Star Wars' "Black Stormtrooper" to Critics: "Get Used to it"

Fox12

AccursedT- see you space cowboy
Jun 6, 2013
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I don't know. The empire is supposed to be sterile and uniform, in contrast to the diversity of the rebel alliance. It's a visual metaphor. There are no minorities in the empire. There are no women in the empire. There are no aliens in the empire. The rebels are led by a woman, a fish, and multiple minorities. I'd like to see this expanded upon in the films.

That said, he's probably undercover. My only issue with the trailer was that the storm trooper and soccer ball were so randomly thrown at us that I kind of laughed.
 

cleric of the order

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babinro said:
This thread appears to be bringing up something that's not actually an 'issue'. Trying to create drama from a loud internet minority that you might see pop up in a youtube comments section or equivalent troll oriented community.

That said.

I'm criticizing this trailer for it's depiction of 2 males and 1 female. This is STAR WARS. That ratio is completely wrong. I demand at least 300 males before 1 female is allowed to grace the screen. I can't even assume that the storm troopers are male given that first scene.

The sith is male because they have a male gait.
Though I suppose it could be transgendered.
In which case that's a whole lotta Star Wars NOPE right there!

Feel free to write featured thread based on this comment and how it somehow reflects the genuine thoughts of 'some' people.
[edit]bugger me wrong chat.[edit]
[edit]yeah this whole thing is nonsense, I'm worried this place will become a pissing match between your literal suggestion and the poe's law variant in reverse[edit]
 

prpshrt

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Jun 18, 2012
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The leads a storm trooper ...? D:
Hopefully he becomes like mace windu or something
 

BrotherRool

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If Star Wars was really going for a master race vibe then they should have cast more than one black guy on the good guys side. And even then he starts out as a collaborator for the Empire.

You can't do a 'master race' thing when the good guys are all the same race too.

EDIT:
llubtoille said:
I honestly thought all storm troopers were black (or maori at least), being cloned from that dude back in the prequels.
Or did they run out of clones and start hiring real people?
According to Star War Battlefront (legit source :p) they started having multiple clone templates and hire real people when they firmly established the Empire. It's supposed to make them less vunerable, because clones represent one big weak point. Find something that breaks one clone, then it breaks them all

The super-fans even sometimes canon that as the reason why Clone Troopers are so much more effective at fighting than Storm Troopers
 

jurnag12

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Isn't the whole Hitler analogy already being utilized by only having Stormtroopers be Humans in a galaxy that has literally thousands of intelligent species? I'm pretty sure that at that point we no longer care about the amount of melanin as much as that we care about your damn phylum, even with the racism angle.
 

medv4380

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Feb 26, 2010
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The CGI landscape of sand is a poor substitute for an actual sand background. But who am I kidding it's not like there's actual deserts they can film at.

The trailer didn't give any major plot, but a black storm trooper gave much more than the rest of it.

He can't be a real storm trooper because they're all clones. It's why Leia knew Luke wasn't a storm trooper based off only his height. If you want to keep infiltration down to a minimum a clone army does wonders.

This is supposed to be after 6, and the books are no longer cannon. So why is there someone pretending to be Storm Trooper? The Rebels should have dismantled the clone army, and you'd be crazy to continue to use any of them. Even if you did, why pretend to be one? Keeping Storm Troopers in the original outfit is just painting a giant bulls eye on you saying here's the bad guys. The Rebels would have at least changed the outfits, and the bad guys would have done the same so people wouldn't immediately attack just because they saw a Storm Trooper.

Then again Star Wars villains name themselves things like IAMEVILCOMEGETME, and if they're keeping with that pattern then it might be good for little kids, like Episode 1.
 

Recusant

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templar1138a said:
And my faith in humanity drops another point.

