CT Evidence in films that stormtroopers are not clones

Today I had a Star Wars conversation with my fiancée. She likes the films, but is not an expanded universe fan like myself. We went to talk about stormtroopers and I was surprised to learn that she thought they are all clones. I immediately responded that they are not and she wanted to know how so. However, I was unable to give any confirmation from the films themselves other than clone troopers being highly trained and stormtroopers - infamously inaccurate.

What do you think on the matter? It seems the casual film viewer can (and maybe does) consider stormtroopers to be clone troopers with updated armour.

 

There's some variance in stormtrooper height in ANH, at least.

The earliest EU went with "clones of various kinds" (Star Wars Poster Monthly) - then the middle-period EU went with recruits, then Lucas dropped a hint that he considered some of them Jango Clones in AoTC DVD commentary (saying that Jango's head bump was a nod to the ANH head-bumping stormtrooper - a hint that this particular trooper was a Jango clone).

Since the start of the newcanon - there's been a move toward "Clone production was stopped after ROTS, and many clones were retired" - though the occasional Jango clone still in service, does turn up.

And when Lucas changed Boba's voice in the TESB Blu-Ray to Temura Morrison's - he didn't change the voices of any of the speaking stormtroopers.

 

Going by the films, the logical assumption is that the stormtroopers ARE indeed clones: we see the creation of the Clone army in Episode II and that army becomes the Imperial army in Episode III. There's nothing to suggest that the stromtroopers from Episode IV are or should be anything other than clones.

(Yes, the heights and voices are a bit different but that can be attributed to the same reason as for why R2's red/blue eye doesn't change color anymore, or why Vader's helmet and suit are suddenly different).

Personally, I consider that the stormtroopers are clones when I watch the movies.

 

Well if you go into Star Wars Rebels there's an episode or two where the Imperial academy is mentioned. There, regular people are being trained to be stormtroopers.

 

New canon novels make it clear that most OT troopers are recruits/conscriots, not clones.

 

Respectfully your own head canon is your own head canon, but it is clear in the new canon that the clones were phased out not long after RoTS and in Rebels, OT, RO it clearly shows that all the stormtroopers have different voices and heights. Also, in rebels episode "Breaking Ranks" it clearly shows the empire recruiting from non clone recruits. This personally makes a lot of sense to me in why the stormtroopers are no where near as good as clone troopers and the empire is not the republic and believes in quantity over quality of soldiers.

 

The new Vader comic, set immediately after ROTS, states that

Spoiler

they shut down the facilities on Kamino. They trained up the last batch of clones and that was it.

 

The OP asked for "evidence in films" that stormtroopers are not clones. Going by the films (at least PT and OT), there's no evidence of that at all. Therefore, the logical assumption of a viewer without outside information is that the stormtroopers are indeed clones.

 

Varying heights and voices ? Failure to change voices to Temura's after Boba's was changed?

It's weak evidence - but it's still evidence.

 

For me, if all the army of the empire are clones then the empire is composed of only a few people. That seems strange to me.

 

Thank you for your replies. The question is indeed regarding the movies only, because the idea is to think the way a casual viewer does. I don't think Temuera Morrison's voice is even recognized by people who've only seen the movies only several times, not to mention in the several scenes where Boba is speaking in Empire. There is no need for evidence from additional media, I am perfectly aware that stromtroopers are not clones (though I really wish to see a showdown in Rebels between Rex and Cody (who would still be employed by the Empire for some reason)).

 

"Varying heights and voices" is hardly noticeable and, in the viewer's mind, it can be easily regarded as a mistake (Vader's voice and suit are also different from the preceding and following episodes after all!), rather than a revelation ("wow, the clones are no longer clones!"). At the very least, there isn't a specific moment in the OT in which the viewer is supposed to become aware of the fact that the stormtroopers are no longer clones (nor does that fact has any relevance within the plot) -the logical assumption is that they're still clones!

Anyway, it'd be interesting to test this with new viewers and see what they think. At the very least, the fiancée of the OP agrees with me

 

Well their height varies a lot and their voices are not all identical, so if they are clines, they are not clones of one pattern.

 

I've seen the PT and CT numerous times but have little knowledge of the EU. Thus like the OP's fiancee I always assumed Stormtroopers were clones too.

Only when I saw Finn in TFA did I question the use of clones as Stormtroopers as I was confused!

To suggest that minor differences in height and voices explain why Stormtroopers aren't clones, is in my opinion grasping at straws; basically trying to find evidence where it does not exist.

So in answer to the OP's question, for me there is no objective evidence to suggest Stormtroopers aren't clones if you only have the films as a source of reference.

 

Going by the films only, one could easily conclude that stormtroopers aren't Jango Fett clones anyhow. Clones maybe, but not Jango clones. That's with just the info from the first 6 movies.

 

I remember the big debate of my 1st grade class (1977-78) was about Stormtroopers being humans or droids.

 

Back when the teaser for TPM came out (early 1999), my friends and I thought that Naboo was Alderaan, and for good reason as we figured the queen was going to be Luke and Leia's mom.

 

Lucas full comment in the AOTC commentary was that he thought it would be funny to show how Jango's head bumping trait was cloned into ALL the stormtroopers. Not just suggesting that some stormtroopers are clones, but all as he said all.

As for the different heights and voices. Pablo 12 years ago stated that the OT stormtroopers are clones, that the different heights and voices are merely 1970s film making limitations and fan nitpicking in his own words. For the 2004 SE DVD, Lucas claims he altered some of the ANH stormtrooper voices to make them sound more similar. When ANH was first made in 77, Lucas just had a bunch of voice actors randomly say lines into a hand held recorder in his house garage, instead of the usually professional sound studio for dub work, know as ADR. ANH has very sloppy dubing, in fact a imp officer and a rebel pilot have identical voices despite not looking anything alike. Adding more to the confusion, different sets of voice actors were used to dub the multi and mono audio track versions of ANH, complete with slightly different stormtrooper lines.

 

How is Vader's voice and suit different? Isn't his voice always that of James Earl Jones, except when he takes the mask off in the end? Or did you mean Hayden's voice? Of course that had to be different. I never noticed his suit changes in the OT. But it would make sense. Why shouldn't some parts of the suit be replaced over 6 years of time? It would be strange if it looked exactly the same all that time.

 

http://fd.noneinc.com/secrethistory...arwars.com/visualdevelopmentofdarthvader.html

There's an analysis of how Vader's suit (and voice) changes subtly between films. The voice actor is always the same, but he sounds different in ANH for a number of reasons. Also, the suit in ANH is remarkably different from the sequels (whereas the one he uses in ROTS is closer to the one he uses in Empire).

 

By the way, I would be interested to know when it became "official" canon that the stormtroopers were not clones. I was under the impression that, at least during the making of the PT (and the 2004 CT DVDs) the stormtroopers WERE indeed meant to be clones.
In fact, being unaware of (and not interested in) the EU, I think I didn't know about the stormtroopers not being clones until I saw the trailer for TFA!

 

Rebels (and its tie-in media like the novelizations of the four short "pre-series" films), was probably the first "newcanon" source to emphasise that there were non-clone stormtroopers - novelization of the "Art Attack" short. That got elaborated on later by Dave Filoni.

 

OK, I see, though I never noticed that myself in the movies. But of course it makes perfect sense that his suit would change over the years, as I wrote above.

 

Why is evidence that stormtroopers are not clones or not all clones required?

Why would they not still be known as clone troopers if they were still a clone army?

 

I just found out a few weeks ago in another thread...LOL