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[Parsely]

Am I the only one that thought that Princess Leia being on the Admiral's ship was weird? IIRC there was absolutely no hint of that, but I hope I'm wrong.

Really enjoyed the movie. The CGI was stellar. I was squinting at Tarkin the whole time because he really was a little off, but he looked as good as he possibly could have, I think. It's way better than only showing the back of his head or using a lookalike, and the quality is miles beyond anything we saw in the prequels.

It was a stupid idea to blow up the place. At worst, they could have starved them out/used chemical weapons. At best, with the manpower at their hands, it becomes a slaughterhouse, but they still reclaim the area.

They wanted it gone NOW, not a week later, because the death star plans were being stolen NOW. Obviously Tarkin doesn't care about the facility or the people down there. He wanted the data not to fall into the hands of the rebels, and was willing to sacrifice the facility in order to do it, as he demonstrated by blowing the shit out of it. Not to mention he probably didn't mind killing off the Director in the process. The destruction of that place didn't matter to him one bit, and he had everything to gain from doing it.

• Where were those dark troopers during the original trilogy? They would have made perfect sense on Endor, more than the white Scout Troopers.
• For that matter, what about the Imperial battle droids? I find it hard to believe that droids like K2SO are just a logistical aide, given his strength and range of motion. At least K2SO kind of resembles some background robots from the original trilogy, if you really squint and believe.

They're not dark troopers, the Director just calls them his "elite" troops, but even if they were, how does the appearance of dark troopers in this movie somehow justify their presence on Endor, or anywhere else? Going back to the elite troops, if they belonged to Tarkin or Vader, sure I could see that introducing a problem in the canon, but they're the personal forces of the Director, and they all get blown up by the Death Star. If you mean just elite forces in general and not specifically these troops, how do you know that elite forces wearing regular storm trooper or scout trooper armor weren't present on Endor? Why would dark troopers be a replacement for scout troopers?

He was a reprogrammed security droid. This could also imply alterations to hardware, seeing as how we don't have an unmodified KX droid performance to compare it to. The only other Imperial KX droid we see doesn't perform any of the feats that K-2 does. We have no idea how much of his capabilities were added by the rebels but needless to say he's extremely capable and proof that it's possible to make a really impressively lethal and intelligent droid when you drop Imperial hardware into the hands of rebels.

E: According to this wiki article, the failure of the Dark Trooper Project led to good old Palpatine withdrawing funding for all battle droid projects.

Under orders from Mon Mothma, Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors continually sabotaged the production facilities. Kyle Katarn quickly infilitrated and sabotaged a number of key facilities-

Furious at the time and credits wasted on the project, Palpatine ended all productions of the dark troopers and even went so far as to withdraw funding for all Imperial battle droids being developed at that time.

[itisnotlogical]

• Where were those dark troopers during the original trilogy? They would have made perfect sense on Endor, more than the white Scout Troopers.
• For that matter, what about the Imperial battle droids? I find it hard to believe that droids like K2SO are just a logistical aide, given his strength and range of motion. At least K2SO kind of resembles some background robots from the original trilogy, if you really squint and believe.

They're not dark troopers, the Director just calls them his "elite" troops, but even if they were, how does the appearance of dark troopers in this movie somehow justify their presence on Endor? If they belonged to Tarkin or Vader, sure, but they're the personal forces of the Director, and they all get blown up by the Death Star, so why should they be on Endor? If you mean just elite forces in general and not specifically these troops, how do you know that elite forces wearing regular storm trooper or scout trooper armor weren't present on Endor?

I didn't mean actual Dark Troopers, I mean the fact that their armor is literally dark. It'd be harder to see them in the thick forest of Endor, especially if they were prone in the brush or hiding behind a tree. You could say the same thing about any time Stormtroopers wear white armor outside of ice planets, but I think the Stormtroopers on Tatooine, etc. are more of a police force. The interior of every space ship shown this far (that I can remember) has grey-white walls, so it makes sense for Stormtroopers in space to have white armor despite the tight quarters in such situations.

They also have regular, non-elite Stormtroopers wearing camoflauged armor on the surface of the archive planet. I don't know why I didn't bring those up instead of the elite troopers, my point makes more sense in that case.

