Stormtroopers always get a lot of guff. They can't hit the broad side of a barn, why do they even wear armor if it doesn't stop blaster fire, they're so dimwitted that Jedi mind tricks easily deceive them, there's the bumbling one who hits his head off the door of course. It goes on and on. However, for as comical as a lot of those memes are, I always find myself sticking up for the Imperial troopers. It's pretty much Hollywood or even just media standard that minion type characters be portrayed as essentially inept. When you really look at the stormtroopers though, I do believe they have a menace and intimidation factor to them. The script necessitates that sure, they can't shoot and kill our main players or there wouldn't be a story! Yet this is the army that help conquer and maintained dominance of the galaxy for quite some time. When you look at anything but our main roles, Imperial shock troopers are pretty deadly and effective. They wipe the floor with the rebel fleet troopers in the opening of A New Hope. They brutally murder Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen as well as senselessly slaughter a whole crawler full of innocent Jawa. They're absolutely not played for laughs in most of the Mos Eisley sequence. The checkpoint where Obi-Wan is forced to use a mind trick is certainly played for suspense, their search through the cantina displays that the general populace clearly fears them. Take the battle of Hoth, the Empire annihilated the rebel forces and ground forces stormed and conquered Echo base. The battle of Endor may be a low point, but even then they're still shown accomplishing things general minion type characters usually don't. Leia is successfully shot in the arm, a main player, an Ewok is even shown to get killed. Casualties are displayed! So I think the stormtrooper gets kind of a bum reputation when I believe there is a much more worthy culprit for criticism out there...
Roger roger! I want to preference this by saying I believe Doug Chaing's use of African designs in the creation of the Trade Federation Battle droid is brilliant. The visual look is stunningly awesome, one of my all-time favorite prequel designs. I remember just staring at the Battle droids months before the film released, I was completely infatuated. However, the actual execution of the Battle droids within the plot is a bit different. I don't often see this discussed, but I can't be the only one who noticed the de-escalation of them in the trilogy. They started out, predominately, fairly serious. There's really only one somewhat comedic scene I can recall in The Phantom Menace, that being the "Does not compute" moment with Qui-Gon. By the time you reach Revenge of the Sith however, they're a complete novelty joke. They're shown quipping and cowardly and even devolve into slap-stick cartoon like characters. The literally vocalization even becomes comedic, the voice changed. But then there's, of course, they're not remotely intimidating! Even when they are at most, arguably The Phantom Menace, they're still shown as rather ineffective. My favorite scene that includes them is probably when the MTT's release them on the Naboo field and they unfold. It's a very well done scene, it echos the Federations corporate and political-like greed with the metaphoric use of marionette-like soldiers deployed in an assemble-line way to a military drum-like march. Yet...never once, to my knowledge, is any Gungan shown killed. It's also juxtaposition by Jar Jar antics, when he's accidentally wiping them out. That really removes any tension they had! Mock stormtroopers as much as you like, but at least the heroes had to put some effort into running from or taking them out.
Battle droids appear more a nuisance or irritation rather than an actual threat in many scenes. Perhaps their greatest achievement would be taking out a few generic Jedi in the Geonosis arena, but when you really look at the numbers...it's quite pitiful. Just how many droids were needed and that's all they could accomplish? Plus you can likely give the victory more to the Destroyers and the newly debut Super Battle droid. It basically establishes that these things are nothing if not outgunning you with astronomical numbers. I'm not afraid of something when it needs their 50 to my 1 odds. It evokes a feeling of, "There's 12 of them guarding the hallway!" and if your characters charge in with guns blazing shouting "Meh! Big deal!" ...I'm afraid you've failed. It defuses any fear they might have evoked. Tension, suspense, and intimidation are all thrown out the window, something that even stormtroopers have at times. But the most grievous of errors (see what I did there?) comes in Revenge of the Sith. I found them to be so mishandled. For me, their behavior is so...random. They're behaving almost as if their programming has been tampered with...and don't give me some expanded universe crap. Don't set up things on film without explaining them ON film! Why would a BATTLE droid be snarky with its general? Why would you program them to literally be cowardly? Their primary function is to soldier! Be it to pilot, to be security, to command, or to be a generic grunt. Why are they behaving like Larry, Curly, and Moe? These aren't astromech droids, these aren't protocol droids, these aren't pit droids. They're BATTLE droids! The scene that best summarizes what they've become is when Anakin and Obi-Wan enter into the elevator aboard the Invisible Hand. Unknowingly there is a troupe of droids behind them. What's done? They casually turn around and scrap about twelve without breaking a sweat. So that's what's become of the opposing forces, they're so meek and useless they've been basically resorted to sight gags? I mean, R2-D2 pours oil all over Super Battle droids, what's supposed to be a large upgrade, and proceeds to light them on fire. Is this a Bugs Bunny cartoon?!
