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I didn't like the Trade Federation or the Seperatists motivations because they seemed silly or poorly thought out but I thought the Battle Droids themselves looked pretty cool. Seeing all of the different varieties go up against Clone Troopers in Geonosis and in episode 3 was good. Plus with the likes of droidikas you got the sense of threat and although the regular battle droids were...dumb..I kinda thought that was cute and okay for Star Wars. Like in New Hope with how dumb the stormtroopers actually are and behave "Close the blast doors! Open the blast doors!" or "these aren't the droids we're looking for".

What did other people think of them?


ps. On a related note. I am really curious about who the antagonists are going to be in episode 7. I'd still want them to keep Sith but I think doing the Imperial Remnant would lack the threat and detract too much from the resolution of Return of the Jedi. Although it would destroy expanded universe canon I would love if they made the Mandalorians the main antagonists with Sith in the background (a bit like the whole Exar Kun thing).

The droids where aesthetically pleasing imo. As characters though they were bad. Comically bad which is ironic considering they were continually exploited as a failed comic relief attempt.

Why did they talk? How much money was wasted developing and installing voice units (and seeming emotion routines) for main line battle droids?

Much like the new trilogy, they were a joke.


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 LordofHats wrote:
The droids where aesthetically pleasing imo. As characters though they were bad. Comically bad which is ironic considering they were continually exploited as a failed comic relief attempt.

I hated all of the injections of (failed) comic relief throughout that trilogy.

It would be okay if they made clear that regular battle droids are like that because they're cheap mass produced fodder, but distinguished from the larger n heavier units. I definetly didn't like how they gave Super battle droids the same voice n behavior as regular ones in episode 3.

So the regular grubs didn't bug me because they''re meant to be fodder. Whilst with the supers I felt it was undercutting the threat by making them like despicable me minions. (edit: But not as funny )

Plus the stormtroopers were often portrayed as stupid and occasionally used for comic relief.

I don't remember any battle droids in Star Wars. Maybe you're thinking of Star Trek?

Data; the most bad ass battle droid ever conceived:

I just long for the days of Empire when it all seemed a lot grittier.

An army of remorseless killing machines similar to IG-88 could have been great.

I'd also like to point out that the Storm Troopers in the original trilogy weren't bad. The issue with them was they were always fighting guys with heavy plot armor.

Canonically, Storm Troopers are the elite of the elite.

I disagree. Storm Trooper Academy always emphasized looking menacing over accuracy

jk

They looked cool, but in every other aspect, were god awful like the Prequels themselves.

I mean in Episode 3, when the Jedi enter the hanger of General Grievances (and Captain Nefarious's) ship, they make waste of the Battle Droids with no difficulty. It doesn't matter whether the Battle Droids are there or not, they don't even slow the Jedi. This is rife within the Prequels.

Also, when R2-D2 pulls a Charlie Chaplin skit on the super battle droids...

Great... now I'm going to nerd rage again.

Does Grevious count? Because he was one of the few good things to come out of the prequels.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Does Grevious count? Because he was one of the few good things to come out of the prequels.

In the movie and the 3d cartoon, all he does is cough. Seriously, in the 3rd movie, instead of engaging the Jedi (and having guys helping him) he walks of screen and doesn't do anything.

Yeah. Grevious is awesome in original Clone Wars micro-series and in the comic books. On the big screen though and the more recent series he's become as big a joke as the droid army he leads (save one episode in season 1).

Cartoon Grievous=badass. Movie Grievous=ridiculous. That said, he learned humility at the hands of Windu.

Having enemies that pose no threat to the main characters (Jedi's just slice through them with no effort or danger at all) makes for boring action scenes.

One of things annoyed me was the fact that they talked. I mean why? I understand them needing to comunicate with human superiors, but why talk to each other? I assume wireless technology exists in the star wars universe.

I also didn’t like the fact that at the end of Phantom Menace they lined up to fight as if they getting ready to re-enact Waterloo. Even against a poorly armed Gungan army that’s ludicrous. Oh and whoever designed their targeting systems should be sacked. I understand Stormtroopers failing to hit Luke and Han, but to not butcher those Gungan's was daft. It should have been a turkey shoot. Family film be damned, if the droids have to lose at least make it plausible.

Aesthetically they were cool, it would have just been nice to see them behave more like proper soldiers would act.

I was rather fond of the trade federation droid army look- it was the only reason I sat through episode 1 in the first place

 LuciusAR wrote:
I also didn’t like the fact that at the end of Phantom Menace they lined up to fight as if they getting ready to re-enact Waterloo. Even against a poorly armed Gungan army that’s ludicrous. Oh and whoever designed their targeting systems should be sacked. I understand Stormtroopers failing to hit Luke and Han, but to not butcher those Gungan's was daft. It should have been a turkey shoot. Family film be damned, if the droids have to lose at least make it plausible.

