The lack of good space battles in SW of late

I dunno about you, but one of the major things that I watch SW for is the space battles.

It just seems that in recent animated SW, certainly Rebels anyway, there has been a lack of it. There are no interesting, dynamic space battles, what space combat does occur is small scale and quite boring in the way it's presented, ships don't maneuver much, they fly towards eachother in the same plane and orientation as if on rails and fire away at eachother... there is zero excitement and zero tension. It almost seems like the space battle sequences are background or window dressing connecting sequences to be gotten over with quickly so they can get back to the apparent main show of angsty character interaction.

I don't want SW:Rebels to become some ST:VOY type soap opera.

</Rant>

Ah, time to chill...

 

Just hope we get a Rebellion vs. Empire series set between E4 and E6 soon enough that includes a lot of space battles.

 

I hope Rogue Squadron is still around. ^ I would love to see some space battles with them.

 

I thought the skirmish in Breaking Ranks was better than a lot of the space combat in TCW.

 

Agreed. While I don't wholly disagree with the original poster either, I think it's mostly a case of Rebels' decreased budget showing.

 

What follows is not an excuse for the lack of battles, but more of why I think we don't see them that often in Rebels.

Two of the best series that demonstrate that space flight is not like atmospheric flight have to be Babylon 5 and the re-imagined BSG. Unfortunately, I think people generally find it hard to think about multiple planes (or being able to continue going backwards thanks to momentum/velocity). Also for the age group that Rebels is targeted at, I think they may just not understand that there is no forward, backwards, up, or down like there is on a planet. It is relative to the direction you are traveling. There are some series that show some truly dynamic combat in space, but Rebels just is not one of them.

Also, let's look at it from a financial stand point. Creating scenes for space battles and flight are probably expensive on a large scale. We have seen way more ground stuff than space stuff I think.

 

Episode 5 Battle of Hoth. But the more colorful characters weren't shown.

 

I know. But I meant in animated form as well.

 

The lack of interesting angles in Rebels isn't necessarily a budget issue. According to Filoni, they intentionally made it less dynamic than TCW/prequel trilogy to make it more like what we see in the OT. It's a decision I don't really agree with since while I understand they want to pay homage to that era, they should really try to make Rebels it's own thing.

 

Rebels is lacking in space battles but what do you expect it would have been better to set this series between 4 and 6.

 

I'm sure we'll see more eventually. But were following a single crew as opposed to a large scale Rebellion. I'm sure that the closer we get to episode 4, the more likely space battles will start to happen. Especially if we see other Rebel groups.

 

Agreed, I've had this feeling since the Prequel days, there's never been enough space combat in animated or live action for my taste.

 

We need something like the Battle of Yavin again or the X-Wing series by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston.

 

I don't see a large scale space battle happening until the end of the series. Or at least one the heroes win anyway.

And yes, Filoni has intentionally made the space battles more in line with Episodes IV and V. Droids in Distress's chase sequence at the beginning is ALMOST shot for shot of the escaping Cloud City sequence in Empire Strikes Back, while shots from inside the turret mirror the escape from the Death Star sequence in A New Hope.
I wouldn't expect to see something akin to the Battle of Endor or the Battle of Coruscant in the show's run. At best we will get some neat skirmishes, but no large scale battles.

 

well, and here it is. you all know the reason why there is no space battles. Disney along with Lucasfilm wanted an OT approach and when you look at the time period that Rebels is set. Their can't be too many space battles. I also don't like it when posters say that the battles of TCW sucked compared to whatever episode of Rebels or some novel or Dark Horse comic. This is crude, because TCW is the only star wars tv show that showed battles that count. Micro-series is legends, Rebels is constrained, Family Guy (Star Wars) and Robot Chicken and Phienas and Pherb are spoofs. So what other moving example do you have besides video games and the six movies? Exactly and words from a novel and still pictures of a comic does not constitute good action. Look at Avengers and Avatar movies. Great action and two of the top three movies in the box office (both domestically and internationally). I don't think those two would do well in a book or comic book.

 

The trench run, the Battle of Endor. XWing, TIE Fighter, Rogue Squadron (to a lesser extent). Star Wars used to be all about them Space Battles.

I agree with the TC. To me, Star Wars has been rather dull since the PT for this very reason. It's all about the Jedi this, and Sith that, and the Force yadayadayada. I understand that for a great many people, the thing that makes Star Wars unique among other scifi/fantasy stories is The Force. For me, however, the more Jedi and Force nonsense they push, the less "special" it becomes, and the less interested in the franchise I become. Even Rebels manages to be a story about Jedi and the Force when there isn't any real reason for it, other than "laserswords are cool". Don't even have full fledged Darth Vader hunting down Jedi like many fans have wanted to see for years.

Hope to see some great space action in the new ones. But I'm just a bitter jaded fan, so who cares what I think.

 

I agree StrikerKOJ!

 

With all that said, I'm not going to try to claim that my love for the space ships of Star Wars is based on anything other than I think they're cool. I just happened to be on the short end of the fandom-stick, as it were.

 

Maybe they could swipe some of the better EU ideas from this period. The Battle of Nar Shaddaa would be good to see on screen (dozens of smuggler ships versus a couple of dozen small Imperial warships and a few larger ones).

 

That'd be so cool. I'd pay to watch those episodes.

 

You're paying to watch all the episodes .

I hope.

 

Uh. Yeah.

 

I agree with your views on the space flight and the shows that get it right. It's far too late for SW to switch styles now, but if they ever decided to reboot the entire series sometime in the future, then making the switch would be fine.

 

Yeah I know, I realize that Star Wars has established in their universe how the everything flies. The way things fly in the movies and show are more atmospheric in nature is what I pointing out. Not that I have a problem with it, because some of the space flight sequences in the franchise has actually been pretty good from an action stand point.

 

I know what you were pointing out, since I have also noticed that as well. I think Lucas has said that took inspiration from air battles from WWII for his space battles.