Modern Armies Superior to Star Wars on Ground...

[Darth Wong]

That whole "elite legion" thing is bullshit and always has been. Just because the Emperor tries to rattle Luke with that line doesn't mean it's actually true. If the Empire put real effort into garrisoning that forest moon, then why didn't they even bother deploying camo troops, which we know that they have? And does he realize that they were actually winning despite being ambushed and playing by the rules?

Yes, Imperial troops play by the rules. If they were half as lawless and ruthless as people think, they would have executed Han and Leia and the others on the spot when they found them in the bunker compound instead of marching them out to be taken as prisoners. Even when the attack began, they could have shot all of the Rebel prisoners dead before engaging the Ewoks.

[The Original Nex]

Yes, Imperial troops play by the rules. If they were half as lawless and ruthless as people think, they would have executed Han and Leia and the others on the spot when they found them in the bunker compound instead of marching them out to be taken as prisoners. Even when the attack began, they could have shot all of the Rebel prisoners dead before engaging the Ewoks.

NOOOO, THey wernt playin by the Ruuules THEy wee jus bein teh StOOOOPIID!11!!!!!11!!!

Is the ususal TFN/Trektard/CommonIdiot reply. . .

[Darth Servo]

I think that Rapax (not the guy who claims Modern Armies > Star Wars) just handed me my ass. I gave a list of each and every Stormtrooper engagement in order to prove that they are competent marksmen. His reply:

Hardly. You just give in too easily.

I think we had that covered? As they are shooting at expendable generic rebel soldiers, obviously they're gonna succeed. It's like the guy in Star Trek that no one's ever seen before but who will accompany the main characters on a dangerous mission. Someone's gotta die.

In other words, he dismisses a perfectly legitimate example and ignores suspension of disbelief.

Obi-Wan's assessment, in light of general stormtrooper performance shown in the movie, can be wonderfully regarded as irony

Circular logic--using his conclusion as a premise to disregard evidence.

Sure, Han was standing there for a moment with a surprised look on his face and singlehandly turned the landing bay into debris while a squad of stormtroopers quickly huddled into cover frantically shooting and hitting anything but the target. I don't know what you find pretty accurate about it but it's one example of how Stormtroopers can't kill the main characters.

The unstated assumption is that they were shooting at Han, even they said, "Stop that SHIP" and had no way of knowing Han was the pilot. They were clearly shooting at the SHIP, not Han

4)Death Star Detention Block - Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and Luke were all taking cover behind some columns and firing back, the Stormtroopers were still probably trying to kill them. Nothing I saw leads me to believe they have bad aim.

Why yes, it's incredibly hard to simply shoot down a narrow corridor. At the beginning it worked perfectly, but now somehow it doesn't. Again it's the golden rule that the generic henchmen can't kill the main characters.

Again, he ignores suspension of disbelief. And considering that Vader thought the Princess might still be of use to them the moment they captured the Falcon, its clear the non-lethal herding action had already begun.

5)Death Star - Stormtroopers under orders not to kill them. They manage to do this without being too obvious about it, seeing as many of the misses were very close.

That's quite interesting. Whenever they miss at other points, it's bad luck but now that they, apparently, do it on purpose, they do an excellent job. Talk about point of view, eh?

Appeal to mockery. He has no answer what-so-ever for the blatently obvious conclusion that the Rebels were to be let go, so he tries to make fun of it.

6)Hoth - The Stormtroopers only got a very short window to shoot Han and Leia as they crossed a hallway. It was rather unlikely for either of them to be hit.

Wouldn't that be Snowtroopers then? Either way it's irrelevant since they don't really get a chance as you said.

Since Snowtroopers and Stormtroopers are BOTH imperial soldiers and probably receive similar training (the only difference being one is specific for cold environments), he's grasping at straws. Notice that during the rest of the battle, the Imperial troops were gunning rebels down all over the place, especially the walkers from ranges of many km.

7)Cloud City - I'm not quite sure what to make of this battle. It is quite similar to movies with modern weapons were the heroes take cover and the bad guys almost hit them, or the heroes always duck just in time. It is also possible that the Imperials were trying to capture them or herd them towards the Millenium Falcon so that Vader could tractor beam them into his Destroyer.

