SW Wanker Fanbois at it again at SBC...

[Mr. Oragahn]

Spartans were meant to be super elite troopers for special operations. First to deal with insurgents, and later to deal with the Covenant while Earth was defeated and outnumbered.
Clone troopers aren't these guys. They're some of the better soldiers out there, but they're still expandable. More precisely, they're the best of the expandable niche.

We see things differently here. I see the Clones getting the most dangerous missions, and being sent to bale-out the Republic regulars.

The clones are the Republic regulars. That's why you're wrong, because you seem them as elite, as in comparison to other troops, but we don't see much. In fact, in terms of competence, the elite in Star Wars is largely due to a mix of best physical aptitudes and experience and gear, which relates to top notch bounty hunters.
They're not part of the military, but if they were, they would be the elite and the closest thing to Spartans. I'm leaving out genetic freaks and other cyborgs, but would they be included, they'd top everything I suppose and become the elite to the expense of the former one.

Clones are nothing like the Spartans, not in hierarchy, not in quality. In quality, I have demonstrated that well enough. In hierarchy, because they are the unique Republic's real army. All they seem to have had previous to that were very few local security police forces.

That's why the clone troopers are closer to ODST, but without any super warriors to top them. They're both what the Republic has best and the meat and potato of its very homogeneous army.
If at least the Jedi were given power armour and some personnal shields, then we'd start talking, but that's not even the case.

1. It's stated very clearly in the movie.

2. It doesn't make them poorer. It guarantees that an order is followed, even if it means a certain level of sacrifice.
Lucas decided that clones would get some personality, although I don't know if the clones we follow in TCWS are rarer ones or the bog standard model.

If it's the former, that's a good thing, but if all clones are supposed to actually show that level of personality and autonomy, it's really disappointing.

The point of clones was really to show how technology could be callously used to produce expandable men in droves, and not being frightened of dying in such a fashion. However, Lucas is really going another route and rejecting the grim dark, to the point where the only objectionable aspect of the clones is that they were grown for war and outside of families, instead of those two aspects plus the whole zombie-horde overall feeling.

Docile things don't fight, or question authority, but the clones do. I just assume someone used the wrong word

Dunno. Docile beings trained to fight is what clones are. Kaminoans sold them as capable of adaptation though and docile at the same time. Their intellectual abilities relative to war have not been diminished, and their loyalty has been augmented.

That they're the best troops they have doesn't make them the equivalent of Spartans. I think that is rather obvious.

The clones and the C.D. are the closest thing Star Wars has to Spartans, and they fill the same roles even if C.D. and clones are inferior to even ODST..

Sure, just like the Foreign Legion is the closest thing France has to Spartans I guess, doesn't mean it's anywhere close to Spartans when their abilities are compared.
Clone troopers don't replace any other army. They are THE army.

You argued that those as SW were as elite as those of Halo.
Have you changed your mind or are were still in disagreement?

I never claimed that clones or commando droids were anywhere near as capable as even ODST. I have claimed the Spartans, Commando Droids, and Clones fill the same roles in the militaries they are a part of.
You have misunderstood. I have not been trying to argue the clones or commando droids are as capable or effective or well equipted as Spartan 2/3s or even ODST. I have been try to argue that the clones in Star Wars fill the same role in the Republic military as the Spartans and ODST do in the UNSC military

Well the coloured text I quoted from you clearly looked like you were implying a similarity in terms of aptitudes and quality, and not just in terms of hierarchy and military rank.
Anyway, see the top of my post, because I think you're wrong on either accounts.

We can both select evidence going at our advantage.

It begs remembering that the Rebels, by virtue of their unique tactics, weren't meant to have any major fleet at all.
Not to say that according to the EU, the initial rebel fleet comprised several different ships including a sister ship to the Invisible Hand. The Rebels even had seized control of a Trade Federation battleship and carried more than five hundred X-wings in it.

I don't follow the EU much, and it is self contradictory. The only numbers that matter for Star Wars have always been in G and T levels of canon.

This works both ways. I don't know any firm number regarding fleet size in the upper canon of Star Wars, either for the GAR or the Galactic Empire.

No because the 1 million extra were soon finished. Further millions could be like several months away from completion, or more. It was never said that the 200,000 first clones all came from the same factory. They could have easily been the initial fraction of several factories from various locations on Kamino. Same for the extra million.

