1st Order stormtrooper guns look like cheap plastic toys,...

Might just be a bad image. Looks better here.



The design looks mostly the same except the newer one has the white coating on it.

The helmet looks better on the older Stormtroopers though but the armour does look more like cheap plastic compared to the newer one. Which it would in reality I suppose.

Well it doesn't matter what you might think they look like because that's the model and it's not made out of cheap plastic.

A lot of thinks they look like cheap plastic in these movies because they were.

Plastic props can look realistic as well. I was listening to the audio commentary of Conan the Barbarian and director John Milius was saying that almost all of the helmets and swords were plastic. IIRC he said it during the scene where Thulsa Doom removes his helmet and gives it to his henchman. The props sure didn’t look cheap in that film.

And sometimes props do appear to be obviously plastic. One offender is the Power Rangers tv series. All their weapons and gadgets look like plastic.

Anyway I guess that one possible reason to make the firearms other than black could be for the benefit of merchandising. Many jurisdictions disallow the sale of black guns as toys. Maybe it’s a good compromise. Black SW toy guns are only sold if they are brightly coloured in shops.