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How come in the Star Wars films, (and most other Sci-fi films for that matter) the planets only have one environment type?

Tatooine-Desert
Hoth-Ice
Dagobah-Swamp
Coruscant-"The whole planet is one giant city"

The only exception I can think of is Naboo, and even then you only see some countryside, under the ocean (which doesn't count in my opinion) and the city of Theed. I always wondered why there were never any planets like Earth with a little bit of everything. I do understand that it may be easier to sell an alien world that way to an audience but come on, paint the sky green or something!

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
How come in the Star Wars films, (and most other Sci-fi films for that matter) the planets only have one environment type?

Tatooine-Desert
Hoth-Ice
Dagobah-Swamp
Coruscant-"The whole planet is one giant city"

The only exception I can think of is Naboo, and even then you only see some countryside, under the ocean (which doesn't count in my opinion) and the city of Theed. I always wondered why there were never any planets like Earth with a little bit of everything. I do understand that it may be easier to sell an alien world that way to an audience but come on, paint the sky green or something!

Alderaan?

Kashyyyk?

Corellia?

Yavin?

Originally posted by roughrider
Alderaan?

Kashyyyk?

Corellia?

Yavin?


Alderaan? To my knowledge I've never seen.
Kashyyyk I think is just a jungle planet.
Don't know about Corellia.
I think you meant Yavin 4 Which as far as I can remember is a temple in a forest and a town square.

There's also,

Mustafar,

Geonosis,

Utapau,

Bespin,

Kamino,

To name but a few.

My point is, those planets are not defined as being a one climate place.

Corellia wasn't seen on screen, but we saw Alderaan at the end of ROTS. It was like a planet-sized version of Switzerland, as Lucas described it.

Fair enough. It's just something that's bugged me for years. I'd like to see someone try and do an "Earth, but slightly different" angle. I know Star Trek do it for the TV shows (and others I'm sure) and they're usually good episodes.

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
How come in the Star Wars films, (and most other Sci-fi films for that matter) the planets only have one environment type?

Tatooine-Desert
Hoth-Ice
Dagobah-Swamp
Coruscant-"The whole planet is one giant city"

The only exception I can think of is Naboo, and even then you only see some countryside, under the ocean (which doesn't count in my opinion) and the city of Theed. I always wondered why there were never any planets like Earth with a little bit of everything. I do understand that it may be easier to sell an alien world that way to an audience but come on, paint the sky green or something!

In star wars there is no time for that, at least in the movies anyway.
they are not going to explore the whole planet.
another 2 planets was the one where the penis head jedi got killed that had snow on it.
and the other one where the hot blue tweilek jedi got killed with all the huge flowers.

That's right.
I forget the Name of the planet where Penis Head (I think his name is Ki-Adi-Mundi) was killed.
The hot blue Jedi is Rayla Secura and she was killed on Felucia.

Single biome planets, like single culture planets are inventions of sci fi that could probably never become reality.

Essentially it saves the writer the trouble of actually creating a vibrant world filled with contrasts like Earth.

I thought it was an intentional thing by Lucas? I think i remember him saying it in an interview years ago -tries to remember-

Also, penis head was killed on Mygeeto.

Originally posted by Dr Mystery

Kashyyyk I think is just a jungle planet.


I remember in this novel it is said that such is a common misconception among civilians in Star Wars.

I think they are all different in there own ways.

It isn't that strange overall. If you look in our own solar system, most of our planets have one main environment with the only major differences being on their north and south poles. If a planet had more than one sun, it would even take care of some of that.

Though, not all the planets makes sense. The forest planet for instance. I would think that in order to have that much forest life, there would need to be a decent amount of rain, and thus would need large bodies of water to supply that rain.

Originally posted by Hewhoknowsall
I remember in this novel it is said that such is a common misconception among civilians in Star Wars.

Woo hoo! I'm a civilian in the Star Wars Universe.

I suppose when you think about it Earth is predominantly a water planet.

Pretty much what I was just thinking!

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
That's right.
I forget the Name of the planet where Penis Head (I think his name is Ki-Adi-Mundi) was killed.
The hot blue Jedi is Rayla Secura and she was killed on Felucia.

No...

Aayla Secura.

There was a classification of types of planetary atmospheres.


But really, one more can they do? It's like b*tching that sci-fi doesn't show any colors beyond the usual spectrum.

Well okay. what I think I'm getting at is that I'd like to see more cultural diversity in Sci-Fi movies. In the way that Earth has many races, beliefs, customs etc. Like I said, I know Star Trek do a bit of planetary civil war stuff with them interfering. But it just seems that a lot of films tend to go down the route of "One species, one belief, one language, one enemy per planet" type of thing.

Can you imagine how difficult it would be to come up with so much cultural variety for something like Star Wars? The movies, novels, and games are all story driven; there just isn't enough time or space (or patience) to create so many brand new cultures and peoples every time something new pops up. I'd never be bothered with Star Wars again if they wasted all their efforts doing that.

