Just like an Imperial to bring knife protection to a blaster fight.
Stormtrooper Armor In Star Wars Movies. Are Changes Necessary?
- Thread starter TRON JA307020
- Start date
This.
Must be be me, but I never understand deep, long discussions about trivial things like armour design. It amazes me sometimes that, after seeing a movie, fans can discus things like the look of the Enterprise or the design of armour more then acting, plot, directing....
Is the look of an object really more important then the actual movie itself?
Judiging by TCW, modern trooper armor can't stop a direct blaster bolt, but can minimize the damage done to the trooper so that he might live to fight another day. It can deflect glancing hits by blasters, leaving carbon scoring on the armor.
With the clone troopers it was likely easier to patch then up after a fight as the Republic only had to worry about basically fixing up one guy. Just their were millions of him. So the supplies of one blood type, one skin graft, transplate organs and the like were all the same (usually). There are exceptions. The recently introduced Unit 99 shows a group of favorable genetically defective clones that look nothing like Jengo Fett. Also there were the Jedi and some non-clone officers that would need special attention outside the regular clone tending medical bays.
With Stormtroopers, each trooper in a different person, or perhaps a different batch of clones than the Fett based clone troopers. Medical needs will be different. There are males and females in the trooper ranks, though no known non-humans in this era of the Empire.
As for discussing details of a fictional universe over just seeing it as a movie. Well, some people look at films to entertain them. Other looks at films as a window to another time and place and want to explore that. It is like looking at history. Some people view history as the past that happened already. Not point in studying it. Other like looking for details and other still like to come up with "what ifs" and alternate history fiction. Star Wars has a large universe of possibilities and a lived in look. So some of use like to look in on that universe as find out what is going on there as if it was real. The lived in look helps sell the point over the typical clean future look that was typical until the 70s. So we look at it as if it was real with a real history that can be studies and understood. Fiction authors sometimes have to do this as well to make the story work. Others can get around it. For some it is the plot. For others it is the characters. And for others it is the setting. And the last group it is the technology.
Some people care about the universe of a film, more than the work put into the film. Others care about stage direction, lighting, acting style, use of materials. Those are real world items. Those that look at it as in universe see those as breaking the mood or illusion. Some people don't want to have the illusion broken, as they are enjoyng the film without wanting to know about the how it was made. They more want to know about what is going in the story universe. Not what the director said to get a certain performance.
I was half-joking about the rocks. The rocks and sticks do seem to a) fly slowly and b) bounce off harmlessly (not looking like there's a lot of weight behind them), but I can appreciate why that's happening. Better that than CGI or chucking chunks of brick at the actors heads.
Here's something my inner 'window to another land' child wonders. Assuming Vaders gauntlets in TESB are actually blaster proof and he's not force-deflecting the bolts, why don't the stormtroopers start a ruckus for their armour to be made out of that stuff?
A ruckus with the middle management, I mean. Not any of the superiors prone to force choking. Though that last part might be the answer to my musings.
Here's something my inner 'window to another land' child wonders. Assuming Vaders gauntlets in TESB are actually blaster proof and he's not force-deflecting the bolts, why don't the stormtroopers start a ruckus for their armour to be made out of that stuff?
A ruckus with the middle management, I mean. Not any of the superiors prone to force choking. Though that last part might be the answer to my musings.
Which hand did he deflect the bolt with? Maybe it was a property of his cybernetic hand. (Or were they both cybernetic at that point?)
All of Vader's libs were cybernetic at that point. Though seeing how Dooku and Yoda were bouncing Force Lighting with their hands, I would think it is Vader using the Force to deflect the bolts, rather than his armor.
Though if it is his armor, that stuff much be extremely expensive. While it might be good to armor up your troopers in that stuff, it may not be viable (due to rarity of the material, not money...if they build two Death Stars, its not about the money). Sure you ccould do it, but given that we see mostly Stormtrooper everywhere rather than any other sort of army troops, it seem likely that the Stormtrooper is not actually elite, but the basic unit type. And you'd have to armor up millions to billions of troopers to garrison every warship and planet in the Empire. Even if we take just the old EU number of troopers on a Star Destroyer (9,700) and the number of just Imperial-class Star Destroyers (25,000), that is about a quarter of a billion Stormtroopers. And that is without any other type of ships in the fleet, nor the estimated 1.5 million member or conquered world and their sixty to seventy million colony worlds, protectorates, and puppet states galaxy wide. Even if there is only a squad of stormtroopers per world, that is a lot of Stormtroopers. I would guess there are a least a billion in the Galaxy. The droid armies of the Seperatists are said to have been in the realm of quintillions of battle droids.
Also in a dictator like that you might not want to have accessible invincible armor all over the galaxy. Makes it harder to stop armored rebels.
