Full Series Shadow Guards

Yea the EU fans are "the toxic ones."

Give me a break...

The Royal Guards obviously have some skill, and Yoda tossing those 2 around was because...well... its freakin' Yoda. It was supossed to show how powerful Yoda is, not make the Emperor's guards look weak.

Also the guards remove their robes and wear armor when in combat.

 

Indeed. That is because they are not only labelled bodyguards, they behave as such.

If prepared, in the EU, perhaps.

In the movies... That thought gave me chuckle: so the assassin comes into the room unopposed, because the Red Guards do not watch the door. When they finally spot him, far inside the room, they politely ask him to wait while they remove their robes. And, since they already have a nice chat, they also politely ask him not to move too much to their sides so that their inability to turn the head inside their helmets is not too much of a handicap.

But yeah, turning your head does not matter in SW, the robes do not impede anything, and the bad positioning was lazy writing only.

We can argue back and forth about what is derailing the threat more, the insistence on written stuff that not only has been overwritten by on-screen material time and again, but is also total nonsense from any military/organizational point of view and thus has no real world counterpart ...or my reliance on the primacy of on-screen evidence.

But ok, let us go by the standards of the current canon; you know the same great canon that includes everything from Hollywood movies to such invaluable sources like mobile games.

If the Red Guard are the elite bodyguards you say they are... why aren’t they body guarding in the movies? They never watch the entrances, they never observe the surrounding, and their armour is a hindrance in every combat even without the robes. Lazy writing from Lucas's part?
I think it is far more likely that the other writers in the EU have been the lazy ones; the ones who think body guarding, elite force and protocol duties go well together, despite all real world evidence to the contrary. It is the usual problem when people write about stuff they know nothing about. And frankly, when you start using terms like "tourist attraction" and tossing around inept historical comparisons, I must suspect you have not yet researched that topic with the necessary thoroughness.

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Or possibly, like with Senate Commandos, it's the best of them that replace "ceremonial armor" with "commando armor" and are sent on secret government missions.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/senate-guard

In the newcanon novel Lords of the Sith, there's both Jango clones and Senate Guards in that red armour.

 

Fine set of posts, Vorax. Very informative.

 

No, I'm utilizing observations from canon films, and a dose of reality, to cast doubt upon their supposed elite reputation. I like some of the EU as much as the next guy, but when there's an obvious conflict, canon takes precedence. The facts are that when we did get to see them in action, they didn't perform very well.

Also, I don't have to try hard to be annoying. It comes very naturally to me.

Look, I'll meet you halfway on this. I'm willing to accept that somehow, as impossible as it is, in the GFFA, that guardsman armor doesn't grossly restrict their vision and mobility. I will do this, if you will admit that, in reality, it's a ridiculous design that does inhibit vision and movement to a deadly degree. I have no problem saying: "It's just Star Wars" as an explaination for stuff that wouldn't work in reality.

If you're not willing to meet me in the middle on this, then perhaps you'd indulge me in a little experiment? Go to a sporting goods store and buy some football pads. Go to Home Depot and buy a 5 gallon bucket. Glue the bucket on top of the football pads. Cut a (small) vision slit in the bucket. Put that contraption on and have your buddies throw rocks at you and try to hit you with sticks. And then defend yourself. Oh, and remember to wear 10 lbs. worth of ankle-length robes at the same time.

Or, I guess you could go find one of those diving helmets and try that on to get a similar experience. And I'm not talking about the superlights. I'm talking about something like those old Dragerwerk models.

All of that is really nice, it really is, but it can be rewritten at a moment's notice. I wouldn't get too attached to that backstory.

I'm not denying that in the EU they're portrayed as pretty beastly. But again, what's in the EU conflicts with what we actually see on-screen. The thing that keeps killing me is that you keep telling me things like "they are more than a match for a single Jedi or Sith", but when they actually face a single Jedi, they're stomped. I get it. It's Yoda, but we have no additional evidence to go on. You're asking me to believe the EU, when there's canon evidence to the contrary. In the EU they may have been the bee's knees, but in Canon, they're portrayed as slightly above that of the average stormtrooper.

Which one do you want me to believe? EU or Canon? And why?

 

Exactly.

 

As we later see in the final season of Rebels, the guards appear without the robes and taser Ezra (a half baked Jedi) so that says something. I believe they would fight just as well as the Preatorian guards we saw in TLJ (robes and all). This is in the SW universe not in our reality, and in my SW universe (my reality) they are bad A$$ highly trained, some force sensitivity, loyal, lethal weapons of the Emperor. That is why they guard him.

 

Man this thread is 5 years old! Wait 6

 

I also balked at the age of this thread, lol. I never thought much of the Royal/Praetorian Guards or the Sovereign Protectors. They're probably just warriors who gained Palpatine's attention and trust to the point where he lets them inside his inner circle. No match for a fully trained Jedi. Ezra only survived his encounter with the Guard because he used the environment around him against them, not because he was a combatant of higher skill, which is a very Jedi thing to do by the way.