In fact, if you picture a huge wave that's the sum of all factories' outputs, the beginning of the wave would be the first 200,000 clones, then further into the wave you'd get the 1 million, with the rest of the production wave to come.

They stated they had 200,000 clones ready, and a million more on the way. They make clones as ordered, and a manufacturer only produce about the number ordered by a customer.

They make them as ordered, but the order was passed a decade ago and it takes ten years to grow clones and prepare them.
The fact that they say there's a million more on the way while we know that the GAR would cound several millions anyway means that Lama Su didn't refer to all of them when he said "more on the way".
Which obviously means that he only referred to those that would very soon be ready.

200,000 soldiers was considered a huge army.
EU sources claim a total of 3,000,000 clones.
60,000 clones on a medical station is a sizable part of the army

We know the Republic was thinking of purchasing five million more clones, and to them that was an insanely huge number. That kind of puts a cap on how many clones were purchased.

We know Jedi only command 2 or 3 battalions to take a vital planet like Umbara.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalion
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battalion

Given the importance of super-weapons in Star Wars small numbers fit.

I know the figures, but that is not the point. They mirror Lucas' decision (save for those which were pushed by EU enthusiasts who willed to see trillions of clones).
The numbers fit because they have been made to fit. In no way does it mean that taking the decision of making the army so small was anywhere interesting nor anywhere what should have been pleasant to show.

There is also a problem with the Republic ordering 5 millions more. Those clones would have never been ready for the war unless that one stretched. It still makes a small number.

That said, there were many visions to assemble back in the old days.
I just find the new Star Wars not very subtle, all in your face, too flashy without being awesome enough, and lacking in real depth.

It's shame that AOTC wasn't TESB's alter ego, put into action and scripted by more competent people than just Lucas.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars CGI series is what Episodes 2 and 3 should have been.

If you have an interest into following clones and see many of them fleshed out, which I don't and even consider anathema to the concept of united, undifferentiated human soldiers sent into the massive meat grinder of war.
I watched the 1st season and never bothered continuing watching it. That goes without saying that the retarded plots and other silly decisions (empty senate syndrome, low pop planets, bad aiming at 20 meters, more of Jar Jar) insulted my intelligence and I couldn't respect Lucas for that at all.

Besides, Lucas calls his stories Star Wars but they often seem to be more about Moon Wars, all centered on a few systems.
In comparison, nBSG, despite starting from a rather odd but still very localized star system, feels much more vast than anything about Star Wars.

In fact it's quite so pathetic that you could probably have the whole GAR defending the Coruscant system can get its arse kicked by nBSG Cylons without any CNP cheat, both on ground or in space.

Lucas treats his universe like if there were a few dozen inhabited planets.

Yet they're nothing spectacular. They don't master special combat techniques, they get gunned down rather stupidly, do some silly charges at Christophsis, etc.

I don't know what their training program consisted of but I'd wager that it contained about 90% of teletubbies.

The silly charges may be because of that engineered to be docile nonsense. Follow orders even if they are really bad.

I didn't recall any such stupid orders being given at Christophsis. If anything, it seems largely due to the "creativity", lack of experience and overall docility clashing in some bizarre fashion in their minds, having them run towards legions of droids and tanks marching down a linear main street.

We actually see the clone trooper training in season 3 Episode 1 "Clone Cadets". maybe it is the helmets that cause the problem?

Helmets that make them dumber? o_O

There was another side. Only the Sith and Fett apparently knew what was going on both sides. That's like three people from a huge amount of leaders on both sides who should have been completely dumbfounded by the complete discrepancies in their own armies.

Palpatine more or less directly controls the Republic forces, and he controls the the head of the CIS(Count Dooku) and the CIS's top general General Grievous. That means Palpatine knew what both sides were doing, and could tell both sides what to do.

