Technology Advances in The Force Awakens
In this article SWNN staff Bluestreaking shares how he enjoyed the way JJ and company made a point to show how technology had developed in the 30 years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. In case you couldn’t guess, for those who have yet to the see the film there are definite SPOILERS on the way.
Immediately we were granted a tangible difference between old and new. Luke’s old macrobinoculars which could barely make out some Banthas at point blank range were replaced with Poe’s which vividly captured the approaching First Order forces. Grainy images replaced by crisp outlines, before I even realized this would become one of my favorite aspects of the film I noticed the difference. But I truly began to notice the change during Poe and Finn’s daring escape from the Finalizer.
As you can see here the old single-seat TIE Fighters give us some lovely red lines that resemble an X-Wing. The dual-seater that Finn and Poe commandeer gave a lifelike thermal image of their targets for Finn to fire at. Targeting software should of course be one of the main advancements in military technology but the lack of distinction presented to us between the PT and OT left this advancement without precedent. Also of note was a very different method of control for the turrets here, one that become more pronounced when Finn was placed in a more familiar (to the audience at least) gunner’s seat.
As soon as Finn hops into the gunner’s seat he is startled by the clunky and hard to manage controls, and while he doesn’t say as much I am certain he missed the clear targeting computer of the TIE Fighter. On a side note I finally figured out how those darned targeting computers on the Falcon worked, so a big thanks to Finn for figuring that out for me. But there is only one technological advance that was so noticeable that it fooled several us viewers when first presented with it.
We had gotten used to holograms being blue and grainy and it appeared they had been that way for decades, at least that’s what the PT showed us. Thus when Snoke is first seen on his throne many of us assumed that Snoke happened to be 25 feet tall. Never before had we seen holograms depicted as so lifelike in the Star Wars universe with the light playing off of it and little to no graininess. The switching off the hologram was the moment that I knew I had decided on my favorite part of TFA. JJ and co had used technological advancement not only as a natural difference between films but as a storytelling device in itself.
We think back to our own lives and imagine how much technology has changed in 30 years it should be expected that we are shown the same sort of advancement in the Star Wars universe. Too often worlds are built with stagnant technology but JJ has shown us that his vision of Star Wars is not limited by such convention. It was something I felt was lacking in the Prequel Trilogy which depicted an aesthetic of an older time by evoking the Italian Renaissance/Baroque periods but little in the way of actual noticeable differences.
That hologram reveal was one of the coolest moments in the movie.
Lol, yeah! At first I was like … really. Are we gonna get a Luke vs. the rancor type showdown in a later film, but this time the giant is Force-sensitive. I was relieved to find out that Snoke is likely not that big. It was a really cool moment.
Just want to point out that we don’t know how big he is. He could be an inch or a mile tall. or normal, but we don’t know yet.
7 feet tall seems to be the accepted height
I could have done without it, but JJ definitely had all of us going there for a second lol
There were so many nice little touches. For me, my favourite was the lightsabers reflection in the eyes of Rey and Kylo Ren in the climatic duel.
This is a main reason why I am on board with The Knights of the Old Republic stuff not being canon. You can’t have the same technology 1000 years into the past with slight variations. It doesn’t make sense.
They just removed a lot of the stories, Old Republic was still there thousands of years go in canon. 😀 Like Bane (my avatar) is also canon, so are a lot of things from that era, since they were “reintroduced” in Clone Wars. Holograms specifically are used with Ancient Holocrons. 🙂
Yeah those people existed but I think they are wise to not delve into those stories right away. I think we will see an Old Republic story eventually but I think they will really have to work around the technology.
Aye, I agree! TBH, I wouldn’t mind if they just focus on new trilogy for now. Can’t wait to see what Visceral games is making!
The Ancient Egyptians had a fairly static culture for more than three thousand years, so it does happen…
While I do like technology in Star Wars to evolve to a certain point, I don’t want it to have time travel and all that! Sure, Star Wars is Sci-Fi, but has that “old” feel to it, that’s why it’s so popular, it’s two fantasies in one package!
