Would the PT have been too violent if battle droids weren't used?

That's why it's referred to as "stylized violence". If Lucas gave a true depiction of violence, it would be hard for Lucas's target audience (8th grade according to Lucas) to stomach. Lucas is trying to present an imitation of real life; not real life itself. That's why our hero's and bad guys never have to use the restroom.

 

I'm very well aware of Star Wars containing a great deal of stylized violence, and I have no problem with it. I think it's fun.

The thing I see though is this notion that the Prequels "had" to be done the way they were, and there's no real reason why. Some say they wouldn't be able to use their lightsabers against humanoid opponents because it would be "intense," but that it would suddenly become "boring" and "repetitive" to have humanoid opponents killed in a non-realistic fashion. The six movies were fine with stylized gunshot wounds, but it would suddenly become boring and repetitive if the same approach were taken to three movies?

There was no need for there to be a droid army, in my view.

 

Using chic-words like 'Stylized Violence' makes NO SENSE to me. Because it encourages a view that there is a casual if not causal disconnect between 'some kinds' of violence and the 'real thing' as portrayed by death and brutal injury onscreen. And that is something that should never happen. For /destroying/ need ALWAYS has to be treated with respect and avoided with all due restraint when there is any other option.

And thus phrases like 'Aggressive Negotiations' should be utterly alien to a Jedi.

When you talk, you talk. When you kill, you do so with such OVERWHELMING competence that there is never any question that the fight is already over. So that the survivors can learn better than to try-try again.

If there were more human on human interactions (whereby you cared for the poor schmuck looking for an edge as a reason to fight and smiling inside as the Jedi /tried/ to defuse him from suicide) this might be something that could be brought more to the fore.

Having said that, there are numerous mistakes inherent to the droid soldiers.

1. If you can make two robots every four seconds on two separate lines in a single factory and wish to compare this with Clones who take upwards of 10 years to grow, the numeric differential just gets to be ENORMOUS. While the logistics actually favor the larger bot force over the smaller humanoid one for both 'interchangeable spare parts', 'fuel' and _training time_ to retain competency.
2. If those droids weighed on the order of 300-400lbs, you couldn't 'kick' one down. And in running towards a group of them coming the other way, their inertia would crush you at lightsaber distances.
3. A droid which CAN carry roughly twice a human's naked weight will have a better chance on the battlefield, simply because their thickness of armor etc. will be greater for any given equivalency of movement.
4. As Grievious shows, their is no need for a droid to be anything less than fully agile which means, as a Jedi leaps, so does a droid follow (the key to the AOTC arena scene was to use vertical disengagement to get off the killing zone, something which all Jedi areseemingly able to Force Leap do).
5. It doesn't match up in terms of displayed technology. While I've never been all that fond of R2D2 and Threepio as characters, it is their ambulatory modes which makes them particularly hard to accept in their designated roles. Yet here you have even more 'scare crow' level droids actually able to immitate human motion more closely than a supposed human protocol and must-go-where-man-does repair droid can? No, pure SOD killer that is.

Given that we had terrible fights in LOTR with arrows through eyes and skulls, swords completel through chest cavities, MASSIVE battles between humanoids both within Mordor and at Helms Deep. And that a lot of these in fact mimicked earlier OT setups with 'lets cook a stormtrooper!' implied cannibalism and of course multiple light saber duels ending with lopped-off whatever; it just doesn't seem to hold up as either a ratings tactic or one which would appeal to a generation raised on Grand Theft Auto and Doom among many others.

ARGUMENT:
My preference would have been for VASTLY more _Force Related_ combats. So that you saw how powerful this tremendous gift did indeed make the Jedi who wielded it wisely. 'Go To Sleep'. Ka-thunk. Sniper flies 30ft up in the air as his bullet stops 'inches away'. Sneaky-Jedi walks at a 'funny angle' to the camera. Until you SEE that he is sneaking past sentries and automated alarms by virtue of altering gravity to 'be not' where the fight is.

Go ahead and keep various security forces. Even full on planetary armies if you like. And let the Jedi act as SOF 'advisors' that all these ultra tough warriors respect most humbly because it is a KNOWN FACT (little commented on but oh so 'universally accepted') that the reason the Jedi are such 'nice guys' is because they _don't have to but raise an eyebrow_ to lay flat entire platoons of conventional soldiers.

Make the Jedi _AT ONE WITH THE FORCE_ and

 

Well, Anakin's a Jedi who is being tainted by a Sith.

Why should we care about some footsoldiers or Stormtrooper? They're cannon fodder. Pure and simple.

I doubt your average Battle Droid weighted anything more than a hundred pounds. Not that Jedi only kick the Backtoid Battle Droid and not the others.

Well, their armor is not thick. Hence they get shot up or have blaster bolts deflected back to destroy them.

Grievous was a speciality unlike the others. He was designed to be the ultimate warrior, as opposed to the Battle Droids, which were basically cannon fodder.

Protocol Droids are built differently from Battle Droids. One is for diplomatic reasons, the other for infantry combat.

Huh?

 

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