PT Phase I or Phase II?

What it says on the tin:



Do you prefer the heroic Phase I of Attack of the Clones, laden as it is with influences from Jango Fett's Mandalorian armour and even the stately Senate Guard's curved surfaces, creases and fins?

Alternatively, is the imposing Phase II of Revenge of the Sith more to your liking, what with the scowling visor and helmet's side scallops combining to create a distinctively skeletal look, while retaining the Phase I's bulk elsewhere?

Do you find the unit-specific markings and variations of the Phase II armour to be colourful enrichments, or do you prefer the stark white-on-black aesthetic of the Phase I?

Interestingly enough, these pieces of ROTS concept art [src] indicate that the Phase I designs could have been retained into the third prequel rather than being replaced in the Clone Wars interim.









Would you have preferred to see Phase I armour return in ROTS and solidify it as the definitive clone trooper design? Was the introduction of Phase II armour an important visual link with the Imperial stormtroopers, creating the ironic situation of the Jedi leading soldiers who are a fistful of plastic removed from the villainous henchmen of the OT? Was the relative innocence of Phase I sorely missed? Was this a loss that needed to be felt, to show how the Republic has become a harder, more aggressive government?

 

I prefer the Phase II armor, but that may be due to my overall preference of Revenge of the Sith in general. I must say that they're both great. Phase I looks like a soldier whereas Phase II, to me, looks like a warrior.

 

Soldiers and warriors indeed.

There are some subtle differences between the portrayals of clones in AOTC and ROTS that tie into this. Consider how, during the Battle of Geonosis, the commander enthusiastically reports to Yoda while the other clones shift about on their feet as the old Jedi Master hobbles off the gunship. The clone who gives Mace Windu command of his special commando units seems very deferential. He even addresses Windu as "sir" twice. These guys are on edge, eager to please on their first job. To paraphrase LOTR: "A chance for CC-6454, Commander of the Republic, to show his quality."

The clones in ROTS behave subtly differently. They're less eager to please, more on the same level as the Jedi, and more aggressive. Even when he's giving Obi-Wan back his dropped lightsaber, Cody can't help but lace his words with a bit of dry sarcasm. Gree, the commander with the camo-pattern armour on Kashyyyk, dispenses with the enthusiasm and frequent honorifics that the Geonosis commander had when he's reporting to Yoda. The clones in ROTS seem more like hardasses and fellow warriors, almost fighting alongside rather than below the Jedi.

The armour's evolution does reflect this. The neutral gaze of Phase I gives way to the scowl of Phase II.

 

I think I like phase 2 the best (including storms). But I loved the fact that there was two phases. I think it really added to the feel that the Clone Wars had been a long and protracted war at the time of ROTS. Also the obvious visual queues that harken to the storms (phase 3?) and the empire added to the dark feel of ROTS and order 66. And just in general seeing the development of imperial/republic troops was really neat. I really hope we see some type of new republic/empire stormtrooper descendant in Ep 7.

 

I always thought that there were earlier stormtrooper armour generations before the one we see in the OT. Something I've long hoped to see in a TV show set in the years immediately following ROTS has been a further evolution of the Phase II armour towards stormtrooper armour, though still not quite there yet.

Not just with stormtroopers, but other intermediate stages in the evolution of Imperial military hardware would have been nice to see. For example, a TIE model that's in between ROTS's Eta-2 and V-Wing on one side and the ubiquitous TIE/ln of the OT on the other.

 

With luck, Rebels will give us these.

 

One can already see aspects of the clone armour in the way the "plastic pecs" of Rebels' stormtroopers are angled.



Also, the Rebels TIE fighter seems wider and squatter than the tall OT TIE.

However, Rebels starts in 5 BBY and the designs have to be pretty close to the OT to begin with. The decade or so immediately following ROTS (19 BBY to 9 BBY) would have more interesting developments. Those would almost be a forward extension of the final aesthetic changes (ie. paint stripper applied to VSDs and V-Wings) seen at the end of ROTS.

 

That period is extremely sparsely covered in the EU - though the Dark Times comics, and the Darth Vader comics, were venturing into that period a little at a time, before the Disney announcement.

 

The Rebels TIEs are based of the old Kenner mold with the shorter wings.
I love the phase one armor because it looks more like an old serial costume.

 

I like both. I like the armour of Phase II but prefer the helmet of Phase I.