Yes, you seem to stumble over your own argument on this one.

Vader wanted Leia and company to rescue Luke. Thats why there were no guards near the Falcon, the stormtroopers always attacked from the read or the sides and the Falcon's hyperdrive was deactivated.

He has no answer for your final point. Nail him on that.

Battle of Hoth (actually Endor) - We barely got to see anything in this battle. For example there where at least a dozen Rebel soldiers which aren't shown fighting. In any case up untill Chewbacca hijacked one of the AT-STs the Rebels and Ewoks were suffering heavy casualties and starting to retreat despite having advantages in numbers, knowledge of terrain and surprise. (from Novelization, not contradicted by movie). As the Ewoks begin to seize the iniciative with Chewie's help, we see a Stormtrooper hit R2-D2. Then either the same Trooper or a different one almost* hits Leia. Both of this shots were from a distance of 20-30 meters and quite difficult, especially the second one since it was quite clearly a quick snap shot.
*I have watched the scene very carefully in slow-motion. It is hard to tell but the shot most likely hit the wall next to Leia and she was wounded by the explosion or a molten peice of metal. This is supported by the amount of time it took Leia to react to the shot.

Yes, supposedly it's the emperor's "Elite Legion" which makes the whole thing an even bigger farce than it already is.

Anyone who trusts anything Palpatine says after seeing ROTS is either on drugs or the most gullible moron in the universe.

BTW, you forgor a few other factors in the Ewok's favor like small target profile and the stormtroopers being handicapped by direct orders from Vader to take prisoners.

Pretty much the only thing that the imperial troops have going for them are the AT-ST's and even they are worthless as they are taken out by the most primitive weapons imaginable.

JUST the AT-ST's? What about the AT-AT? What about the AT-TE or any of the OTHER vehicles seen in the prequels?

A weapon that was extremely massive. The Narn homeworld in Babylon 5 was taken out by an equally primitive weapon (throwing large rocks at the planet). Does this mean they are pathetic. This idiot clealy subscribes to the technology caste myth and doesn't give a damn about REAL scientific principles like momentum or stress analysis.

One "slips" over a few logs (which is a pretty strong argument against combat vehicles on legs),

I wonder how well this guy would do walking on metal rods?

another gets crushed by two falling logs (which puts its hull integrity somewhere between a wooden shack and a volkswagen beetle)

Replace "logs" with "massive tree trunks" and you have a true statement. Add "army hummer" to that list of vehicles too.

and the third one is hijacked because it's piloted by two masterminds who open their hatch in the middle of combat.

To get ewoks off the vehicle who could potentially sabotauge the thing.

I won't go into further details with your assessment as you turn simple plot devices (leia and r2d2 getting hit) into solid evidence for...well for something.

In other words--he blatently ignores two canon events to shore up his little fantasy.

I imagine some of you might be thinking, "This is what left you speechless and unable to reply?" Well yes, I can't think of a way to reply other than reiterate my arguments and end-up looking like an idiot. So the plan is that my next post would go something like this:
"In all honesty I don't know how to reply to that. However the folks over at StarDestroyer.net do..."

Your #1 retort should be "stop ignoring canon events that don't fit into your pre-ordained conclusion".

Main characters vs no-names is NOT an excuse under suspension of disbelief.

BTW - It is only an 'appeal to authority fallacy' if I use an authority's opinion or argument as being superior to that of somebody else merely because of their position. In other words, if I admit that the argument I'm using is from someone that knows more than me, then it's not a fallacy, right?

The appeal to authority is any argument that is based solely on "so-and-so says so, therefore it is"

[Adrian Laguna]

Interesting we were also discussing suspensin of desbelief but didn't think it to be that important. I posted this:

Regarding Suspension of Disbelief:

Pretends that the fictional universe is real, which means that the films and TV shows are considered documentary footage and books are treated as if they were real stories, historical records, official spec sheets, etc.

The aliens in the hilarious sci-fi satire "Galaxy Quest" considered the TV shows depicting Tim Allen's NSEA Protector to be "historical records", in which they assumed they were documentary footage and analyzed them as such. We copy this approach. In the case of books, we would treat them as history books.

