StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The colors aren't always consistent, but they are blue in the film (the TIE fighters anyway, can't speak for all the TIE type ships), and not just because of "reflections" from nearby stuff. Some of the home releases did have various screwups (note how some years back somebody posted how on their VHS copy the TIEs were firing "blue lasers" at the falcon in one scene).

If it were just reflections or something, then surely the Falcon and the Star Destroyers (apart form the Executor) should also be blue, right?

The 1997 SE cleaned things up and the blue TIEs couldn't be more obvious. I wouldn't bother with the 2004 edition though since virtually the whole movie is tinted blue.

For some reason thanks to ANH and the computer games I saw all the TIEs as gray, even the models that are tinted blue whenever they appear. The old MicroMachines toys had very light gray TIE Fighters and TIE Advanced, but very, very deep blue Interceptors and Bombers, which bothered me to no end.

I have to say as a result my preference is for gray TIEs. But I don't have a very strong interest in this film project, so as far as I'm concerned he's welcome to do whatever. I'm sure I wouldn't even notice unless it was pointed out to me.

Samuel wrote:Why would the Empire change their fighters after Yavin? They worked fine.

How do you know they worked fine? The fact that they flew around and appeared to be reasonably effective? Real designers are constantly looking for ways to tweak a design. Design flaws may not show up until an unexpected situation reveals them, even when using well-established technology. Opportunities for increased performance may present themselves.

I think it's been mentioned before, but given the scale of the galaxy there's no reason to assume they're not just slightly different models that may operate in tandem. It'd be a remarkable feat of standardisation to have every ship, base and station to use the exact same fighter from the same production run. It's just not an unusual thing and I believe even the EU realises this.

As I see it, "All TIE fighters are gray" is just another EU brainbug, like saying they don't have shields or life support, are crappy & cheap compared to rebel ships, etc.

And it's not even a consistent one, since the early EU at least recognized that many of these ships were blue.