And how does that make the thousands ot millions of people at the head of both forces and political organs be completely convinced that all is logical and fits? Is that some of Sidious' voodoo?
It doesn't matter if he pulled strings. The overall plot simply assumes that no one raises an eyebrow at the absurdly low scale of a galactic conflict.
You thought you'd get world war II in space, with the proper multiplyers, but you only get some silly regional conflict as it happens on Earth, spread over the whole of spaaaaace.
How does that even make sense? We're also lead to believe that not a single world in that whole galaxy of million worlds decided, one day, that it would produce its own army. We're to believe that there's never been a single mini-Empire, read, a collection of worlds all more or less ruled from a single planet, not necessarily evil or totalitarian, and that such a system wouldn't even have its own army, one that would actually allow it to bitchslap the GAR at any time. Because 5 million dudes spread between troop soldiers, armour units and the fleet, that's a total I could see any colaition worth its salt to be able to amass. It's so silly that even future USA + China could alone, when given space ships, completely keep the GAR at bay or even teach them a lesson.

Which, among other things like better management of characters, made TESB stellar.
The stormtroopers weren't exactly total douches like in ANH or, worst, ROTJ.
Rebels did face a powerful foe and, considering the level of firepower all sides get in SW, did a fair job with what they had. Globally they preferred flee instead of wasting good units and perhaps missiles against ground units when it would have been totally useless anyway, considering the Death Squadron's presence.

The battle of Hoth was actually PIS in favor of the Empire, and that is no better then PIS in favor of the Rebels. A few X-Wings firing a couple of proton torpedos at the AT-AT

All wasted, because the base had to be evacuated anyway, and Death Squadron still was above.
X-wings were better used to protect the fleeing cargos and highly ranked staff.

Perhaps, but then what's the point of doing Clone Wars if you don't really get to do what people honestly expected to get. Those were dark times after all, yet I don't see much darkness at all. There are less deaths in the whole of TCWS than civilian casualties in Irak alone from the second war.

If Lucas wanted to avoid the brutality of war, all he had to do was to focus on the action happening on the rim of the major war theaters.
In the end, I have no real interest into an universe that is decidedly smited by his own creator who enjoys watching two sides of dumbed down soldiers trying to hit each other.

I expect Lucas to edit TPM so as to make pixie dust burst out of Maul as he get cut into halves by Obi-Wan.

People are burnt alive, electrocuted, stabbed, shot, and so on on screen. We see a bleep load of people die, and more implied. You're just not happy because they want to get the TV equivalent of a PG-13 rating.

Do not mistake "overall" with "detail", and scale with punctural events.
I could completely do without the in-your-face gruesome deaths at all as long as the spirit was respected. All you list is nothing more than a short list of cheap cop outs.
That's the problem, really, between good fiction and bad fiction, between suggestion and stuff thrown at dumb audiences, the difference between a psychological horror movie and one that would get you a whole olympic swimming pool worth of fake blood.
You got nothing like disgusting horrible deaths in TESB; at best you had Han being tortured, and you only saw the beginning, and heard the rest, and eventually Luke's copilot Dak.

Star Wars was heavily inspired by shows like Flash Gordan remember

That is not an excuse at all. What is that supposed to explain?

Yeah and thus far them bots have the brains of a can o' beans.
CAN YOU IMAGINE TEH POTENTIAL WITH SW'S ASTROMECH AI????!!!1!!

They would rule the world provided they could deal with doors and stares.

Fully-powered astromechs are much more maneuverable than Daleks.

Aw com'on, it's slow as shit. If it cannot count on mobility, then it should have plenty of armour, especially for vehicles which can actually lift their own weight along the sides of a steep cliff.

ANAT-TE isn't actually a tank, but I suppose you are correct in that AT-TE could use a bit more armor. What has taken an AT-TE down beside CIS tanks?

One does have to wonder why an AT-TE can't fly?

They're downed by spider droids (like the ones we see coming out of the water at Kashyyyk) and by droidekas, all in the pilot movie.
The first one ets hit at the joint between the dorsal turret and the main body, which sort of "lifts" the AT-TE, and another bolt lands in the cockpit, which throws it down.
Ashoka Tano decides to jump on the front glassis of the cockpit of the AT-TE she piggy backed, in order to deflect bolts.
Another AT-TE gets smocked down later on. We actually see that the armour effortlessly stops spider droid fire, but the exposed cabin's glass gets smashed and another shot inside it blows it up.
See human tank design since their first conception, there's never been such a stupid flaw.

Heck, it's so bad that despite the mass and volume of the clanky craps, they don't even come with shields, if only frontal ones, when even Aethersprite Delta-7s can get some very good ones squeezed into them (and they're good)!