Good way to put it
Oh it will. When the time comes and people have lost interest in Star Wars, or if it becomes an irreparable mess, they will invent time travel and hit the reboot switch. Worked out for X-men, not so good for Terminator
That’s why I liked the Disney move with just making a lot of stuff non-canon rather to just flat out reboot everything. But seeing how they focus on OT in the new Battlefront, I think they’re quite happy with the way things are now, and I bet they understand there will always be two types of Star Wars fans, ones just movies fans, while another more hardcore “behind the scenes” fans and they wouldn’t want to anger both of those groups.
If they’re smart, with future releases of these movies, they include the theatrical edition of each film, along with the 2011 special editions ( or even better a new special edition that keeps good changes/fixes, and removes the bad ones).
Leave no one behind ya know
I’m sure Disney will, but we’ll never get the originals of the originals. 🙁
Well, they can get close. And I’m good with that.
Unlike the X-Men, Star Wars doesn’t have to rely on familiar characters. It could jump back thousands of years and give us brand new ones without needing to use time travel.
I don’t think there has ever been a hint of time travel in Star Wars has there? It just isn’t apart of the universe thankfully.
time travel: I remember a group of sith lords made it to the future due to a broken hyperdrive
Yeah, that’s the reason a lot of those books and comics were scrapped (thank god), like that Sidious and Luke cloning ordeal …
cloning force sensitives ruins anything it freaking touches
Right! That’s what I think of when I see people complaining about TFA not being “as good as the old EU”.
In much the same way as Artoo has a lot of extra knowledge he keeps zipperlips on, Threepio has secret knowledge of time travel that will be revealed in Episode 8 when he alters time, speeds up a harvest and teleports Luke off a rock.
LUKE
Well, not unless you can alter time,
speed up the harvest, or teleport me
off this rock!
THREEPIO
I don’t think so, sir. I’m only a
droid and not very knowledgeable
about such things. Not on this planet,
anyways. As a matter of fact, I’m
not even sure which planet I’m on.
Think that’s one of its biggest charms. This post-modern galaxy of old and new, east and west. On a technological note, the way computers are portrayed is really well done. They’re ubiquitous, yet never really at the forefront. Believe that adds to the OT, and hopefully the ST’s longevity.
aiming sistem in the PT was shown in an episode of season six in the clone wars
Star wars is placed in a time where technology is way too advanced, to a point where noticeable advances are just a little, They are in a certain top of technology, we can’t expect things to be too different in a period from 30 o 60 years, even 100 years, there you have C3PO and R2D2, they are 70 to 100 years old at least, by the time of TFA, and working well, and it is possible that BB-8 was created decades before TFA.
As you can see, they have light speed, that had to take a lot of time ( decades ) of developing, you have light sabers, space travel, you have holocrons for generations, all is way too advanced.
The advances in technology can’t be compared with the ones we have on earth, nor the time it takes to change, because we are new and to young and primitive compared to star wars, technological advances in earth are
very noticeable trough years because of that.
I’m not saying that technology is stuck in SW, or something like that, but It’s clear that some technology have a long long time there, and new advances come in a very different time rate.
With that said, minor changes in technology in TheForceAwakens may be just
because of a different device, or simply a more expensive one, instead of a
more advanced one just because it’s 30 years newer.
Good point.
Lucas always wanted a classical symphony because it was ‘timeless’ as opposed to what Flash Gordon and Dune ended up having (and Guardians, but that movie had a little different tone than other space operas).
what happened to flash gordon that kept it from becoming timeless…i may ask
If anything, George got his Flash Gordon rocks off when he made the prequels, very cheesy and corny with bad dialog and wooden acting.
yes watching those serials you can see it, also Buck Rogers. No one ever mentions ol Buck but I think he got more from Buck than Flash, even though they were very similar.
No interesting functional architecture. Too much fantasy element – like the Wizard of Oz aesthetic.
I think A New Hope and 2001 have very similar visuals. Minimalistic, industrial, and heavy use of white. This simple style adds to the movies longevity. Contrast that with the busy, rich, and specific fashion found in the likes of Flash Gordon. Guardians is too CGI heavy, and will most likely not look that great in a few years. Think I’m one of the minority who didn’t get a lot out of that movie.
