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Author Topic: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?  (Read 2943 times)

KingCheops

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #15 on: June 02, 2021, 10:09:33 AM »
I mean the OP is running WEG which is the granddaddy of the EU.  And IIRC COMPNOR was explicitly xenophobic in the Imperial Sourcebook.

If you want to switch to using the new canon and ditch "Legends" then there's been nothing explicitly mentioned.

Aglondir

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #16 on: June 02, 2021, 01:03:33 PM »
I mean the OP is running WEG which is the granddaddy of the EU.  And IIRC COMPNOR was explicitly xenophobic in the Imperial Sourcebook.

That's true.

I was wrong about Palpatine's advisors in ROTJ being non-human. I thought they were some sort of close-to-human aliens, but Wookiepedia says they are human dark side adepts. Now I'm running with the reason why they look "alien" is that that they are consumed by the Dark Side, which is even cooler.

KingCheops

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #17 on: June 02, 2021, 02:06:43 PM »
I mean the OP is running WEG which is the granddaddy of the EU.  And IIRC COMPNOR was explicitly xenophobic in the Imperial Sourcebook.

That's true.

I was wrong about Palpatine's advisors in ROTJ being non-human. I thought they were some sort of close-to-human aliens, but Wookiepedia says they are human dark side adepts. Now I'm running with the reason why they look "alien" is that that they are consumed by the Dark Side, which is even cooler.

He did have Mas Amedda as his Grand Vizier who is Chagrian.  https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chagrian

This is in the new canon because Amedda has appeared in a couple of the novels.  Namely Tarkin, Rebel Rising, and A New Dawn.  I can't remember for Rogue One: Catalyst but I think his only appearence in that novel was during the Republic when Operation Stardust was starting up.

jhkim

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #18 on: June 02, 2021, 02:50:06 PM »
Is this canon?  I don't see any evidence if it in the movies, other than the death star officers were all human. But we didn't see that many of them, and it might have been for budgetary reasons more than story. On the other hand, we see the Emperor has non-human advisors in ROTJ and the prequels. Perhaps he is secretly racist? Yet he took a non-human as his apprentice. 

The "Empire was racist" trope probably got it's start in the WEG's books in the 90's.
I was wrong about Palpatine's advisors in ROTJ being non-human. I thought they were some sort of close-to-human aliens, but Wookiepedia says they are human dark side adepts. Now I'm running with the reason why they look "alien" is that that they are consumed by the Dark Side, which is even cooler.

Yeah, I don't buy the budget reason. In the original series, they chose to spend a ton on aliens in other places like Mos Eisley and Cloud City and among the bounty hunters and so forth, but none on aliens in the Death Stars and among other Imperial troops. There was clearly an intentional choice to have the imperials be more uniformly human. Maybe they didn't think through the reasons behind it, but it was a clear feature on-screen. The EU generally interpreted this as bias or xenophobia. There could be an alternate explanation, but it was a chosen feature in the canon movies.

oggsmash

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #19 on: June 02, 2021, 03:31:54 PM »
Is this canon?  I don't see any evidence if it in the movies, other than the death star officers were all human. But we didn't see that many of them, and it might have been for budgetary reasons more than story. On the other hand, we see the Emperor has non-human advisors in ROTJ and the prequels. Perhaps he is secretly racist? Yet he took a non-human as his apprentice. 

The "Empire was racist" trope probably got it's start in the WEG's books in the 90's.
I was wrong about Palpatine's advisors in ROTJ being non-human. I thought they were some sort of close-to-human aliens, but Wookiepedia says they are human dark side adepts. Now I'm running with the reason why they look "alien" is that that they are consumed by the Dark Side, which is even cooler.

Yeah, I don't buy the budget reason. In the original series, they chose to spend a ton on aliens in other places like Mos Eisley and Cloud City and among the bounty hunters and so forth, but none on aliens in the Death Stars and among other Imperial troops. There was clearly an intentional choice to have the imperials be more uniformly human. Maybe they didn't think through the reasons behind it, but it was a clear feature on-screen. The EU generally interpreted this as bias or xenophobia. There could be an alternate explanation, but it was a chosen feature in the canon movies.

