I must be getting old if this bugs me...

[bluegargantua]

Hey,

So, there's this commercial on TV for a Star Wars Clone Trooper set. You get a Clone Trooper helmet and a rifle and the add has dozens of kids in the helmets running around with their rifles.

I've decided that this really bugs me. I know that in the prequels the clone troopers are sort of "good guys", but I don't know if I want kids being jazzed to be faceless super-soldiers. And in a larger sense I'm a bit saddened that grown-ups choose dressing up like storm troopers over Rebel troopers.

Are we always attracted to being one of the jack-booted minions of evil? It'll be interesting to see how fans react to the GI Joe movie. Will we see lots of blue-suited Cobra troopers or will people embrace the wide range of colorful Joes? Actually, if the movie stills are anything to go by, the Joes won't be as idiosyncratic as they were in the cartoons.

later
Tom

EDITED TO ADD: For the longest time. Possibly well after I saw the first three movies, I believed that Storm Troopers were just robots, not guys wearing armor. After all, they looked like robots and it seemed exactly what an evil empire would do. Luke and Han dressing up as troopers merely meant that they wore the exterior shells. These movies got a lot more violent once I realized there were people under there.

Comments

[jadia.livejournal.com]

I have always been attracted to being one of the jack-booted minions of evil!

More seriously, I think this is because they are shown as powerful, whereas the good guys are underdogs. People like being portrayed as powerful.

[bluegargantua]

Yeah, but in that instance, why not portray one the faced leaders of evil? Storm troopers are just cannon fodder, but Darth Vader is a bad ass. True, if everyone walks around as Darth Vader, that's a bit dumb, so that's why Cobra is great since you've got a wide variety of "named" bad guys.

later
Tom

[jadia.livejournal.com]

Faceless mobs can be fun to be a part of. Think zombies!

(Maybe it's the rejection of personal responsibility?)

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

There's at least one fan stormtrooper organization that goes around doing Good Works In The Community, which I take as a sort of cheerful subversion of the motif, and a hopeful sign for fandom in general. I don't think it's that we want to be jackbooted minions of evil so much as we rather wish the stormtroopers were the good guys. :)

(Also, a good many of the Clone Wars products - and I'm thinking particularly of the Republic Commando franchise, as well as the new TCW TV series, come to that - go to fairly great lengths to portray the clone troopers as distinctly not faceless, interchangeable meat robots, which is rather interesting when it works and annoyingly heavy-handed when it doesn't.)

[bluegargantua]

Yeah, the 501st does a lot of charity work and I think they're no worse off than guys who dress up as Medieval nobility for a weekend, I just think it's odd that they choose the guys who can't hit what they shoot at.

later
Tom

[kadath.livejournal.com]

The 501st was founded and is still primarily made up of hardcore props guys, and the Rebellion just doesn't have costumes that are as technically challenging as the Imperial ones. The 501st has a sister organization, the Rebel Legion, for people who want to costume the good guys.

[deadwinter.livejournal.com]

Because there's a limit to how cool building costumes out of bathrobes and orange jumpsuits can be.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

LIES. There is no upper bound for the coolness of bathrobe-costumes.