Script Writers

[Alpo]

Do you suppose that script writers are just total flipping morons, and don't know any better so stick stuff in their scripts that sort of sounds right?

 

"This is the ship thi made the Kessel run in less than five parsecs."

 

Funny. In astronomy class they taught me that a parsec was a unit of distance, not of time. Seems like it's three and a half light years - wouldn't swear to that because astronomy class was in 1974, but it's a unit of distance.

 

Or script writers believe that the viewing audience are total flipping morons, so they can say whatever they want to and the audience will accept it.

 

"I found the bullet casing. He was killed with a 25 mm Tokarov."

 

Sausage has casings, bullets have jackets, but what they were referring to was cartridge CASES. And a 25 mm pistol shoots a bullet almost an inch in diameter.

 

Or there is a third possibility. The script writers are actually intelligent, and they believe that some of their viewers are also intelligent, and they stick the stupidity in there to give the viewers the fun of laughing at it.

 

"He was grasping at..."

"Hollow polystyrene tubes?"

"What?"

"Grasping at straws doesn't tell you what kind of straws. Whether they're paper straws or plastic straws or metal straws. I'm a scientist McGee. I like to be specific. He was grasping at hollow polystyrene tubes."

 

And here all this time I was unaware that that phrase had anything to do with drinking straws, and in fact was referring to the dried shafts of grain. When you cut the seed heads off the wheat, what you have left is the straw. When you're drowning, and a log comes floating by you grab the log, so it will support you and keep you from drowning. But if there is no log coming along, and there's a few pieces of straw in the water, you would grasp at the straws. Grabbing at anything that might keep you afloat.

 

Hollow polystyrene tubes. Geezus.

[Cypress Sun]

You're expecting too much from idiots.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

I always thought that the "Kessel Run" bit was just Han talking gibberish to a kid and an old man who he thought wouldn't know the difference. 

When it comes to anything firearms related, most of them only know what they've seen on T.V. or in the movies. So yeah, they're stupid. 

Once in a while they might have some minor bit of trivia floating around in what passes for their brains that they put in something just to impress themselves with how much smarter they are than us viewers.  

[Texas Joker]

Han took an insane shortcut. The Kessel run was normally 17 parsecs, but he did it in 5.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

My favorite is some starship at a super light velocity dropping something from the ship and having swept behind   in a vacuum where there is NO Drag to hold the item back.  

 

Next is, "they are closing at high warp"
"How far are they?"
"600,000 kilometers."

Next shot shows them more like a mile apart.

[Still hand Bill]

How about sound in space?   There isn’t any, but it would make the movies less exciting to see a huge explosion quickly be snuffed out, no sound and no shock wave.  A friend did an analysis on fighting with a light saber as it is energy and doesn’t have mass.  You would not swing it like a 10lb broadsword, but more like a fencing foil.