Detailing provides some "wow" factor of course, and it helps to sell the idea of scale, especially on a small TV screen. "Look at all that detail - that thing must be HUGE!"

At some point though it just gets silly. Star Wars is a prime example. Star Destroyers were massive, but in the second movie, they added Darth Vader's command ship, which dwarfed the star destoyers. You start to wonder if they had to de-populate entire star systems just to get the crew to run these things. (Of course, they did have a lot of robots - oops, droids - to help out.)

Star Wars is just pure fantasy, though, and never pretended to be anything but. There's an argument to be made that it's not even properly science fiction, since the science is mostly absent and totally god-awful and wacky when it appears. (The Force is everywhere - surrounds us, penetrates us, moves mountains, yadda yadda... but, um, it's really caused by - uh - something like... hemoglobin!)

But there is some justification. Real space craft often seem to have that "hatches and panels everywhere" look, as aesthetics are rarely a concern, and artifacts left over from construction are not always hidden in the final product. Plus, if you look at an aerial view of any city, you get a very similar impression of complexity.

Actually, the Death Star looks pretty much like what I would expect, considering it was probably designed by no fewer than six dozen committees, all working for different branches of the Empire and and only vaguely aware of each others' existence, each one trying to defend their turf, get their own favorite features implemented, move up the corporate ladder, and avoid having their throats crushed by the CEO! :biggrin:

• Jimdoria  ~@>@