TV shows with really cool space battles: which are best?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, October 25, 2010 02:36
VIEWED: 19232
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One of the scripts/properties I'm intending to sell someday is called Starfighter Academy, so I've put a lot of thought into how space combat would really develop (both to make it distinctive, and to justify using manned fighters when they would, logically, make absolutely no sense --as Imnothere notes, most space battles on TV are WWII aerial combat in space [Lucas deliberately copied WWII footage in Star Wars, and then everybody else just copies Lucas]).
Much as I'm a fan of the Dominion War arc, I can't really applaud the space battles in DS9; I'm not really a fan of the "hull-scrapingly-close" approach to space combat (unless there's a good tactical reason, like in ANH or RotJ). Real space combat would be fought at huge distances, since there's no horizon to hide behind and no atmosphere to slow weapons. It's a purely visual conceit to allow you to show off multiple ships in close-ups at the same time --TOS actually got it right, thanks to their budget/technology not allowing them to get multiple ships together onscreen.
Enterprise's battles during the Xindi war were actually pretty good; they didn't have huge fleets to juggle, so they were more willing to spread out the formations.
Early Andromeda actually had the most realistic battles I've seen, with ranges measured in light-seconds (186,000 miles), and battles decided by guided smart-missiles, remote-control drones, point-defense turrets, countermeasure missiles, and ECM jamming (and piloted fighters, because human[oid] eyeballs can't be jammed). The added benefit on a TV budget is that this is actually a lot cheaper to film than a DS9-style furball.
That said, I did grow up watching Star Wars and playing the X-Wing video game series, so I have to give props to Moore's BSG for doing the best SW-style dogfighting I've seen outside Star Wars (hell, often better than Star Wars). And yes, the Battle of New Caprica was truly epic.
Babylon 5 was great for its time, and I did appreciate the wide range of ships on display (each with different technological capabilities). Again, though, everything was fought at stone-throwing range.
Space: Above and Beyond struck a good compromise by having the fighters serve as long-range attackers beyond where the carriers could reach. Trouble there was that none of the fights really felt epic; it was an open-ended war of attrition, not a strategic engagement of strike-and-defend.
Stargate SG-1 had some impressive engagements during the Ori war, and Atlantis saw some X-302/Dart action in the latter seasons, but none of them have really grabbed me --I think it's that most of the space battles there are treated as appendages or minor skirmishes that we see from the sidelines. None of the regular Stargate characters are actually spacers (except for Universe, and Destiny has had what, two minor skirmishes?). Most of Stargate's action happens on the ground.
Of course, being me, I have to bring the anime.
Macross Frontier has the flat-out best space battles I've ever seen, even if they do include transformable mecha (and singing used as ECM).
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I second that for Macross (which is, technically TV, just not region 1) - too bad due to licensing issues us yanks will prolly never get it.
Oh, and since everyone here is talkin about really cool space battles, I also feel the need to mention Sword of the Stars, which is a game I think many of you would appreciate, 4X like Master of Orion and suchlike, but what rocks it is the battles.
EVERY battle is this epic, even a pair of scout patrols stumbling over each other.
-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.
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Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
I'm gonna have to go with Babylon 5 here.
Oh, definitely!
My favorite being...
This site hasn't been updated in ages, sadly. http://www.spacebattles.com/
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I think Babylon 5 had the best battles. DS9 had some good ones too. I couldn't find a video but I remember Kurn induced two Klingon cruisers to chase him toward a sun then suddenly changed course creating a solar flare which incinerated his attackers.
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Which brings me to the question of which design is better: this
or this
Another thing I love about the new BSG: the scene where Apollo sneaks in back door to the mineral refining plant, and his fighter hovers for just a second. You can see the stabilizing jets actually stabilizing the fighter as it hovers. Newton's Laws on screen! CGI that obeys physics!
Yeah, I liked that.
Cybersnark: good scene.
I have the B5 DVDs, but due to the insane cheesiness of the first few episodes I've never made it further. Someday, when I'm really too bored to find anything else to do, I will watch and discover the goodness.
OK, and here I will risk internet shaming: good space battle? The new Star Wars movies. The one where there's little things landing on Anakin's wings, then the big ship crash lands. I don't even remember which movie, because the rest of the Ep 1-3 series (other than the lava world) was so dreadful that I haven't watched any it again. But that battle scene I remember as quite good. Other than having sound in space, it was believable and put you right into the chaos. I would watch that bit again.
