There’s obviously some type of artificial gravity in the Star Wars universe, and the Death Star (being a “small moon”) wouldn’t have strong enough natural gravity to enable normal movement. But there would be some force pulling mass toward the center. The way it’s shown in the movie, things would slide sideways across the floor.
Why spend all the energy to counteract a gravitational force you don’t want, and then replace it in a different direction? It would be much more efficient to build the station as a series of concentric shells, taking advantage of the natural gravity and augmenting it as much as needed.
There is one advantage to how the Death Star is shown in the movie. It feels much more artificial. Concentric levels might just look like the Empire had taken an actual moon and built it up enough to cover the whole surface. As shown, it’s a bit more clear that it was built from scratch.
“Distinctive excellence” is why I went my clearly minority opinion of The Doctor.
The concept of Spock, especially at the start, was not his being Vulcan but his conflicted identities and how he dealt with his humanity. Done before Trek but Trek did that very well with Spock and revisited that well many times in various twists and variations. It was many things but not especially distinctive.
Vader was a classic Black Hat made into a helmet. Or Dark Wizard even. Not very distinctive.
The Doctor’s excellence though is very distinctive, a character concept that I don’t think was done before or since. They win.
Sure, but the question isn’t which is the most distinctive, it’s which is the most iconic. If you put a picture of the Doctor on your shirt, with no context, how many people - including non-fans - will recognize him? More than would recognize Darth Vader, or Spock?
This relates to what I was going to say . . . I think there’s definitely a generational divide around Spock (and Trek in general), as the last 20 years have seen Trek be a footnote while Star Wars has been the dominant Sci-fi cultural touchstone. For the yoots, of course Vader is more iconic.
That said, things like a mind meld, nerve pinch, and “live long and prosper” have places in the cultural soup even if the people using Spock’s devices don’t really know where they came from. And, Spock was surprisingly an inspirational character (on an inspirational show) for a whole generation or two of scientists and thinkers.
Vader gives us his breathing noise, and the not-quite-accurate “Luke, I am your Father” quote.
In honor of this thread, I put on my t-shirt with a picture of Spock with the caption “You Better Trek Yourself Before you Wreck Yourself” for my afternoon walk. I voted for Darth Vader but Spock was a very close second. As an old school Trekkie, I feel as though Vader is immediately more recognizable to younger people today than Spock is.
Without reading anything in the thread, to really answer the question, I’d like to reduce each character to an icon. That is, something pictorial or logographic. Stretching it, maybe a catch phrase. Basically, you show someone the “icon” and how likely they are to recognize the character it’s referring to.
James T Kirk: maybe the Star Trek logo, but nothing I can think of that calls out Kirk in particular. No great iconic phrases; best I can think of is “where no man has gone before”, but again that’s more Star Trek than Kirk.
Spock: the Vulcan hand sign, along with “live long and prosper”.
Han Solo: the Millennium Falcon. Lots of great lines; I’d say the most iconic is “Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs”.
Darth Vader: the helmet, the labored breathing, the Imperial March. “I am your father”.
The Doctor (Doctor Who): the blue police box, and the Dr Who theme.
Ripley (Alien): I can’t think of anything, probably because I’ve never been a fan of the series.
So, thinking through all that, here’s my rating of iconicity:
Darth Vader: 10/10
Spock: 9/10
Han Solo: 6/10
Dr Who: 5/10
Kirk: 3/10
Ripley: 0/10
Hence the reference to the definition. I do not think iconic means most visually identifiable by any definition. It does however mean distinctive excellence. Not even most well known. The Doctor is the best most excellent representative of that class of sci fi character. Possibly the only one really.
