Vympel wrote:1. First Order Stormtrooper armor is about as different to Imperial Stormtrooper armor as Clonetrooper armor is.
Clonetrooper armor had completely different lines even leaving aside the completely different helmet. The FO Stormtrooper armor is more or less the same as the Imperial version, just smoother like someone took a stormtrooper action figure and sanded it down. The main difference is the chest piece where the FO Stormtrooper doesn't have the "boob cups" and has some weird hole (maybe for hanging the armor?).
Further, they have a wider variety of weapons. They're simply better realised and more believable soldiers, and they're more competent.
They have the same amount of weapons. They have the repainted E-11, a heavy blaster, the Glock looking sidearm and a melee weapon. The OT Stormtroopers had the proper E-11, the heavy blasters like the DLT-19 (the MG-34) and the T-21 (the Lewis gun), and the SE-14 and scout trooper blaster pistols. The only real difference is we never saw any canon Stormtroopers equipped with any sort of melee weapons but I don't think that makes the inferior equipped.
They weren't anymore competent considering they were still getting their asses handed to them by the heroes, still rushing headlong into firefights without a semblance of tactics, and still had normal but not good enough for Hollywood accuracy.
Seriously, how are these even remotely a "worse looking version of the OT armor"?
Thats just like my opinion man. I think they look worse, especially the chest piece and belt. And the helmet. I like the classic stormtrooper lines and the smoothed out FO stormtrooper just doesn't do it for me.
2. Complete nonsense, the Star Destroyer doesn't look anything like an ISD. There's virtually no similarity there whatsoever apart from the classic wedge shape and a ventral bulb. There is no 'neck' joining the bridge tower to the ventral bulb, the bridge tower itself is assymetrical in design, it has an enormous hangar deck in between the dorsal and ventral hull (seriously, we see Poe and Finn fly throug this, its impossible to miss), its heavy turbolaser armament is heavier and isn't merely concentrated on the dorsal flanks, and it has port and starboard hangars evocative of the Venator-class. Have you even looked at the Resurgent-class?
They have the same general wedge shape, similar style bridge, and a similar profile. They aren't exact copies like the fucktard old EU Victory class SD which was literally a ISD with wings and bigass gun in the bridge but certainly as quite similar. And I think the RSD is worse looking. Too much extra shit and open spaces big enough for a fighter to fly through. The hanger with its conveyor belt style storage system seems less efficient then the roof racks of the ISD. Its heavier armed but at a ridiculous amount, supposed to have over 3,000 turbolasers and ion cannons. The considerably larger Executor (19,000 meters vs just under 3,000) has only 5,000 turbolasers and ion cannons.
3. How is the Starkiller's operation any more "technobabble" than that of the Death Star? "It eats suns" is possibly the simplest thing imaginable while evoking enormous power.
This is more a reference to the new EU. The Death Star was a pretty much just a giant gun the fired through some wacky crystals and a hypermatter reactor that had thermal exhaust ports for exhaust. The Starkiller base fired through some crystalline deposits and was powered by dark energy called "quintessence". It sucked a star dry like a toothless meth addict and the star energy was contained with a "thermal oscillator". In order for the weapon to fire, its weapons engineers would induce a breach in the containment field, allowing the collected dark energy to escape the core through the hollow cylinder opening on the antipodes of the planet relative to the stellar collector. During this process, the dark energy transformed to a state known as "phantom energy", and left the planet behind, tearing a hole through hyperspace along a perfectly linear path. The people stationed at the Base called the dimension through which the phantom energy beam traveled "sub-hyperspace", and this method of delivering the payload was near-instantaneous across vast distances.
Thats getting into Trek levels of technobabble. I prefer the old style of explaining shit which was it fucking works.
Its got nothing to do with the EU. The T-70 X-Wing is based off of Ralph MacQuarrie's original concept art for the X-Wings.
It resembles the design, was not based on it atleast according to Wookiepedia. The similarity was only discovered after the design was finalized. Either way they probably have the same source, based upon concept art done by Ralph MacQuarrie and Joe Johnston.
But I was not saying the Resistance X-Wingadingding was based on the EU Z-95 but the fact they are part of the same problem, just a slightly altered continuation of an existing design. Look at the old EU and its designs. There was very little originality. After ROTJ there was no real new designs even well into the future. The NR continued to use X-Wings and junk decades after the Rebellion, the Galactic Alliance continued this with vaguely X-Wing looking fighter hundreds of years later during the Legacy era. The only real unique fighter was the E-Wing which was a X-Wing with different wings.
There was very little variety among the Empire either, just more TIE variant again all the way too the Legacy era. I mean I even like some of the designs like the TIE Defender but that was just a TIE Interceptor with an extra panel slapped on and them turned around.
Go back to before the Prequels and look at the imagined vehicles of the Clone Wars according to the old EU. The Victory class Star Destroyer which was a ISD but smaller and had drunk some Red Bull. The T.I.E. Fighter which was a TIE Figher but older. The AT-PT which was a AT-ST with windows. The Z-95 Headhunter which was an X-Wing without the X wings. The Juggernaut which was based on concept art and was described as crappy and slow and was considerably different from its later canon version. The only real original design I can think of was the Dreadnaught cruisers.
Now compare all that crap to the actual designs, compare the VicStar to the VenStar, compare the T.I.E. to the to the Eta and Delta Jedi Starfighter and the V-Wing, compare the AT-PT to the AT-AP or AT-RT, compared the Z-95 to the ARC-170, compare the Juggernaut to the Juggernaut. The actual canon designs were original, evocative of the OT counterparts but still their own thang. The EU Legends shit was just intellectually bankrupt rip-offs. And thats what the TFA designs seem like, just rip-offs.
Now I'll admit that doesn't bother me nearly as much as other stuff but its still a bother, its still shows the problem TFA has which is its unwillingness to do anything new or different. Maybe things will change for 7 and 8 when they no longer have to spread them for the rapid OT fatty fanboys who wield the power of their cheeto dust covered keyboards but I don't know.