Yes, I know. I said in my first post that I understand that it is easier to do it this way, but given the scope that Sci-Fi can actually cover I'm kinda thinking why isn't there more interplanetary diversity at least thrown into the mix.

Because of that reason. There's no in-universe reason for it. There's no diversity because there's no time to create it. That's it.

Of course there's time. There's always time in science fiction, a lot of it is about perspective anyway. I'm not necessarily talking about Star Wars, but the genre in general, I'm not saying it should be a rule of thumb and I'm not saying that it is wrong, I'm just saying that I'd like to see a bit more.

Yeah me too, Earth-based cultures amongst aliens gets so boring. But on the scope of some sci-fi mythos, it's just impossible. They'd have to devote so much time and effort in to creating this stuff, and then somehow integrate in to the overall story arcs. The quality of the stories would decline as a result.


And that will just certainly not do.

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
How come in the Star Wars films, (and most other Sci-fi films for that matter) the planets only have one environment type?

Tatooine-Desert
Hoth-Ice
Dagobah-Swamp
Coruscant-"The whole planet is one giant city"

The only exception I can think of is Naboo, and even then you only see some countryside, under the ocean (which doesn't count in my opinion) and the city of Theed. I always wondered why there were never any planets like Earth with a little bit of everything. I do understand that it may be easier to sell an alien world that way to an audience but come on, paint the sky green or something! You're serious, my God.

...

U know if they made every sci-fi planet green or purple or whatever it wouldnt be very relatable. And i dont see the problem with earth like planets. I mean earth like planets would be the ones sustaining life.

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
How come in the Star Wars films, (and most other Sci-fi films for that matter) the planets only have one environment type?

Tatooine-Desert
Hoth-Ice
Dagobah-Swamp
Coruscant-"The whole planet is one giant city"

The only exception I can think of is Naboo, and even then you only see some countryside, under the ocean (which doesn't count in my opinion) and the city of Theed. I always wondered why there were never any planets like Earth with a little bit of everything. I do understand that it may be easier to sell an alien world that way to an audience but come on, paint the sky green or something!


budgeting

There's plenty of planets in the EU with an Earth like environment.

Originally posted by jinXed by JaNx
budgeting

Not necessarily, Sci-Fi writers have a lot of imagination, enough to bypass budgeting problems I would imagine.

Not really. It's like trying to imagine a new color, if you've never experienced anything like it, you can't imagine it. If writers have only ever seen variations of Earth-like climates, Venus, gas giants, and atmosphere-less planets... what else can they use?

Enemy Mine and Alien Nation are a couple of examples of what I'm talking about. A film with a story that could as easily take place in our reality.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Not really. It's like trying to imagine a new color, if you've never experienced anything like it, you can't imagine it. If writers have only ever seen variations of Earth-like climates, Venus, gas giants, and atmosphere-less planets... what else can they use?

Their imagination.

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
Their imagination. Based on what? The human mind isn't capable of producing completely new things. Everything we think up--that we imagine, has a visual basis in reality--what we've experienced. For writers whose job it is to create a fiction galaxy full of quintillions of beings interacting in their own society, they have to create places that they'd feasibly live, and all they have is to draw from their own knowledge. Forest, plains, deserts, snow, water, mountains, storms, and visual variations of them are what we know.

I challenge you to think up a planet setting that's completely new. Completely new and original. Something that no one on Earth could possibly conceive.

i watched all the sequels but i like only the two parts

Originally posted by Lord Lucien


I challenge you to think up a planet setting that's completely new. Completely new and original. Something that no one on Earth could possibly conceive.

I'm not talking about coming up with a new setting/environment, and how could someone possibly concieve of something that no-one on Earth could concieve of? Once it it concieved then it ceases to be something that no-one on Earth could concieve of.

Originally posted by Dr Mystery
I'm not talking about coming up with a new setting/environment, and how could someone possibly concieve of something that no-one on Earth could concieve of? Once it it concieved then it ceases to be something that no-one on Earth could concieve of. So what are you demanding then? Something new, but not new?

You can see what happens when SW tried to have only 2 different ecosystems with 2 different species on the same planet...We ended up with Queen Amidala and Jar Jar Binks.

Not the best.

The 2 out of 3 worst things Star Wars ever experienced came from the same planet.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
So what are you demanding then? Something new, but not new?

Read my posts more closely. I was asking why there isn't more cultural diversity on a planet to planet basis within the sci-fi genre? Why do the settings have to be characters in their own right? I'm not saying I want every movie to do this, I love Tatooine, Hoth, etc. I'm just saying that I'd like to see someone have a go at doing a storyline that could just as easily take place on Earth i.e. racism, political espionage things like that. I've already mentioned Enemy Mine and Alien Nation as examples, there is also Logans Run and IMO Event Horizon (as it's essentially The Shining in space), movies where the storyline itself takes the forefront and the setting is more or less a background thing. Again I re-iterate, I'm not saying all films should be like this (I'm not some sort of realism Nazi) just every now and then I'd find it refreshing to see a sci-fi film that didn't have to be a sci-fi film if it didn't want to.