Guardians won’t look bad because two main characters are fully CGI yet are integral parts of how that movie succeeds. Rocket and Groot are fan favorites.
I just thought Poe had better binoculars. Luke just had an older set that didn’t work as well. But it was cool to see the similarities.
But Snoke’s face was,,, no, not good. He looked like Anthony Zerbe from Lord of the Rings.
Cheap,Dr Who villian was my first impression.
JJ was going for Hammer horror film vibe, he said.
It could be so easy as the signal was clearer now than in the Jedi .-)
Nice. Also the blasters have evolved a bit.
And the ships. The ties have shields now and the advanced ties have batteries. We got less varients of ships though, perhaps because the mainstays are that much more versatile.
Forget technological advances. Aesthetics and styling should have changed significantly more (example: x-wings.)
Uhm, no, not really. Just look at how things were 35-40 years: aesthetic and style didn’t really change that much and, especially in the military field, we still use a number of weapons and vehicles that were designed in the ’80s or before. What really changed is technology.
Also, if the galaxy spent (at least part of) the last 30 years swamped in a war, it makes even more sense that the changes weren’t so significant.
It’s also depends on manufacturer or what the client wanted on their ships, budget, etc. As with real life.
On the contrary, my friend – it is during the wars we made the biggest advancements in technology and weaponry, at least here on Earth
And that’s exacly my point: it makes sense that technology moved forward while aesthetc, style and designs (which were pointed out in the comment I replied to) stay pretty much the same.
TFA is perfectly coherent in that: the weapons technology improved, X-Wings, TIE fighters and the concept of the DeathStar/StarKiller base are upgraded, advanced.
why would the military care about aesthetics and style? An audience member might but within the context of the galaxy, performance is the primary concern, not just changing the look for change sake
Case in point: B-52 bomber @ 50 yrs. and running w/ few exterior variations
We don’t want X-wings to change too much that they stop being X-wings.
Jets still look basically the same as they did 30 years
The in-galaxy technology may have advanced but some of the CG work in this film was a little below par like Snoke, Maz, and the end dogfight. I think that had less to do with budget and more to do with Abrams not being a technological pioneer and lacking the contacts as well as know how to get the best digital results he could.
“end dog fight” you must be crazy…on crack…or both
It’s not like he sits down at a PC and does the CG himself, he has the ILM people in the know and he’s used CGI in his movies before more than once.
Yes, But he’s the one who gives then a general direction and he lacks the general knowledge and experience that say Lucas, Jackson, or Cameron have from decades of pioneering the industry. He was a hologram but like the OP said, It was supposed to be a realistic looking one.
what the hell was wrong with Maz? answer, nothing! In fact I didn’t notice anything that was bad! Even some of the scenes I knew had added backgrounds etc looked believable
She looked like a podracer reject which would have been a more believable backstory for her than someone force sensitive. Especially since Palpatine would definetly have killed her as she had such a high profile and been around for such a long time. Han never een believed in the force till he met Luke too.
Lando would have made more sense actually since that seems like a place he’d run and it would be more believable that someone like Lobot gave him Anakin’s lightsaber after it fell on Cloud City.
Lando would of been perfect, plus his old contacts at Bespin might have got Luke’s lightsaber to him between episodes 6-7.
You know it! Amazing Billy Dee didn’t see that but I’m sure he just wants to get hired again as he hasn’t been in a high profile film in ages.
Next step would of been for Lando to die in the First Order attack and for Han to be torn between revenge against his son and the fatherhood approach of trying to reach him as suggested by Leia.
I personally would of liked the New Order to be based on current real world problems like IS. Have them as Nazi/terrorists. Then picture a reverse battle of Hoth, with the Resistance attacking the New Order base in the hope of stopping them fleeing with Star Destroyers set to drain a sun and destroy a system. Turning Starkiller base into a giant shipyard instead of the straight ripoff of a Death Star.
I’d have preferred that or literally anythng else over what we really got.
what are you on about? first your talking about the CGI now your talking about other things!
That’s how human conversations work.
Have you looked at the podracers lately, those guys were freaking terrible, both practical and CGI ones.
