@wolfrazer: I mentioned the full range of speeds that I've seen people argue for for blaster bolt speed--from their relatively slow on-screen appearance up through light speed. Personally, I tend to believe they are, as you say, at least as fast as a rifle. I don't think they're near lightspeed though, which is sometimes used as an argument for force-user's speed, as in, if they can block lightspeed blaster bolts, they must be able to move lightspeed themselves.
And yes, of course many denizens of the Star Wars universe have different physical stats than normal humans.
@owie said:
I'm fully aware that different people have different estimates of Star Wars speeds, so this is just my take, offered as my opinion to those who are interested. Like I said, the source material is inconsistent, which I think most people would agree with, so a lot of the different estimates come from what source material you tend to prioritize. Novels, for instance, tend to show greater speed than comics and TV, and a lot of harder-core Star Wars fans read a lot of the novels. While I have mostly tended to be a TV and comics guy, so that's what I (subjectively) tend to see as the "true" version. Whereas some novels readers see those as the "true" version.
Like I said in this thread and another (and hopefully more succintly and clearly this time since I was sort of beating around the bush before), I don't think there is a speed disparity in-universe. The characters will inevitably appear differently in different media; live action is going to look slower than the speeds described in a novel or in comic artwork. However, Star Wars is an all-encompassing universe that joins, relates and references every form of media it creates into one canon story. That means that the same Durge you see in a comic is the same one you see on the OCW cartoon. It's not a case of any form of media being the "true" version, it's just that they look different.
Example; Vader can create up to 12 afterimages while parrying blaster fire from the same number of droids in a comic. Watching the original trilogy, you wouldn't expect him capable of that, and rightly so; but the comic I'm referencing is canon to the movie. It's the same Vader performing the feat. That means, despite our perception of the media, that Vader was from a canonical standpoint moving at the same speeds in both sources. It's just that one is better at showing how truly fast he is. It's not a case of high and low showings, inconsistency etc for me. It's not like Marvel and DC where it truly makes little sense for characters to appear to be performing far more poorly than their usual, because they are from one form of media, which is comics, and that eliminates any excuse for it. Star Wars is a mixed bag of media, so it actually makes sense for characters to appear different without actually being different.
As for Force users vs non-Force users and what not, it depends on if you're discussing Legends or Canon, and also needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Often times there is a good reason for a non-Force user lasting against a Jedi or Sith; they might have some kind of unfair advantage helping them, or maybe the Force user just isn't as high-tier as say, Durge.
So, that's more or less why us Star Wars buffs will use the best feats possible for Star Wars characters just as anyone else would do for a comic universe (within reason). There's inconsistencies in any universe but speed in Star Wars isn't really one of them. Therefore any speed feats referenced in this thread, regardless of the media, should be regarded as being just as valid. I don't mind Danny taking the polls providing the argument is good, but I'd be disappointed if he shot up to 60% just because the majority of the comic community agreed they don't understand how speed works in SW so we'll agree on sub-Spidey and give Danny the win.
I'd disagree that there isn't inconsistency in-universe. I know the normal canon universe is included within the EU universe when perceived from the perspective of the EU, and that then the canon events are perceived to have happened with EU level powers etc. But, while some writers/artists/directors give characters pretty high levels of speed on occasion, those same characters don't use that speed all the time. There are any number of events where the character could use that speed to solve a random plot issue, and doesn't. Some writers (etc.) make a big deal out of speed, others don't use it hardly at all. For instance, I just read through two Star Wars omnibus comics books, and neither of them made hardly a mention of using force to enhance speed (other than dodging a hail of blaster fire, as per usual), even though there were numerous situations where Jedi/Sith were fighting normal-level characters and enhanced speed would certainly have helped them. Whereas other writers (etc) might decide to make a point of just how they could use their speed. Or, some writers may make their speed extremely high, whereas in other situations the speed is high, but not as high. The Clone Wars show is well known for not showing the characters' speeds to be as high as in some other media, even while making it clear that they are sometimes enhancing their speed--it's just not as fast as in other media, and as an animation it would have been easy to make it look faster if they had wanted. We can call this PIS, or inconsistency, or whatever. For me, all comics are inconsistent, to one degree or another, just because they have existed for decades with innumerable writers. Star Wars, existing as it does in comics, novels, animation, and live action, can only be expected to be even more inconsistent than normal, just because it's so big and complex. They have people trying to maintain consistency, of course, but no one's perfect, and I think their treatment of speed is one of the more prominent sources of inconsistency. Not whether they can enhance their speed, but how much, and how often they do so.
I want to be clear that I'm not saying that any speed feats in this thread or any other aren't valid, they just need to be considered within the character's overall range of feats, just as with any other character's feats for any power. And also to be clear, I'm saying they can move as fast as Spidey, not below, and maybe faster depending on the situation. When Durge says he can move faster than Anakin, personally I have a hard time believing he is moving much faster than this Spider-man-ish speed level; I just don't see Durge moving at something like, say, Quicksilver-ish speed levels. It just doesn't seem likely based on how I read him. But if there was some kind of evidence that he had that kind of speed other than just comparing him to Jedi, then I'd be happy to believe it.
When I mention the "true" universe, I don't mean whether the EU or canon is the true universe. I'm talking about people's perception of truth. In other words, I have seen people argue that, say, the computer animated Clone Wars is less "accurate" to the "true" reality of Star Wars than, say, novels, or the cartoon Clone Wars, because we don't see them use their speed as much, or they act out of character, or whatever. Whereas I would argue that one's perception of what the Star Wars universe is "really like" depends on what one is used to. If one has read a lot of stuff portraying a character one way (let's say in a novel), and then they see it in another medium (let's say in a cartoon), then the new medium to them is the one that is "off." Whereas if someone saw the cartoon first, and then read the novel, they would see the novel as being the one that is off. Optimally, of course, all these portrayals are consistent with each other, but every portrayal has its own editorial take and they're not not always going to be consistent. For instance, Rebels is more of a kids' show than Clone Wars, and characters act a little different, because of that editorial difference. So someone who saw Clone Wars is going to think that Rebels is not quite as "real" as Clone Wars, whereas a kid who is raised on Rebels and only sees Clone Wars years later is going to think Clone Wars is the off one. (We could compare the all ages Clone Wars comics to the much more adult Dark Horse comics of the same era.) Which is to say that most of us are biased by what we're used to, and consider it to be more accurate than other portrayals that seem counter to what we are used to. And of course this also applies to all other universes, like for people who see the Marvel movies and then read the comics, etc., except that in that case, those are actually two different universes, whereas with Star Wars they have to make all those portrayals still fit within one universe.
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