   I would argue it again was a budget reason in the movies, especially the first one, to have almost all humans in the Empire.  Lucas had a 10 million dollar budget to make Star Wars.   Make up and costumes cost money.   It is MUCH easier to have most of your expendable deaths be humans from the point of cost.  So the cost of gear is IMO the best absolute reason to make a case for the empire having mostly humans in the military, because it sure as heck was cheaper for George to do it that way.

igor

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #20 on: June 02, 2021, 03:44:09 PM »
I think that every single officer we see throughout the original trilogy is a white human man with an English accent. All of the humans with American accents (and there are plenty of those) are in the Rebellion. I strongly suspect that is not by accident.

oggsmash

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #21 on: June 02, 2021, 03:49:34 PM »
I think that every single officer we see throughout the original trilogy is a white human man with an English accent. All of the humans with American accents (and there are plenty of those) are in the Rebellion. I strongly suspect that is not by accident.
  Well, didnt they film a great deal of it in the UK?  I know they did get a bunch of UK talent to be in it.  I honestly think people may assign more meaning than Lucas intended to the first couple of movies.  The Studio fights and constant editing he had to do to make Star wars be what it was is pretty epic.   After seeing what George can do with almost unlimited budget and creative power (the second set of movies) I am not sure he had too many intentional ideas in the first set of movies; because it sure looked like when he could do whatever he wanted to do, he was fucking all over the place with some of the worst ideas I could imagine (... metaclorians.....).

jhkim

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #22 on: June 02, 2021, 03:54:28 PM »
   I would argue it again was a budget reason in the movies, especially the first one, to have almost all humans in the Empire.  Lucas had a 10 million dollar budget to make Star Wars.   Make up and costumes cost money.   It is MUCH easier to have most of your expendable deaths be humans from the point of cost.  So the cost of gear is IMO the best absolute reason to make a case for the empire having mostly humans in the military, because it sure as heck was cheaper for George to do it that way.

That's an argument that there should have been few aliens in general. But that's not true. There *were* a bunch of aliens in the first movie as well as in the two sequels. But they weren't evenly spread around. In the first movie, he chose to have lots of aliens in Mos Eisley, and none on the Death Star. That remained a consistent pattern in the movies after that.

oggsmash

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #23 on: June 02, 2021, 03:57:48 PM »
   I would argue it again was a budget reason in the movies, especially the first one, to have almost all humans in the Empire.  Lucas had a 10 million dollar budget to make Star Wars.   Make up and costumes cost money.   It is MUCH easier to have most of your expendable deaths be humans from the point of cost.  So the cost of gear is IMO the best absolute reason to make a case for the empire having mostly humans in the military, because it sure as heck was cheaper for George to do it that way.

That's an argument that there should have been few aliens in general. But that's not true. There *were* a bunch of aliens in the first movie as well as in the two sequels. But they weren't evenly spread around. In the first movie, he chose to have lots of aliens in Mos Eisley, and none on the Death Star. That remained a consistent pattern in the movies after that.

   There were not "alot" of aliens,  they were very concentrated in specific sets, sets that were by comparison, quite small, quite dark, and quite tight.  Compared with numbers of storm troopers and empire "employees" there are a TINY fraction of the people on screen.  I also suspect Storm troopers got recycled a whole lot.   There are few aliens in general in the first movie.  By comparison.  The budget was 10 million dollars.   I did not mention the other two movies, for a reason, he had a much bigger budget due to success. 
« Last Edit: June 02, 2021, 03:59:30 PM by oggsmash »

Ghostmaker

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #24 on: June 02, 2021, 04:00:59 PM »
I think that every single officer we see throughout the original trilogy is a white human man with an English accent. All of the humans with American accents (and there are plenty of those) are in the Rebellion. I strongly suspect that is not by accident.
Well, that's because the British are inherently terrifying villains :D

igor

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #25 on: June 02, 2021, 04:02:38 PM »
Quote
Well, didnt they film a great deal of it in the UK? 