 

Iron_lord

I was under the impression that Lucas wanted the immediate post-ROTS decade clear for the Live-Action Series, though I could be mistaken.

Reminds me of something I saw in another thread (emphasis added):

Really, the whole Battle of Geonosis sequence seems like it's out of an early 20th Century space opera. The Homing Spider Droids, seen on Drew Struzan's AOTC poster chasing some Phase I troopers, look like H.G. Wells created them. The CIS even tries to evacuate its armies in literal rocketships. The planet of Geonosis looks like the stylised, fantastical depictions of Mars you often found before its true conditions became widely known, populated with insectoids that enjoy themselves watching (human) prisoners fight wild beasts in an arena. Seeing Disney's John Carter a couple of years ago, I got a real Geonosian vibe from certain parts of it.

The Phase I clones are direct progeny of a silver rocketman and were grown in a sterile lab by bizarre elongated Roswell Greys. They fight against bizarre robotic and alien enemies on a retro sci-fi version of the planet Mars. I can see why the Phase I look fits in this context.

 

Rally great analysis, QuangoFett!

I have a hard time choosing between one version or the other. I love the Phase I look for the reasons you mentioned above, and the Phase II look for the sense of dread that it invokes due to it's similarity to the Stormtrooper armor. Like so much else in RotS, the Phase II armor is a perfect piece of connective tissue that helps to link the abstract weirdness of the prequels to the more grounded realty of the originals.

 

Some episodes of TCW showed both types present in the same scene.

 

bstnsx704

Phase II, what with the customisations and battle scars, seems inspired by WW2 or the Cold War. Like you said, it's the connecting tissue between the PT and OT. The context of Phase II is the shift towards the blockier Cold War aesthetic of the OT, reflected also in the Venator-class star destroyer and the Eta-2 Jedi interceptor.

This may be veering into SWTV territory, but some of the on-screen combinations of helmet types seen in TCW are quite significant.

The first is when the the Advanced Reconnaissance Commandos (ARCs) show up in the Season 3 premiere. The ARCs oversee trooper training programmes. In this capacity, the prototype Phase II helmets reinforces the characterisation of the ARCs. The aggressive Phase II visor communicates that these are tough guys, proper hard men, and exacting professionals who command respect and demand the best from the cadets.

The second is the Umbara arc of Season 4, when we see that Captain Rex has retained the Phase I visor and welded it into a Phase II helmet, while the other clones have migrated to Phase II. The Phase I visor makes Rex seem more pensive and thoughtful, and his is the role of the warrior-thinker in this arc. He has to grapple with ethical quandaries, while the Phase II clones, such as the aggressive ARC Trooper Fives, are more intense, self-assured or emotive.

The third is the Season 5 finale, when Rex (he of the vestigial Phase I visor) fits into something of a good cop role. His bad cop counterpart is Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard, who wears the full Phase II. One shot in particular highlighted this, as Rex and Fox look down at a certain fugitive, the Phase I visor making the former seem like he is concerned, and the Phase II visor making the latter seem like he's glaring down in judgement.

 

I like them both.

I like how Phase I is influenced by Fett's armor.

And I like how Phase II is a natural progression from Phase I armor to Stormtrooper armor.

 

Phase I, by far. I even made a mod once for Battlefront II so that you could play with those...

 

Nicely done.

 

Busted.

 

I like the Phase I better. The sleeker, more streamlined look makes them seem more heroic. There's something vaguely sinister about the Phase II look.

 

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!

Nice! Did you add that option just for me, Quango? I had a good laugh.

I voted Phase I, however.

 

Phase I. II reminds me too much of comic troopers who can't handle the teddy bear picnic.

 

Hard to say. Both are pretty cool.

 

I actually like phase 1 a little better then phase 2.

 

That's just because the artists and modellers are lazy and don't know how anything about accuracy.It's pretty well established by a plethora of sources that the current stormtrooper armor models and TIE fighters existed well before the time period Rebels takes place in. Oh wait, Disney vomited on the universe and gutted everything. Nevermind.

But anyways, I have mixed feelings for both. I would have to say phase I because they're always shown as clean and fairly mono-colored, and personally I think they look more like stormtroopers than phase II (aside the helmet) with all the colors and unfixed battle damage. I like the many variants of phase II though, especially specialist versions that emulate their imperial successors even more, like the clone engineer and cold assault armors.