You know, what really puzzles me is the mentality that everything not OT is just to make money, but OT products are somehow more. Like the original trilogy is akin to some kind of "spiritual codex" and thus above the concepts of economy. Star wars is not some kind of life blueprint or existential codex, it's a money making venture. That it brings joy to people, great. That people can identify with it is awesome. But at the end of the day, the OT, the PT, and every licensed and marketable object derived thereof exists to make people money. So why is the PT and EU considered some kind of base corporate vehicle for greed and the OT is somehow above that? Very puzzling.
It's really that the OT had some consistency with reality, in terms of military dress. There's relatively little variation, aside from actual camouflage, in real world military uniforms. That's consistent with the OT approach to thing. Stormtroopers have a basic look. Scout troopers are modified slightly for greater mobility and riding bikes. Any changes to uniforms, aside from a rank insignia on an officer (either side), were directly related to the functionality and/or designation of a position held within that military. It's simple, quasi-realistic (yeah, I know, it's a movie) and not blatantly directed at marketing.
AOTC had clones with rank designations according to their colors. Those colors were relatively few: red, yellow, green, blue (that's all I recall) and their degree of occurrence was again relative to what you'd see in a realistic military setup - coloration differences only really designating rank and the colors were at worst, uncommon. Completely livable situation.
Enter the ROTS version and all of a sudden everybody has a color scheme and now rank designations are different variations of that same color scheme. Oh yeah, that's practical and realistic. A militaristic organization isn't likely to spend a boatload of timing prettying up it's grunts. They're fodder, more or less, and that's about it. Presumably clones, like regular soldiers, are relatively intelligent enough to realize what unit they're in without looking at their uniform and going
oh yeah, I'm in the 501st. Cool.
It has nothing to do with any great existentialist philosophy or anything remotely spiritual. It's staying true to the movie that was originally made and we all fell in love with. That's all. But everyone saying things are coming or changing is absolutely right. Lucas has made no bones about it at all, revising all sorts of things along the way. They are his films. But that doesn't mean we can't comment on the obviousness of the cash grab or the revisionist approach to history, does it? Just because I don't march in lockstep with everything Hasbro does or Lucas devises doesn't mean I should abandon the hobby, does it? We all get the economics of the situation but there's ample fodder there to make money with, we've proved that for them time and again. Hell, all they have to do is change the packaging and no new tooling or paint is required for 90% of the figures to move off the pegs.
Why is EU/PT considered a vehicle for greed? It's not obvious? Back in the old days, OT times if you will, they didn't realize nor could they practically accomplish painting everything a different color and that would generate way, way more money. Action figures were 12" scale to be successful or 8" scale to fail for the most part. No one back then would buy multiple figures for the most part. So what was the point of making multiple paint versions? Geez, the original 12" GI Joe figures were hard pressed to have half a dozen variations in what was the most successful action figure line of the preceding decade. Times changed, people are a lot less debt averse and production costs are a fraction of what they were, so multiples are easy to do, especially if you use CGI to create those variations in the first place. All of a sudden you can and will do so because economically you'd be nuts not to. But that doesn't mean we have to like it.
Hey, I buy most of the PT clones. I'm ok with that in spite of the obviousness of the marketing because for the most part they were in the movie. As Jesse J said, if it's FU stuff, then it's no different than PT and so be it. My only issue is not that they're doing it for money, it's my fear that they won't stop at FU, they'll just continue on and Turner-ize the original movies by coloring up all the Imperials. And what would be the point of that aside from greed? It's no longer about a story and a movie and the artistic enjoyment that brought us all joy. Now it's about the almighty dollar. That's problematic to me. That's about all. Not everyone agrees. So be it.