IMO this is why stormtroopers were so much better. The very first thing you see in the movie is the stormtroopers fearlessly and mercilessly blasting their way into the rebel ship, sending the few survivors of the initial ambush running. If you aren't a main character they're faceless death, and that makes them a credible opponent even when they're required to fail to kill the main characters to keep the plot moving.

 Peregrine wrote:


IMO this is why stormtroopers were so much better. The very first thing you see in the movie is the stormtroopers fearlessly and mercilessly blasting their way into the rebel ship, sending the few survivors of the initial ambush running. If you aren't a main character they're faceless death, and that makes them a credible opponent even when they're required to fail to kill the main characters to keep the plot moving.

That’s true. People laugh about the accuracy of the Stormtroopers but they at least felt like a credible enemy. Ok they missed the Heroes, but beat the other rebels without too much of an issue. Even at the end the Tie-fighters destroyed all of the attacking rebel fighters with the exception of Luke and Wedge. Ditto in Empire when the Empire Ground forces swarmed the rebel base on Hoth and the Rebels only managed to knock out a couple of the Walkers before evacuating.

I think Return of the Jedi set a bit of a rotten precedent here. Particularly with the Ewoks, they just seems to make the Imperial forces look daft. I think only one Ewok death was shown.

Endor would have been much more credible had it been the Wookies defeating an entire legion of the Emperor's finest troops, as it was apparently originally meant to be.

 RossDas wrote:
Endor would have been much more credible had it been the Wookies defeating an entire legion of the Emperor's finest troops, as it was apparently originally meant to be.

I think that Lucas had too much control over the last of the originals, a foreshadowing of the prequels. The original concept of Return of the Jedi (or should I say Revenge of the Jedi?) sounds great and does seem like a better, and more mature ending to the trilogy.

LuciusAR wrote:One of things annoyed me was the fact that they talked. I mean why? I understand them needing to comunicate with human superiors, but why talk to each other? I assume wireless technology exists in the star wars universe.

They talk because the movie would be hard to understand instead of using natural language, half the discussion involving droids is a variety of close-ups of a blinking LED with the wifi symbol next to it

Personally I really liked the droid army, perhaps not so much as movie characters but as an aesthetic and techological idea they were pretty cool.

 Leigen_Zero wrote:

LuciusAR wrote:One of things annoyed me was the fact that they talked. I mean why? I understand them needing to comunicate with human superiors, but why talk to each other? I assume wireless technology exists in the star wars universe.

They talk because the movie would be hard to understand instead of using natural language, half the discussion involving droids is a variety of close-ups of a blinking LED with the wifi symbol next to it

Personally I really liked the droid army, perhaps not so much as movie characters but as an aesthetic and techological idea they were pretty cool.

In the 1st and 2nd movies, the Battle Droids did have voices that were believable, but in the 3rd they had emotions and felt pain and all that. It's fairly brutal for the Jedi to go and cut down a group of Droid pilots in the 3rd film who scream and cry out as they try to keep a ship working. I understand that this is a poor attempt to implement slap stick, but it's effectively just cutting down defenseless robots.

The worst thing about them was the pathetic lines they had.

For example in the 3rd prequel there's a scene in the hanger of general grievous' ship and there's two super battle droid looking at Obi-wan or Anakin's ship and R2-D2 is in the corner hiding, and they contact him on their communicator. One battle droid says "What dat?" and the other says "Dat nothing. Get back to work".

Then later on when Anakin and Obi-wan are captured and brought to Grievous on the bridge there's one droid that gives Grievous their lightsabers I think, and he snatches them off it, and it says "You're welcome" sarcastically.

I like the look of them alot.

I even didn't mind their talking in 1 and 2. Then three completely jumps the shark with them.

I suppose after you've spent several days playing Battlefront 1 and 2 it does help ease your qualms about them.

 LuciusAR wrote:
Even at the end the Tie-fighters destroyed all of the attacking rebel fighters with the exception of Luke and Wedge.

You may want to rewatch A New Hope. A member of Gold Squadron survives, too. That said, they WERE going up against not just the station's defenses, but Vader's hand picked personal Black Squadron as well. In other words, they faced the 9 of the best pilots in the Empire and killed all but Vader and Qorl(if you count EU stuff).

I kind of agree, the Battle Droids were not bad looking...but for the love of, why did they make them so stupid.

They could have been dumb so they were easily fooled but still intimidating. No, they went with the Three Stooges Battle Droid manufacturer.

Droidikas were pretty badass. Like mentioned, I really like how the Droids look, but yea.....the moron shtick just ruins it