Black Series Hovertank Pilot at TRU
 

Rogue One Black Series 6-Inch Hovertank Pilot Found at Toys R Us

http://news.toyark.com/wp-content/up...tank-Pilot.jpg

I really dig the look of this guy. I'll probably be adding him to my Storm Trooper ranks soon enough.

He looks like the saddest Stormtrooper ever. Like "I went to Naboo and all I got was a hovertank with some Gungan goo on it". Sadpants McTrooper.

Jesus, he does look sad...like actually sad. Wow.

You nailed it. Clone Troopers look like they just sucked a lemon; Tank Troopers resemble a gloomy Jack-O-Lantern.

None of the new character designs for Rogue One are doing anything for me. The rebel characters are just so bland and plain so until I see the movie they're just boring human characters. The Imperial troopers though bother me in the fact that none of them were in the original films. There weren't any beaches in the OT so I get why we wouldn't have seen those guys (not that those guys seem necessary to receive unique armor since it seems like regular Stormtroopers would be beach compatible) but it's really the deathtroopers and TIE strikers that are bothering me. If these black clad Stormtrooper commando guys are supposed to be whatever elite units then why didn't we see any in the originals, or are there only going to be so many for some reason and they all die in this movie? If TIE strikers are a thing then why didn't they help defend the Death Star from the rebels, or again will there only be a limited amount which all get destroyed? The biggest one to me though is that I've seen that the main Imperial guy in this movie has his own special shuttle which looks different than the standard Imperial shuttle (it looks kinda like Kylo Ren's shuttle actually). So the Emperor himself, the leader of their government, gets shuttled around in a standard Imperial shuttle (the likes of which the Rebels managed to steal one of) but the guy in this movie gets his own special black and evil looking version?!

I heard that the Empire has really bad healthcare....

will definitely be getting the SH Figuarts version.

I'm bothered by the fact that everyone seems to think that Stormtroopers themselves are standard infantry pukes, necessitating all these extra "elite-er" trooper types. I don't think the movies themselves support this interpretation. In each instance, the protagonists are dealing, respectively, with Darth Vader's own personal strike force, General Veers' Imperial Army troops (and then Vader's personal strike force), and the Emperor's "best troops."

Death Troopers are specifically Director Orson Krennic's elite troops, so if he's not involved in a specific conflict, neither will they be.

Also, the TIE Strikers are specifically atmospheric-specialized TIE Fighters. In thr Star Wars universe, most starfighters work fine in-atmosphere, as they can reshape their deflector shields to be aerodynamic and reduce drag, but TIEs (or at least, most TIE models) don't have deflector shields, so their speed is rather limited in-atmosphere due to their design. Enter the TIE Striker. It's designed to be more aerodynamic than the normal TIE fighter to protect planetary Imperial installations. They can still fly in space, of course, but they are specialized for atmospheres.

I'd wouldn't be that hard to imagine that Palpatine wouldn't see any need for having a special model of shuttle just for himself, at least by the OT era. It would probably help that his shuttle looks like most others, so that if the Rebels are trying to attack him, and there are multiple shuttles, they don't know which is his. Director Orson Krennic, however, from what we've seen, very much likes to be distinct, from having his own special group of elite troopers that are distinct from other Imperial special forces, to his outfit, so it would make sense that that would carry over to his shuttle as well.

I guess the Emperor respects Krennic's ballsy approach and is totally fine with his flaunting. Maybe the Empire is not as regulated as one would assume.

Well, in real life, there are multiple levels of special forces troops. There are some that are better than the average soldier, but still used as such, and are relatively large in numbers, and there are some that are even more superior, and are few in number, and used for more specific tasks. Even if tbe Stormtroopers are comparatively elite soldiers, there can still be even more elite units.

Even if it is as regulated as one would assume, exceptions could probably be made for higher-ranking people who have proven their worth.

Nice!! Really digging these new trooper designs, so excited for Rogue One! I love all of the new characters names as well, so original and awesome!

The Empire is wasting resources making specialized gear for every possible task. Why can't Hover Tank pilots wear regular Stormtrooper armor?

You think soldiers in real life all wear the exact same gear, no matter the role? There's gotta be specialization in the gear if there's specialization in the troops. You can't make gear that's perfect for every task. Besides, a number of trooper variants use modified versions of the normal Stormtrooper armor already. Shocktroopers, Shadowtroopers, Sandtroopers, etc. It's not wasting resources if it's making them more effective at their job.

I've heard somewhere that Palpatine played at being a rather humble, unassuming sort of person as Emperor in public (hence the simple black robe). Can't remember if it was old EU, interviews with Lucas, movie novelizations or what, though.

That's not quite what I'm talking about. The situation I'm describing would be analogous to people from another culture assuming that the U.S. Army infantry is composed entirely of Rangers.

Or AT-ST armour, or even the AT-ST pilots' get-ups...

Going strictly by the visual evidence of the films, it's fair to say that "Sandtroopers" are just a Stormtrooper landing party with some supplementary gear for planetside operations in semi-hostile environments.