Morons, the Empire was Nazi against NON-HUMANS (and females). They didn't care what color skin the humans had. Those "critics" are just using this as an excuse to be racist and pretend to not be. It's pathetic.
That's pointless aggression and you know it. Think the situation through; just because you don't see a legitimate reason for questioning this doesn't mean one doesn't exist. Some of these people might be racists raising objections for no other reason than they don't like black people, but for the most part, it's fans expression confusion over a mixed message the creator is sending. Remember: this isn't taking some minor talking point out of context. This is THE FIRST TRAILER. The first real bits of information we're being given, amongst the endless streams of rumors flying around. People who are fans of the earlier movies want to know more, so it's only natural to break down what we've been given.

So, what do we know about this next movie? Not much. I haven't been able to find an exact quote from Abrams (or anyone directly involved) saying what is or isn't considered canon since that first announcement back in January. So let's assume the EU is off the table. Well, what exactly does that constitute? Where is the line drawn? Knock out the books and the games, sure, but the official novelizations? Clone Wars show? The Holiday Special? Unless there's a more specific quote somewhere that I missed (entirely possible), we don't know. So the logical jump is to assume thoroughness; that is, we have six movies of canon, and nothing else. So no 501st, no actual evidence that the Empire is racist against aliens and females (just an admittedly conspicuous lack of them in the Imperial armed forces), no Thrawn. What does that establish in regard to the Stormtroopers? Let's take a look:

Someone, presumably but never stated to be Chancellor Palpatine, uses the name of a dead Jedi master to have an army of clone soldiers raised. The clones, all modified genetically from a single person, Jango Fett, are taken by the Republic and used to fight against the army of droids being used by the Separatists. When Palpatine later declares the dissolution of the Republic and the formation of the Empire, the 'Clone Troopers', engineered and trained to be slavishly loyal, stick with him.

Twenty-odd years later, the Empire is now firmly in charge, its will enforced by a legion of soldiers known as 'Stormtroopers', who wear armor and use weapons very similar to those used by the Clone Troopers two decades earlier. The obvious implication is that this is the same group, if not the same soldiers, who were such an important part of the nascent Empire earlier, but this is never actually stated. We're told "only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise" upon seeing the burned-out wreck of the Lars home (which indicates that either Obi-Wan's been out in the desert too long, or that one of the troopers tried to swat a fly by shooting it and things got very, VERY out of hand), consistent with an elite, specially-bred task force, but on the Death Star, we see horrific inaccuracy, slow reflexes, and lousy combat techniques, indicating that this isn't the same group. We also see varying heights among the troopers, but that's more readily explained; chance mutations, malnutrition, injuries and accidents; there are many ways genetically identical people could end up looking very different- of course, why would the misfits be chosen to man the single greatest symbol of Imperial Authority? Well, why wouldn't you hide the exceptions on board a battlestation where they're never likely to be seen? It all adds up to strongly suggesting that, at the very least, this group is dramatically reduced in power and prestige; it's likely they're not all clones, at least of the same individual, and certainly not the same soldiers who helped make the Empire a reality in the first place- how long can you expect rapidly-aged soldiers to fight, anyway (though that might offer something of an explanation; they're not terrible shots; they're senior citizens, trying to do the one thing they were bred and trained for as their bodies fall apart- kind of horrifying, though that would also explain their willingness to charge into almost-certain death)?

A great deal of the information we tend to assume is never actually verified- outside the EU, anyway. Implications, even strong ones, aren't the same as fact and evidence. A little more transparency from Disney on this would certainly be welcome; though I imagine it's just going to be released in bits and pieces over the next year to keep anticipation up. We know very little about the upcoming movies, and yes, people who care about the series are concerned about the direction it's taking. Passion is not a bad thing. Let's try to remember that going forward, and not be so quick to judge.

Let's
 

Diablo2000

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Aug 29, 2010
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Jadak said:
I give little shit about the blackness, even if you wanted to argue that only movie canon counts and thus all troopers are Clones, we're still talking 30 years after RotJ and the Empire getting it's head chopped off (also, Jango was brown at best, looking native Hawaiian or Maori or something, not especially white). Even if you want to insist they were Clones until that point, it's not unreasonable to expect the Empire would have opened up recruitment as it declined.


I'm more annoyed about the look of the shot in which you see him (the one pictured above). I don't know if it's just the stupid expression, or some CG byproduct, but the quality of that shot makes it look like an amateur fan video and it distracts me every time the guy pops his head up.
They stopped using clones after the Clone War, so even that won't stick.

