Ahriman238 wrote:Hugo Weaving is just incredible. He really channels that pulp mad scientist feeling: complimenting Cap on his movies, insulting him using larger words than stricly necessary, then ranting about seizing the power of gods. It very much evoked an entire genre of iflm, all without seeming unbelieveable somehow.
Agreed- he did a really good job.
On a similar note, the suicide fighter-bombs were incredibly stupid, and we're still not entirely sure what their payload is, other than it probably being related to the Cube and derivative energy weapons.
That's the way to bet. Hydra has amazingly advanced weapons, but when you think about it, their computer technology is still in the 1940s- the only way to reliably pilot a missile to a target from long range is if it's manned. I would bet on something with energy derived from the Cube and a nuclear-equivalent yield: given the blast we saw even a tiny grain of the power storage cell from a Hydra weapon yield (the one that has Howard Stark going "write that down"), this is not implausible.
On which note I think Howard Stark was done well- you get a sense that he's enough like Tony Stark to be his father, but at the same time he's very much his own character with that (fully appropriate) Howard Hughes vibe.
And the flying-wing bomber already has two jet engines, what more could the dozen props provide? Aside from looking very dieselpunk.
The real-life
B-36, the first intercontinental-range bomber, had four jet and six pusher-prop engines. This was actually not unreasonable as a way to design a plane for long range and high
top speed, because the jet engines of the period were fuel-hungry and rather unreliable. So for the flying wing to have a similar design feature is not unreasonable- though the flying wing's cruising speed would then be relatively low.
Or perhaps the propellers are in part backup? I don't know.
Skylon wrote:I didn't think those fighters were suicide bombers. The fighter-craft and bombs themselves appeared to be two distinct things in the bomb bay.
A point. They might be parasite fighters (which still has a high risk of losing one's life because it's so hard to 'land' back on the bomber). Then again, they might be manned missiles, equivalent to cruise missiles, so that the bomber can launch long range standoff attacks against some of its bigger targets without having to worry so much about flak and fighters directly defending those cities.
