What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Ralin »

Vendetta wrote: 2021-09-24 07:46amIf it really cheeses your onions that some people think one specific number for how big it is and some other people think another, then you need to put the Internet down and get outside more. That does not matter. It is not important. It is not important to understanding anything that happens in Star Wars, why it happens, and why something else didn't happen instead.
And yet people clearly care enough about it to defend those figures, so it does matter to them and thus it matters as much as anything else about Star Wars from a consumer point of view.

How is that less valid than the satisfaction you apparently derive from telling people that the parts of the setting they care about are wrong? Because you clearly think it matters enough to post about it multiple times.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Crazedwraith »

I can see both sides here, and probably shouldn't get involved.

On the one hand Vendetta's right from an enjoyment of the movies sort of way, what some technical manual says shouldn't affect your enjoyment one way or another.

On the other, if you're the sort of person who enjoys a tech manual, you're also the sort of person who quite rightly wants the manual to be right and not contradicted by eyeballing the movie.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Ralin »

Crazedwraith wrote: 2021-09-24 08:55am On the other, if you're the sort of person who enjoys a tech manual, you're also the sort of person who quite rightly wants the manual to be right and not contradicted by eyeballing the movie.
To paraphrase Wong from many years back, yeah it's a nerd argument about something that has no particular relevance to real life. And you took the time to read the argument and venture an opinion, so don't pretend you're somehow above the whole thing.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Crazedwraith »

Ralin wrote: 2021-09-24 09:25am
Crazedwraith wrote: 2021-09-24 08:55am On the other, if you're the sort of person who enjoys a tech manual, you're also the sort of person who quite rightly wants the manual to be right and not contradicted by eyeballing the movie.
To paraphrase Wong from many years back, yeah it's a nerd argument about something that has no particular relevance to real life. And you took the time to read the argument and venture an opinion, so don't pretend you're somehow above the whole thing.
True dat.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Rogue 9 »

The problem with the one mile Star Destroyer and five mile Executor is that you can see that the Executor is well more than five times the length of its escorting Star Destroyers, so saying that it isn't just looks asinine on its face. Adhering to consistent technical details doesn't require sacrificing the story at all, and can inform a great many story hooks in itself. There's no reason to pretend they're in competition.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Galvatron »

Hard to argue with this, but they sure as hell tried.

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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Batman »

That's kinda hard to misinterpret indeed. But some people apparently manage to do it
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Lord Insanity »

Vendetta wrote: 2021-09-24 07:46am No, see you still don't understand.

What you get from the movie is that a Star Destroyer is bigger than the heroes' ships, and it's pointy and mean. That's called good visual narrative communication. The baddie ships are big and threatening. The Executor is even bigger than that, and even pointier!

If it really cheeses your onions that some people think one specific number for how big it is and some other people think another, then you need to put the Internet down and get outside more. That does not matter. It is not important. It is not important to understanding anything that happens in Star Wars, why it happens, and why something else didn't happen instead.
When ESB came out it didn't matter at all how big they made the Executor. When the books came out later it absolutely did, because it was already established in the movie how big it was. If like Pablo, a person's entire job is making sure things adhere to established continuity and they can't be arsed to actually do it, then they should be fired. Seriously, how many jobs can someone display that level of gross incompetence and not get fired?
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by LadyTevar »

The whole point of The Executor was to show that the Empire was still a big, scary monster, that the heroes had to be very brave to fight (or sneak around).

It was also to one-up the mental image many young movie-goers got when they saw the Tantive-5 running, and then saw the VERY BIG TRIANGLE chasing it and catching it. To me, it was literally "Here's the ship that 'ate' the Tantive-5. Here's the REAL BattleShip."
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Vendetta »

Lord Insanity wrote: 2021-09-24 09:05pm
Vendetta wrote: 2021-09-24 07:46am No, see you still don't understand.

What you get from the movie is that a Star Destroyer is bigger than the heroes' ships, and it's pointy and mean. That's called good visual narrative communication. The baddie ships are big and threatening. The Executor is even bigger than that, and even pointier!

If it really cheeses your onions that some people think one specific number for how big it is and some other people think another, then you need to put the Internet down and get outside more. That does not matter. It is not important. It is not important to understanding anything that happens in Star Wars, why it happens, and why something else didn't happen instead.
When ESB came out it didn't matter at all how big they made the Executor. When the books came out later it absolutely did, because it was already established in the movie how big it was. If like Pablo, a person's entire job is making sure things adhere to established continuity and they can't be arsed to actually do it, then they should be fired. Seriously, how many jobs can someone display that level of gross incompetence and not get fired?
Unless a significant plot element in a book is how long it takes to walk from one end of it to the other, no it wasn't. It's important if it makes a difference to how a story happens. If it doesn't it's not.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by MKSheppard »

Galvatron wrote: 2021-09-24 06:44pm Hard to argue with this, but they sure as hell tried.