If only Lucas had diverted 1% of his budget from special effects and hired someone to write a decent script... *sigh*
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
One of the scripts/properties I'm intending to sell someday is called Starfighter Academy, so I've put a lot of thought into how space combat would really develop (both to make it distinctive, and to justify using manned fighters when they would, logically, make absolutely no sense --as Imnothere notes, most space battles on TV are WWII aerial combat in space [Lucas deliberately copied WWII footage in Star Wars, and then everybody else just copies Lucas]).
At the risk if sidebarring too much from the original thread topic, if you're going to develop "Starfighter Academy" for Hollywood... sure, work on realism--but make sure that realism doesn't trump visually-dynamic, conflict-driven storytelling.
Now, I don't remember ANDROMEDA's space combat, but I don't see tons of people here singing it praises. What most of the combat styles that people are talking about here share in common is that they are visually dynamic and they keep the characters central (and typically in peril).
"Hullscraping" combat WORKS, not because it's realistic, but because it looks good on the screen and makes us worry about characters we have emotional investment in.
Not saying that what you're working on won't work, but, historically, "realistic" doesn't work in movies and TV shows (and here, I'm talking more broadly than just space combat) because it often undercuts strong screenwriting and storytelling.
(Apologies if the above has come off as adverserial or pompous... I'm in the midst of reading a bunch of screenwriting books as a refresher.)
www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."
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Oh, agreed. As I said, one of my main goals is to find ways to justify this kind of combat; the more sensitive sensors are, the closer they need to be to get anything useful, 90% of space battles are to avoid being boarded, etc. The whole point of the show is that high-G snubfighter combat is a rarified field --only the true elites dare to risk it (and even then, it involves more sniping than dogfighting).
Here's some boilerplate I did for a potential website/game (as narrated by one of the characters):
Quote:
Why Starfighters?
On the surface, starfighters don't seem to make sense. They rarely do anything that a missile or drone can't accomplish, they tend to be equipped with weapons that are far less capable than those of capital ships, and a squadron of fighters is little different resource-wise than a single small cruiser. Since there is no real "stealth" in space, and many weapons have potentially unlimited range, it seems that space combat should rely exclusively on missiles and countermeasures.
The modern starfighter is the product of a long line of technological evolution.
Early Era:
For most species, the earliest form of space combat used projectiles --either "shells" (which received a burst of acceleration from their launcher) or "missiles" (which would continue accelerating until they either struck a target or ran out of fuel). Missiles tend to be larger and more destructive (through sheer kinetic impact if nothing else), and can usually reach the target faster than gunfire. Inert shells, on the other hand, are often harder for sensors to detect --they're small enough that most sensors were designed to ignore them (otherwise you'd ping every bit of space debris and dust in the solar system), and the temperature variation between them and the space around them can be negligible. Being projectiles, both missiles and shells can travel indefinitely --when a missile's fuel is used up, it stops accelerating, but continues at its final speed.
This makes these weapons hazardous not just to enemies during battle, but to civillian or allied craft, even over vast gaps of time and space. A handful of shells can get caught in a gravity well, becoming fast-moving, potentially explosive space debris that could turn up just about anywhere in a solar system and shred an unshielded craft to ribbons.
[Laser weapons are highly effective due to their destructive potential, and their inability to be blocked by conventional countermeasures, but have a wide range of weaknesses making them useless for large-scale combat. Compared to missiles and conventional guns, lasers require an absurd amount of energy to reach useful power levels. Lasers also generate a great deal of waste heat --in an atmosphere, this can be cooled via convection (blown air absorbs the heat and carries it away), but in the vacuum of space, this heat will need to be radiated slowly. Laser weapons also need very precise targeting and a sustained target lock, making them ineffective against small, evasive targets. Finally, a laser beam can be diffused by any debris or flack between the emitter and the target.]
Because early vessels were usually limited to light-speed sensors (visual light, lidar, radar), most engagements were fought within ranges of one light-second. This was both because objects beyond that range could not be accurately targeted (by the time you see the target, it has already moved), and because even missiles rarely reached relativistic speeds.
Typically, missiles were used for long-range assault/interception, with shipboard guns functioning as close-range point-defense (shooting down incoming missiles). Specialized missiles were used as countermeasure interceptors, detonating incoming warheads either through collision, fratricide explosions, or by generating EM pulses that destroyed a missile's targeting ability (leaving it easy prey for point-defense guns).
Space combat with missiles has been described as "a delicate dance of range" --if you were too far away from your target, they would have plenty oNOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by cljohnston108:
Oh, definitely!
My favorite being...
Oh yes.
But it also illustrates my point about the danger of falling girders in space combat
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Quote:
Originally posted by ImNotHere:
But it also illustrates my point about the danger of falling girders in space combat
That's partly why I posted it.
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Just dug this up; it seems appropriate:
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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