Needless to say, I'd have done things quite differently. I'd have emphasized these things as cold, calculating, and efficient killers. Now by no means do I expect them to gun down Qui-Gon or Mace Windu or any vital character, but I certainly expected them to be more productive than what we got! As a child, I was obsessed with IG-88. I always considered him, in my own head lore, to be what I'd imagine the Star Wars equivalent of the Terminator would be. So when I first saw what a Battle droid was, I thought that dream would come true. I'd get the equivalent of the Terminator in one of these films. Alas, I was way off! I've also often wondered, could an issue also be that Battle droids suffered not only from being written relatively non-threatening...but also that Jedi were written far too overpowered in the prequels?
Roger roger! I want to preference this by saying I believe Doug Chaing's use of African designs in the creation of the Trade Federation Battle droid is brilliant. The visual look is stunningly awesome, one of my all-time favorite prequel designs. I remember just staring at the Battle droids months before the film released, I was completely infatuated. However, the actual execution of the Battle droids within the plot is a bit different. I don't often see this discussed, but I can't be the only one who noticed the de-escalation of them in the trilogy. They started out, predominately, fairly serious. There's really only one somewhat comedic scene I can recall in The Phantom Menace, that being the "Does not compute" moment with Qui-Gon. By the time you reach Revenge of the Sith however, they're a complete novelty joke. They're shown quipping and cowardly and even devolve into slap-stick cartoon like characters. The literally vocalization even becomes comedic, the voice changed. But then there's, of course, they're not remotely intimidating! Even when they are at most, arguably The Phantom Menace, they're still shown as rather ineffective. My favorite scene that includes them is probably when the MTT's release them on the Naboo field and they unfold. It's a very well done scene, it echos the Federations corporate and political-like greed with the metaphoric use of marionette-like soldiers deployed in an assemble-line way to a military drum-like march. Yet...never once, to my knowledge, is any Gungan shown killed. It's also juxtaposition by Jar Jar antics, when he's accidentally wiping them out. That really removes any tension they had! Mock stormtroopers as much as you like, but at least the heroes had to put some effort into running from or taking them out.
Battle droids appear more a nuisance or irritation rather than an actual threat in many scenes. Perhaps their greatest achievement would be taking out a few generic Jedi in the Geonosis arena, but when you really look at the numbers...it's quite pitiful. Just how many droids were needed and that's all they could accomplish? Plus you can likely give the victory more to the Destroyers and the newly debut Super Battle droid. It basically establishes that these things are nothing if not outgunning you with astronomical numbers. I'm not afraid of something when it needs their 50 to my 1 odds. It evokes a feeling of, "There's 12 of them guarding the hallway!" and if your characters charge in with guns blazing shouting "Meh! Big deal!" ...I'm afraid you've failed. It defuses any fear they might have evoked. Tension, suspense, and intimidation are all thrown out the window, something that even stormtroopers have at times. But the most grievous of errors (see what I did there?) comes in Revenge of the Sith. I found them to be so mishandled. For me, their behavior is so...random. They're behaving almost as if their programming has been tampered with...and don't give me some expanded universe crap. Don't set up things on film without explaining them ON film! Why would a BATTLE droid be snarky with its general? Why would you program them to literally be cowardly? Their primary function is to soldier! Be it to pilot, to be security, to command, or to be a generic grunt. Why are they behaving like Larry, Curly, and Moe? These aren't astromech droids, these aren't protocol droids, these aren't pit droids. They're BATTLE droids! The scene that best summarizes what they've become is when Anakin and Obi-Wan enter into the elevator aboard the Invisible Hand. Unknowingly there is a troupe of droids behind them. What's done? They casually turn around and scrap about twelve without breaking a sweat. So that's what's become of the opposing forces, they're so meek and useless they've been basically resorted to sight gags? I mean, R2-D2 pours oil all over Super Battle droids, what's supposed to be a large upgrade, and proceeds to light them on fire. Is this a Bugs Bunny cartoon?!
Needless to say, I'd have done things quite differently. I'd have emphasized these things as cold, calculating, and efficient killers. Now by no means do I expect them to gun down Qui-Gon or Mace Windu or any vital character, but I certainly expected them to be more productive than what we got! As a child, I was obsessed with IG-88. I always considered him, in my own head lore, to be what I'd imagine the Star Wars equivalent of the Terminator would be. So when I first saw what a Battle droid was, I thought that dream would come true. I'd get the equivalent of the Terminator in one of these films. Alas, I was way off! I've also often wondered, could an issue also be that Battle droids suffered not only from being written relatively non-threatening...but also that Jedi were written far too overpowered in the prequels?
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