Though if it is his armor, that stuff much be extremely expensive. While it might be good to armor up your troopers in that stuff, it may not be viable (due to rarity of the material, not money...if they build two Death Stars, its not about the money). Sure you ccould do it, but given that we see mostly Stormtrooper everywhere rather than any other sort of army troops, it seem likely that the Stormtrooper is not actually elite, but the basic unit type. And you'd have to armor up millions to billions of troopers to garrison every warship and planet in the Empire. Even if we take just the old EU number of troopers on a Star Destroyer (9,700) and the number of just Imperial-class Star Destroyers (25,000), that is about a quarter of a billion Stormtroopers. And that is without any other type of ships in the fleet, nor the estimated 1.5 million member or conquered world and their sixty to seventy million colony worlds, protectorates, and puppet states galaxy wide. Even if there is only a squad of stormtroopers per world, that is a lot of Stormtroopers. I would guess there are a least a billion in the Galaxy. The droid armies of the Seperatists are said to have been in the realm of quintillions of battle droids.
Also in a dictator like that you might not want to have accessible invincible armor all over the galaxy. Makes it harder to stop armored rebels.
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Well yes in the real world its about selling more toys. Why do you think the replaced deflector dish in the Falcon is now rectangular. They can sell the new Falcon and the old and make more money. Guys like me have little else to do besides my work so I think about this trivial stuff. Gives me something to pass the time.
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Well yes in the real world its about selling more toys. Why do you think the replaced deflector dish in the Falcon is now rectangular. They can sell the new Falcon and the old and make more money. Guys like me have little else to do besides my work so I think about this trivial stuff. Gives me something to pass the time.
Fair enough. Me, I don't understand what the look of the Enterprise or Stormtrooper is all about. If the emotion that needs to be evoked is evoked, it works. And for 99% of all viewers, it does exactly that.
I remember when TESB came out, there was a movie magaZine released for the film. It listed various things such as AT-AT's, the Executor, and such. When it came to the stormtroopers, it said that their armor was "blaster proof" but only for glancing blows.... not direct hits.
Speaking of dictators, I would imagine that Kylo Ren, or whomever his boss is, would like to put their own visual stamp on their army, in order to differentiate themselves from the previous regime. The banner is different too, so it may be a visual cue that the old order has gone away and this new, First Order, has come.
Dictators can be notorious ego-maniacs, you know
Never underestimate the power of the Rebel's basters.
Their blasters are reasonable too, since the Rebels appear to at least practice hitting their targets. I think Obi-wan's information of Imperial troops was likely outdated to when he worked with Clone Troopers who could hit the broadside of a barn more than once and knock the head off a battle droid at 100 meters with just a blaster pistol. Stormtroopers, outside Vader's elite unit, seem to not be abe to hit things that are smaller than two meters wide. Perhaps three meters wide, which could be why the Empire didn't think the thermal exhaust port on the Death Star was a problem. None of their troopers could hit it with a blaster, much less a proton torpedo.
Their blasters are reasonable too, since the Rebels appear to at least practice hitting their targets. I think Obi-wan's information of Imperial troops was likely outdated to when he worked with Clone Troopers who could hit the broadside of a barn more than once and knock the head off a battle droid at 100 meters with just a blaster pistol. Stormtroopers, outside Vader's elite unit, seem to not be abe to hit things that are smaller than two meters wide. Perhaps three meters wide, which could be why the Empire didn't think the thermal exhaust port on the Death Star was a problem. None of their troopers could hit it with a blaster, much less a proton torpedo.
To be fair, the rebel's shots at the exhaust port only had a fifty percent success rate. My impression was that the pilot who made the first attempt was a experienced senior pilot.
If Stormtrooper armor is supposed to be good for deflecting glancing blaster hits, perhaps the main thing they wear it for is to protect themselves from friendly fire by other Stormtroopers....
Or maybe the Empire just expects the Rebels to have the same accuracy as the Stormtroopers and doesn't worry about how much damage the armour can take, it likely won't get hit anyway.
Hey, I remember in the EU it being stated that all space battles are fought on a flat plane because it's considered proper combat etiquette. Perhaps ground battles in the SW verse consists of the two armies marching out to the battlefield theatrically with the two commanding generals sitting in a gazebo together and watching the battle unfold as each side politely takes turns firing upon the other.
Hey, I remember in the EU it being stated that all space battles are fought on a flat plane because it's considered proper combat etiquette. Perhaps ground battles in the SW verse consists of the two armies marching out to the battlefield theatrically with the two commanding generals sitting in a gazebo together and watching the battle unfold as each side politely takes turns firing upon the other.
That's kinda what the battle at the end of AOTC looked like, only with more shaky-cam.
