AlphaChaos13

Hi everyone,
 
Here's to hoping Greene or someone can wrangle a back view of this costume out of LFL. 
 
Bob asked about our process decrying a lack of transparency. There isn't much to it. If we're not already involved on the respective detachment forums, we'll get word from a detachment about a possible inclusion (usually via lmo@501st.com) of a new to the legion costume, we discuss it in the LMO area on the legion forums, and we vote on it. 
 
One improvement we intend to make (as suggested by Rikki today) is to put a time limit on the vote and discussion. It'll be a 7 day period to ensure the detachment isn't waiting on us. 
 
In past years the decision was made unilaterally, usually with input from the team, by the lead LMO. Last year Nathan instituted an all LMO vote for such things which Kris and I continued on. Going even further back in history the LMO made all the decisions with zero transparency often just authoring CRLs himself (when I was DL of FISD the LMO dropped the jes gistang CRL on me without even consulting with the detachment). 
 
I cannot speak for past LMOs, but personally having been around the LMO block a few times, I've been very consistent in requiring front, back and side references. This time the entire team agreed. I have and will continue to apply this standard, even to comics, trading cards, and other non-screen references too. 
 
What’s a little ironic is that you can find threads on the legion forum accusing me of not believing in accuracy. I often take a much softer stance on the need to put every single detail with measurements in our requirements. The Greedo CRL being my very favorite of all of them. Here we are being lambasted on social media and the forums by a campaign against our desire for accuracy. 
 
I do feel terrible for the costumer who made the Sith Eternal Officer. I harbor no small amount of guilt for our decision even if I think it is the right one. 
 
If you look back on the history of new to the legion costumes you will find wild inconsistencies having to do with whatever LMO team was ratified that year. Precedence is often thrown out the window year to year when there is a change in LMO. That is the nature of the LMO office. You'll find this is true with your GCOs too. 
 
The system where the LMO decides if a costume is acceptable for inclusion in the 501st was created when the legion was smaller, and then radically updated by Anderson along the way in 2016. Given our growth, if you feel that there may be a better process I invite you to contact your GCO or DL (both of your reps have access to council) to propose an amendment to the operating protocols. 
 
The question becomes... How do we move forward?
 
My suggestion is to start a thread of all the potential new to the legion costumes or major edits to existing ones and start discussing them as early as possible. I'm happy to start it. I'd prefer a collaboration from the get go to avoid where we are now with this costume. 
 
I totally understand the anger and frustration. It's a crappy situation. Let’s work together to avoid it in the future. 
 
Thank you,
 
—Eric

Commenting on this long debate without sounding “judgy” is going to be a real challenge, but I’m going to try and help.

Here is some knowledge I’ll drop. If everyone knows this already, then please disregard but the latest talk about LFL leaves me thinking it may not be common knowledge.

Every single costume used in SW starting with ANH has undergone “continuity reference”. They are front, back and side photos that help the costume department maintain continuity whenever they have reshoots or costume variants (like for the stunt crew). There are some exceptions like for stand ins, but you can assume any primary costume has had these photos taken. This bit probably isn’t knowledge.

Next is that LFL has a “photo archive”. It houses all these images taken starting in 1977 and the assets came along with the sale to Disney. It is owned by LFL / Disney and is available to most of the LFL employees. These photos typically are NOT available to the public but may be viewed, if you know the right person to ask.

Part of my journey as the SLD-DL was to build relationships with folks at LFL over the years. As such, I’ve been able to request and review reference material from time to time (including the photo archive). It’s been enormously helpful, as you can imagine in answering some of these questions like the one you’re all struggling with. Especially older costumes that haven’t physically survived time and never were displayed at museum events and the like.

So how does the IOC gain access to such reference material when they have a bugaboo like this? My first suggestion is to NOT start tweeting about it or even inferring you’re entitled to know. This takes a soft hand, a diplomatic approach and a humble attitude when you find the right people to ask. Remember, they (at LFL) all have signed NDAs and sharing this type of intel isn’t always the smartest career move. Your DL should be looking for these inroads (if he hasn’t already) and trying to build bridges. Most LMOs have made some of these connection or know other folks in 501st leadership that can help. Christ, I had the legion set me up for a 1.5 hour interview with Brian Muir last week! They can move mountains for you - when you are humble and collaborate. However they aren’t “required” to do more for the detachment than they already have.


Maybe try a softer approach.

This is quite the conundrum, however I agree with the LMO team on this one. I'm getting a kick out of people saying certain LMO's don't understand these costumes, they do. From what I've seen, most of these LMO's have worked on far more complex costumes. At the end of the day, it's just looking at photos and writing details into a CRL; they understand these costumes. 
 
