Conveinently different

Maybe it was to stop them from being shot as Rebel spies if they were caught. From what I can gather, neither Luke nor Han still had their Stormtrooper helmets by the time they entered the trash compactor, because they dropped them in the detention block. So without the helmets, the rest of the uniform would be useless as a disguise.

 

Yeah, Han and Luke totally lost their helmets. Bummer! Maybe if they'd kept it they could've listened in on the Imperial CB radio and kept track of the bad guys efforts to find them.

Were Han and Luke really, really hot wearing their clothes under that armor? I bet they really smelled when they took the armor off and Leia got all grossed out by the smell combined with the stench of Chewie's wet fur from the trash compacter. Of course, her dress doesn't even seem the least bit soiled from their dumpster-diving. Unstainable Alderannian fabric? No wonder it was such a tragedy that planet got blown up...

 

Stormtrooper uniforms have environmental units built into their back armour (aka: they're air conditioned).

 

Zethlin Maximus,
Good point about the helmets.

4LOM,
Leia's dress is dirty. It's not real dark but it's smudged all over.

 

As far as officiers on Endor go, it's hard to accuse GL of losing interest in detail as we're the ones supplying the details. In GL's mind the whole time, he probably had a few different looks for the troops, and in each place had a few here and there.
But if you want to be a stickler for detail then you could just say no one on Endor was expecting a battle. They were expecting a simple ambush/capture job so no need to dress up. Then when things got out of hand, there they were.
As far as differences in AT-AT drivers and AT-ST drivers go, different planet? Different platoon? Different vehicle? Scout duty uniform?

 

Who else thinks the AT-ST driver helmet is totally sweet? Those dudes were stylin', riding around all classy in their chicken walker, all up high and stuff, with their shades on. Too bad they got their parade rained on when Chewie tossed one dude to his death and the other got beaten to a pulp by two teddy bears with clubs and his dead body sat on by all three walker-jackers. What a way to go!

But that's the price you pay for being cool.

 

The AT-ST crews on Endor were wearing the very same helmet design as was worn by General Veers on Hoth. Veers even had the goggles, although he never used them.

The AT-AT crewmen only wore the gear that they did because the uniforms had life support systems built in. And I'd dare say that the AT-ST crew on Hoth wore the same uniforms as their AT-AT counterparts did. And I've never heard of any units having such varied uniforms, unless there was a specific reason for doing so. In an armed forces, a troop/crewman would be issued with equipment and uniform that was designed for a specific function. They're not designed simply for show.

 

Well they obviously should be.

 

Han clearly sets his helmet down on the console before he answers the intercom. Luke takes his off when he enters Leia's cell, but what did he do with it after that? Must have dropped it when the shooting started.

 

"As far as differences in AT-AT drivers and AT-ST drivers go, different planet? Different platoon? Different vehicle? Scout duty uniform? "


And different action figures to sell

 

True about the action figures, it actually works out great for Lucas...make a new vehicle, you need a driver figure too, right? More $$$! Hence the Cloud Car Pilot, A and B-Wing pilot uniforms, ATST-driver, AT-AT Commander, and AT-AT driver figures. Why use normal stormtroopers as scouts when you can make an all-new scout trooper and make a figure out of him?

Why is there no seperate Y-Wing pilot uniform? Does this just highlight how much Lucas had sold out by the time ROTJ came out? Same thing with a snowspeeder pilot uniform. X, Y, and snowspeeder pilots all wear the same uniform. What's up with that?

A-Wing pilot headgear is cool.

 

Although I agree about what you said about figures, the Scout Trooper was actually a pretty decent and believable design. If you need a Stormtrooper to ride a small bike at high speeds, and at the same time be highly manoeuvrable, then you're going to need to design a light weight specialised variation of a Stormtrooper uniform.

As for the variety of Rebel pilot flight outfits, I see no reason at all to give pilots different designed outfits, unless the design of the fighter specifically required it. Why would a finacially strapped Rebel Alliance decide to buy all those different flight outfits? I can understand different paint schemes on their flight helmets in order to depict their squadron, but to go out of their way to have such different uniforms is a waste of time.

 

Maybe because the Alliance was low on funds they couldn't afford a few thousand uniform uniforms, but took what they could get, which turned out to be a mix of different outfits. And, for looks sake, they just might have decided to divide the flightsuits among the squadrons, to have at least a slight resemblance of order.

 

Perhaps the B- and A-Wing pilots are later additions to the Rebel Alliance (which is why we don't see their ships earlier in the trilogy) and came into the Alliance en maase, maybe from the defense forces of a couple of newly liberated star systems? And then for expediency's sake they are wearing their native pilot uniforms.

I always had the impression this was the case with Nein Nunb's people, the Mon Calamari, and the Prune Faces. By the time of ROTJ the Empire is beginning to lose control and is hoping to crack down on dissent with their new Death Star. In the meantime, worlds and sectors are defecting to the Alliance, hence the greater variety of ships, aliens, and uniforms in the last movie.

 

The B-Wing was designed by the Mon Calamari; Admiral Ackbar to be precise.

 

The B-wing and A-wing designs weren't introduced into the Rebellion until later in the war, IIRC. Jan Dodonna designed the A-wing and Admiral Ackbar and a team of Verpines designed the B-wing. They didn't come into widespread service until a few months before the Battle of Endor, although I could be mistaken there.