Re: The guns
Probably a good job that they never managed to hit anything then
The Star Wars universe is undeniably George Lucas’ creation, but many, many other people helped realise his conception by designing and making the clothes, the devices, the environments and the starships of his imagination. They contributed enormously to sense of physical reality the films project and which is just as much a …
I've still got the official handout Star Wars booklet that was distributed by some theaters when the first movie came out. I used it as a guide to building scratch models of the various ships (X-Wing, TIE, and Destroyer). I got the booklet because I was first in line at the first showing of the movie at my local theater--me and the next ninety-nine people, I think it was.
I remember reading (this is like 35 years ago) that the props crew bought thousands of model kits, everything from aircraft to tanks to cars to ships, to use the bits and bobs for decorating the models, especially the Destroyer. I followed suit to the tune of a half-dozen kits and discovered just how handy they were for adding all that detail.
Star Trek was specifically noted for its use of background sounds to create an environment. The US Navy was supposed to have asked for the "red alert" klaxon sound to use in at least one of its new aircraft carriers. I never did find out if that happened.
Mem'ries... light the corners of my mind... god I feel old.
I've never understood the whole Star Wars thing. I've seen a couple of the movies on TV and thought they were cookie cutter "Carter on Mars" type stories. The problem with them seems to be that the stories are not sci-fi, they just use the props, props that don't appear to behave properly for the universe that we live in.
I like reading old sci-fi but the stories all have the limitation that our current technologies often are leaps ahead of what was conceived for the future back then. The only thing that's not kept pace is that you just can't navigate in space like you're driving a car.
That was kind of the point, wasn't it? The stories may have been set a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, but the source of the stories wasn't sci-fi, only the setting was. Star Wars is never really about the technology (lightsabers are just swords, spaceships are just boats, fighters are just planes), it's just familiar stories given a sci-fi twist, and it really worked. Not for everyone, but there you go.
If you look at the scene where Luke and Obi first get to the MF hanger, there are two large yellow pods with ducts coming from them. They look exactly like the compressors that road work crews used in the 1970's to power their kango hammers and other tools when digging up the nation's highways!
I certainly remembered seeing Empire Strikes back, we had two classrooms split by one of those retractable doors, all I remember was the teacher rolling out the TV on one of those stands and 70 odd kids glued to this screen until the end credits, then fighting over who would be which character at lunch time in the play ground.
Those were great days, no political correctness or the other BS that ruins everything now plus we respected adults and teachers and if you really screwed up, out came the cane.