ragnell:

jaquandor:

awkwardtimezone:

rapidashpatronus:

vrabia:

i may despise galen erso from the bottom of my shriveled maggoty heart but i have to tell you guys how he managed to sneak in the death star weak spot according to the rogue one novelization because it’s hilarious. if you’re expecting some feat of engineering genius so subtle no one noticed it, you are wrong. galen got krennic to sign off on it himself.

he annoyed the fuck out of krennic by cc-ing him in like a million emails to death star r&d. 

so i know we’re behind schedule here but we found this structural flaw and wanted to let you guys know about it, says galen.

and r&d is like okay so how do we fix it? 

and galen is like well we could start over? 

and r&d is like no that’ll take too long. 

and galen promises to think about it and writes to them later all hey how about we make some additional investments and get better materials?

and r&d is like no that’s too expensive. 

and galen is like weeeell…. 

and r&d is like well what?

and galen goes well there’s something we can do but you’re not gonna like it.

and r&d is like okay what is it. 

and galen is like are you sure you want to hear it?

yes, goes r&d. 

like, really really super sure? 

yes, goes r&d.

okay so the problem is radiation buildup, says galen. have i mentioned the problem is radiation buildup?

30 emails ago, r&d says.

right, so. says galen. we could build this exhaust port but it’s not going to get rid of all the radiation all the time, so if you’re having some stormtroopers around they might be exposed to it. i can look into some other options to reduce–

at which point krennic, who’s been cc’d in all of this, goes JUST PUT THE FUCKING EXHAUST PORT IN AND GET IT OVER WITH FUCK THOSE STORMTROOPERS ALL THESE EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS ARE DRIVING ME NUTS

and galen is like okay 🙂

This, THIS is EXACTLY why I felt the need to tweet Alexander Freed and let him know why the novelisation was so important to me, because this is a man who understands the absolute mind-numbing tedium of project management by committee.

Star Wars is and always has been about human nature, and sure, we chuck in some lasers and spaceships for funsies, but it’s about politics and human behaviour, and if you can make one of the the biggest plot holes in sci-fi history turn into a completely logical and rational event just because you understand that big decisions get made precisely because “I AM TOO TIRED TO BOTHER WITH THIS ANY MORE” then you are an absolute immortal genius, to my mind.

Oh my god I wish this was included in the movie somehow.

For God’s sake, people REALLY need to stop thinking of the Death Star’s weakness as a plot hole. It’s not. Never was, never has been, never will be.

People are always trying to find plot holes in things, but especially Star Wars, that are perfectly explained by human error, either stupidity or arrogance or malice. The Death Star had a design flaw. Those two guys at the beginning didn’t think of how smart droids could be and didn’t want to explain having unnecessarily fired their weapons to their cranky supervisor. Most Stormtroopers don’t care enough about their job to fight a Jedi’s telepathic suggestion. Tarkin really was too sure of his win to order an evacuation. People don’t tell Vader things because they are afraid he’ll kill them. Vader makes dumb decisions because he’s angry and impulsive sometimes. People think of droids as appliances, which is why no one notices C3PO or R2D2 except the main trio, beause who pays attention to droids that aren’t their own?

Star Wars has, with the addition of Rogue One especially, (but also The Clone Wars and Rebels aniamted series) the most realistic military in all of fiction. Because every stupid, illogical, impulsive, arrogant, desperate thing you see done in the Empire or the Rebel Alliance is something that’s been done by someone who’s overworked, undertrained, afraid of punishment or eager to seem like they know what they’re doing. Anyone who’s spent any time in the military knows it.

In fact, one time I linked that gif of the guy on Ackbar’s Mon Calamari Cruiser bridge looking at the wall instead of the console on twitter. The joke had been it was a production error but I said “No, that’s some guy on Hour 13 of his shift who is starting to lose track of the landscape. I’ve seen it before a million times in Current Ops on mids.” and then ended up in a 4 hour twitter convo making jokes about the POV of military technicians in the Empire who might’ve tried to fix that exhaust port flaw.

This, not blood, not racism, not sexism, not violence, is realism in fiction. Human nature reflected in the flaws of the minor and background characters as well as the main characters. The Evil of Banality as well as the Banality of Evil and the just plain desperate exhausted stupidity of normal people no matter what their end goal is. A movie with spaceships, telekinetic clerics, and laser swords where you can look at something that went wrong and go “Yeah, I can see that happening.”