[Parsely]

Maybe the troopers on Endor weren't issued camouflage armor, much like how not every Storm Trooper on Scarif is wearing camo armor. IRL soldiers don't really go out of their way to camouflage themselves any more than their uniforms do, but they do take the time to cover their fighting positions, emplacements, or vehicles. At the very least you'd really think those biker scouts would at least try to apply some kind of camo, but for the regular stormies I can see how they might not have the call to do so.

[☼Another☼]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet was that the ending with the Tantive IV felt the tiniest bit tacked on.  I always figured that they got the plans to the ship covertly somehow and that it was operating under the guise of peaceful civilian use when it was captured in Episode IV.  Never thought it had literally just escaped assaulting an Imperial world to get those plans, but I guess it works.

Yeah, I thought of it as civilian, not that they had just literally escaped, but this does work.

[itisnotlogical]

Makes Leia's "diplomatic mission to Alderaan" excuse quite a bit flimsier.

[Sirus]

Agreed. If they had instead shown a Rebel trooper frantically transmitting the plans to a nearby system (before being killed by Vader, of course), and Vader's ship then preparing to go to that system, her claim of innocence would have made a bit more sense. Instead they have some incredibly concrete evidence that Leia's ship was indeed there and had just escaped from under Vader's nose.

[Baffler]

Maybe the troopers on Endor weren't issued camouflage armor, much like how not every Storm Trooper on Scarif is wearing camo armor. IRL soldiers don't really go out of their way to camouflage themselves any more than their uniforms do, but they do take the time to cover their fighting positions, emplacements, or vehicles. At the very least you'd really think those biker scouts would at least try to apply some kind of camo, but for the regular stormies I can see how they might not have the call to do so.

The stormtroopers dispatched to Endor were explicitly some of the finest at the Emperor's disposal. You'd think they would have made at least some kind of effort. Though considering those supposedly elite troops and their armored vehicles got surrounded, ambushed, broken up, and killed to a man by tiny bears armed with sticks and rocks (who even managed prepare labor intensive stuff like those log traps before attacking) it might just say something about the quality of the stormtrooper corps as a whole.

[Flying Dice]

Agreed. If they had instead shown a Rebel trooper frantically transmitting the plans to a nearby system (before being killed by Vader, of course), and Vader's ship then preparing to go to that system, her claim of innocence would have made a bit more sense. Instead they have some incredibly concrete evidence that Leia's ship was indeed there and had just escaped from under Vader's nose.

Given that A New Hope doesn't (presumably) start in the same star system, it actually feels pretty reasonable to me. The Tantive IV made a couple hyperspace jumps, Vader followed on his Star Destroyer, but their only concrete evidence was that it was a Corellian corvette of similar appearance to the one which escaped the battle. If the "diplomatic mission" excuse had been something more than what Leia cooked up on the spot, you'd think that they'd have been aboard a ship that wasn't full of soldiers in Alliance uniform. If it had been a real cover, they would have been kitted out for an actual diplomatic mission, with the plans in a well-concealed hidey-hole, and allowed boarding without resistance.

The entire opening sequence of Episode IV positively reeks of desperation and a plan cobbled together on the spot. Likely Leia recorded her message for Obi-Wan in however many minutes or hours passed between their escape and boarding.

[Sirus]

Agreed. If they had instead shown a Rebel trooper frantically transmitting the plans to a nearby system (before being killed by Vader, of course), and Vader's ship then preparing to go to that system, her claim of innocence would have made a bit more sense. Instead they have some incredibly concrete evidence that Leia's ship was indeed there and had just escaped from under Vader's nose.

Given that A New Hope doesn't (presumably) start in the same star system, it actually feels pretty reasonable to me. The Tantive IV made a couple hyperspace jumps, Vader followed on his Star Destroyer, but their only concrete evidence was that it was a Corellian corvette of similar appearance to the one which escaped the battle. If the "diplomatic mission" excuse had been something more than what Leia cooked up on the spot, you'd think that they'd have been aboard a ship that wasn't full of soldiers in Alliance uniform. If it had been a real cover, they would have been kitted out for an actual diplomatic mission, with the plans in a well-concealed hidey-hole, and allowed boarding without resistance.