When you look at the placement of the cannons on the Malevolence and their accuracy, there were plenty of dead angles to exploit to reach the bridge. Shit, merely firing the missiles from that distance should have worked, unless plot suddenly decided that they'd get shot down.

They said they had to do it that way, and the Jedi did not think the Clones could make it to the bridge without at least one more clone being shot down.

No one thought to fire the missiles from farther away.

THey never explain why that flight path needed to be taken. It's like the trench run on the Death star. I'd assume it has to do with some odd quirk in shield design.

Yes, let's chalk it up to shield design, even if shields on ships tend to be completely hull hugging.

Going by Halo or Halo Wars, those exposed bridge house essential personnel and even important systems. They should be nothing but auxiliary observation booths during cruise.

Few SF universes get that right. New Battlestar Galactica is one of them. The Asgard and Wraith from Stargate also had encased control bridges (and obviously plenty of redundancy systems).

Some settings it doesn't really matter where things are because if the shield go down you're screwed, and some one direct hit and you're dead.

That's because they don't understand the concept of armour.

[sonofccn]

@ Mr. Oragahn:

One is free to like or dislike the TCW but your summarization of its "flaws" I have to ask what exactly did you expect from it? Lucas has been fairly concistent in his chosen scale since at least AOTC and even before that the OT did not swing around particularly huge forces. Which mirrors from what I understand the state of affairs in the likes of Flash Gordon which alongside things like WW2 films is what Lucas looked too for inspiration. Stupid or not that is Star Wars and to get on the case of TCW for that is like berating a Trek show because its given to philosphicial musings under the guise of action-adventure.

[Mr. Oragahn]

@ Mr. Oragahn:

One is free to like or dislike the TCW but your summarization of its "flaws" I have to ask what exactly did you expect from it?

Less stupidity, less childish humour (it seems that he's never stomached TESB and has been stuck on fart-lol since ROTJ), more large scale battles, more focus on fewer planets, to give a sense of continuity with more intrigues going on them.
And the boring exchanges, those pew pew storms that result into nothing, you don't even get a sense of danger from those walls of bolts coming at the clones, they just get added as decor. They're reduced to pretty lights. Sure, the idea is that droids can't hit shit. That surely makes for an exciting show. :/

Lucas has been fairly concistent in his chosen scale since at least AOTC and even before that the OT did not swing around particularly huge forces. Which mirrors from what I understand the state of affairs in the likes of Flash Gordon which alongside things like WW2 films is what Lucas looked too for inspiration. Stupid or not that is Star Wars and to get on the case of TCW for that is like berating a Trek show because its given to philosphicial musings under the guise of action-adventure.

WWII just ended with two dozen million deaths on the military side already.
One planet, crap tech, 2.5 billion people on it at the time of the war.
The consistency with AOTC isn't meaningful, as it was the beginning of everything and scales could have been vastly superior and equally valid.

[sonofccn]

@ Mr. Oragahn:

One is free to like or dislike the TCW but your summarization of its "flaws" I have to ask what exactly did you expect from it?

Less stupidity, less childish humour (it seems that he's never stomached TESB and has been stuck on fart-lol since ROTJ), more large scale battles, more focus on fewer planets, to give a sense of continuity with more intrigues going on them.
And the boring exchanges, those pew pew storms that result into nothing, you don't even get a sense of danger from those walls of bolts coming at the clones, they just get added as decor. They're reduced to pretty lights. Sure, the idea is that droids can't hit shit. That surely makes for an exciting show. :/

Lucas has been fairly concistent in his chosen scale since at least AOTC and even before that the OT did not swing around particularly huge forces. Which mirrors from what I understand the state of affairs in the likes of Flash Gordon which alongside things like WW2 films is what Lucas looked too for inspiration. Stupid or not that is Star Wars and to get on the case of TCW for that is like berating a Trek show because its given to philosphicial musings under the guise of action-adventure.

WWII just ended with two dozen million deaths on the military side already.
One planet, crap tech, 2.5 billion people on it at the time of the war.
The consistency with AOTC isn't meaningful, as it was the beginning of everything and scales could have been vastly superior and equally valid.

Thank you for your reply. Sorry if I sounded harsh "demanding" the answer but I was curious. Again thank you.