Except it doesn't look like gear adapted to doing particular tasks. It looks designed to be distinct enough to sell toys.
The Empire ought to focus on making its armor useful enough that its troopers don't die as soon as they get shot.

There are legitimate differences in their armor (aside from the supplemental gear) that is exclusive to Sandtroopers. The armor on their abdomens and left shins are subtly but distinctly different.

I'm pretty sure that, even with their advanced technology, they can only make their armor so strong against common weaponry before it becomes impractically heavy/bulky, analagous to the real world. Clonetrooper armor could take a hit or two before giving way, but it was heavier. Stormtrooper armor, while lighter and not as directly protective, is designed to disperse the energy of a blaster bolt somewhat to reduce damage and give the wearer more of a chance to survive.

Even just watching Jedi it's pretty obvious he pretends to be old and weak what with his cane which he immediately tosses aside to zap Luke. In ROTS he makes a point of announcing to the senate that he has been injured and barely survived an assassination attempt, playing for sympathy points I assume.

Which is the result of the production team slightly redesigning the Stormtrooper armour between shooting in Tunisia and shooting at Elstree Studios. In-universe, there's no reason why a detachment of the Empire's elite naval shock troops would be roaming a dustball like Tatooine except that they'd been set down there by Darth Vader for the express purposes of securing the Death Star plans. Argue otherwise on the basis of the minor cosmetic differences and you might as well accept the old Trekkie claim that Ewoks can shatter Stormtrooper armour.

http://www.st-v-sw.net/images/Wars/E...-crackbend.jpg

I'm pretty sure sure that Stormtrooper armour is as protective as the Empire is willing to provide for a given cost-per-suit, which also rather neatly explains why Boba Fett's Mandalorian armour has apparently withstood dozens of direct hits from blasters, whereas a single shot with a small pistol like Leia's is generally enough to put a Stormtrooper down for the count.

Indeed, and as such, I can see him affecting to be satisfied with a plain, ordinary military shuttle (although now I'm hearing that Phasma's armour in TFA was apparently stripped from the hull-plating of Palpatine's personal transport...).

Again, I don't think Stormtroopers are supposed to be quite as elite as you think, and they definitely aren't just Vader's personal army.

I know this isn't in the films, but in Star Wars Rebels, sometimes after a firefight between the crew of the Ghost and Stormtroopers, it would show some of the Stormtroopers (emphasis on some) get back up afterwards. Now, I know this isn't Disney trying to shy away from death on a kids' show, because there are definitely many times on the show when there are people (including Stormtroopers) very clearly being shown to die. But there are also definitely a couple of times where some Stormtroopers are shown to get back up after being shot. That's probably the effect of how Stormtrooper armor was designed, to disperse the energy of a blaster bolt, as I described earlier. We can probably use this information to assume that not every single Stormtrooper shot by people in the OT died as a result of being shot, that they were instead incapacitated, and the camera didn't stick around long enough to see them come to.

Yeah, your point about cost-per-suit also holds weight, but it doesn't need to conflict with what I said earlier. Revised explanation: there's a limit to how strong they can make their armor before it's too bulky/heavy, unless they want to spend a relatively ludicrous amount on armoring their main (at least in the new canon, and inconsistently portrayed that way in the old EU) fighting force. One person spending a little extra on their armor to use duraplast instead of plastoid is a lot different than doing that for an army with billions or trillions of troops.

Eh, the only reason Palpatine's personal transport was chrome is because he's from Naboo. That's kinda their ship aesthetic.

Apparently the ship they made Phasma's armor out of was the one we saw in The Phantom Menace (or at least one identical in build) which is why her armor is all silver-chrome. So I think the idea is that it was made from Palpatine's ship as in his ship when he was still just senator Palpatine and not his ship when he was the Emperor. That ship design always bothered me since nothing in the OT, not even the good Imperial stuff, was that sleek and shiny.

I've never been that bothered by it, as that's just the Naboo ship design aesthetic. No Imperial stuff was ever really supposed to look "classy", it was supposed to be practical and rugged, even if sometimes sleek; Imperial ships are military vessels, after all. You're looking at ship aesthetic in the Star Wars universe in a vertical scale, where worse stuff looks worse (lower down on the scale) and better stuff looks better (higher up on the scale). I think it should be looked at more horizontally - different ship aesthetics don't denote better or worse (for the most part), but instead denote different purposes or cultures.

Or it's just Palpatines' way of compensating for looking like Deadpool's grandfather.

Everyone knows the rules of the Empire. If you're gonna go bad, go black. And shiny. It goes with everything. And shows less blood splatters.

Also, no where in Coruscant's scenes are there shiny ships, only Amidalas. Like seriously Padme, if you're going for low key, make yourself the only target that can show up like a giant bullseye. At least in atmosphere. I believe it was tried to be explained off as the skin of the ship was impervious to minor turbolaser fire. Thinking about this, that would have negated the entire premise of being stranded on Tattooine.

Which would also have been cool for Phasma. Except she wasnt impervious to garbage chutes. Sigh. Star Wars tech gone wrong.