The Star Wars dead horse thread

[Clerval]

Ah but it was only a RoJ-styled AT-ST. Pieces of crap, those. Thinking on it now, maybe an opportunity was missed to get some massive number of Ewoks in on things, a real beat-down on the troops. And some forget, these little twerps were ready to kabob Han... they had an edge to them.

Canon. Sure, you can have your personal fanon. There's one canon only ever mattered, that's G-canon. If it flew in the face of secondary/tertiary (and usually crap) xyz, so be it. He had folks who'd work with him on ways to steer around any potential issues (there were a few loo-loos) or at least make him aware, or he'd just throw things out outright if he wanted to. But, his sandbox, his toys.

The droids could have been missed by the blaster fire only when it was funny.... (ahem, four dots)

Troopers by Ep IV, a mix. By size, by voice, by numbers (I'd say its one thing to run around parts of the galaxy and put out fires carefully designed to stretch and prolong, another to try to hold systems)

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Clones were clones... Along time ago. Stormtroopers are modern troops. (made up of recruits/volunteers). How difficult of a concept is this?Seems pretty simple.

Well the guy who made it up says something different, so I'm going with Lucas and not the new upstarts.

I should add that JJ and whoever else could certainly say all the Stormtroopers portrayed in their movies, shows, etc. are human, but according to Lucas clones are in the ranks.

 

[Guy Cowen]

Lucas aint writing this stuff anymore, when he wrote this he was just making it all up as he went along and then changed it and then changed it again and then changed it again..........now it has a new set of writers and a new direction and will be better for it and stormtroopers are people now!!!! woo hop no clones, this should be something to celebrate not sulk about

 

[NeoRutty]

Hell yes. Let's beat this horse down.

Anyone want to elaborate further on how on God's green Endor the Ewoks took out so many troopers

A koala can mess you up and they're tiny... Ewoks were 4 foot bears. I mean... Bears are pretty damn strong. I wouldn't want to be hit by a 50 pound rock thrown by a bear.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Lucas aint writing this stuff anymore, when he wrote this he was just making it all up as he went along and then changed it and then changed it again and then changed it again..........now it has a new set of writers and a new direction and will be better for it and stormtroopers are people now!!!! woo hop no clones, this should be something to celebrate not sulk about

With that attitude you don't have to keep any of the SW elements. Just change whatever. Like it or not, Lucas made up the universe and the rules to govern it. I don't know why some people think the world will end if some of the Stormtroopers are clones. If they have helmets on you don't even know.

 

[Guy Cowen]

With that attitude you don't have to keep any of the SW elements. Just change whatever. Like it or not, Lucas made up the universe and the rules to govern it. I don't know why some people think the world will end if some of the Stormtroopers are clones. If they have helmets on you don't even know.

Jason, your reading g far to deeply into my words. My point is GL just adapted and changed and did what ever he wanted and he could it was his baby...but a lot of it is just irrelevant twosh back story to fluff it up....the inane obsession people have about clones and troopers and blah blah blah is just that its inane and bared no relevance to a new hope onwards nor does it now!!!! If there helmets are you don't even know there not either so whats the point except this time the helmets are co ing off and they're acting .......cos there not clones there characters now !!!!! This isn't going to change cos of anything anyone says or believes and it really doesn't matter.

 

[Riceball]

A koala can mess you up and they're tiny... Ewoks were 4 foot bears. I mean... Bears are pretty damn strong. I wouldn't want to be hit by a 50 pound rock thrown by a bear.

So that would mean given their size that they would probably be about as strong as an average human, while a rock thrown by a person in just your clothes can hurt do you really think that they would have (or more to say should have) done much against fully armored Stormtroopers? I'd wager that even the replica armor worn by people here would offer fairly decent protection against somebody throwing modest sized rocks at you, imagine the protection that you'd get if it were real armor made from more than just simple plastic and with padding inside?

