A Thank You and Apology

True, but I 'know' you lot better than some of the other 'strangers' out there.

OK, the site says only those 3 myths will be tested.

You never carried somebody on a rope swing before? I don't get what there is to test. There have been plenty of rope rescues you could look at.

Crawling inside a Tauntaun: Father Joseph Goiffon cut open his dead horse and used it for a shelter for 5 days back in 1860. He did lose a leg though. But, he also didn't have a buddy standing outside erecting an emergency shelter. So, if it happened once, it's possible. And, just how fast did Han erect that emergency shelters? The books say they are pop up shelters.

Ewoks vs Stormtroopers...really?

I really enjoy the 3 Star Wars movies. I enjoy them even more before Georgie boy started meddling with his films. BUT, the "physics" and "science" is stupid. Every single planet/moon they visit has the same gravity. Even the asteroid they landed on in SW:ESB had the same gravity (it had a toxic atmosphere inside the worm). Every single body has only one climate pole to pole: a swamp planet, a desert planet, a forest moon, an ice planet... They have magic. Add in the awful prequels and the "science" gets even worse. It doesn't matter what you say, it doesn't matter what you test, you're not following their "laws of physics". You can't use Newton's Law of Cooling to determine how fast a Tauntaun's body would cool on Hoth because, none of our science applies.

I'm betting even fewer people watch this show than watched the Walking Dead tie in.

Oh, want pics of people cutting open dead animals and crawling inside? Plenty of them on the net, all pretty graphic. Still, not a single one applies to Hoth.

Stan Lee posted a little video about his most hated question: Who would win in a fight between A & B? He explained how stupid the question is because the answer is simple: Whomever the writer wants to win would win. None of it's real. No real science applies. If the writer wants Luke to survive inside a Tauntaun's body, he does. If the writer wants him to die, he does.

If you can enjoy a film with ghosts and goblins, you can enjoy Star Wars. It's just magic with the serial numbers filed off.

And that's not a bad thing...

In order (and things that were noted at some point in the Star Wars Challenge thread;

1; The rope swing involves being able to carry two people on a very thin rope that is attached with a small grapple. It also involves seeing if you could carry someone across as in the film - remember when they did the stunt for real both Mark Hammil (sp?) and Carrie Fisher were wearing harnesses and using a dedicated rig to perform the swing.

Besides, you REALLY want to miss a chance to see the other Kari dressed as Princess Leia?

2; The question was if putting Luke, who was suffering from hypothermia, would buy Han enough time to erect a shelter and then start to treat his friend before he died. This differs from your example, where the person performing this trick was clearly not immobile or close to death when they climbed inside.
It was pointed out that we don't know how long it would have taken Han to erect the shelter in ideal conditions, let alone in the middle of a blizzard, because we don't see him doing this. Nor do we know the specifics as to how the shelter worked or was designed. We can reasonably speculate that in the ST universe emergency shelters would be self erecting, but even so given the conditions Han would have needed to secure it to prevent it from being blown away - Which would mean that the action he was doing just after putting Luke in the Tauntaun was most likely putting securing pegs into the ground to prevent it from blowing away. We made an educated guess that if the trick stabilized Luke's condition for around five minutes that would give Han enough time to erect the shelter and start to move Luke inside (assuming he didn't just erect the shelter around the tauntaun) and therefore would be plausible. If it bought ten minutes or so then it would be confirmed as being a valid survival technique.

3; The 'Ewok' myth was about the weapons and equipment they were using during the battle of Endor, specifically the trap they created that involved swinging two tree trunks into a scout walker*. This idea was most likely picked because it was by its nature a big impressive build...and gave them an excuse to smash old cars up.

(*This particular trap doesn't seem like something a bunch of small bears would be able to set up in the time they had, which implies that it was already in place prior to the battle (which the Ewoks don't seem to have expected). This begs the question as to what exactly the Ewoks were intending to use such a weapon on...and you thought the wildlife on Tatooine and Hoth was dangerous....)

All of the above ideas were posted (and I'd assume picked) because testing them did not require fictional technologies or a Jedi Knight. Or put another way the myths could not be explained by use of fictional technology or the Force. That was the problem MB were having in developing a Star Wars special, and why they asked for help in finding ideas from the films they could test*.
In the case of the Tauntaun myth, this does appear to be a real world technique. Or rather it does seem to be mentioned in various forms from time to time. However I was never able to find any confirmed cases of anyone literally climbing inside an animal like this to offset the effects of hypothermia. So this was an unusual case of something that was both a real world and movie myth and as such a viable idea in its own right. It would make more sense to test this for a Star Wars special than a normal show because it would be better known from Empire Strikes back.

