That right there is one of the major failures of the franchise: in the first film their world is filled with rusted, half operating, jury rigged everything. The

That right there is one of the major failures of the franchise: in the first film their world is filled with rusted, half operating, jury rigged everything. The Empire was the only organization with enough wealth to afford new technology, and everyone else was poverty stricken and making due. That is beautiful realism. Every single film since the first has has a "shiny chrome" world - like a fucking dumb Buck Rodgers concept.