Since the bandwagon for this has appeared...

[Captain Cadaver]

It's difficult to say. I don't actually think the direction Toriyama took the protagonist focus back to Goku during the Boo Arc was bad, considering it wasn't really a case of Goku saves the day when fusion and then a whole team effort were needed for him to help bring things back against Boo and having Gohan take the role would have just been a repeat of the Cell Arc's message rather than adding anything new. Someone as reactive and passive as Gohan also wouldn't be the best person to take the lead on a series in which the core ideal is continuing to break limits and reach new heights, so putting the focus more on Goten and Trunks would make more sense if the next generation had to be the leading roles. Overall, I'd probably say a Gohan-centric story could work for a sequel or side story, but it'd be too inconsistent ideologically and tonally with the rest of the manga had it been the case for the majority of the Boo Arc.

 

[GreatSaiyaman123]

Thoughts on the Godfather trilogy?

 

[Captain Cadaver]

The Godfather is a good film with its display of what'd become iconic staples of the mafia in pop culture, good acting and some interesting choices in direction such as how the christening juxtaposes with the mafia hit going on around the same time. Its far from the perfect film many hail it as though, with Vito surviving those multiple gunshots being very much plot armour and the scenes with Michael in Italy could've been heavily reduced in order to aid the pacing. The romantic image of the mafia is also a double edged sword, adding to the film's stylistic charm, yet also underselling the society's true nature.
Godfather II is significantly inferior to the first. The flashbacks of Vito's past where highly unnecessary to the plot of the film and dragged down the pacing tremendously. The plot line and development of Michael's struggles with his change to those around him as well as in handling Fredo's betrayal were done well, but not in an outstanding way when many other mafia or gangster films/series have done those elements far better, in particular Scarface handling a descent of its protagonist better and The Sopranos Season 2 having a far more fleshed out confrontation with betrayal.
Godfather III was entirely unnecessary, with a plot that adds little of interest for over the first hour, Sofia Copolla being highly miscast as Mary and, like Part II, is simply vastly inferior to the works that took inspiration and improved on its ideas.

Godfather - 7.5/10
Godfather Part II - 6/10
Godfather Part III - 4/10

Ultimately, the main reason the trilogy has endured comes more from its acting and direction than its plot and characters and is very much dated when many films have done its elements with far greater depth; Goodfellas has a greater sense of characterisation, immersion and tension, Scarface (not a mafia film, but a gangster one worth talking about) has a far better handling of the rise and fall that comes with power, The Irishman handles the fading away of one's glory days infinitely better than GF III and, when including series, The Sopranos does practically everything better than any other entry in this crime sub-genre. Overall, the biggest reason to watch the trilogy nowadays is less so for their quality and more so for realising the subtleties behind certain references within The Sopranos.

 

[Ultimate Cell]

Breaking Bad or the Sorpranos which is better in your opinion?

 

[Keedounan]

Breaking Bad or the Sorpranos which is better in your opinion?

I recall him saying The Sopranos is better due to being a far better executed deconstruction of the criminal lifestyle, though he did still put Breaking Bad at a 8 out of 10 (far better than ThatAnimeSnob gave it credits for).

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Breaking Bad or the Sorpranos which is better in your opinion?

The Sopranos is significantly better as a whole due to greater consistency, since the PIS of Marco toying with Hank in Season 3 as well as several elements of Season 5 being inconsistent with the rest of the series (Walt leaving damning evidence out in the open despite his meticulous nature, the one-dimensionally evil nature of Jack's crew clashing with the rest of the series' exploration of morality, etc.) as well as Skyler's inconsistent nature throughout all but Season 5 cause Breaking Bad's quality to be significantly less consistent in its writing. That's not to say every aspect of Breaking Bad is inferior though, since "Ozymandias" is easily on the level of any of The Sopranos' best episodes and Gus Fring is a better villain than any of the antagonists in The Sopranos, being a strong contender when discussing best fictional villains in general.