(*Interesting to note that out of six films to date no one could think of a single viable idea from the prequels....)

I suspect that's because many people only saw the prequels once, while they've seen the original trilogy many times. The prequels simply aren't very good, are they?

That's true in my case, anyhow.

Heck, I saw the original in the theater in the seventies, and in those pre-VCR days, the only way to see it again was to buy another ticket. I've forgotten how many times I watched the original on the big screen--I wouldn't be surprised if it was over a dozen. Thank goodness for bargain matinees and student discounts!

I know I don't remember the plots of the prequels very well--if they had them...

Of the prequels I saw Phantom Menace three times at the cinema*, and about half a dozen times on DVD - I know I'm in the minority but I rather liked the film. Yes, Aniken was marginally annoying and I wanted Jar Jar to have an unfortunate 'accident' with a light sabre five minutes after he appeared on screen. But all in all I enjoyed it, and when I'm in the mood still do.

(*I was working nights and was a little spaced out the first time, the second time I made the mistake of watching it during school half term so missed rather a lot due to the kids. Hence I decided on a third viewing, this time on my day off and after the holidays had ended.)

Attack of the Clones...I think the less said the better. I have no idea if I saw this at the cinema or not, although unless I blanked the entire experience (which is possible) I'm guessing not because I did end up with the DVD which I watched twice I think. The film has the distinction of being the only DVD I've ever owned that I lost and have never been remotely interested in replacing, even when the DVD was in the bargain bin.

Revenge of the Sith...for me this is a strange film. I liked it initially, and certainly the opening twenty minutes or so are still great fun, so I can understand why people usually consider it the best of the prequels. But for me something is missing and I'm not sure what exactly - I doubt its the 'dark' nature of the film* because I still rate Empire Strikes Back as the best of all the films. So this falls below PM for me in that it isn't quite as enjoyable.

(*Something one of the kids in the cinema seems to have missed. When Mace Windu gets force-blasted out of the window they cheered.)


As for ideas, I actually re-watched all the films (minus Clones) to try and see what I could pick up...and came up with nothing from the prequels.

I think this is probably related to the changes in special effects between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace. In the original films they were limited to practical effects and stunts, which meant that all of the action had to be physically possible even if you used a rig or cuts to pull a scene off.
By the time of the prequels CGI effects had progressed to the point that you could have full CGI characters, and you could totally replace actors or stunt men with CGI doubles so you could show actions that would be physically impossible to do conventionally. While such effects grant directors/producers/writing considerable freedom when writing scenes, they can also prove to be detrimental to the story as a whole. This is because formally scenes had to be carefully worked out based on what was possible physically, which kept writers in a more 'realistic' mindset when writing other parts of the script.
I think this might be why I liked PM - they used a lot of practical effects, so a lot of the rest of film felt more 'realistic' within its own context due to having to think realistically in regards what they could do safely.
By Clones the CGI took over, and the last half hour probably contains about three minutes or so of real actors - so the writers were thinking of what they'd like to see/do without rather than considering what NEEDED to be shown. A comment that could apply to practically every big budget film these days, unless you have a well grounded director/producer at the helm.
It is notable that the scene in Revenge that I recall most clearly and which impressed me the most, was the fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin. This fight was done in real time by the actors themselves, with the CGI limited to the background and one or two stunts that could not have been done any other way.

I am probably even more in the minority - I liked all three films, despite the glaring logic and continuity issues in some places.

I liked them because I was interested in the overall story, and I could see how Luke took behavioral characteristics from his father and Leia took behavioral characteristics from her mother. I liked hating JarJar for being such a total idiot.

was the prequel trilogy a brilliant cinematic experience? no. neither was the original trilogy - except that it was done in comparison to the much less brilliant Sci-Fi fare of its era.

I agree that CGI is somewhat ruinous to good cinematography in that it is breeding lazy habits.
"here, we'll put you on a conveyor belt and you dodge imaginary machines - then we'll draw in machines that your dodges are effective on."

indeed.