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And to think it all comes from a misinterpretation of this line in one of the early SW references that the Executor was five times more powerful than a Star Destroyer; and lacking time, WEG's writer's simply went:

1 mile long times 5 = 5 miles = 8~ km.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by MKSheppard »

Doublepost
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong

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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by RogueIce »

Vendetta wrote: 2021-09-25 04:44am Unless a significant plot element in a book is how long it takes to walk from one end of it to the other, no it wasn't. It's important if it makes a difference to how a story happens. If it doesn't it's not.
In the grand scheme of things no, the size doesn't matter. But if your company is going to put out purported "technical books" about the series, they should try to be consistent with the source material. Otherwise it is indeed shoddy work for a cash grab. Which is fine, it's all fiction and LFL got theirs - but that doesn't mean fans who expected better can't call it what it is.

This is not some either-or thing. It's perfectly fine to say that for most story purposes the size of the Executor doesn't make a huge difference, while also calling out the so-called reference material that does make a point of the size for being sloppily done.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Darth Yan »

Pretty much. The WEG fans claim "oh size doesn't matter"....and yet they vehemently defend WEG numbers. Numbers that only exist because someone made a mistake and no one bothered to correct it.

The other issue is that Pablo's lying about his motivation (or is DEEPLY in denial).

He's says that he's motivated by a "oh it's just a movie everyone should have fun." Thing is, he's attached to WEG's numbers and the tech heads are arguing that those numbers are based on sloppy research and thus should be ignored. His motives are pretty much "how dare you point out that the numbers I like are poorly researched. Or that my friends might be hacks." Everything he does stems more from this defensive stance. The numbers are flawed to any close examination? Close examination must be bad.

Fiction needs to be treated with SOME seriousness or else it falls apart. Not to much obviously but too little just leads to laziness. Pablo's attitude is "who cares"....and for the guy in charge of continuity that's the WORST attitude you can have.

It's like creationism. WEG and early sources can NEVER be wrong
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by MKSheppard »

Darth Yan wrote: 2021-09-29 04:27amPablo's attitude is "who cares"....and for the guy in charge of continuity that's the WORST attitude you can have.
SW Canonicity is a dumpster fire.

Who the hell came up with EA SW Battlefront Reboot's storyline? Operation Cinder? :wtf:

I don't think Palpatine's ego was weak enough to have a backup "Nero Decree" / "Hitler Decree" in case he died, because he thought he could never be killed like he was in ROTJ.

I CAN however, see him as being intelligent enough to recognize that he might be temporarily incapicated; and having a backup order for his most trusted lieutenants to "Go to this planet in the middle of nowhere and burn this Jedi temple to slag" thing; or to go to Mustafar and slag Vader's castle, in case Vader tried to replace him.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Darth Yan »

MKSheppard wrote: 2021-09-30 05:19pm
Darth Yan wrote: 2021-09-29 04:27amPablo's attitude is "who cares"....and for the guy in charge of continuity that's the WORST attitude you can have.
SW Canonicity is a dumpster fire.

Who the hell came up with EA SW Battlefront Reboot's storyline? Operation Cinder? :wtf:

I don't think Palpatine's ego was weak enough to have a backup "Nero Decree" / "Hitler Decree" in case he died, because he thought he could never be killed like he was in ROTJ.

I CAN however, see him as being intelligent enough to recognize that he might be temporarily incapicated; and having a backup order for his most trusted lieutenants to "Go to this planet in the middle of nowhere and burn this Jedi temple to slag" thing; or to go to Mustafar and slag Vader's castle, in case Vader tried to replace him.
Never underestimate how petty sociopaths can be. Palpatine is a sociopath and those guys tend to be MASSIVE sore losers. So I can absolutely see him being that petty.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Ralin »

Darth Yan wrote: 2021-10-01 01:44am Never underestimate how petty sociopaths can be. Palpatine is a sociopath and those guys tend to be MASSIVE sore losers. So I can absolutely see him being that petty.
It doesn't matter how petty he is if he's convinced it'll never happen.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by MKSheppard »

Ralin wrote: 2021-10-01 04:45am It doesn't matter how petty he is if he's convinced it'll never happen.
I had a long thing written up; but it can be condensed down to the big "tells" in ROTJ:

PALPATINE ARRIVES AT DEATH STAR 2:
The Emperor : Patience, my friend. In time, he [Luke] will seek *you* out, and when he does, you must bring him before me. He has grown strong. Only together can we turn him to the Dark Side of the Force.

Darth Vader : As you wish.

The Emperor : Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.
PALPS TO VADER:
Darth Vader : He will come to me?