Think of it as being dumped into a parallel dimension in which the rules still generally apply (eg- humans still breathe oxygen and iron is still heavier than wood), but there are extra phenomena which are unknown to us (eg- subspace, hyperspace), and which you must now research based on what you see and read.

Since it disregards the author's intentions and treats the films as first-hand observations, it handles dialogue contradictions more easily than the literary method. After all, we treat the character as if he's real; as far as we are concerned, there is no author pulling his strings. So if he says something that grossly contradicts other established facts, we can simply treat that as we would in real life (by calling the character an idiot), while the literary method does not really allow for the author to be wrong, per se.

However, this method does not gracefully handle errors in visual effects. Given a shot which makes the Defiant appear to be half its normal size (for example) and which cannot be rationalized away, we must decide whether it is an "error" on the part of our imaginary documentary cameraman. Normally, this decision is made by looking at the bulk of the evidence (similar to what scientists do with highly anomalous data points in a real experiment, where the errant point is assumed to be the result of procedural or equipment error unless it is consistently repeated).

Quoted from How to Analize Sci-Fi on StarDestroyer.net

He replied:

That's an opinion, nothing more. The difference is, I suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the movie. I'm not gonna ****** about this and that, because I know it's necessary for the plot and to keep the movie going, you on the other hand take it all for granted stumbling around when something is hard to explain or downright stupid. I'm sure that one can get lost in this fantasy world but actually trying to take cinematic necessities and plot devices in order to prove something is just too much. Your "definition" wonderfully points out that if an contradiction occurs, you simply claim that the character who did it/said it is stupid, which basically sums up the worth of it.
So, take it easy.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Hardly. You just give in too easily.

I knew thare was something that needed improvement. Let's make a list and post it in a public forum for no particular reason:

1) I give in to easily, need try harder.

2) Too damn lazy, need to use brain and not come running to others when the answer doesn't come inmediately.

2b) Though this doesn't mean that asking others for help is a bad thing.

[Darth Wong]

People who refuse to suspend disbelief while arguing about what is and is not truly correct in a fictional universe are liars, plain and simple. They are simply being selective about what they will and will not suspend disbelief for, thus giving them the ability to basically say whatever they want.

[Master of Ossus]

That's an opinion, nothing more.

Nonetheless, it is really the only method we can use to analyze the relative capabilities of a science fiction program with respect to real life or another program. If he has a better, more objective way of doing things then I'd love to hear it.

The difference is, I suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the movie. I'm not gonna ****** about this and that, because I know it's necessary for the plot and to keep the movie going,

That's fine, but it's useless for attempting to answer the question that was posed by the thread.

you on the other hand take it all for granted stumbling around when something is hard to explain or downright stupid. I'm sure that one can get lost in this fantasy world but actually trying to take cinematic necessities and plot devices in order to prove something is just too much. Your "definition" wonderfully points out that if an contradiction occurs, you simply claim that the character who did it/said it is stupid, which basically sums up the worth of it.

If dialogue contradicts what we observe, then the character is wrong. What's wrong with that? We already know that people can be wrong, lie, make mistakes, misread consoles, etc. What's a better conclusion if you see that something is one way and your friend insists that it's another? Do you believe your friend and conclude that your eyes are useless or do you conclude that your friend is mistaken? Scientists conclude that their friend is mistaken, just as reasonable people do. Why should we do any different when analyzing science fiction programs?

So, take it easy.

This cuts both ways. Need I remind you that you've been going on for pages about this subject, only to conclude that it's a matter of opinion?

[Stark]

If he's saying 'generic troops can't hit main characters', he's not analysing at all. He's disregarded SoD and he's essentially falling back on 'character shields', which obviously don't exist in universe. Nail him down on a method of debate: if he's talking about the events of the movies, you have to pretend they actually happened. In this case, saying Stormtroopers miss Han because he's the star is utterly unacceptable.

Ironically, he's using tactics I most often see used by Trekkies to boost their powerlevels: selective criteria. Accepting examples that support their claims, while using any excuse (regardless of how lame, hypocritical or nonsensical they are) to ignore contradictory evidence.