Sebulba wasn’t bad though. Maz is about equal far as quality and at least he had an original looking design.
http://thehauntertk.com/star-wars-vii-maz-kanata-inspired-by-a-teacher-jj-abrams/
That is interesting and I heard that too but she’s still my least favorite hero character of the new film and the only one I never felt anything for. I wouldn’t miss her had she been written out.
yeah, if you know that the Jakku village setting, with the ST attack was mostly on a greenscreen background.. and the shot of Poe and his x-wing was outside of that studio in a forrest.. they did an amazing thing with the CG. but that’s what people don’t realize. that there’s so much CG done right in this movie, they can only point at the parts that stand out for them, which is a percentile of all effects in the movie.
The Village was shot mostly on the Pinewood outside lots. The part where Kylo exits his ship there had greenscreen above it. Just the opening and part of the ground was there.
“Darth Plageous the wise.”
“The supreme leader is wise.”
The last sentence is not accurate, as I know.
Scenes of the PT were filmed in Sevilla, not in Italy Baroque/Rennaisance Palaces.
Particularly they used Maria Luisa Park, it is a Kitsch Rehash. At the same time Gaudí was doing “art-nouveau” in Barcelona other parts of Spain were doing these historicist rehash, from my point of view there differences but not too much as both styles are giving most importance to decoration.
They could have used Gaudí instead, to pride of catalonians, but I guess it was filmed in times of “Macarena”.
This Park is a total mix, classical language with Spanish muslim architecture.
It is like someone makes a remix theme with the very best of Gershwin, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson, The Beatles and Madonna in the same song just to dance in the clubs in 2016.
I’m aware, I made my family visit the sets when we were in Spain. But I was referring to the design of the PT as a whole, I do agree I should’ve referenced the Spanish/Muslim influence as well
The muslim spanish architecture is not very clear as they use classical language.
I think the OT was simpler, clever and more eficient, Desert Planet, Ice Planet, Forest Planet, Rainforest Foggy Planet, Gas Planet, Asteroid Field and you are never confused.
PT were more elaborated different art, I liked Coruscant, a whole city planet. But not the Jedi Temple.
I liked the sea-rainy world where the clones are being built.
And also I believe classical language doesn´t belongs to Star Wars, I don´t know may be some egypcian or mayan style could have worked, or for example the F.Ll. Wright house in Los Angeles fitted so well in Blade Runner.
About the technology, I saw more modern advances in the PT than in the OT, that was weird it should have been the opposite.
The Empire would have standardized everything, which is why the architecture is limited.
But the empire was not everywere.
It was not in Jabba the hutt castle-palace-fortress…
It was not in the Lando Gas Planet…
The rebel base had his own style, but it was the same family.
I believe the work to represent different scenarios was huge in the PT, and most times it was a great art work, I really liked it, but I felt it was a different galaxy.
For example, Starkiller Base interior scenarios in TFA were really nice in my opinion. Regarding ANH, ESB… but even more advanced and modern.
Technology advances in The Force Awakens, but the story regressed. Big time.
I watched A New Hope again today. Amazing how clear and concise that story is. It pauses when needed and clearly establishes the world it inhabits. The Force Awakens had the added benefit of half the characters being established already, and still managed to bungle it. The movie was okay, but it could’ve been great. It could’ve been an all-timer. Abrams and Kasdan proved themselves to be human after all. Human and lazy 🙁
I thought it was going well until they left Jakku then it was just exposistion after exposistion and random action sequence until the final duel.
You know, watching it a second time, it was fine on Jakku but after the gangs board the ship, it just loses it for me. The whole Maz thing felt wasted.
Agreed. Right when they get taken in by Han’s ship. It doesn’t completely fall apart… but it quickly becomes a mess. We needed to slow down instead of having a monster encounter. It was the perfect opportunity to address the republic and resistance’s relationship. Build a bit more on the characters. Keep it slow all the way until Maz’s. Get the big reveal… and then blow up the action again.
Rey should’ve been the SOLE focus of the movie. Finn — like Poe — should’ve been a supporting character. Instead, they split up the focus to both Rey AND Finn. I know, some will say Luke and Han split the leads in the OT, but Luke was the sole focus for A New Hope. It wasn’t until Empire — the SECOND movie — that it focused on Han and rightfully so.
