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Now, for myself, because it's so hard to decide, I'm gonna set limitations on myself. I'm only picking Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 because that's the extent of my space action combat experience, and I don't think video game cinematics count.

For Trek, the First Battle of Deep Space Nine, with the Klingons bombarding it from every angle with torpedoes and phasers flying everywhere. You know you're doing something right when ILM is doing the effects.

For B5, the battle against B5 with the Alexander, Agrippa, Roanoke, and Churchill from "Severed Dreams." I heard it won an award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and it's very well earned. That scene where the Churchill collides with the Agrippa... the music really sold the horror, awe, and tragedy. Nuff said.

For Star Wars, the Battle of Endor. I'm only counting space engagements, because if we were only including land engagements, I'd say the Battle of Hoth, but in terms of pure space action porn, I loved this battle as a kid, and still love it now. It's telling that it wasn't remastered in 1997 given how cutting-edge the effects were even in the early eighties. ILM really outdid themselves here. And the Williams score? I mean, seriously, it's all been said!

Um, pretty much any major battle in EVE Online, both ingame and in cinematics, especially if the happenings in game are ennobled by a cinematic. Bonus points for battles you actually took part in.


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Yukaphile wrote: ↑Wed Feb 06, 2019 5:11 am Now, for myself, because it's so hard to decide, I'm gonna set limitations on myself. I'm only picking Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 because that's the extent of my space action combat experience, and I don't think video game cinematics count.

For Trek, the First Battle of Deep Space Nine, with the Klingons bombarding it from every angle with torpedoes and phasers flying everywhere. You know you're doing something right when ILM is doing the effects.

For B5, the battle against B5 with the Alexander, Agrippa, Roanoke, and Churchill from "Severed Dreams." I heard it won an award for Best Dramatic Presentation, and it's very well earned. That scene where the Churchill collides with the Agrippa... the music really sold the horror, awe, and tragedy. Nuff said.

For Star Wars, the Battle of Endor. I'm only counting space engagements, because if we were only including land engagements, I'd say the Battle of Hoth, but in terms of pure space action porn, I loved this battle as a kid, and still love it now. It's telling that it wasn't remastered in 1997 given how cutting-edge the effects were even in the early eighties. ILM really outdid themselves here. And the Williams score? I mean, seriously, it's all been said!

Star Trek: I say the battle for DS9 in Way of the Warrior part 2.
Star Wars: Battle over Skarif in Rogue One. The rebels pulled all their stops. Take out a shield generator and the bombers can ion bomb an ISD to silence. To the pushing a ship into another one. You would think the imperials would learn that space is big and stop flying so close together.

And for an animated yet short one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv63KCJUQOA

End of Starcraft: Broodwar.

DS9 had by far the best space battles in all Trek, and my favourite has to be the battle to retake DS9, simply because of the moment where the Klingons enter the fray. B5 is a toss-up between Severed Dreams and Endgame but I have to give it to Severed Dreams for the same reason as DS9, only with Minbari instead of Klingons. Star Wars wise, call me sentimental but the battle of Yavin, simply because it set the stage for everything that came afterwards.

NCC-1701A v. USS Reliant or when the Cylons "Pearl Harbored" the Colonists in "Razor," the Battlestar movie.

Because my problem with most space battles is that too much is going on---sensory overload. Especially as CGI has gotten cheaper and cheaper. Everything becomes a blur.

Mutara Nebula had actual tension like an old time WWII submarine film. BSG's space battles worked cuz the Foley (sound effects) + minimalistic music score created aural tension (if that's such a thing).

Contrast BSG with the generic, awful, forgettable STDisco muzak in the Vulcan Hello/Battle of Binary Stars.

Um... the A never fought the Reliant...

Every Trekkie's accidentally called the refit the A at some point.

Battle of Thoth Station, 'The Expanse'. A really good hard sci-fi (ish, but not a lot of ish) battle in glorious modern CG. You've got a pretty complex engagement, with the Roci versus the Osiris, and the breaching pods and the station gun adding their own wrinkles, and I felt like the storyboarding of the fight did a great job of exposition, giving the viewer the information to understand how those elements were banging into each other and how they weighed on our heroes' decision-making, without making everything too clean and clear and losing the desperate, on the edge of being overwhelmed, feel the show had aimed for. Plus with most space battles ending when somebody fires a shot and the other ship vanishes in a nice clean fireball, it's really satisfying to see the Roci pouring rapid fire into the Osiris and turning it into a goddamn colander. (I guess, spoiler warning, if you thought the main characters were all going to die in season one of a three-seasons-and-counting show.)

Fourth Battle of Yeltsin, 'Flag in Exile', Honor Harrington series. I love the Honorverse, for the most part, but a lot of the battles kind of fall either into someone getting the crap pummeled out of them but through sheer grit holding it together, or swanning in with the latest range/accuracy-augmenting tech upgrade and blowing the other side away with impunity (or in the case of the Battle of Monica, both). Fourth Yeltsin's kind of the sweet spot where neither of those overwhelm the actual command aspects of the battle - the tech is important but not all-consuming, the traditional venting-atmosphere-everywhere death ride is present but not what clinches it, what really matters is the people in command, how clever they are and how strong their will is. The final decisions when Honor's facing Tom Theisman is one of those rare occasions when it really could have gone either way, not just 'theoretically' but in practical reality, and Honor's win is entirely justified. Also I have to say Thurston, the other Havenite (bad guy) commander, is a bit of a gem at this stage of the series - he's a one-shot and basically fits into the general character of People's Navy antagonists at this point, but he's given enough buildup that he's not just some generic commander, and while he gets schooled by Honor it's not because he's a moron, just that she's better.

I really like the space battles from Exo-Squad especially near the end like when Shiva is sent to retake Venus or when the Exo-Fleet attacks the Moon. You can really feel the desperation on both sides as neither can afford to loose the battle so they just keep pouring more and more into it.