The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further story

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User1442
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The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further story

Post by User1442 » Sun Feb 02, 2014 6:22 am

As evidenced in both star wars and star trek, certain plot elements can be used to annoyingly smash your opponents face in online until they start doing it to their keyboard in real life. For instance the storm troopers bad aim, or the ridiculousness of the main characters in ds9 having trouble fighting off jem hadar, when their coming through a corridor 2 meters wide in the episode "the siege of AR-599.........AR-789.......AR-764......AR-OH SHIT WE'RE TOTALLY DOING AN EPISODE ON THE HORROR'S OF WAR AND ALTHOUGH ITS A REALLY GOOD EPISODE IT PRETTY MUCH PORTRAYS US AS A BUNCH OF TACTICAL RETARDS!!!!!"

Sometimes its hard to differentiate between whether these things are for the sake of keeping the plot going, or whether or not their actually a technical part of the universe as a whole. The Storm troopers bad aim was simply because the main characters couldn't get killed, and the F&@$-ton of lasers and pew pew sounds made the movies all that more awesome. In the ds9 episode, its a similar thing. The stories about WWII that make you think about how horrible war is, aren't the ones where the good guys sat back and drank coffee while laughing at how easy it was to pick off a hundred soliders standing in a straight line.

Really I think there needs to be established some firm guidelines on differentiating between plot device's and plot holes.

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Lucky » Sat Feb 08, 2014 8:44 am

leon_caboose wrote: As evidenced in both star wars and star trek, certain plot elements can be used to annoyingly smash your opponents face in online until they start doing it to their keyboard in real life. For instance the storm troopers bad aim, or the ridiculousness of the main characters in ds9 having trouble fighting off jem hadar, when their coming through a corridor 2 meters wide in the episode "the siege of AR-599.........AR-789.......AR-764......AR-OH SHIT WE'RE TOTALLY DOING AN EPISODE ON THE HORROR'S OF WAR AND ALTHOUGH ITS A REALLY GOOD EPISODE IT PRETTY MUCH PORTRAYS US AS A BUNCH OF TACTICAL RETARDS!!!!!"

Sometimes its hard to differentiate between whether these things are for the sake of keeping the plot going, or whether or not their actually a technical part of the universe as a whole. The Storm troopers bad aim was simply because the main characters couldn't get killed, and the F&@$-ton of lasers and pew pew sounds made the movies all that more awesome. In the ds9 episode, its a similar thing. The stories about WWII that make you think about how horrible war is, aren't the ones where the good guys sat back and drank coffee while laughing at how easy it was to pick off a hundred soliders standing in a straight line.

Could you please explain what you are talking about concerning DS9: The Siege of AR-558?

Starfleet troops range from actual elite combat tested soldiers to an engineers and scientists with the minimum phaser training that has never even been in a fist fight in his life, and there is little if any way to tell from the uniform.

I believe there are interviews with the DS9 production staff that state they were not allowed to show actual ground combat do to the budget being too small.

+++++

Obi-Won sarcastically mocked the Storm Troopers accuracy when he and Luke find the Dead Jawas at the Sand Crawler in episode 4. We see how good Sand People are at shooting in Episode 1.

Luke stated that it was hard to see out of a Storm Trooper helmet when he and Han steal Storm Trooper uniforms in episode 4..

Han, Chewy, Leia, C3-P0, R2-D2, and Luke saw nothing odd about their escape from the Death Star.

On Endor, one of the Emperors best men failed ti kill Leia with a carefully aimed shot much like other Storm Troopers and Leia's body guards on the Tantive IV.

In the Destroy the Malevolence trilogy we are told B1 Battle Droids are programed to be bad shots by a B1 Battle Droid, and everyone else isn't much better then a B1.

If anything the sudden increase in accuracy during order 66 was the plot hole.
leon_caboose wrote: Really I think there needs to be established some firm guidelines on differentiating between plot device's and plot holes.
I often find the plot hole is the person not looking closely at the event, or ignoring the big picture...

In truth you need to take contradictions on a case by case basis.

