Space Battles

[Westonian]

Cant decide between:

- Battle of Endor wins in the catagory all round excellence.
- The New Caprica Jump and Battle of the Resurection Ship battles (as mentioned above) wins in in terms of artistry and realism. They both left me gobsmacked.
- The Battle of the Matura Nebula is the best ship vs. ship battle by far. It was so well filmed. I could watch it again and again and never get bored.
- and honourable mention goes to the Serenity battle, the Starship Troopers battle and the Battle of Sector 001
- out of left field is the battle that we never saw as the two huge fleets met at the end of Starcraft - Brood Wars. THAT would have been cool. Sadly, even many years later, we don't know what happened.

but how awesome was the Battle of Area 51 in Independance Day

[Jedilaw]

1) ROTJ: Battle of Endor. Still my absolute favorite for pacing, camera movement, excitement, and sheer artistry and grace. Plus, the Falcon going into the Death Star superstructure is probably my favorite VFX sequence of all time.

@Alain: according to "Industrial Light and Magic - Into the Digital Realm" Who Framed Roger Rabbit actually stole the crown from ROTJ for complex optical compositing. IIRC, ILM had to buy a whole new optical compositing system because they wore the old one out with the intensity of what they were doing. Now, that may be more a matter of the number of shots with compositing rather than the number of composited elements.

2) STII:TWOK - both battles are brilliant, tense, wonderfully shot and edited, and wonderfully acted. Best sub battle since Das Boot.

3) ROTS: Battle of Corruscant - I want to love it more, but Lucas kind of hurried us through the fight and focused on a very small portion of the whole battle. Still, the first set of shots where the two Jedi Fighters dive to the surface of the Venator-class Cruiser and then plunge into the fight are amazing stuff.

4) BSG - End fight for miniseries, Resurrection Ship, and Escape from New Caprica (other than Lee being a dumbass in the way he deployed the Pegasus)

5) Serenity - Battle of whatever-planet-that-was-at-the-end. I'm not super thrilled with the designs of the ships themselves, but the sequence was very well shot (rendered) and edited nonetheless.

6) Starship Troopers - death of the Roger Young

[Sanderlee]

Most of the ones mentioned so far are definitely on my list ... but here's two that people seem to have forgotten.

1) Narn vs. Shadows at Gorash 7 (don't remember the episode, season 2). First time we really see the Shadows out in the open (mostly they'd been ambush predators up to that point) and man are they hostile!

2) Earth Force vs. Earth Force in Shattered Dreams (season 3). Sure, Boxleitner over acts the whole time (esp. when he's facing the camera but giving orders to the people behind him) but damn if that isn't one serious fight. Fighters, capital ships, boarding actions ... it's got it all.

... though one does wonder what happened to the three Hyperion cruisers since they seem to vanish from the fight after the initial set-up scene ...

Sanderlee.
- Heck, most of the B5 fights were solid. Esp, re: In The Beginning.

[D.M.J.]

I've seen battles that are exciting, but the Resurrection Ship battle was easily the best. The scene where the Basestar starts to break up under the pounding from the two Battlestars is nothing less than several seconds of pure, unfiltered joy.

To quote Kosh from B5,
"*weird wibbling gibbering howling* One moment... of perfect beauty.".

[prfz00m]

Battle Of Yavin: So important that Star Wars bases its whole calendar on that moment.

TIEs attack the Falcon as she escapes the Death Star (Just for John Williams's score, really)

If were including novels I'd include anything from the Honorverse.

[Free-Lance]

Babylon 5 shadow wars!

The final battle to end all battles!

[quetzal]

Don't forget the Dominion War on DS9. the retaking of Terok Nor from the Dominion was my favorite.

[kenny]

What about the mirror-universe battle with the captured USS DEFIANT from Commander J. Archer to fight the Andorians,Vulcans Etc.

[NanoGator]

I loved the Klingon battle in Way of the Warrior. I miss the motion-controlled-model days.

[Mr. Wilde]

Originally Posted by Jedilaw

1) ROTJ: Battle of Endor. Still my absolute favorite for pacing, camera movement, excitement, and sheer artistry and grace. Plus, the Falcon going into the Death Star superstructure is probably my favorite VFX sequence of all time.

2) STII:TWOK - both battles are brilliant, tense, wonderfully shot and edited, and wonderfully acted.

My thoughts exactly. The Battle of Endor is gold. It only lasts like 4-5 minutes (if you take all the lightsaber duels and ground battles out), and each section only takes 30-60 seconds, but those are absolutely exciting. There's nothing better than that, imho.

Most space battles show too much and are way too long. Some of the DS9 battles got really boring, as well as the battle at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith.

The final battle in Star Trek 6 is also great. Could watch that over an over again. Cinematography, editing, music, sound effects, and the final shot of Enteprise and Excelsior destroying the Bird-of-Prey is fantastic.