 

[GreatSaiyaman123]

The Godfather is a good film with its display of what'd become iconic staples of the mafia in pop culture, good acting and some interesting choices in direction such as how the christening juxtaposes with the mafia hit going on around the same time. Its far from the perfect film many hail it as though, with Vito surviving those multiple gunshots being very much plot armour and the scenes with Michael in Italy could've been heavily reduced in order to aid the pacing. The romantic image of the mafia is also a double edged sword, adding to the film's stylistic charm, yet also underselling the society's true nature.
Godfather II is significantly inferior to the first. The flashbacks of Vito's past where highly unnecessary to the plot of the film and dragged down the pacing tremendously. The plot line and development of Michael's struggles with his change to those around him as well as in handling Fredo's betrayal were done well, but not in an outstanding way when many other mafia or gangster films/series have done those elements far better, in particular Scarface handling a descent of its protagonist better and The Sopranos Season 2 having a far more fleshed out confrontation with betrayal.
Godfather III was entirely unnecessary, with a plot that adds little of interest for over the first hour, Sofia Copolla being highly miscast as Mary and, like Part II, is simply vastly inferior to the works that took inspiration and improved on its ideas.

Godfather - 7.5/10
Godfather Part II - 6/10
Godfather Part III - 4/10

Ultimately, the main reason the trilogy has endured comes more from its acting and direction than its plot and characters and is very much dated when many films have done its elements with far greater depth; Goodfellas has a greater sense of characterisation, immersion and tension, Scarface (not a mafia film, but a gangster one worth talking about) has a far better handling of the rise and fall that comes with power, The Irishman handles the fading away of one's glory days infinitely better than GF III and, when including series, The Sopranos does practically everything better than any other entry in this crime sub-genre. Overall, the biggest reason to watch the trilogy nowadays is less so for their quality and more so for realising the subtleties behind certain references within The Sopranos.

Yeah, I think the biggest issue with these movies was the pacing. They really didn't need to be 3 hours long, and it feels like Copolla just dragged it as much as it could to make it feel epic and operatic. This becomes clear when there's a big screen saying "INTERMISSION" in Part Ii.

Part II has a interesting format being both a sequel and a prequel, but the parallels indeed didn't quite land. It ends up being just a waste of Robert DeNiro, who could have caried an entire prequel on his own. It bothers me the movie wasn't bookeneded with the conclusion of Vito's story, but it's hard to think of a better ending than the dinner flashback.

I also think the movie may have packed more punch if Clemenza (The fat capo from Part I, who appears as young Vito's friend in II) had been in it instead of Pentageli, though the later manages to be compeling character on his own.

I didn't manage to watch Part III before it left Netflix, but knowing Tom Hagen isn't in it is enough reason for me not to.

 

[Fantastische Hure]

i heard this some-time ago, wot do u think of this music (if u can & want to say)?:

Spoiler

[youtube]3F35HpMRhMI[/youtube]

& also the instrumental (if u can & want to say)?

Spoiler

[youtube]dOMDhbahMgI[/youtube]

 

[Captain Cadaver]

[mention]Fantastische Hure[/mention] Space Cobra's ED is a pretty good one, especially in how its influences from a lot of both English, American and French songs in its instruments and tone does a good job in showing the series' inspirations (Cobra being physically inspired by Jean-Paul Belmondo, the setting being in many ways a mix of James Bond, Star Wars and We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, etc.). The instrumental has more versatility in being applicable to more tones when used, since the vocal version is more suited only for a calm atmosphere. I'm not sure if it'd rank amongst my favourite ending themes for 80s anime, though that's mainly because the 80s were very much a golden era for anime music as a whole only really matched by the 90s.

 

[Papasmurf]

Do you think DIO's main body powered up as a result of unlocking The World, or from the training he did afterwards? Because going by his Part 1 feats there's no way he should be able to deflect the Emerald Splash with his his hand when Kakyoin was capable of injuring Star Platinum in his first appearance. It doesn't seem like he was channeling The World's power through his hand or anything either.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

That'd be inconsistent with the whole idea of him needing to gain the full strength and control of Jonathan's by absorbing Joestar blood (and Jonathan's body was in general weaker than Dio's aside from his strongest burst of Hamon). I wouldn't say the Emerald Splash feat is inconsistent with this when it seems very apparent Star Platinum got far stronger throughout the journey given its developmental potential and some allusions to the time stop reveal becoming more apparent during the events in Egypt and SP's early strength feats aren't solidly superior to the feats and scaling of Part 1 Dio.