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

A couple things on the Endor issue... For me, the Vietnam allegory was blatant, even as an eight-year-old. *heh* That doesn't mean the comparison isn't valid. The ground Battle of Endor was the Ewoks' Tet Offensive. We (the US) had more troops, were better equipped, had helmets and M60s and helicopters and PT boats... and the Viet-Cong still managed to inflict more damage on us than vice versa and eventually drive us out. I've often wondered how things might have gone had we not shifted tactics. We were getting somewhere when it was just small numbers of special forces in-country -- learning the language, eating and dressing like the locals, making friends. Few losses and great gains. Who could have imagined open patrols, in standard Army uniform, walking down the road in daylight might just be a great big target? :facepalm

As for the armor... It's there to ablate, and it's specifically designed around a blaster-normative military mentality. When you're a soldier trained to swap hot plasma with your adversary, it is probably the height of disorienting to suddenly have three or four teddy bears fall on you and whack on you repeatedly about the head and shoulders with rocks and stone hammers and axes. The duck-and-cover instinct would take over. I highly doubt most of the Ewok-attacked Stormtroopers in that battle were killed, or even seriously injured. Some undoubtedly were, but many probably just had their chimes rung and gyros tumbled. Those Scouts who got clotheslined, though... *shiver* The only Imperial troops I feel more badly for are these poor guys:

Especially that last guy -- what were his final few seconds like?

--Jonah

 

[glunark]

Whelheim scream time I guess.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Whelheim scream time I guess.

lol:lol

Now I want to see that clip with the scream!

 

[glunark]

http://www.bigsoundbank.com/sound-0477-wilhelm-scream.html

Knock yourself out.

 

[Riceball]

A couple things on the Endor issue... For me, the Vietnam allegory was blatant, even as an eight-year-old. *heh* That doesn't mean the comparison isn't valid. The ground Battle of Endor was the Ewoks' Tet Offensive. We (the US) had more troops, were better equipped, had helmets and M60s and helicopters and PT boats... and the Viet-Cong still managed to inflict more damage on us than vice versa and eventually drive us out. I've often wondered how things might have gone had we not shifted tactics. We were getting somewhere when it was just small numbers of special forces in-country -- learning the language, eating and dressing like the locals, making friends. Few losses and great gains. Who could have imagined open patrols, in standard Army uniform, walking down the road in daylight might just be a great big target? :facepalm

The Tet offensive is not really a valid example since we not only won Tet but it also broke the VC's back and they ceased to exist as a coherent fighting force after that. All Tet really did was to temporarily catch us off guard and to scare the bejeezus out of the public back in the US but militarily it was a failure for the North except as a propaganda victory.

 

[robn1]

...The only Imperial troops I feel more badly for are these poor guys:

http://ammonra.org/skywalkerparadigm/art/evidence/tiepilotdies.gif

https://33.media.tumblr.com/e06fd2333674d54aec5dba54ef398873/tumblr_ncmhi6EWsf1s2wio8o1_500.gif

Especially that last guy -- what were his final few seconds like?

--Jonah

 

[crabra comander]

I guess a better example with the Vietnam undertones. And I suppose there was an elementof superior Rebel forces to help out the drop bears as well. Just funny the way it was shown with an AT-ST being climbed on all unawares. I guess the crew wasn't vigilant and a boarding is plausible.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Jason, your reading g far to deeply into my words. My point is GL just adapted and changed and did what ever he wanted and he could it was his baby...but a lot of it is just irrelevant twosh back story to fluff it up....the inane obsession people have about clones and troopers and blah blah blah is just that its inane and bared no relevance to a new hope onwards nor does it now!!!! If there helmets are you don't even know there not either so whats the point except this time the helmets are co ing off and they're acting .......cos there not clones there characters now !!!!! This isn't going to change cos of anything anyone says or believes and it really doesn't matter.

My point is there have to be some rules. Otherwise we end up with ST crap where in every episode/movie they don't have some tech they used for the same purpose in the previous episode. If you don't basically follow what Lucas, like him or not, set up, then every new director and his designers can screw with whatever they want. Isn't that the complaint about Lucas and the SE's and to some extent the Prequels?

