sound when it’s shot? No, it doesn’t. It could be called a fish torpedo for a lot of reasons. Maybe it’s called that because when the fighter pilots who shot them saw them moving through deep space they came up with a new slang term in which space became the ocean and torpedoes became fish. Who knows. Just because something is a photon or proton torpedo doesn’t mean that the torpedo has to be made out of photons or protons or anything, or even resemble those things, or be made of photons or protons as we know them in our reality. It doesn’t really matter what they are called. Star Wars also has ion cannons, by the way, and I imagine there are all sorts of scientifically incorrect things about those too. Let’s face it, Star Wars isn’t exactly the most realistic universe out there as far as science is concerned. But do any of us expect it to be? No. It’s Star Wars. There are lightsabers and people who have magic powers and aliens that drool and evil guys that breathe funny. Then: All well and to the good except for one minor problem, it took the samurais and ninjas many years to develop their bodies and skills through training, discipline, and actual combat. I ought to know, I trained at and taught Karate for over twenty-five years. For Luke Skywalker to become an accomplished Jedi Knight (under several weeks of Yoda’s tutelage and training) is laughable and cannot possibly happen even with most gifted human beings. Again, you are expected to accept this with blind faith. Let’s take this one apart piece by piece. TimeIt’s never indicated with any certainty how much time passes between the separation of Luke Skywalker/R2-D2 (traveling to Dagobah) and Han Solo/Chewie/Leia/C-3PO (running from the Empire). The most we can assume is that it didn’t take more than a few years lest we might have seen some drastic changes in the physical appearances of the characters (as in someone getting old all of a sudden). It’s likely, however, that the second film spanned only a few months. Remember, Han Solo gets tortured during this period. I can think of a lot of real world examples where tortures took place for