Lit Fleet Junkie Flagship- The technical discussions of the GFFA (Capital Ships thread Mk. II)

Out of curiosity, where did the guy you quoted above get the name "Freedom" for that Mon Cal type?

 

That question was asked earlier in the same thread I got the quote from.

 

RE: wingless MC80, I believe it was the idea of Thrawn McEwok, our old friend, to make the wingless into a Liberty variant in the EGTW. Of course, none of that is canon now, so we are back to a situation where one of the main ships in the Rebel Fleet at Endor is nameless and classless. I think a lot of people assume it is a Home One-type when we see the various box shots (most common angle), as they are similar. However, as numerous posters (myself included) have shown numerous time, the Liberty model sans wings is the most common cruiser at Endor.

I've always wondered if the decision to add wings to the model was to make it much more distinctive from the Home One model. If not that, it was most likely done as a cost effective way to give the Rebels a third type of Calamari cruiser, as scratch building a third model would have been timely and expensive.

--Adm. Nick

 

The point being made by ME on Friday, 1:40 AM was:

From which you hopped to the MonCal-cruiser on Saturday, 2:12 AM.

 

Besides Mon Cal so-called luxury liners, what notable examples are there of Rebel ships being specifically called out as civilian-to-warship conversions in the Legendsverse?

In the newcanon Tarkin novel, Teller uses one, long before the "modern Rebellion" so to speak. But he also uses a salvaged mess of parts from various separatist ships as a cobbled together warship - with a strong implication that his group is not designing and building its own warships yet.
So, what do you think's more likely in this context? Converted freighter, or stolen warship?

The First Order having frigates called "Nebulon-K" may be a factor - an indication of an evolving design going through many models.

TCW's Pelta-class frigate, which also comes in a "medical frigate" variant, and is also made by KDY in both the Legendsverse and the newcanon, may be of interest - maybe it's the precursor to the Nebulon?

 

Dauntless-cruisers being liners come to mind.

 

Maybe the SW Supremacy writers were copying the original Mon Cal backstory.

It is a bit odd that both Mon Calamari Shipyards and SoroSuub have luxury liners converted into "powerful warships".

 

It isn't really that odd - Star Wars capital ships have an "Age of Sail" them to them, and in those days there wasn't a whole lot a difference between a warship and a cargo ships besides the number of guns you stuck on them.

Same thing here - probably more weapons and upgrading a few internal systems is the only difference between a warship and a civilian ship.

 

In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, even in peace time, passenger steamers were built with hardened points to facilitate the mounting of guns during war-time. Maybe Mon Calamari cruisers are like that?

 

double post

 

Found some more bg vehicles while looking over screencaps again.

I think there's a repulsorsled in ROTJ in this behind the scenes matte painting: http://i.imgur.com/qElHrBD.png
Here's the part that actually shows up in the film itself: http://i.imgur.com/CBwhyME.jpg

Also, the SE of ESB has a Star Tours-esque ship in Cloud City, in a literal split-second shot:



The window is almost exactly the same as on the Star Shuttle and it even seems to have the laser cannon at the front ventral side.
It's located in front of a green lawn in the far right background as the camera follows a cloud car.

 

ROTJ Rebel fleet and space battle has a small number of ships that are clearly ships, that are not flotsam jetsam trash deliberately inserted to confuse the eye, are not accounted-for Mon Calamari ships, or Nebulon B frigates, or Corellian Corvettes, or Braha'tok gunships, or conventional Star Destroyers, or the proposed Tector class. Have such small ships and where to find them been considered in this thread?

 

That got me to try to find some original designs. Some of the ROTJ ones are probably Braha'tok-class gunships.

