tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post687994377192260295..comments2024-03-27T08:49:38.786-03:00Comments on Siskoid's Blog of Geekery: The Curmudgeon Smells a Bad SmellSiskoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-39155314974288241332015-12-17T14:26:17.279-04:002015-12-17T14:26:17.279-04:00Well, blade-wing is the new retconned origin for t...Well, blade-wing is the new retconned origin for the name, so I guess the speculation caught on. :-)<br /><br />Pretty sure the R2 translator was indeed updated.Andrew Gilbertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10604304361825660940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-80234463194350031002015-12-17T14:08:22.987-04:002015-12-17T14:08:22.987-04:00Offhand, the only written text I can think of from...Offhand, the only written text I can think of from Empire would be the translator for R2 in Luke's X-Wing. I don't think they used English for that, but I also don't know if it was Aurabesh, either. (Firing up the "Despecialized Edition" copy, it kinda looks like some English letters, but rotated and reversed, with other random symbols, so... somewhere in between English and Aurabesh, I guess?) (I'm also guessing that was changed to Aurabesh in the Special Editions, but I don't feel like checking right now...)<br /><br />Way back when, I remember people speculating that the B-Wing kinda resembled a knife, so the "B" was for "blade". That seemed kind of a stretch, to be honest. Apparently, on Wookiepedia, they say that, if you rotate the B-Wing such that the cockpit is on the bottom, and look at it from the starboard side, it sort of resembles a lower-case 'b'. That also sounds like someone trying to find a reason to justify the name after the fact, though.Green Luthorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11808312988625889127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-17937763485982592692015-12-17T11:57:32.656-04:002015-12-17T11:57:32.656-04:00It's visible on prop photography, but looks bl...It's visible on prop photography, but looks blurred with bad Photoshop in the Special Edition. It was probably never very legible, and it's upside down.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-26095980628535694832015-12-17T11:39:08.989-04:002015-12-17T11:39:08.989-04:00I heart them, too. That's why I dug 'Wings...I heart them, too. That's why I dug 'Wings of the Master' on rebels this season.<br /><br />I think aurabesh was invented for ROTJ...? I can't imagine what else it would have been used for before that... Wookieepedia seems to concur. Aurabesh: making the rule book for Star Wars Monopoly a prized possession since 1997. ;-)<br /><br />On the tractor beam change (vis a vis, the English Alphabet), "Note that this particular instance was the only scene in the movie to clearly show Roman letters (though highly observant viewers note that a needle on an IT-O interrogation droid in an earlier scene is marked "British Made")."Andrew Gilbertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10604304361825660940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-48437441841981418332015-12-17T11:12:41.021-04:002015-12-17T11:12:41.021-04:00I can't work out if your explanation is better...I can't work out if your explanation is better or worse than the official one. :) And yeah, it always bugged me that B-Wings look nothing like either "b" or "B". But they were always the desirable ship of the 90s X-Wing games, so I heart them.<br /><br /><br />Was Aurabesh invented for ROTJ, or was it created before that but we just never saw it?LiamKavhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01996095233681105682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-11669692205427920162015-12-17T10:31:26.077-04:002015-12-17T10:31:26.077-04:00As per the EU, there are two different alphabets; ...As per the EU, there are two different alphabets; Aurabesh is the more common. (The other alphabet is just to explain the things that slipped through, like X and Y.) <br /><br />As far as the change, it's nice retroactive continuity with Return of the Jedi, and I think the label is inferrable from the fact we know Ben is after the tractor beam, so... yeah, not necessary, but I think it's still a good change rather than the negative-unnecessary ones back in Mos Eisley.<br /><br /><br />As far as the ships, the bigger question is how in the world Return of the Jedi's B-wing even remotely resembles the letter B. :-) But I think you guys are missing the sci-fi obvious; there is no English alphabet; rather, there is a fearsome, agile four-winged avian predator called the Ecks in this universe, after which the fighter is modeled... while the bomber craft are so slow and ineffective (though they explode VERY impressively) that pilots assigned to them are always heard to remark "Why? WHY???"- hence its nickname as the Why-wing.Andrew Gilbertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10604304361825660940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-4810841743946634222015-12-17T09:19:48.227-04:002015-12-17T09:19:48.227-04:00Holy crap! You're right! Well... the Y-wing lo...Holy crap! You're right! Well... the Y-wing looks more like a tuning fork. Which is why I always mistook the Imperial shuttles for Y-wings based on the shape.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-88183994662892391262015-12-17T09:08:03.866-04:002015-12-17T09:08:03.866-04:00I don't think there's any other intentiona...I don't think there's any other intentional English. I believe there might be marks left by production and what not, but no other close ups.<br /><br />Of course, them having a different alphabet doesn't explain why they're called X-Wings and Y-Wings when they don't HAVE an X and Y in their alphabet.<br /><br />(Oh god, there's going to be a terrible EU explanation, isn't there?)LiamKavhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01996095233681105682noreply@blogger.com