CT Evidence in films that stormtroopers are not clones

When you see them blasting their way into Leia's ship in the opening of ANH, the logical assumption (after having watched the PT) is that these are the same clones that appeared in the earlier movies and formed the Republican/Imperial Army. The word "stormtrooper" is not said until much later in the movie and at no point is used to establish a difference between clones and stormtroopers.

 

The term clonetrooper is never said in the PT films, and Lucas called the clones, stormtroopers while writing the PT films. However, marketing invented the term clonetrooper, but it is not a term coined by Lucas himself nor used in any of the films. They came up with clonetrooper in an attempt to avoid the PT contradicting with the old EU. The idea of stormtroopers being clones has been around since at least 1978.

Many fans since the 70s seem to dislike the clone idea for some reason. TFA likely made their stormtroopers recruits to appease the so called OT purists who hate anything they think is PT related, even if it greatly predates the PT. JJ does not seem to be a fan of the PT and Pegg is a well known open PT hater.

 

So the clones from the PT magically became horrible soldiers of differing heights, sizes, and voices from the period of ROTS to RO and ANH

as I believe in the canon idea that the stormtroopers are recruits sorry for my sarcasm but it's clear from the new canon books, movies, and rebels that the stormtroopers are almost all human recruits. I believe Pablo has said that the last remaining clones have become a retired forgotten generation in the galaxy and what few clones that are left in the empire serve in imperial academies as instructors.

 

They are referred to as clones and as troops/troopers in the movies and in the final script.

It's because the clones in the prequels are visibly and audibly not the troops in the OT. You can tell by looking at them. Different sizes, different voices. It's not much different than if you told me two different actors, without masks, were supposed to be clones. It's just not happening. I can't just pretend they're not individual humans in the uniforms.

The fact that some people cite their PT origins as a reason for others to denounce them reflects the fact that they were not intended to be clones in the OT. It has nothing to do with not liking the idea of the clones in the PT or because the clones are from the PT. I'm just not going to deny my own senses in order to accommodate an idea that Lucas decided to go with long after shooting the OT. And it appears that Lucas ultimately felt the same since they never tried to impose it definitively and reportedly retconned the fate of the clones from the PT era.

There's no concern about the PT contradicting the OT since they are clearly not the same people in uniform. Plus nobody ever claimed otherwise until the prequels came along and people made the assumption that they were supposed to be the same.

 

It seems like different heights of Stormtroopers is negligible, but the greatest argument is in the voices. We never really see the human side of the Clones, so its more jarring to see them acting as police and security when Clones were almost exclusively soldiers in the films. We see Stormtroopers just talking amongst each other at their posts, while Clones are hardwired to perform their duty (only in The Clone Wars are they expanded upon on a personal level).

That's my argument for the Stormtroopers NOT being Clones, but personally, I believe that the in-film evidence supports them being Clones. While unclear and honestly irrelevant in the OT (hence why it isn't a topic), the prequels clearly shows an evolution leading up the Stormtroopers.

Also, people may take George Lucas' words a little too literally. Him comparing a Stormtrooper humorously bumping his head to Jango doing the same is likely nothing more than a joke.

 

Yes, they are referred to as clones and clone troops in the PT, but not clonetroopers.

As was pointed out before, a 1978 Lucasfilm sourcebook out right says stormtroopers are clones, and talks about how they are raised as kids, much like we finally saw in 2002. The only thing we know for sure is that in the OT, the stormtroopers were not originally intended to be Jango clones, but the 1978 poster book implies they were intended to be general clones in the OT.

As already pointed out by me, ANH has very crude and sloppy dubing, it is why the stormtroopers sound bad in ANH but speak clear in the two later films. Try explaining why a rebel fighter pilot and a imp officer have the same exact voice in ANH. That is how bad the dub work is as most of the British and Scottish cast were dubed with American voice actors on a small hand held recorder in Lucas garage, with nothing more than a still picture of the Death Star exploding. Most dub work is done in sound studios and carefully timed to the film with a timer clocks as the film plays.

As for stormtroooers making office chat. Pay attention to the two stormtroopers guarding the tractor beam controls, both have identical voices! Plus their squad leader who orders those two to stay guard, also has a identical voice to them. So going by your logic, they either are identical triplets who joined up, or they are clones.

The OT stormtroopers mowed down rebels on the Tantive 12, on Hoth, and capture them on Endor. The Ewoks had to save the rebels sorry butts. In the meantime in the PT, the PT troopers let a young Jedi get the drop on them as well as let a senator get away. Also two Jedi mowed a whole squad of them. They also could not find either Obi or Yoda post 66. Gree really screwed up bad by poorly sneaking up on a Jedi master, he should have known better. In SW, troops are always varying from good to poor to suit what the script calls for.

 

That's hardly definitive of anything. Clonetroopers is a logical contraction of the two terms used, whether it's uttered un that way or not.

As was pointed out before, a 1978 Lucasfilm sourcebook out right says stormtroopers are clones, and talks about how they are raised as kids, much like we finally saw in 2002. The only thing we know for sure is that in the OT, the stormtroopers were not originally intended to be Jango clones, but the 1978 poster book implies they were intended to be general clones in the OT.

I'm sorry but if being clones was so important then Lucas could have made provision for ensuring that that stormtroopers' voices and heights were uniform. It's only your opinion that the dubbing is bad, and in the context of defining them as clones.

Only your opinion do they have identical the same. Since their voices are coming over an intercom and not their natural voices, it's not surprising that their individuality is diminished.It's the same with Luke and Han's compressed and limited voices when they have to wear the uniforms

Which point are you making? That dubbing in the Oscar winning sound was so crude and sloppy that they could not make the troopers sound identical? Or they they are identical? It can't be both.

I don't know what you are responding to here. I didn't say anything about the aptitude of the troopers in any way.

 

Some things that haven't been brought up.

1) Growth acc.
In AotC the Kamino people mention that the clones mature twice as fast.
Now assuming that this is not something they can turn off once the clone is an adult, then the clones will age twice as fast.
So a clone that is 30 years old, will have an age of around 60.
So given that there is 20+ years between AotC and ANH, the first batch of clones would be rather old by now.

The rebuttal is that they can make new clones. But since Jango is dead, they can't get any more genetic material from him.

2) Numbers. In Aotc they have 200 000 clones ready, with a million underway.
That number seems very low for a police state like the Empire.
Take the DS, that alone I can see having one million troopers onboard.

Yes, there probably are other clone facilities and this way they can make more.

3) