ChainsawAsh said:
I'm going to have to vote "NO" on prequel-era walkers as well. Stick to AT-ATs and AT-STs.
In fact, I'd suggest NOT adding any more AT-ATs, but adding in more AT-STs - there's only one in the current edition, I believe!
Yeah, definately no prequel vehicles (there really doesn't need to be any more prequel "reminders" in the next two movies... please don't turn into GL Jr.!)... and I agree, no more AT-AT's. As is, this shows the Empire's power and the desperation of the Rebels... a few badass walkers can do ALL THIS, and it takes all the work of the heroes to just bring a couple of them down... and they still lose. And the "red eyes" don't need to turn into a solid red interior cockpit (I'd hate to see Red tinted troops inside, frankly). Just call it a tinted windscreen if you want, an optical illusion. After all, they need something to keep the glare off, but who says that inside they need to be like in a submarine's emergency lights?
Much as all us fanboys want to see 2 1/2 hours of vehicles and ships smashing into each other like when we were kids playing with toys... it's just overkill. We already see full scale battles in the Prequels. "Faster, more intense" doesn't mean the movie is going to be better each time. For the Yavin battle, it made sense since that was the climax of the film and the Rebel's most desperate "do or die" scene.
But the "Battle of Hoth" isn't supposed to be a full scale war, like Geonosis, anyway... it's just supposed to be a distraction put on by the Rebels against a ground assault while the Transports (the majority of the Rebel Force) escape. It's a diversion!
I wouldn't mind seeing more AT-STs, yeah... blink and you miss 'em. But then ROTJ gives us plenty of great AT-ST action, so this is a glimpse of things to come.
As for the Vader Hologram, I figured it was because battle holograms are going to be smaller and lower quality than the fancy ones Vader has to talk to the Emperor. But then if it's lower quality than R2D2's, maybe that's an issue. But every hologram doesn't need to be perfect. In fact part of the charm of them is that they're crappy looking (after all, we don't have holograms like that in our world, but we have much better image quality... these look like early television or video tape, projected in the air). It's the whole "futuristic but it's a used universe" look that I love about the series where things are dirty, worn, crude, or don't quite work perfectly (which Prequels threw out in favor of a more shiny, rounded-edge, utopian perfection). So yeah, fix it, but don't fix it "too much" if that makes any sense.
Someone mentioned Vader's armor not being damaged by Luke's strike earlier. Now it sounds like I'm a minimalist here (I guess in some sense I am... I figure changes shouldn't be made "just because we can" but because they're needed), but I think it enhances the threat of Vader when his armor isn't even cut by Luke's attack. Yeah, it heats his metal for a split second which makes him yell in pain (and pissed because Luke finally got through his defense), but it doesn't slow him down or damage his arm.
Adywan: Are you going to restore the old engine noise to the Slave-I from 1980/1997 or are you planning to keep the "motor-boat" sound that was dubbed in in 2004?
