Hello everyone! Wow, what a welcome! I have to say, so far in my journeys this the most active Detachment forum I've come across. Very good! For those of you wanting to thank me - you're quite welcome, but 99.9% of the hard work for this club has been done by YOU the members in picking up the challenge and making excellent units worldwide. It is YOU carrying the torch into places where Star Wars fans are starving for the magic. And the DL's do the hard work of making these units shine - everyone loves the MEPD!
Point of clarification about my initial post - some detachment leaders took issue with my bringing up the Armored Detachment as an example of how far detachments have come. I should have been more specific - my experience was in the early humble days of that detachment when Zippy was proposing it and I'm happy to see it's come as far as it has. Obviously ALL the detachments have done a great job as evidenced by the enormous resources and membership rosters filling out each one. So please forgive me if there was a perceived slight - it was not intentional. I'm here to talk about your group and what you've done and what you need.
About the special edition sandtroopers - I assume you mean the ones shown in the re-releases? I think they served the purpose of pumping up the excitement level of the story but that's like everything else that went into the movies - more polish, which didn't always fit the older look of the original print. I mean the original sandtroopers were the FIRST model of armor, to be modified and added to for the shiny-whitey guys later (appearing, ironically, earlier in the film). So as the trail-blazers, they could be forgiven for missing the buttons, the over-the-shoulder straps, the stripes, etc. I am personally fine with either the original on-screen or the new edition versions of the sandtroopers. It bugged me seeing the CG guys in certain scenes, but truth be told it's only because I grew up with the original that I even notice them. Nowadays I don't notice at all, really. So like any thing else from the re-release of ANH (with the exception of Han shooting second) I'm okay with them.
I hope that was what the question was aiming for, or were you looking for something a bit more technical in nature? Let me know so I don't go on and on in the wrong direction.