 

[Solo4114]

The Tet offensive is not really a valid example since we not only won Tet but it also broke the VC's back and they ceased to exist as a coherent fighting force after that. All Tet really did was to temporarily catch us off guard and to scare the bejeezus out of the public back in the US but militarily it was a failure for the North except as a propaganda victory.

What the Tet Offensive proved was that we were not fighting a conventional war, or at least could not assume that we would win through conventional means. The U.S. absolutely won the strategic battle, but it didn't end up mattering because it all went back to Ho Chi Minh's warning to the French: "You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose and I will win." And he was right, because wars are not merely tactical/strategic/operational engagements; they are political engagements. If you sap enough of a nation's political will to wage war, the nation will ultimately sue for peace. And, of course, we could have prosecuted a MUCH more aggressive war in Vietnam...but the threat of the Chinese always lurked in the background.

So, with the Tet Offensive, yes, we broke the VC's back in that. But we didn't break the NVA, and, in essence, we couldn't. We really couldn't invade the North without royally pissing off the Chinese and likely bringing them into the fight. And the Soviets were also providing advice and materiel to the North. It wasn't a good situation for the U.S.

I guess a better example with the Vietnam undertones. And I suppose there was an elementof superior Rebel forces to help out the drop bears as well. Just funny the way it was shown with an AT-ST being climbed on all unawares. I guess the crew wasn't vigilant and a boarding is plausible.

Lucas' Vietnam comparison (which, yes, he did make) comes from what's basically a misunderstanding of the Vietnam War and how it was fought. The VC weren't fighting with sticks and stones (although they definitely did use booby traps and had tunnel systems and underground bases). They had current conventional weaponry, at least in terms of small arms, and the terrain wasn't really conducive to several of our strengths like armor and conventional tactics that had developed during WWII. Nobody was fighting with spears and bows. If you want to compare victories of less technologically advanced forces against more technologically advanced ones, you need to look at something like Isandlwana, where the Zulus were mostly using short stabbing spears and cowhide shields against the most high tech weapons of the day. The big difference there, though, was that the British were outnumbered almost 20:1. Even a battle like Little Big Horn doesn't really qualify because, again, you have a massively outnumbered force that supposedly had high tech weapons, but in fact had slower-firing breech-loading rifles as compared to many of the Sioux forces who had lever-action rifles and other modern weaponry.


The thing about these kinds of "low tech and spirit triumphs" is that it only triumphs when the resolve of the technologically superior force is sapped enough to make it sue for peace, or when it grossly outnumbers the enemy (at least for a single engagement). If the technologically superior force is willing to engage in the most brutal, even genocidal tactics, the less superior force will almost always lose in the long run.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Right. If the Ewoks (VC) hadn't had the support of the Rebels (NVA and/or Soviets) and the confusion of the space battle and destruction of the Death Star going on above preventing reinforcement, they probably would have been wiped out once the Imperial forces recovered from the surprise attack, and rudeness of their opponents to not stand and fight.

We also never see what happens right after the wipe to end credits. We didn't see the mad scramble on Yavin D to evacuate following the award ceremony. We didn't see the messy process of Luke getting used to his new hand or find out what was keeping the others from storming Jabba's palace immediately. We didn't see what happened in the trees on the Endor moon ater the party. We don't know if the long-fan-speculated Death Star chunks crashing down and causing much damage happened. We don't know how long the Rebels hung around before leaving, and what the Ewoks did after. Heck, I want to see the Imperial troops rolling into that plaza on Imperial Center and quashing that celebration with brutal efficiency. *heh*

My point, loosely, is that the befuddled Imperial troops surrendered when they didn't have to -- but didn't know they didn't have to, and never had a chance to change their minds because the movie ended.

--Jonah

 

[Guy Cowen]

My point is there have to be some rules.

I agree but still doesn't affect anything by the troopers not being clones, it doesn't affect the story arc from the OT, and therefore won't affect the story arc of the new films. I'm pretty sure not even Disney are stupid enough to make a triangle falcon and have Luke grow old with blur skin and 4 ears....again taking things to extreme's doesn't change the fact that the clone/ stormtrooper debate is absolutely moot to the new films and bares no single point of relevance ....... relevance over human mind time wasted = 100%