Moving from d20 to GURPS

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Why don't you all just accept that Stormtroopers wear armor that makes them look imposing to the audience, while the heroes can blast through their armor every time because it makes the heroes look heroic to the audience. Once you accept this, you can move on to the more important question: how effective do you want Stormtrooper armor to be in your game? If you want heroes to shoot through it, it's just part of a Stormtrooper's costume, and ignore any effects it fails to have. If you want it to be effective, decide how effective it is and assign it a DR.

Because that's a Doylist explanation and we want a Watsonian explanation.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The first movie had a lot of cases where things happened one way (Han's parsec comment, the Stormtroopers' horrible aim) that were meant to be some sort of deception (Han was basically talking out his rear-end to try to impress/intimidate who he thought were backwater hicks, the Stormtroopers were purposefully missing and suffering casualties due to orders to that effect)... and that were later set as truth. Han's comment gets justified by some weird space hazards making it exceptional to do the Kessel Run with a short overall distance, and I don't think we ever see Stormtroopers demonstrating real skill in combat beyond the boarding action at the beginning of New Hope, not even while Lucas was still in control (with Disney, Stormtrooper inaccuracy is sometimes purposefully used for humor, as in a couple scenes in The Mandalorian).

Why should we suppose that that's the true explanation for Han's line? A simpler explanation is that it was written by ignorant Hollywood scriptwriters who didn't know one physical unit from another.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Why should we suppose that that's the true explanation for Han's line? A simpler explanation is that it was written by ignorant Hollywood scriptwriters who didn't know one physical unit from another.

Honestly, that was my first assumption, but others have pointed out to me that Obi Wan's reaction - and the way the exchange is presented in the novelization - imply Han is completely BS'ing them, basically trying to convince them to hire him via Fast Talk. Obi Wan seemed to already be fine with hiring him (I assume he got a good feeling about him from The Force), which is why he didn't call him out, just rolled his eyes at the ridiculous comment.

And, of course, "stupid scriptwriters" doesn't work as a Watsonian explanation of the exchange. For that, you've either got the easy, already-implied route of it being BS, or the weird complicated bit about the Kessel Run involving black holes and other problems. The latter is the canon, of course, but it would have been easier for them to go with the former.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by Varyon

*This wasn't a scripted line - it was actually Mark Hamill complaining to Harrison Ford about the poor visibility of the prop "hero" helmets, where the eyeholes didn't actually line up with the actors' eyes; presumably, it was left in due to Rule of Funny. I remember at least one edition of d20 Star Wars justifying this - Stormtrooper armor requires special training (Powered Armor Proficiency) to know how to wear and use it effectively, which Luke would have lacked. So that's another choice - are the helmets actually poorly designed, causing a vision penalty and perhaps an inability to Aim, or do they just need some degree of training to be used effectively... or would you prefer to just ignore that adlibbed line?

Leia also calls Luke "short for a stormtrooper", so maybe the armor is designed to fit on a different-sized human.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

And, of course, "stupid scriptwriters" doesn't work as a Watsonian explanation of the exchange. For that, you've either got the easy, already-implied route of it being BS, or the weird complicated bit about the Kessel Run involving black holes and other problems. The latter is the canon, of course, but it would have been easier for them to go with the former.

My assumption was that that wasn't actually what Han said; that was the dialogue the scriptwriter put in Han's mouth out of ignorance. Han actually would have said something that made sense.

Of course, I've never read any of the novelizations; I gave those up after 2001 (the movie and book, not the year!).

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Why should we suppose that that's the true explanation for Han's line? A simpler explanation is that it was written by ignorant Hollywood scriptwriters who didn't know one physical unit from another.

IIRC, it's in the script that Han's parsec comment was 'obvious nonsense' or something like that, which Obi-Wan is supposed to react to, but they cut away too soon.

[Stormcrow]

The script that claims to be the revised fourth draft has this:

HAN
It's the ship that made the Kessel
run in less than twelve parsecs!

Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with
obvious misinformation.

But we don't know if "obvious misinformation" means "parsecs are a unit of distance, dummy!" or "everybody knows nothing travels that fast."

I also have no idea of the provenance of the script. The retconning and historical revisionism that happens around Star Wars is more than I care to penetrate.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Also, in regards to the quality of stormtropper armor:

Maybe the Empire cut the armoring budget and everyone's too afraid to say anything. In one of the Legends Expanded Universe stories, a guy who points out the AT-AT's vulnerability to leg tangling is punishment-assigned to Tatooine.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This. I can't recall off hand ever seeing Stromtrooper armor stop anything. Even Clonetrooper armor is pretty useless.

As to "Why?" the answer is probably "The Emperor likes it that way".

Stormtrooper armor is designed to turn them into the faceless enforcers of the Emperor's Will[tm]. Any protection they give is secondary to that.


But it looks like we're drifting far away from the OP's questions and arguing geekery. (Funny how that always happens with Star Wars, Star Trek, and similar franchises...)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

IIRC, it's in the script that Han's parsec comment was 'obvious nonsense' or something like that, which Obi-Wan is supposed to react to, but they cut away too soon.

I've never even read the novelization; I certainly have never read the script. I judged the film by watching it as a film.

That said, I also have to ask when this script came out, and whether we have proof that it was the script that was being used when Star Wars was filmed in the first place. Stormcrow's point about historical revisionism needs to be addressed. This is, after all, the same franchise that reshot a key scene to make it appear that Han didn't shoot first. . . .