Sure, but it also happens in all of the bits that weren't filmed there. The beginning of The Empire Strikes Back was filmed in Norway and those scenes also have the Rebellion speaking American English and the Empire speaking British English.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2021, 04:05:10 PM by igor »

oggsmash

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #26 on: June 02, 2021, 04:10:27 PM »
Quote
Well, didnt they film a great deal of it in the UK? 

Sure, but it also happens in all of the bits that weren't filmed there. The beginning of The Empire Strikes Back was filmed in Norway and those scenes also have the Rebellion speaking American English and the Empire speaking British English.
   
  I know, I think by then Lucas has decided he might as well go with a frame that had formed organically.  Of course him being American could have figured into that choice. Just given the backstory on how the first movie was made, I am not sure how many initial decisions were the fruits of creativity or pragmatism.   I am sure Jar Jar Abrams would have preferred the first order to all have german accents.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #27 on: June 02, 2021, 04:36:23 PM »
   I would argue it again was a budget reason in the movies, especially the first one, to have almost all humans in the Empire.  Lucas had a 10 million dollar budget to make Star Wars.   Make up and costumes cost money.   It is MUCH easier to have most of your expendable deaths be humans from the point of cost.  So the cost of gear is IMO the best absolute reason to make a case for the empire having mostly humans in the military, because it sure as heck was cheaper for George to do it that way.

That's an argument that there should have been few aliens in general. But that's not true. There *were* a bunch of aliens in the first movie as well as in the two sequels. But they weren't evenly spread around. In the first movie, he chose to have lots of aliens in Mos Eisley, and none on the Death Star. That remained a consistent pattern in the movies after that.

In a smoky, dark environment where any zippers or puppeteers could be easily concealed.

Compare to having aliens in the harsh lit Empire ships, and making alien Stormtrooper suits .

Sounds like budgetary concerns to me.
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KingCheops

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #28 on: June 02, 2021, 04:38:46 PM »
If it matters the canon entry for COMPNOR on Wookiepedia includes this:

"COMPNOR supported the state-sponsored xenophobia and humanocentric policies rampant within the Empire"

Again this was 100% part of WEG Imperial Sourcebook.   Still not sure how canon this is because its been a few years since I read either Tarkin or Catalyst.

jhkim

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Re: Star Wars: Non-human stormtroopers?
« Reply #29 on: June 02, 2021, 04:52:00 PM »
That's an argument that there should have been few aliens in general. But that's not true. There *were* a bunch of aliens in the first movie as well as in the two sequels. But they weren't evenly spread around. In the first movie, he chose to have lots of aliens in Mos Eisley, and none on the Death Star. That remained a consistent pattern in the movies after that.
   There were not "alot" of aliens,  they were very concentrated in specific sets, sets that were by comparison, quite small, quite dark, and quite tight.  Compared with numbers of storm troopers and empire "employees" there are a TINY fraction of the people on screen.  I also suspect Storm troopers got recycled a whole lot.   There are few aliens in general in the first movie.  By comparison.  The budget was 10 million dollars.   I did not mention the other two movies, for a reason, he had a much bigger budget due to success.
In a smoky, dark environment where any zippers or puppeteers could be easily concealed.

Compare to having aliens in the harsh lit Empire ships, and making alien Stormtrooper suits .

Sounds like budgetary concerns to me.

The Death Star had a number of dimly lit control rooms, and it also had a wider space in many points - making it easy to have some aliens in the distant background and/or partially obstructed by control panels or other equipment. It would be easy to put an alien with a puppeteer behind one of the control panels or in one of the bays. Also, Imperial aliens could reasonably be wearing helmets, requiring just a bit of hand prosthetics and/or neck paint. In any case, the dim lighting was a choice -- he could easily have chosen for more of the Death Star to have dim lighting like the control rooms, and/or chosen for more of Mos Eisley to have bright lighting.

He instead concentrated all his aliens into the bar scene as well as a number of outdoor scenes on Tatooine.

I suspect he felt it fit more with the aesthetic of the Empire for them to be less diverse and more regimented and uniform. That is a deliberate choice, and it has consequences for the fictional world.