 

[Papasmurf]

Jonathan's body was clearly vampified through its (incomplete) fusion with Dio's head though, seeing as it was able to regenerate from a hole to the stomach and reattach limbs and such. It was also stated that becoming a vampire unlocks a human's latent capabilities (and seemingly to a greater extent than regular Hamon training, seeing as Part 1 Dio was 5x stronger than Zeppeli and pre-Shonen power transfer Jonathan combined). That, and Star Platinum even earlier in the journey was ranked as an A-power Stand (which makes it naturally leagues above Giorno's GE [a C-power stand) which could destroy multiple cars with ease). Meaning, even early Star Platinum was on Killer Queen's power level (another A-power Stand) or possibly higher, with greater speed to boot.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

It was also stated that becoming a vampire unlocks a human's latent capabilities (and seemingly to a greater extent than regular Hamon training, seeing as Part 1 Dio was 5x stronger than Zeppeli and pre-Shonen power transfer Jonathan combined).

It doesn't seem to stack on top of the potential their bodies are capable of without it though, considering Straizo wasn't suggested to be vastly stronger than his prime Hamon self beyond the addition of new techniques.

That, and Star Platinum even earlier in the journey was ranked as an A-power Stand (which makes it naturally leagues above Giorno's GE [a C-power stand) which could destroy multiple cars with ease). Meaning, even early Star Platinum was on Killer Queen's power level (another A-power Stand) or possibly higher, with greater speed to boot.

The power of A-Class Stands is pretty broad once surpassing the borderline for it though, such as Kiss being ranked at A (with no indication it was purely from the aftermath of its ability) or Stone Free who's best destructive feat was Building level. By comparison, that and scaling from GE still aren't that impressive compared to Tarkus casually demolishing a portion of a hill (who is in turn physically inferior to Dio via scaling).

 

[Papasmurf]

It was also stated that becoming a vampire unlocks a human's latent capabilities (and seemingly to a greater extent than regular Hamon training, seeing as Part 1 Dio was 5x stronger than Zeppeli and pre-Shonen power transfer Jonathan combined).

It doesn't seem to stack on top of the potential their bodies are capable of without it though, considering Straizo wasn't suggested to be vastly stronger than his prime Hamon self beyond the addition of new techniques.

Fresh Straizo didn't really have much of a chance to show too many feats though since Joseph blew up his body with the grenades like 20 seconds into their fight. Plus, Straizo clearly hadn't trained too much to master his new vampiric abilities seeing as he couldn't perform Dio's vaporization freezing attack, only the space ripper stingy eyes (which seems to be fairly impractical, seeing as Dio only resorted to it after being fatally wounded or beheaded and lacking any other attack option).

That, and Star Platinum even earlier in the journey was ranked as an A-power Stand (which makes it naturally leagues above Giorno's GE [a C-power stand) which could destroy multiple cars with ease). Meaning, even early Star Platinum was on Killer Queen's power level (another A-power Stand) or possibly higher, with greater speed to boot.

The power of A-Class Stands is pretty broad once surpassing the borderline for it though, such as Kiss being ranked at A (with no indication it was purely from the aftermath of its ability) or Stone Free who's best destructive feat was Building level. By comparison, that and scaling from GE still aren't that impressive compared to Tarkus casually demolishing a portion of a hill (who is in turn physically inferior to Dio via scaling).

Both the World and SP are noted to be Stands that are specifically designed to lack a secondary ability but make up for it in extreme degrees of precision, speed and strength. By comparison, other A-ranked Stands like Kiss and zipper man Sticky Fingers are suggested to be on the extreme lower end of the A-rank spectrum, as was D4C due to having a special ability on top of great strength (whereas The World/SPTW's timestop is just a byproduct of FTL speed according to Part 6).

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Fresh Straizo didn't really have much of a chance to show too many feats though since Joseph blew up his body with the grenades like 20 seconds into their fight. Plus, Straizo clearly hadn't trained too much to master his new vampiric abilities seeing as he couldn't perform Dio's vaporization freezing attack, only the space ripper stingy eyes (which seems to be fairly impractical, seeing as Dio only resorted to it after being fatally wounded or beheaded and lacking any other attack option).

