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Is anyone else frustrated by all the armies in episodes I and II using Napoleonic-era musket tactics. I mean, come on, they line themselves up in nice big squares and walk- walk!- towards the enemy. I don't care if the armies in question are mindless robots or clones with no free will. A friggin' airstrike or a couple of WWI machine gunners or even a flanking charge of feudal knights would obliterate these tactically-impaired morons within seconds.
That said, the missile pod on wheels in the second movie is one of THE coolest things I have ever seen...

Hahah, I must agree with you. Sure, it looked nice and all, but it is a tactical nightmare (I consider my self a great tactician). But then thoughout the movies, great movies, there were odd things, Chewie had a cross bow shaped laser (??!), why I ask. Leia had a laser weapon with a very long barral, which it didn't need. With the enourmas range of energy weapons there was really no need to advance to with in 100 meters of the enemy, now in formation. We can see, it seems, why the Old Republic fell so easily.

It could just be because its a fictional film you know


And btw- 'long ago in a galaxy far away' Just guessing, but i think napolean copied the SW armies

Hehe. Touche. An intriguing theory....... perhaps Napoleon was little more then one of those pesky clone Emperors I am told seem to pop up a lot in the Expanded Universe fiction......... Although thats impossible, as Wellington could never beat someone so in touch with the force........

Indeed no, it does not bother me at all, any more than using Kendo-based swordfighting with swords that would uch better use fencing tactics. Or the fact that the spaceships make noise in space, or that the solar sailer can travel between worlds at hyperspace speeds, or that X-Wings bank and dive and climb like WWII fighters instead of ships in a frictionless enivronment. Realism does not come into a fantasy like this for the briefest of brief moments! Don't fret it.

Oh, I'm all for a lack of realism (missile pods on wheels- and the sound the tie fighters make, beautiful!!!). But the plodding robots, instead of being unbelieavable in a cool and dramatic and adrenalin-pumping way, were just unbelievable in a tedious, stupid way...

I thought the square formation looked very cool.

It's about Star WARS.

Lucas has to tie his on screen sci-fi silliness to real life somehow.

It's good stuff, because it conjurs a very good picture of what is going on. WAR.

The bit where the droids march in formation is probably the best thing those hideous creations have done in the prequels. It actually made them look pretty formidable.

Tactically, it's bogus, but it's a movie. In a short amount of screen time you have to convey the maximum to the audience. Using traditional war formations for on-foot battles, mixed with traditional dogfighting for the space ships, it's easy to understand why Star Wars is very accessable. It takes traditonal sterotypes of what we think of when we think of "war" and so on.

And, for the record, they did that formation against the Gungans - who had huge gobstoppers and their stupid shrieking voices as weapons.

Hmm, good point. If Star Wars didn't have such a broad target audience, then the droids would have probably used trenches and suchlike, or at least dropped bombs on the pitiful Gungans. That would have been VERY satisfying.

What type of bombs? And I would have thought it would make more tactical sense to boil the sea from space with heavy ship weapons....... as the ork says "looks like meats back on the menu boys. Unfortunately its Gungan meat......"

A moderately-sized asteroid, or some kind of antimatter bomb, or a couple of kinetic harpoons, or perhaps even a nice gamma ray laser to turn every last gungan warrior into a small black crispy thing with the occasional whisp of steam. The scary thing is, all the abovementioned weapons will probably be coming into use within the next century.
And am I alone in thinking that the Uruk-Hai would obliterate our swampy friends within seconds? What chance does loveably poor grammar stand against the guttural "uuuurrrrghhhhhhh!" of the Orcs?

Yes, a century of weapons that might make the atmoic bombs look tame.... scary indeed. And yeah, the Uruk-Hai at least wouldn't shut down when some ship was destroyed, and they were mcuh better fighters then the Gungan S.L.A.P Stick force 101. But then, I believe I could beat the Gungans.

Oh, and I hope the trade federation learnt from their mistakes, and no longer put their generators (which seemed to set of massive chain reactions) in the hanger bay, the one part of the ship that didn't seem to have sheilds, and was most in danger of lucky shots (I fear I am to cynical....)

There in a square formation to keep the mythology subject alive in the films.

Lucas is quirky and does things like that. I thought it was alright, two armies march out from their strongholds to battle in a field....
Just like the old days.

Speaking of which the super fast super ranged super accurate future energy weapons seem to be vastly inferior to firearms hell, the stormtroopers would do better with smoothbore muskets

That's the point, yes. Mythology is all well and good, but it's more painful than inspiring to see the uber-men of the future shoot at someone, and miss, from a distance of three metres.

Well, they do have those helmets, which I am willing to bet make it damn hard to see.

And killer droids which apparently would be destroyed by rain or a large puddle.

They put their troups in battalions or so called squads each battalion are about 2 metres away from each othe

Of course, if the droids hadn't been moving in a simple multiple file side by side formation, imagine the tactical nightmare of trying to control them. Mindless drones wandering about in a random direction is not going to get you anywhere. Row after row of cannon fodder might.

Carnage

Well said.