It also should’ve been Han discovering that Rey was his daughter (forget Kylo at this juncture) and then the mission would’ve been to save her from the First Order. This would’ve personalized the mission for Han and Leia, as well as for the Resistance since Rey would be the future bearer of Jedi — think “Children of Men” in this regard.
Also, Finn fighting with the saber was a crime against intergalactic humanity. Imagine how much more powerful it would’ve been if the lightsaber ignites for the FIRST time when it flies into Rey’s hands. Boom. Epic.
That part was such a boner killer.
I was so excited for most of the Jakku segment and then it all spiraled downward.
Thankfully the end and Kylo helped out a lot later on.
The gang scene could have been shortened to a quick and witty escape instead of a clusterfck haha. Didn’t bother me and its a nitpick but that scene could have been trimmed.
Which sucks becase this could have been the best paced Star Wars film ever had they just thought those scenes through.
Exactly !
Jakku and the end were pretty great. But the mid part was wasted on too much action and clunky story development.
It was very much in need of a rewrite.
agreed things like having another death star and empire search for a droid on a desert planet and on and on… nobody was looking to push things to far. Like the prequels or not george was tring to do new things
I’m sure whatever you would have done would have people commenting online somewhere that you could have done better. You think there is a movie that will have no negative comments anywhere online or elsewhere you are living in the land of Oz.
While i liked TFA much more than the prequels, I do not agree at all to the conclusion that TFA depicts advances in technology better. This is most obvious in the spaceship design.
In the beginning of the PT we see the aesthetic Naboo fighters, which later get replaced by the more industrial design of the clone spaceships. Still the clone ships look more visually complex than the fully functional design straight lines of the empire used in the later OT.
In TFA to me the space ships very much look like in the OT. The differences are so subtle, I find them hard to spot (like the updated engine design on the Xwings). In general it’s back to Tie fighters vs. Xwings. I would have liked to see a major new space ship design in TFA. However, this is just a minor criticism.
Just because you can find one instance to contradict a statement does not make it flat out true unless you are dissecting a philosophical argument to prove it unsound wherein that would make sense. Look at us today compared to 30 years ago. Its easy to point out all the new things we have… but there are also a plethora of things that haven’t which I’m sure we’d all find hard to name just because we’re so constantly enamored with the new. That doesn’t mean we haven’t progressed. Different things progress at different places. Do you think automatically in 30 years EVERYTHING has to change? And so what if everything but one item changed? Does that mean the world hasn’t progressed because one piece of tech hasn’t been developed any further? Read the novelization of TFA and you’ll learn about the advancements in ships. Cannon novels are going to fill in the descriptive blanks the movies don’t have time to focus on.
Depends on what culture, and planet they are on and native to for aesthetics of the displays, ships designs, etc.
JJ could have been a great Kylo Ren
Jeffrey? His name is… JEFFREY? My life is a lie… I’ve loved the wrong man. I can’t stand it. *Jumps out of chair*
*Gets back in chair* Well that didn’t work. 😉
Can you do an article on how the storytelling also advanced as well in this film?
Oh wait…
So insightful comment. Take 1/2 a portion on the way out.
haha right on!
I could write an essay on how and why the storytelling (which, by the way, it’s “how you tell a story” and not “what story you tell”) actually IMPROVED, and not only “advanced”, in this film.
Please…I’m all ears…
The film I saw was plagiarism, but please…I want to hear you out
“It was something I felt was lacking in the Prequel Trilogy which
depicted an aesthetic of an older time by evoking the Italian
Renaissance/Baroque periods but little in the way of actual noticeable
differences.”
Interesting. For me the prequels were more dramatically different in appearance and tech than this movie….which I always found a bit bizarre when you consider how old this universe supposedly is.But, conversely it always made sense that the tech would be a variation of the same thing. With a millennia of Jedi and the Old Republic, and that carried on through the Empire, would there then be huge advances in what would have been an unstable galaxy in turmoil? I’m not so sure there would be.
Due to a change in pilots, a few…modifications are being made to our beloved ship. Maybe you can spot them 😉
They still haven’t made the technological advance of adding hand rails on space stations. Lol!