He still didn't show a drastic increase from it alone though. Similarly, Dio spent more time developing his Stand than his vampiric strength after having 100+ years in hibernation and likely wouldn't have had a chance to drain as many victims when making a cautious effort to hide compared to his reckless destruction in Part 1. It's important t remember the Dio you initially compared to Jonathan and Zepelli was after having drained a significant amount of people, whereas his initial vampiric self mainly had scaling from the fodder vampire to judge his power and could still be physically pushed back by a peak human like Jonathan via tactics.

Both the World and SP are noted to be Stands that are specifically designed to lack a secondary ability but make up for it in extreme degrees of precision, speed and strength. By comparison, other A-ranked Stands like Kiss and zipper man Sticky Fingers are suggested to be on the extreme lower end of the A-rank spectrum, as was D4C due to having a special ability on top of great strength (whereas The World/SPTW's timestop is just a byproduct of FTL speed according to Part 6).

The bolded part essentially proves SP's abilities increased significantly between the start of the journey and the Egypt Arc, since the Stand's extreme speed clearly wasn't on par with The World's timestop in the early chapters (comparing their two bullet timing feats) and it wasn't until the D'arby poker game that Jotaro displayed solid hints of having progressed it close to developing a time stop. Moreover, the guidebook statement of Star Finger and how it wasn't used after Strength due to the greater intensity and speed of the later foes points towards such progression as an increase in difficulty would certainly push Jotaro to developing his Stand's capabilities further.

 

[Papasmurf]

Fresh Straizo didn't really have much of a chance to show too many feats though since Joseph blew up his body with the grenades like 20 seconds into their fight. Plus, Straizo clearly hadn't trained too much to master his new vampiric abilities seeing as he couldn't perform Dio's vaporization freezing attack, only the space ripper stingy eyes (which seems to be fairly impractical, seeing as Dio only resorted to it after being fatally wounded or beheaded and lacking any other attack option).

He still didn't show a drastic increase from it alone though. Similarly, Dio spent more time developing his Stand than his vampiric strength after having 100+ years in hibernation and likely wouldn't have had a chance to drain as many victims when making a cautious effort to hide compared to his reckless destruction in Part 1. It's important t remember the Dio you initially compared to Jonathan and Zepelli was after having drained a significant amount of people, whereas his initial vampiric self mainly had scaling from the fodder vampire to judge his power and could still be physically pushed back by a peak human like Jonathan via tactics.

Dio's mansion was littered with fresh bodies of women (which he noted to be effective in healing) in several of the glimpses we saw of his shadowed self throughout Part 3, especially in the Hol Horse chapter where he scared him shitless with the Timestop. He also mentioned to Ice that he's drained enough people that he thought draining one more person may be enough to complete the neck transplant. That, and the fact that he was still making vampiric minions like Nukesaku (more likely zombies, but I doubt Araki cared too much for the distinction, with his memory ), and it'd been like 4 years since he was freed from the coffin. Even if he wasn't straight up trying to take over the world with his zombie army anymore (for whatever reason), he was clearly still callous about human life (except maybe when it came to big gay Pucci) and wasn't above draining tons of innocents to heal himself.

It's also worth noting that we'd already seen several vampires in Part 1 (which makes devoting several pages to fresh Straizo's feats redundant), and even after putting himself back together from the grenade blast Straizo's (fatigued) physical ability was far above the freshly vamp'd Dio from the mansion and above "peak humans" without Hamon. Straizo most likely gained a reasonably large physical boost from becoming a vampire, seeing as Will Zeppeli explained in Part 1 that both vampires (and by extension Pillar Men) and Hamon users used the same power, the power of oxygen in the blood, and vampires obviously have a much larger supply of it than Hamon users, but were weak to the effect of sunlight duplicated by Hamon because it was like forcing the same powers to clash. Even while injured, Straizo's physical abilities were more than likely considerably above Joseph's, he just couldn't risk touching him because he lost his Hamon conducting muffler. Straizo in general just seemed to be in a class of his own compared to the fodder vampires in Kars' army.

Both the World and SP are noted to be Stands that are specifically designed to lack a secondary ability but make up for it in extreme degrees of precision, speed and strength. By comparison, other A-ranked Stands like Kiss and zipper man Sticky Fingers are suggested to be on the extreme lower end of the A-rank spectrum, as was D4C due to having a special ability on top of great strength (whereas The World/SPTW's timestop is just a byproduct of FTL speed according to Part 6).