The Emperor : I have foreseen it. His compassion for you will be his undoing. He will come to you and then you will bring him before me.
PALPATINE MOCKS LUKE:
Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends, up there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was *I* who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them. Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.
Palpatine himself was also so confident in Vader's absolute loyalty that he kept zapping Luke in front of Vader; to the point that Vader's big "turn" back to the Light Side was totally unexpected by Palpatine.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Ralin »

The Revenge of the Sith novelization outright said it. Palpatine's trust in Anakin's loyalty was his weakness. The shatterpoint for the entire galaxy.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Paolo »

There's probably a lot of long history involved, but I'd guess a big part of it amounts to Hidalgo is not an outlier when it comes to get paid to work on Star Wars compared to--say--people like "James SA Corey." And can we honestly say that the past two decades have seen a lot of good feelings between Hidalgo's brand of fandom and folks who care about suspension of disbelief?

Rumor has it Saxton cut ties with Lucasfilm years ago because they didn't concede the point about the "Endor Holocaust." In 2004, Hidalgo gleedfully reports that the entire notion is dead as far as his story group is concerned:
Don't buy into anti-Ewok propaganda. It sounds like the Empire's behind that particular rumor.
Though many learned scholars and students of physics have micro-examined the Star Wars films
for scientific accuracy and have come away with an entertaining degree of consistency, in some cases,
science has to be thrown out the window. Armchair physicists have to look away when a screaming TIE
fighter passes through the vacuum of space, when a particularly volatile explosion combusts in an airless
void, or when giant yellow letters inexplicable to the known rules of the universe float lazily into infinity.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's only a movie.

And it's a movie with a happy ending. Though there are undoubtedly any number of physical
models that would indicate that the detonation of a moon-sized object in the upper atmosphere of a forest
planetoid would wreak untold havoc on the local ecology, that's not what happens. It was George Lucas'
intent that the fuzzy little Ewoks and their Rebel friends lived happily ever after, and nuclear winters don't
fit into his model.

But there is a pseudorational explanation -- from an unlikely source: In The Glove of Darth
Vader, a children's book published in the early 1990s, is a description of a wormhole that opened up
during the Death Star's fiery demise and sucked debris -- including Darth Vader's indestructible glove
(yeah, you read that correctly) -- all the way across the galaxy to the planet Mon Calamari.
If we accept the hazy rules of hypermatter quasi-physics and plot-convenient wormhole, then
surely suggesting that the worst of the Death Star fallout also got sucked out into hyperspace isn't too
much of a stretch. [emphasis added]
Source


He sort of has a point about "happy ending." Don't think anyone at Lucasfilm seriously entertained slaughtering the Ewoks at the time or beforehand. Does anyone think Lucas would've gone for it? But as reasonable an extrapolation from the evidence it was, it might've been more productive to come up with at least a plausible way to save the Ewoks than leave it to Hidalgo to reason on his own. May have also ensured that there was a voice of reason left to temper some of his other notions (i.e., a bunch of technobabble regarding why we see Starkiller Base firing from the other side of the galaxy).
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Vendetta »

What more explanation do you need than that a galactic civilisation capable of building the thing in the first place can tidy it up afterwards?
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by MKSheppard »

Paolo wrote: 2021-10-10 01:46amBut as reasonable an extrapolation from the evidence it was, it might've been more productive to come up with at least a plausible way to save the Ewoks than leave it to Hidalgo to reason on his own.
The fireworks we see at the end of ROTJ are the rebel fleet (remember a lot of ships survived the battle) and at least one of them was a mon cal cruiser with firepower equivalent to an ISD (i.e. capable of doing a BDZ).

Ergo, the rebel fleet is trying to destroy as much debris from striking Endor, presumably at the request of Princess Leia, who holds some kind of high ranking political position in the Rebel hierarchy (attached to Mon Mothma, perhaps)?
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Vendetta »

Yeah, and the rebels are, remember, actually led by well connected politicians so they would have the resources to mobilise extra relief effort to safely deorbit, destroy, or move such debris as remained hazardous.

We know they did clean up after the battle as well, because Rise of Stupids made it a stopover on the macguffin hunt.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Darth Yan »

Kinda proves my point. At least some explanation is needed. Pablo’s attitude is “who cares”. He earlier said he saw it as Looney Toons in space.
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Re: What was Pablo Hidalgo's Deal with Tech Heads?

Post by Ralin »

Paolo wrote: 2021-10-10 01:46am He sort of has a point about "happy ending." Don't think anyone at Lucasfilm seriously entertained slaughtering the Ewoks at the time or beforehand. Does anyone think Lucas would've gone for it? But as reasonable an extrapolation from the evidence it was, it might've been more productive to come up with at least a plausible way to save the Ewoks than leave it to Hidalgo to reason on his own.
Rumor has it Saxton cut ties with Lucasfilm years ago because they didn't concede the point about the "Endor Holocaust."
On the other hand, is that really the sort of fan attitude that you should cater to or accommodate instead of mocking?
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