I’m a sci-fi geek. I don’t deny it. Ever since I first encountered Star Wars at an early age (thanks Dad!) I’ve had a love affair for anything set in space. From Star Wars to Star Trek, Starship Troopers to Galaxy Quest. I love almost everything about the genre. But you know what really gets my blood pumping? A good space battle. So, without further ado, here’s my Top Three: Movie/TV Space Battles (so far.)
Also: SPOILER ALERT!
Number Three: The Resurrection Ship (Battlestar Galactica Series 2)
The reimagined series of Battlestar Galactica is some of the best TV I’ve ever seen. It’s so good, even committed non-sci-fi fans have come to love it for its snappy scriptwriting, intense characterisation and brilliant cast. That said, if you have not yet partaken in the BSG universe, do so immediately.
Series two was by far the best in my opinion, especially after the Battlestar Pegasus arrived on the scene, bringing with it squadrons of Viper pilots, a hard-nosed Admiral Cain and the target of a lifetime – the Resurrection Ship – the Cylon’s home-from-home.
Over the course of the series the two captains almost come to blows, before turning their warships and pilots on the more important target – the Cylons. What follows is one of most eerie scenes in sci-fi telly, as the Pegasus and the Galactica duke it out with Cylon Basestars as pilot Lee Adama is left adrift after ejecting from his fighter.
Notice how the moment of glory – as the Vipers rake the ship, sending thousands of Cylon models into the void, is not shot to a triumphant background, just a haunting melody. It’s almost chilling.
Number Two: The Reavers Cometh (Serenity)
Despite the brilliant sci-fi series Firefly being universally panned by critics, the series’ fanbase (including myself) was strong enough that even the idiots at FOX finally saw their mistake and approved the production of a movie set in the Firefly universe – and thus Serenity was born.
At the point in the story brave (read: impulsive) Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew have discovered a horrible secret, and are being pursued by an ‘operative’ of an interstellar Government – an operative prepared to do anything to keep the cat in the bag.
So it is that the operative gathers a massive fleet to eradicate the single Firefly-class ship, only to find that as Serenity emerges from the nebula she’s brought a few friends along – Reavers.
The Reavers - brutal, half-human killers, are a terrifying enemy, and the space battle that follows (ending in a crash-landing for Serenity) is both intense and fun at the same time, full to the brim with that familiar humour Joss Whedon does so well.
Also, because the person who uploaded the video disabled embedding (no idea why…) you’ll need to watch it on YouTube.
Number One: The Battle of Coruscant (Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith)
Yes Hayden Christensen played Anakin Skywalker as a wussy girl, yes the plot was a bit silly and yes, Jar Jar Binks was still in the movie, but Return of the Sith has what I believe to be the best space battle of any movie to this date.
Just to set the scene: It’s the end of the Clone Wars. The Republic - which has stood for a thousand years - is falling apart, despite the efforts of the Jedi order. In a brutal strike at the heart of the Republic, the renegade General Grievous assaults Coruscant, the capital of the galaxy, and kidnaps Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, the leader of the dying Government.
Into this mess comes the two greatest heroes of the Republic – Anakin Skywalker and his former Master Obi-wan Kenobi – their mission? Save the Chancellor.
Just watch:
Part one:
Part two:
And part three:
Not only is this the very opening of the movie, the first time I saw it on the big screen it totally blew me away. Just watch how the two fighters curve over the capital ship, before rolling over and diving into a seemingly endless space battle over the city-planet.
Just listen to another brilliant score from acclaimed musical director John Williams as the pitch rises and falls.
Admire how the action goes from ship-to-ship firefights to massive battle cruisers giving each other massive broadsides like the galleons of old.
Sure, it’s mostly CGI, but damn is it good!
[...] And if I’m honest, I was really disappointed with this one. I’m a Star Wars fan (if that wasn’t already obvious from my previous posts) and I was very let down by the shoddy workmanship of this title. Lucasarts, if you’re [...]
By: SNOW! And other things. « Andrew Hemphill on November 30, 2010
at 2:12 pm
Are you kidding me? Episode 3 did not have the best space battle of any of the Star Wars movie much less all sci-fi movies/TV out there. There was no “battle” whatsoever. It was a brief montage of Republic cruisers blasting the Separatist battle ships. Let us not forget the buzz droids, I mean seriously?! It was complete creative laziness on Lucasfilm’s part. That portion of time could have had a dedicated dogfight with some “ace” droid starfighter or something…anything…a flying ewok…maybe not. The best the creative resources at Lucasfilm come up with blow torch wielding bowling balls. “R2 shoot the eye!” Really? Think about it, two Jedi who are in fact Generals of the Republic Army almost got killed by one of the stupidest sci-fi weapons conceived. The buzz droids themselves were deployed by a missile, why didn’t’ the missile just destroy the Jedi starfighters? Jedi have the force, why didn’t they just destroy the buzz droids themselves? Does the force just not work in space or….?