I've been following this build since it started. While staff may have never been notified about the decision that this wasn't going to be a CRL, we should have seen it coming. We knew early on that we lacked reference photos. Stephanie and others have done a terrific job, but surely they knew the risk of this not becoming a CRL due to lack of reference. Silver lining, they have an awesome costume they can wear to cons now! We have the same issue with the Solo Navy trooper and grey ANH officer, very little refences, yet people are working on a CRL, someone should warn them it may not happen. I think as a group we need to start tempering our expectations, just because its on screen for a few shots doesn't mean it will become a CRL, we need more references! The 501st is a club that follows strict standards, its our claim to fame. We have to follow the references to uphold our reputation, or we risk tarnishing it.
 
One argument I've been seeing is we should put out what we have and if we get new photos, we'll update the CRL; that's a slippery slope. If we start publishing half baked CRLs, the standards will keep dropping for every CRL after.
 
That's just my two cents.

Having full reference images of the back of a costume has always been a requirement, so I would have been surprised if this had been put through. Yes it sucks, but these rules are the basis upon which the 501st has been built as the premeire Star Wars costume club. I have seen characters from the original trilogy who were denied because of this, only to have an obscure behind-the-scenes reference photo be tracked down decades after the movie was released! Accuracy is what we are built on, and you can't have accuracy without references. I realize that people will be disappointed by this, especially the person who put the costume together. That said, it isn't right to take it out on the LMOs. They are following the rules.  

I can't speak to that, but if what you say is accurate, to me it is a "two wrongs don't make a right" situation. Pointing out other mistakes or errors in judgement should not be a platform to try to push through another one. That should be repaired rather than considered an acceptable precedent. 

Bob, Kalani et al,
 
Apologies for how long this has taken. I'm the only person to blame for that.
 
At this time this costume does not have enough references to be included in the 501st's roster. Specifically the back view is lacking.
 
Every LMO team has had to make this same determination for an uncountable number of costumes. It is not one that has ever been taken lightly. Our goal is for members to build the most accurate costumes possible. Having a clear view of front, back and sides of the screen used costume is one of the 501st's core tenets.
 
This is the second time around for this costume. Last year's LMO team came to the same conclusion. Sadly this was never documented since it allegedly occurred in an ephemeral Facebook chat. 
 
If I had to make a wild guess maybe development of this CRL continued after the previous team's ruling on this costume? I can't say because that was then this is now. It was a different LMO team and a different IOC command staff.
 
 
 
The comment was more about future costumes than this. The Sith Eternal Office ended up being a kerfuffle for sure and I'm hoping to prevent such things moving forward. 
 
I alluded to this in my previous post, but it is imperative that detachments reach out to the LMO team before CRL development, and certainly before a member decides to build a costume. We receive emails and messages from detachments asking this question on a regular basis. 
 
Some of the onus is on the LMO team to keep up with the ongoings on this forum. I intend to fix that part of it personally. What we want to prevent is detachments merely throwing a CRL over the wall at us for approval. My preference is for the LMO team to be involved in (or at a minimum aware of) the development of a new CRL. 
 
I intend to follow this forum and keep up with the goings on here on a regular basis. Along with the detachment leadership communicating with us as soon as about possible new CRLs I believe we can prevent what happened here in the future. 
 
In the coming days I'll look through these threads and attempt to compile a post with an up to date list of new CRLs or amendments to current ones. Then we can work the list together from there. 
 
Thanks again for your patience,
 
-Eric

 

Because the belt moves a lot (or isn't worn properly in the first place, quite common, sadly), including on the on screen officers, which is how that seam was spotted.
 
Higher level approvals mean you are more closely meeting the screen accurate standard, which is why it's only required for higher level approvals, leaving general approval more accessible to all.
 
It's a real shame Anovos screwed that detail up, when they did so much else right with that uniform.  But every other vendor makes them properly, even the bargain basement ones, so making an exception for one vendor isn't fair, no matter how much they charge.

I was just reading through this thread & wondering the same.

Is there references that show what the back looks like? Idk if there's enough information to extrapolate what the back of it is supposed to be.

I just had my first troop as Tarkin at the Lego Brickfest in Oaks, PA. on 501st Day (May 1st).

...if I could only find those stolen Death Star plans!...

I'm not sure that his broad shoulders should be a consideration. Just as we can have a 5.5 foot tall Vader or an overweight TK, a scrawny Kallus should also be acceptable. If the costumer wants to pad their shoulders, more power to them, but I don't think it should be required.  

I decided to throw on the IC & go out to greet the trick-or-treaters. Due to the October chill, I decided to add my IG leather jacket to it to keep warm. Those who know me will attest that I am normally very much against non-canon costume embellishments. I kind of liked this look, though! A few people thought I was a cop out there patrolling the neighborhood! haha 
 

I get that they are using the sales to fund the fabrication.  I dont particularly agree with that business model, but I can understand it.  But it doesn't take a year to take your wad of money and hand it over to the factory and say "here you go, start making stuff."  The fact that items still haven't been delivered after a year tells me that somewhere along the line there was a break down.  Either they didn't have their production lines set up prior to even offering the items up for sale, or something went wrong during the fabrication stage. 

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