The bolded part essentially proves SP's abilities increased significantly between the start of the journey and the Egypt Arc, since the Stand's extreme speed clearly wasn't on par with The World's timestop in the early chapters (comparing their two bullet timing feats) and it wasn't until the D'arby poker game that Jotaro displayed solid hints of having progressed it close to developing a time stop. Moreover, the guidebook statement of Star Finger and how it wasn't used after Strength due to the greater intensity and speed of the later foes points towards such progression as an increase in difficulty would certainly push Jotaro to developing his Stand's capabilities further.

I do genuinely believe that SP's abilities did increase, seeing as other Stands like Stone Free show good development potential. But it just doesn't seem nearly as pronounced as the progression of Stands like Echoes or Tusk, whether I'm taking into account the fact that those Stands gained new forms or not. With how SP was shown to casually bust holes in Dio's gut and smash his head, destroy his body from the leg up with a single punch and such, I'm not really sure I buy early Star Platinum being weaker than Part 1 (peak) Dio or some bullshit like that. It's also worth noting that SP's bullet timing feat was from back when SP hadn't even fully materialized yet and was only manifesting itself to protect Jotaro, and even in its first usage it was stomping Blaziken Magician's Red despite Avdol having far, far more experience. And considering that Magician's Red was later shown to be capable of defeating Silver Chariot (which has A-ranked speed and extreme precision due to Polnareff's skill), I'm really dubious on the chain of something like later Star Platinum >>> Dio (w/o TW) >= early Star Platinum > Magician's Red > Silver Chariot making any sense. I guess if you tried to stretch it, you could argue Polnareff being under the control of Dio's mind controlling bud may have negatively affected his willpower and therefore his stand power, but then the same would apply twofold to Kakyoin and the Emerald Splash when Polnareff still retained his original personality while controlled while Kakyoin had completely become Dio's bitch even prior to the bud being implanted inside him.

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Dio's mansion was littered with fresh bodies of women (which he noted to be effective in healing) in several of the glimpses we saw of his shadowed self throughout Part 3, especially in the Hol Horse chapter where he scared him shitless with the Timestop. He also mentioned to Ice that he's drained enough people that he thought draining one more person may be enough to complete the neck transplant. That, and the fact that he was still making vampiric minions like Nukesaku (more likely zombies, but I doubt Araki cared too much for the distinction, with his memory ), and it'd been like 4 years since he was freed from the coffin. Even if he wasn't straight up trying to take over the world with his zombie army anymore (for whatever reason), he was clearly still callous about human life (except maybe when it came to big gay Pucci) and wasn't above draining tons of innocents to heal himself.

I wouldn't doubt Dio drained a significant amount of people, but how it compared to his Part 1 self is arguable when he was purposely keeping a low profile rather than wiping out whole villages.
Even assuming he managed to accumulate a similar amount of victims, boost being the same is very unlikely when it was shown his lack of complete control over Jonathan's body hindered his vampiric abilities such as his regeneration speed, logically meaning he'd still require more victims to reach the same level physically.

It's also worth noting that we'd already seen several vampires in Part 1 (which makes devoting several pages to fresh Straizo's feats redundant), and even after putting himself back together from the grenade blast Straizo's (fatigued) physical ability was far above the freshly vamp'd Dio from the mansion and above "peak humans" without Hamon. Straizo most likely gained a reasonably large physical boost from becoming a vampire, seeing as Will Zeppeli explained in Part 1 that both vampires (and by extension Pillar Men) and Hamon users used the same power, the power of oxygen in the blood, and vampires obviously have a much larger supply of it than Hamon users, but were weak to the effect of sunlight duplicated by Hamon because it was like forcing the same powers to clash. Even while injured, Straizo's physical abilities were more than likely considerably above Joseph's, he just couldn't risk touching him because he lost his Hamon conducting muffler. Straizo in general just seemed to be in a class of his own compared to the fodder vampires in Kars' army.