I was incredibly disappointed with the opening space battle, it lacked focus, it was too short, and it segued into a lightsaber duel with Dooku. I like saber duels as much as the next guy, but it is really over done in Star Wars. Spacebattles are far rarer. I don’t count the Ep.2 and Ep.5 asteroid chase scenes as “battles” either. The word battle implies that two opposing forces are fighting each other, not one running and the other shooting. Ep.1 and Ep.6 are intercut with way too many other battles as well as a result, they are not cohesive. I will say that ROTJ has the second best space battle of the Star Wars movies. Better than Ep.3 by a long shot.
You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned A New Hope (aka The Battle of Yavin). I have good reason for this. It is by far the best space battle I’ve seen. It is the standard on which I base all space battles. (Star Wars or otherwise) Despite its age I can watch that sequence and it still blows me away. It has a really good build up, starting with the briefing on Yavin 4, then the pre-flight with Red leader and Biggs. The fighters launch off, all of the fighters report in, and who can forget “Lock S-foils in attack positions”. All that preparation just builds up to the imminent battle. Once you get to the battle itself its a great piece of cinema. John William score just keeps you on the edge of you seat the entire time. It is pure dogfighting. There aren’t any Ewoks, Lightsaber duels, or asinine buzz droids to break the pace. The battle stripped down to its bare essentials, blasting TIE fighters into space dust!
The best part is when Wedge saves Luke from certain death. He then proceeds to fly through the fresh remains of a TIE fighter he just obliterated. Badass. Screw the force, if it wasn’t for Wedge, Luke would’ve been blown to atoms. Heck I wouldn’t put it past Wedge to take out the Deathstar either, give me another Rebel pilot that survived all of the OTS. He even took a pretty good beating from Vader and brushed it off. To top it off, the end was great with Han blasting Vader into deep space, al la deus ex machina. To this day I can watch that scene and be convinced that Luke is done for, when Vader locks onto his X-Wing.
One can argue that the latest CGI space battle from Stargate, Battlestar, Star Trek, ect can look better or have larger scale than the Battle of Yavin. Despite the fact the visual effects might be aged, there is no denying that the sound effects and John William’s are top notch. All of it comes together in a package that stands the test of time.
Visually the opening of Episode 3 is quite amazing, but it really lacks inspiration or any sort of motivation. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat for the sequence at all. When I first saw it I was expecting the buzz droids to be a build up to some sort of epic dogfight, but I was wrong. As soon as we find the buzz droids dispatched by R2-D2 (which is a really tired gimmick, yeah George we get it…R2-D2 is the unsung hero…) do the Jedi board the Separatist cruiser start fighting battle droids. Lame, like we haven’t seen enough battle droids get dispatched throughout the prequels.
Then the show down with Dooku, again the lightsaber duels are over done. For the rest of the movie we have Kenobi vs. Grevious which completely underutilized the unique ability of villain wielding four lightsabers. That was really the only duel I was looking forward to, but then that duel ended up being a chase scene I could’ve done without. Next we have Yoda vs. Emperor and Kenobi vs. Vader. I have my reservations about those duels as well, but I’ll just make this already long rant longer.
The point is, there are a total of four lightsaber duels (I feel as if I’m missing one) and one space battle. The movie could have benefited from extending the spacebattle and cutting the Dooku fight. I mean hell Dooku could’ve mixed it up in a starfighter with the Jedi. I’m not sure if Dooku was ever a good pilot, but something would’ve been better than what was delivered (even flying ewoks…jk).
In all honesty I felt really cheated on the EP3 spacebattle. The brief shots of massive battle cruisers blasting the hell out of each other and smaller fighters dodging in between turbolaser blasts really built it up like there’s going to be an epic dogfight sequence. Alas, Lucas gives us…..buzz droids. Fail.
By: GoldLeader on February 13, 2011
at 12:02 pm
Now that was a comment! Thanks GoldLeader for your opinions.
While I do agree with you over the Buzz Droids, and indeed the flying Ewok (“Yub Yub, Commander”), I still love the opening for the sheer scale of the battle. That bit when the two fighters crest the Assault Ship’s prow and you see straight down through the battle had me going “Woah” – for about 10 minutes.
Thanks for having your say
And feel free to list your top three. I’ll happily turn it into a guest article!
By: Andrew Hemphill on February 13, 2011
at 10:20 pm