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Praeothmin » Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:04 pm

Actually, Stormtroopers' aim vs the Rebels on the Tantive IV was horrible, it was horrible vs the Ewoks, and horrible again vs the Rebels on Hoth...
In other words, it is simply horrible... :)

Truth be told, though, it is no more horrible than modern police officers, and slightly worse than modern soldiers...
Firing in combat is rarely like what we see in the movies, and the amount of shots fired compared to shots hitting your target is abysmal, and that is in real life...

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Lucky » Mon Feb 10, 2014 10:49 am

Praeothmin wrote:Actually, Stormtroopers' aim vs the Rebels on the Tantive IV was horrible, it was horrible vs the Ewoks, and horrible again vs the Rebels on Hoth...
In other words, it is simply horrible... :)

Truth be told, though, it is no more horrible than modern police officers, and slightly worse than modern soldiers...
Firing in combat is rarely like what we see in the movies, and the amount of shots fired compared to shots hitting your target is abysmal, and that is in real life...
I beleive the battle on the Tantive IV has both Star Toopers, and Leia's body guards standing about ten feet from each other with no cover, taking careful aim, and then missing.

In Return of the Jedi you have the famous storm trooper just missing Leia with a careful aimed shot.

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by 359 » Mon Feb 10, 2014 11:41 pm

I'm not sure "taking careful aim" quite applies in that situation.


I ran the numbers once on the accuracy rates on the Tantive IV. I don't have them in frot of me, but they were something like 11% for the stormtroopers and 15% for the rebels based on number of firing sounds vs. number of corpses.

Thinking back through The Clone Wars, the accuracy wasn't much better even when against hordes and hordes of extras (i.e. the clones and droids). This seems indicative of volley style firing; point forward and shoot, as a group you'll get enough shots off so that you're likely to hit something. And this fits with the rank-and-file tactics commonly employed.
leon_caboose wrote:Really I think there needs to be established some firm guidelines on differentiating between plot device's and plot holes.
I do agree and personally I look at just how much something was required by plot, but I can't figure out a fair way to integrate that subjective measure into an objective analysis. So I end up just going with the plot mess as one datapoint and merge it with the others. Because after collecting enough data the opposing outliers will, statistically speaking, cancel each other out.

Now this is different from over-analyzing something especially when contrary to the intent of the event.


Going on the DS9: "Siege of AR-558" example with regards to tactics and stuff, as a general rule regarding tactics in the debate, I tend to assume that they know at least as much about military tactics as I do. Albeit that isn't much, but it's better than what is shown in some instances, so I tend to ignore those. The same thing goes for yields and such that cross my "stupidly low" threshold for either side (this covers events like starships not having enough firepower to cut through a block of styrofoam, or FTL being only one-and-a-bit c for an interstellar civilization). And those gaps are normally caused by plot stuff to boot.


"Nawe man! He's pulled out a Plot device!!!"
"Everybody hit the deck!"

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:25 am

Praeothmin wrote:Actually, Stormtroopers' aim vs the Rebels on the Tantive IV was horrible, it was horrible vs the Ewoks, and horrible again vs the Rebels on Hoth...
On Hoth it was good.

wewy goo'

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:34 am

Lucky wrote: Obi-Won sarcastically mocked the Storm Troopers accuracy when he and Luke find the Dead Jawas at the Sand Crawler in episode 4. We see how good Sand People are at shooting in Episode 1.
He didn't mock the stormtroopers' aim. It actually was a major point of his anti-false-flag debunking argument that the sand people's aim is inferior:

"And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise."

I don't pick any trace of sarcasm. Sand people were not supposed to be elite snipers back then... until TPM, where they can shoot car sized podracers moving at 500-1000 kph from a range of half a kilometer or more with a few shots of projectiles that move at 250 m/s or less.
In the Destroy the Malevolence trilogy we are told B1 Battle Droids are programed to be bad shots by a B1 Battle Droid, and everyone else isn't much better then a B1.
That CGI show is a tad excessive on the bad aim thing.