It was definitely a significant one considering what even fodder vampires could do. The thing is, it was still too underwhelming scaling-wise compared to the expert Hamon users of Part 1 (all of whom can easily oneshot the average vampire fodder that we're using as a benchmark for the transformation in general) for us to say Straizo was made any stronger than his prime self, or that Jonathan's body was brought back to its own prime self when considering the boost would be about as great as Dio's and he still required a lot of victims to reach his peak power in Part 1.

With how SP was shown to casually bust holes in Dio's gut and smash his head, destroy his body from the leg up with a single punch and such, I'm not really sure I buy early Star Platinum being weaker than Part 1 (peak) Dio or some bullshit like that.

Your initial question kind of traps us into things if taking it at face value, no? The idea SP didn't progress much whilst comparing how both fared against the Emerald Splash would suggest DIO > Initial SP physically, leading into the idea that either SP greatly improved throughout the journey or there's more to the comparison than it seems without writing it off as an inconsistency. For the latter and going back to answer the initial question, I'd say the explanation can be found in the mindset and approach of both fighters differing. Jotaro had no idea of Kakyoin's abilities at the time, whereas DIO had full intel on them, and DIO chose to instead flick one emerald to cause a domino effect rather than try combating them all physically (not to mention it was implied the 20m Emerald Splash would've at least severely damaged him if not for his time stop).

 

[Ultimate Cell]

Who would win part 1 vampire dio or Mecha Stroheim?

 

[Captain Cadaver]

Most likely Stroheim as long as he doesn't get overconfident. He was built to surpass Santana in physical strength (who should be stronger than Dio via the pecking order of Pillar Men >> Vampires) and his Ultraviolet eye cannon was made specifically to kill both Vampires and Pillar Men; with it bringing the battle to an abrupt end if he gets a direct hit through Dio's brain. Dio's vampiric abilities wouldn't be that useful here either, since he can't freeze much of Stroheim's bloodstream and even resorting to Space Ripper Stingy Eyes likely wouldn't land a fatal blow due to the cybernetics and its aim being unreliable if not done at quite close range. If this is Stroheim after the Speedwagon foundation further upgraded him for the final showdown with Kars, he oneshots since his new Ultraviolet Shoulder Cannons give him far more range to simply burn Dio with ease.

 

[Papasmurf]

Dio's mansion was littered with fresh bodies of women (which he noted to be effective in healing) in several of the glimpses we saw of his shadowed self throughout Part 3, especially in the Hol Horse chapter where he scared him shitless with the Timestop. He also mentioned to Ice that he's drained enough people that he thought draining one more person may be enough to complete the neck transplant. That, and the fact that he was still making vampiric minions like Nukesaku (more likely zombies, but I doubt Araki cared too much for the distinction, with his memory ), and it'd been like 4 years since he was freed from the coffin. Even if he wasn't straight up trying to take over the world with his zombie army anymore (for whatever reason), he was clearly still callous about human life (except maybe when it came to big gay Pucci) and wasn't above draining tons of innocents to heal himself.

I wouldn't doubt Dio drained a significant amount of people, but how it compared to his Part 1 self is arguable when he was purposely keeping a low profile rather than wiping out whole villages.
Even assuming he managed to accumulate a similar amount of victims, boost being the same is very unlikely when it was shown his lack of complete control over Jonathan's body hindered his vampiric abilities such as his regeneration speed, logically meaning he'd still require more victims to reach the same level physically.

Jonathan's body was much more fit than Dio's original human body though, seeing as Jonathan showed better feats in the rugby game that showed the two of them as young adults for the first time and Jonathan tanked Dio's punch to the face and beat him up fairly easily, and performed better against initial vamp Dio than Dio did against an old vampire who hadn't even drained anyone yet, even prior to learning Hamon.

I also sincerely doubt that Dio drained more people in just the couple of weeks he spent recovering from the burn wounds from the time he fought in the mansion (which was only a couple of weeks) than in the entire 4 years he spent traveling the world and such before settling in his mansion in Egypt, although I concede that his recovery speed was indeed hindered through not having a body that was fully his own.