First batch, from ESB:

http://i.imgur.com/CSfAJpk.png
http://i.imgur.com/OTgLCXo.png
http://i.imgur.com/A0pNjFs.png
http://i.imgur.com/1xidHet.png (Lazy of ILM to just take a Y-wing for the leftmost one.)
http://i.imgur.com/B2vgRMr.png

These are from ROTJ:

http://i.imgur.com/nFZ40aF.png
http://i.imgur.com/Equ7AEg.png
http://i.imgur.com/qo72F8U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GWSzio0.png
http://i.imgur.com/awDSoDu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SvUCdwB.png
http://i.imgur.com/n0nlsqn.png (Kinda look like A-wings, but they don't move. Seen when the Executor goes down.)
http://i.imgur.com/MeSbeWO.png (These might be the infamous potatoes ILM put in.)

 

For the last one from ROTJ, I believe those were the wads of chewed gum that ILM used on some mattes. IIRC, they looked enough like Mon Cal cruisers that it was easier to do that than print and cut out multiple pictures and glue them to the matte (which was the most common way to flesh out fleet shots back in 1983).

--Adm. Nick

 

Hahahah. Where was the potato, in the asteroid field in Empire? They also said there was a shoe somewhere.
Yeah, the fleet shots have a lot of cut-n-paste ships.

 

The potato is in the asteroid belt, I think the shoe is at Endor though!

--Adm. Nick

 

Top right is just a Corvette from the front. Engine block, red stripe on the hammerhead, dorsal and ventral turrets.

Middle is the Brahatok.

 

It would be a hoot to flesh these out. I've though that the ovoid ship at far right, http://i.imgur.com/nFZ40aF.png, might be interpreted as the four blobs here. On the whole, the four ships in that flyby shot are the most interesting, and given their apparent distance, seemingly quite large.

 

Nope, because in the same shot is another CR90 from the front, it's just behind the Falcon in that shot I linked. The front silhouettes are completely different. The sensors don't stretch up beyond the engine block on the CR90. Here's from a second later in the shot, it might be another Braha'tok, as well:

 

Yeah, that ship would be a cool candidate for another Mon Cala design, maybe something in the light cruiser or frigate size range.



All three of those ships are high on my list for more details. They are obvious models, God only knows what happened to them.

--Adm. Nick

 

You've got to admit, the one one the left of the frame sure looks Dreadnaughty, doesn't it?

 

It does look like that out of the two that could fit the bill. The one on the bottom has some similarities as well.

 

They look half like a Dreadnaught and half like a Bulk Cruiser.

 

I. Here are two frames of some shape, apparently contiguous behind the foreground transport, and not attached to the foreground transport. The front feature shares a bit of shape with a Corvette engine block. Why would ILM block out a perfectly good model is beyond me. It might have been a model that was only partially completed just for this shot.

initial

final


II. Regarding that shape that is below the obvious SD-size Liberty, I theorize it's another Liberty. I.e., the image of the obvious Liberty above has been downsized beyond a threshold for detail. So the finest details, the wingtips, have been lost in translation. This is the kind of argument made for why B-Wing footage doesn't show up after a certain point. The outline of the Liberty, with wing roots, remains. A similar phenomena is seen during one frame that shows a Nebulon B at the cut off point (just when SSD is turning over). The Nebulon B bow and stern are still visible but very blurry, and the neck or spine has been completely lost. Bow and stern can be mistaken for two completely different ships. This is not an insistent theory because I can see differences in the two. This theory would require that more than the stated threshold was lost in translation, in particular, everything aft of the wing roots. That could be by design, if the other outlines match, including the leading wing, prow, dorsal features, etc.

III. Regarding


Which I assume is from http://starwarsscreencaps.com/star-wars-episode-vi-return-of-the-jedi-1983/79/ ,
Is this the highest resolution frame that exists, period? Are there any Mike Verta-type restoration shots with even more detail?

 

Got a little Rebel Fleet shot from promotional artwork from the next issue of the Star Wars comic:

 

I assume that the DP20 gunship is now considered canon again? That image, FYI, is based on a shot of the Rebel Fleet in The Force Unleashed II.


--Adm. Nick