Star Wars must at least share the "invented the motion picture blockbuster" status with Jaws, which came out the year before.
Star Trek TOS was not that internally consistent or realistic.
Consider that within a couple of years they discovered that Jack the Ripper had actually been due to a non-corporeal alien, that aliens had visited Ancient Greece, resulting in the Greeks worshiping them as gods, and that Methuselah, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, and Brahms were all the same person, still alive at about 6,000 years old .. and that Cochrane was still alive.
The odds that there are many others alien visitors, and ultra-long-lived humans, is very high. That should have a big impact on how humans try to understand their own history and cultural evolution, but it's never mentioned.
Or, think about how the ancient Greek myths influenced the later Roman ones, and how the Roman culture influenced even the German culture nearly 2,000 years later. The strong similarities between human history and the Roman-like culture of 'Bread and Circuses' (with the gladiator having the Greek name Achilles) and Nazi Germany ("Patterns of Force") or even US culture, as in 'The Omega Glory' with the Yankees and Communists, and holy words identical to the US Pledge of Allegiance and Preamble to the Constitution seemly written on Omega IV several hundred years before they were written on Earth.
This is hand-waved as Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development. Given that we know that aliens influenced Earth history, and other planets seem to have a similar history, shouldn't they be thinking how odd it is to still have parallel development? Does it mean that equally powerful aliens are affecting all of the other cultures too? Why don't humans meet any of them?
And, if mental powers can be created through an injection, why aren't more people doing it? Where is the research into understanding how that works?
> the first attempt (that I'm aware of) to portray an internally consistent, realistic future society onscreen.
> most of what happens in Star Wars would be plausible in many "hard SF but with FTL" settings
I don't understand energy in Star Wars.
Why don't the imperial troops fire at the escape pod? So what if no life was detected. It's ret-conned that droids aren't allowed to use escape pods. But you can still place the plans in the droid, turn it off on a timer, stick it in the escape pod, and eject the pod, yes?
We know droids can be shut down because C-3PO shuts himself down for the night to conserve power. They've got two suns, plenty of land, and no excess solar power? And it's relatively cheap to get a flight off the planet, which requires loads of power - and potential energy is easily converted to kinetic. So, why is it accepted that C-3PO needs to save power?
Star Trek TOS was not that internally consistent or realistic.
Consider that within a couple of years they discovered that Jack the Ripper had actually been due to a non-corporeal alien, that aliens had visited Ancient Greece, resulting in the Greeks worshiping them as gods, and that Methuselah, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, and Brahms were all the same person, still alive at about 6,000 years old .. and that Cochrane was still alive.
The odds that there are many others alien visitors, and ultra-long-lived humans, is very high. That should have a big impact on how humans try to understand their own history and cultural evolution, but it's never mentioned.
Or, think about how the ancient Greek myths influenced the later Roman ones, and how the Roman culture influenced even the German culture nearly 2,000 years later. The strong similarities between human history and the Roman-like culture of 'Bread and Circuses' (with the gladiator having the Greek name Achilles) and Nazi Germany ("Patterns of Force") or even US culture, as in 'The Omega Glory' with the Yankees and Communists, and holy words identical to the US Pledge of Allegiance and Preamble to the Constitution seemly written on Omega IV several hundred years before they were written on Earth.
This is hand-waved as Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development. Given that we know that aliens influenced Earth history, and other planets seem to have a similar history, shouldn't they be thinking how odd it is to still have parallel development? Does it mean that equally powerful aliens are affecting all of the other cultures too? Why don't humans meet any of them?
And, if mental powers can be created through an injection, why aren't more people doing it? Where is the research into understanding how that works?
> the first attempt (that I'm aware of) to portray an internally consistent, realistic future society onscreen.
The Quartermass Experiment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quatermass_Experiment It was near-future, but still in the future.
> most of what happens in Star Wars would be plausible in many "hard SF but with FTL" settings
I don't understand energy in Star Wars.
Why don't the imperial troops fire at the escape pod? So what if no life was detected. It's ret-conned that droids aren't allowed to use escape pods. But you can still place the plans in the droid, turn it off on a timer, stick it in the escape pod, and eject the pod, yes?
We know droids can be shut down because C-3PO shuts himself down for the night to conserve power. They've got two suns, plenty of land, and no excess solar power? And it's relatively cheap to get a flight off the planet, which requires loads of power - and potential energy is easily converted to kinetic. So, why is it accepted that C-3PO needs to save power?