Warning! Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: Halcyon Legacy
Fans tend to look the other way when it comes to some of Star Wars' ridiculousness. It gets a little harder to ignore though when it comes to the comics. This becomes obvious in some of the space battles depicted in the new Star Wars limited series Halcyon Legacy, written by Ethan Sacks with art by Will Sliney.
One of the criticisms levied not just against Star Wars but against science fiction stories in general is the scientific accuracy of how space works. Films such as Interstellar and Gravity as well as novels like The Martian go out of their way to try to be as scientifically accurate as possible, but even those stories stretch the boundaries of what's realistic for the sake of storytelling, entertainment, and excitement. Not surprisingly, Star Wars doesn't really bother with scientific accuracy at all, granted that it's more space fantasy rather than science fiction. After all, the story does revolve around laser sword-wielding wizards.
In terms of space battles, Star Wars gets a lot of leeway, probably because they are so entertaining. Between explosions, lasers being fired, and droids talking up a storm, there are tons of sounds going on in space, which is impossible because space is a vacuum. For the most part, fans let this inaccuracy slide. Star Wars movies and TV shows all are all about spectacle. Their comics are, too. However, this scientific blunder is a lot more noticeable on the page. When a space battle is unfolding cinematically, it's easy to get drawn into the moment. But when a sound effect is placed over artwork of a space battle, it becomes more apparent just how ridiculous the sounds in space can be.
The Star Wars: Halcyon Legacy miniseries is designed to promote Walt Disney World's new Galactic Starcruiser resort. In order to get the full experience, the comic does showcase some space battles, which provides plenty of opportunities to show this weird quirk of Star Wars comics in action. There are a great deal of Star Wars’s iconic “pew pew” sound effects coming from ships as well as “boom” explosions from ships crashing into each other and blowing up.
One sci-fi series that does get the scientific side of space right is the short-lived TV show Firefly. When featuring the show’s ship, Serenity, in space, it always takes off without any sound effects whatsoever. While this feature works on the small screen, seeing a Star Wars movie on the big screen demands an audio experience on par with the awe-inspiring visual effects. That's why Lucasfilm founded THX and Skywalker Sound to push the boundaries of what a movie can sound like. While Star Wars: The Halcyon Legacy continues this tradition, reading the sound effects in a Star Wars comic does not have quite the same effect as hearing them in a movie theater.