It's also worth noting that we'd already seen several vampires in Part 1 (which makes devoting several pages to fresh Straizo's feats redundant), and even after putting himself back together from the grenade blast Straizo's (fatigued) physical ability was far above the freshly vamp'd Dio from the mansion and above "peak humans" without Hamon. Straizo most likely gained a reasonably large physical boost from becoming a vampire, seeing as Will Zeppeli explained in Part 1 that both vampires (and by extension Pillar Men) and Hamon users used the same power, the power of oxygen in the blood, and vampires obviously have a much larger supply of it than Hamon users, but were weak to the effect of sunlight duplicated by Hamon because it was like forcing the same powers to clash. Even while injured, Straizo's physical abilities were more than likely considerably above Joseph's, he just couldn't risk touching him because he lost his Hamon conducting muffler. Straizo in general just seemed to be in a class of his own compared to the fodder vampires in Kars' army.

It was definitely a significant one considering what even fodder vampires could do. The thing is, it was still too underwhelming scaling-wise compared to the expert Hamon users of Part 1 (all of whom can easily oneshot the average vampire fodder that we're using as a benchmark for the transformation in general) for us to say Straizo was made any stronger than his prime self, or that Jonathan's body was brought back to its own prime self when considering the boost would be about as great as Dio's and he still required a lot of victims to reach his peak power in Part 1.

Hamon users don't really display feats of pure strength equivalent to vampires or Pillar Men. Zeppeli mentioned that while Hamon can destroy rocks and boulders, it wasn't capable of smashing steel and such a feat was only possible for post-Shonen power up Jonathan due to having the power of two Hamon users coursing in the same body. Considering this, and the fact that Straizo seemed to be the youngest of the three Hamon disciples of Tompetty's (being the same age as Speedwagon), it's quite feasible that Vamp Straizo (uninjured) >> young Straizo. Straizo also seemed to be suffering from the effects of aging by the time of Part 2 and was most likely below Lisa Lisa by then.

With how SP was shown to casually bust holes in Dio's gut and smash his head, destroy his body from the leg up with a single punch and such, I'm not really sure I buy early Star Platinum being weaker than Part 1 (peak) Dio or some bullshit like that.

Your initial question kind of traps us into things if taking it at face value, no? The idea SP didn't progress much whilst comparing how both fared against the Emerald Splash would suggest DIO > Initial SP physically, leading into the idea that either SP greatly improved throughout the journey or there's more to the comparison than it seems without writing it off as an inconsistency. For the latter and going back to answer the initial question, I'd say the explanation can be found in the mindset and approach of both fighters differing. Jotaro had no idea of Kakyoin's abilities at the time, whereas DIO had full intel on them, and DIO chose to instead flick one emerald to cause a domino effect rather than try combating them all physically (not to mention it was implied the 20m Emerald Splash would've at least severely damaged him if not for his time stop).

JoJo in general seems to follow the reasoning of shonen like Saint Seiya, HnK etc. in the sense that it prioritizes impactful reveals over internal consistency though, which is why you run into issues like Straizo being invisible in a mirror when Dio could look at himself in the mirror fine by Part 3 (and not just below the head). If I looked at the first 3 parts of JoJo and compared it to, say, the entirety of DB/Z up to the Freeza arc (which is a comparable amount of volumes), I'd probably say JoJo has more plot holes despite everything essentially resetting after the end of each part and it being easier to then construct a new story rather than asspull stuff like the RRA androids and Boo to produce a stronger threat than the last like DB does.

The reason I doubt Star Platinum progressed anywhere near as much as Stands like Tusk, Killer Queen or Echoes is for two reasons, one being that even SPTW's stand stats (barring stamina/lasting power) aren't different from regular Star Platinum's, and SP in general isn't conceptually a Stand that slowly progresses to the top; it was already the physically strongest Stand in the Stardust Crusaders team even against early foes like Dan or Rubber Soul. That, and the fact that even The World after it was enhanced through sucking Joseph's blood was only able to break Jotaro's bones with a melee rush tells me that if Jotaro's durability was considerably above Emerald Splash's attacking power, it wouldn't have ripped a shallow hole in his chest or caused him to regurgitate blood. I guess Jotaro's inexperience in fighting other Stand users rather than just thugs off the street may have played a role in him getting injured by evil Kakyoin, but it really didn't seem like SP was leagues above HG at the time of their battle. That, and there aren't any statements solidifying that Jotaro got FnF tier great GAINZ, whereas we see Jonathan's and Joseph's progress through Hamon training being noted repeatedly in the first 2 parts.