The entire opening sequence of Episode IV positively reeks of desperation and a plan cobbled together on the spot. Likely Leia recorded her message for Obi-Wan in however many minutes or hours passed between their escape and boarding.

Hmm. Never really thought of it that way. A New Hope certainly starts in a different system, which means that the Tantive IV made at least one jump; probably multiple jumps to try and shake pursuit.

One very minor point of contention though: I'm not certain that the Rebels had what could be called a uniform at that point. The raiding commandos sure didn't seem to have anything of the sort, at least as far as I can remember. It's more likely that the troopers we see near the end of Rogue One and the beginning of ANH are at least nominally members of a different unit, perhaps Alderannian Royal Guards of some kind, or Senate Guards (the Senate did still exist at the beginning of ANH, if only as a sort of puppet government). I don't have any real proof and canon might disagree with me on this, but the fact that their uniforms and equipment were so unlike the hodgepodge gear the rest of the Rebels used makes me wonder.

[Flying Dice]

Agreed. If they had instead shown a Rebel trooper frantically transmitting the plans to a nearby system (before being killed by Vader, of course), and Vader's ship then preparing to go to that system, her claim of innocence would have made a bit more sense. Instead they have some incredibly concrete evidence that Leia's ship was indeed there and had just escaped from under Vader's nose.

Given that A New Hope doesn't (presumably) start in the same star system, it actually feels pretty reasonable to me. The Tantive IV made a couple hyperspace jumps, Vader followed on his Star Destroyer, but their only concrete evidence was that it was a Corellian corvette of similar appearance to the one which escaped the battle. If the "diplomatic mission" excuse had been something more than what Leia cooked up on the spot, you'd think that they'd have been aboard a ship that wasn't full of soldiers in Alliance uniform. If it had been a real cover, they would have been kitted out for an actual diplomatic mission, with the plans in a well-concealed hidey-hole, and allowed boarding without resistance.

The entire opening sequence of Episode IV positively reeks of desperation and a plan cobbled together on the spot. Likely Leia recorded her message for Obi-Wan in however many minutes or hours passed between their escape and boarding.

Hmm. Never really thought of it that way. A New Hope certainly starts in a different system, which means that the Tantive IV made at least one jump; probably multiple jumps to try and shake pursuit.

One very minor point of contention though: I'm not certain that the Rebels had what could be called a uniform at that point. The raiding commandos sure didn't seem to have anything of the sort, at least as far as I can remember. It's more likely that the troopers we see near the end of Rogue One and the beginning of ANH are at least nominally members of a different unit, perhaps Alderannian Royal Guards of some kind, or Senate Guards (the Senate did still exist at the beginning of ANH, if only as a sort of puppet government). I don't have any real proof and canon might disagree with me on this, but the fact that their uniforms and equipment were so unlike the hodgepodge gear the rest of the Rebels used makes me wonder.

Fair enough. I was going partly off it being standard in the original trilogy and partly off of it featuring heavily in the dress of the folks who assaulted the planet in Rogue One -- presumably the Imperials could make a connection there.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Canon agrees with you, that's the uniform of Alderaanian consular security.

[Flying Dice]

Huh.

Still doesn't explain why there was something like a platoon of them aboard, or why there were tons of them on the Mon Calamari cap ship. Continuity editor!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They were evacuating back to the Tantive IV.

[Dorsidwarf]

It does make Vaders snapping response to her protests more understandable though.

[Sirus]

They were evacuating back to the Tantive IV.

^That. The Mon Calamari capital ship was pretty clearly doomed once Vader's ship showed up and blew away the remaining Rebel fleet. Tantive IV was likely the last hyper-capable vessel that the plans could have escaped with.

To maybe answer the question of the sheer number of the security troopers, space pirates are a thing in the SW verse. I'm sure that more than one senator or ambassador has been targeted by criminal types looking to ransom off or publicly execute a well-known politician. They may also have been operating at greater-than-usual strength on the logical assumption that it was a dangerous mission and they might be needed, perhaps on Coruscant to fend off assassins.