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:46 am

Lucky wrote: I beleive the battle on the Tantive IV has both Star Toopers, and Leia's body guards standing about ten feet from each other with no cover, taking careful aim, and then missing.
They were taking careful aim before the door was flash blasted with a loud bang and smoke and debris filled the corridor and troopers stormed through the door, firing before the Alderaanian guards could recover quickly enough.
There are worse cases of misses in that same battle but in general, with troopers aiming from the hip and moving while using semi-automatic weapons, and guards folding back and turning heels while massively stressed of not dying, that's not surprising.
There are soldiers for whom it takes days since their first steps on the active battle field to get their fears in check and start becoming efficient.
In Return of the Jedi you have the famous storm trooper just missing Leia with a careful aimed shot.
Doesn't mean much. Blasters in general aren't super accurate weapons in the slightest unless of higher quality, and using any handgun isn't an easy thing even if you take time to aim. It's not like the stormtrooper missed that much in reality, especially since Leia was taking cover.
Besides, due to the loss of real 501st regiment troops after the destruction of the 1st Death Star and Vader's remaining best squads probably not being on Endor but on his flagship (Executor), I'd rather brush all that under the mat of side effects of conscription.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Picard » Thu Feb 27, 2014 8:27 am

Praeothmin wrote:Firing in combat is rarely like what we see in the movies, and the amount of shots fired compared to shots hitting your target is abysmal, and that is in real life...
To be fair much of that is due to large amount of suppression fire.

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Praeothmin » Thu Feb 27, 2014 9:13 pm

Even without the suppression fire though, actual shot ratio per hits are very low in RL, so the Stormtrooper showings isn't that bad compared to real life, only when compared to movie armies and heroes...

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Re: The importance of ignoring plot holes used to further st

Post by Lucky » Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:26 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote: He didn't mock the stormtroopers' aim. It actually was a major point of his anti-false-flag debunking argument that the sand people's aim is inferior:

"And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise."

I don't pick any trace of sarcasm. Sand people were not supposed to be elite snipers back then... until TPM, where they can shoot car sized podracers moving at 500-1000 kph from a range of half a kilometer or more with a few shots of projectiles that move at 250 m/s or less.
The Prequels and the Clone Wars paint Obi Won as a sarcastic/rye/snarky jedi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h8ZOK5u3i8
Sure looks like rye humor/sarcasm to me.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: That CGI show is a tad excessive on the bad aim thing.
There are only three reasons a droid should miss a still target:
It is physically defective

It is poorly programed

The weapon is defective

The B-1 says its programing is the problem.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: They were taking careful aim before the door was flash blasted with a loud bang and smoke and debris filled the corridor and troopers stormed through the door, firing before the Alderaanian guards could recover quickly enough.
There are worse cases of misses in that same battle but in general, with troopers aiming from the hip and moving while using semi-automatic weapons, and guards folding back and turning heels while massively stressed of not dying, that's not surprising.
There are soldiers for whom it takes days since their first steps on the active battle field to get their fears in check and start becoming efficient.
The scene starts at about 0:48ish and goes till 1:00ish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bavibsoQYUw
you will see Storm Troopers missing body guards who are standing shoulder to shoulder from one side of the corridor to the other with no cover.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Doesn't mean much. Blasters in general aren't super accurate weapons in the slightest unless of higher quality, and using any handgun isn't an easy thing even if you take time to aim. It's not like the stormtrooper missed that much in reality, especially since Leia was taking cover.
Besides, due to the loss of real 501st regiment troops after the destruction of the 1st Death Star and Vader's remaining best squads probably not being on Endor but on his flagship (Executor), I'd rather call brush all that under the mat of side of effects of conscription.
The Empeor's and Vader's plans requires the shield generator on Endor to remain functional.

The 501 is going to get the best gear do to being the elite 501 weather it is made up of clones or not.

The clones age faster then normal humans. In 10 years they go from new borns to the equivalent of a normal human in his 20s or 30s, by the time of episode 4 they would at least be the equivalent of a normal human in their 40s or 60s, and by episode 6 they would be too old for combat.

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