I am glad that we get to see a Stormtrooper character, maybe now we get to see how good a stormtrooper really are considering one is protagonist now and therefore allowed to hit shit.
 

Ihateregistering1

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When I saw it in the trailer I just assumed he was a new character who had stolen a Stormtrooper outfit.

But anyway, people need to calm the hell down. No one I've seen who takes issue with this has a problem with the fact that he's black and Nazi analogy and blah blah blah. They're Stormtroopers, they are clones, they are all supposed to look like ONE guy and ONE guy only, and that one guy is NOT John Boyega, nor does he look anything like John Boyega.

Maybe in this new movie they've gotten a new person to be the base clone and these are 'Stormtroopers 2.0'. If so, cool, got it.
 

Winnosh

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Stormtroopers Aren't Clones. Clone Troopers were Clones. Stormtroopers were recruits and conscripts from the Imperial academies througout the galaxy.

Clones even serving in the Galactic Army was a Retcon that didn't exist until 2002.

And even after that it was only something that affected the Clone Wars and Prequel trillogy.
 

RJ Dalton

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I always thought the Empire was more based on Imperial England, myself. They have black people in England, right? And I never bought that all of the troopers were meant to be clones, anyway.
 

Winnosh

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RJ Dalton said:
I always thought the Empire was more based on Imperial England, myself. They have black people in England, right? And I never bought that all of the troopers were meant to be clones, anyway.
Yes and racism was always against aliens. The Empire was very Humancentric
 

dspike

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A lot of people don't realize that the Empire hates ALIENS, that's where the Nazism aspect comes into play. Also, after the Clone Wars the Empire's main source of troops became recruits. So, I really don't see how having a black stormtrooper is a problem.
 

Winnosh

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dspike said:
A lot of people don't realize that the Empire hates ALIENS, that's where the Nazism aspect comes into play. Also, after the Clone Wars the Empire's main source of troops became recruits. So, I really don't see how having a black stormtrooper is a problem.
Yeah in the new Rebels series which is part of the new canon they even show training academies where Storm troopers are recruited and trained. One of the Trooper recruits is even black.
 

Grace_Omega

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medv4380 said:
The CGI landscape of sand is a poor substitute for an actual sand background. But who am I kidding it's not like there's actual deserts they can film at.
They did film in actual deserts, in Abu Dhabi. I don't think that background is CG.
 

Reed Spacer

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You guys ever hear the one about the suicidal Stormtrooper?

He tried to blow his brains out but kept missing.
 

Winnosh

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Reed Spacer said:
You guys ever hear the one about the suicidal Stormtrooper?

He tried to blow his brains out but kept missing.
He must have been under orders to miss then. Otherwise he'd have been dead.
 

Ishigami

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This is an issue? For whom?
The dude looks darn cool to me. Those 2 seconds of screen time blow 99% of the acting in the prequels right out of the water! ? Not everyone can look that distressed. That's no sarcasm or whatnot, I mean it.
 

jabrwock

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Winnosh said:
Yeah in the new Rebels series which is part of the new canon they even show training academies where Storm troopers are recruited and trained. One of the Trooper recruits is even black.
I haven't seen that episode yet, but if they show it, yeah, it's canon then. Everything made since the EU was trashed is the "new" canon.

medv4380 said:
He can't be a real storm trooper because they're all clones. It's why Leia knew Luke wasn't a storm trooper based off only his height. If you want to keep infiltration down to a minimum a clone army does wonders.
If you watch Ep IV/V/VI, you see stormtroopers are of different heights, indicating they are likely not clones. See this picture from ANH: http://deadliestfiction.wikia.com/wiki/File:StormtrooperCorps_anh1080p.jpg

Now compare to Luke/Han in the detention centre. http://nations.wikia.com/wiki/File:1138_Episode_IV.JPG

Luke is clearly short compared to others. By nearly half a head-height. Why the commander of the detention block didn't notice is kinda odd, but he was also distracted by having to deal with "this... *thing*"