First off, I'd like to offer my sympathy to Adywan for his recent loss. I've been so busy lately, I've fallen behind in keeping up here. I'm glad to see you're back at work, now. I know that work can definitely take the mind away from sorrow, at least temporarily.
This latest debate involving the tie fighters is interesting. Funny how I guess I've never noticed the difference before. Now of course, it's something I can't not see if I tried.
I wanted to share a thought I had earlier today after I watched some old trailers from the Editdroid 4-disc extras, which Adywan has posted to a.b.starwars. I almost hate to bring it back up, as it involves the green AT-AT laser debate, but this really struck me as a Holy S__t moment, so I wanted to share it here and hopefully get an explanation. I was watching disc 3 of the Editdroid extras, which contains many different trailers for the original trilogy. Suddenly, as I was watching the german trailer for The Empire Strikes Back, my jaw dropped. There were a few seconds of footage of the Hoth battle, and the AT-ATs were firing green lasers. I kid you not. There was the shot when some blasts hit a Rebel turret, and other blasts zip by, and they were all green. Then, when you first see the front AT-ATs, they are firing green lasers also. The Rebels were still firing red lasers, but the Empire was firing green. At first, I thought I was just seeing things, so I went back, and stepped though the shots, frame-by-frame. Pure green lasers. But how could this be? Then I watched the first USA full trailer, which must be rare, as it appeared to come from 8mm or 16mm, complete with severe flicker, and although the color was faded very badly on this trailer, it also featured the green lasers, as this was the same trailer as the German trailer, only in English.
If anybody has this set (and if you don't, here's your chance to get them--it is an amazing set--thanks, Adywan), please check it out. Does anybody know anything about this. As it was an early trailer, a year before its release, I wonder if they did indeed plan initially to give the AT-ATs green lasers, then changed their mind during the production. I know this topic was already beaten to the ground, but I thought this deserved to be mentioned, at the very least to hopefully hear an explanation. I also noticed a Revenge Of The Jedi trailer which featured Luke swinging a blue lightsaber on the Sail Barge, not green. Interesting...