AotC queries

[Plane Sailing]

After seeing AotC last night (and thoroughly enjoying it) I was left with a few queries, and I wonder if anyone might be able to shed some light on them.

1. What happened to the destroyer droids forcefields? It seemed that in TPM the rolling destroyer droids had forcefields which couldn't be penetrated by light sabres, hence OWK and QGJ always had to run from them. In the final battle scene here, they are all over the place and yet never seem to activate their screens! (just an Ep1 plot device that became inconvenient? or something else?)

2. Wonder why the jedi knights start fighting a pitched battle against the robot army, rather than a guerilla action after rescueing the three heroes - getting out of the middle of the arena for starters! Maybe this is an example of what Yoda was complaining about... too much arrogance in the Jedi nowadays?

3. (just popped out of my mind! I'll edit it in later when it comes back!)

Cheers

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

My theories:

1) The shield generators turned out to be prohibitively expensive to be mounted on EVERY one. OR Only Trade Federation destroyer droids come with the shield upgrade. Perhaps the Geonosians don't feel that they are necessary. They seem to be a warrior people so "hiding" behind shields of that nature may be considered cowardly, so they wouldn't even have come up with the idea of putting them on their droids.

2) It may very well be arrogance, but they are also without air support until Yoda shows up, which makes a retreat a little more difficult. There are also supposedly deleted scenes where some members of the Jedi Council (Plo Koon, Ki Adi Mundi, etc.) break off from the battle in order to try and take out the control system for the droids. Personally, I'd love to see that sequence on the DVD. Something about Plo Koon makes me think he'd be really bad-ass. At any rate, if they pulled that off, the Jedi there would be more than enough to take Dooku into custody, possibly scuttling the Separatist movement in the process.

 

[Wolf72]

1. looks awefully familiar ... I think maybe in the SWRPG despcription? So, yeah the trade federation has the really good model, but probably doesn't use them in huge numbers because they're so expensive.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

1. looks awefully familiar ... I think maybe in the SWRPG despcription? So, yeah the trade federation has the really good model, but probably doesn't use them in huge numbers because they're so expensive.

Educated guess, actually. But it's a logical explanation for what's really a plot point, so I'm not surprised they game designers also came up with it.

 

[Fenros]

I'm just guessing of course, but here's my theories:

1.> The Destroyer Droids probably didn't have shields because there were already to many things Lucas was trying to 'show' you during the end battle. There were probably lots and lots of stuff Lucas probably wanted to get across in that battle, but just really had to economize down to what was really important. The Destroyer Droid shields were probably on that list of things to get 'ignored'.

Imagine being in the storyboard/effects meeting: "Yeah, we gotta show Kit Fisto do this", "Oh and these Geonosians should be flying here.....", "....gotta show the recoil action on the arm blasters for those new droids....", "gotta show this......", ".......make sure this is in the background.......", etc, etc.

Maybe Lucas thought we already knew how Destroyer droids worked so he didn't feel he needed his effects team showing them use those shields. Which in lies the mistake, some one did notice.

Or maybe they just plain forgot. Maybe with the huge list of things to get down the storyboarders, the effects supervisors, and George just plain forgot to put them in. Hate to shatter anyone's notion that big budget film-makers are free of such minor mistakes. It happens. I've seen in tons of times.

Believe it or not, sometimes even the lowest guy on the studio ladder notices this too. One night a production assistant is photo-copying some storyboard sheets or lists of effects, or recording raw footage, and notices the shields missing. He goes , "Hey...uh guys I know this is a small thing, but I noticed that........"

Then the supervisors or director assistants say, "Don't worry." But they're thinking in their heads, "yeah whatever, like you know what should or shouldn't be in the movie.........stick to photo-copying and let us do our thing okay?"

Then guess what never gets around to being done? That's right, those shields........


But to me, I imagine George going through every frame with a fine tooth comb. So it probably isn't because he forgot. Its probably the first reason. He just probably thought that they appear so little to begin with, why even show the shields eh?

2.> Yeah, the smarter route might've been to stay in the stands (where they first appear) where there was more cover, and the opportunity to weave in and out of the hallways behind them, taking out targets close quarters.

But instead I think Lucas thought it would just be visual cool to see all the Jedis inside the arena where they eventually end up standing together back to back. Some directors like to bend reality a bit just so 'cooler' stuff can happen.

Canis wrote:

1) The shield generators turned out to be prohibitively expensive to be mounted on EVERY one. OR Only Trade Federation destroyer droids come with the shield upgrade. Perhaps the Geonosians don't feel that they are necessary. They seem to be a warrior people so "hiding" behind shields of that nature may be considered cowardly, so they wouldn't even have come up with the idea of putting them on their droids.

Those are some cool ways to explain it Canis. But in the end, none of that was in the movie. You and I could B.S. all day and come up with reasons that are realistic, but really.....the most likely answer is that these things are just little mistakes. Its funny that the 'extra' material (RPGs, Novels) have to try to explain the stuff and make it sound like its not a mistake.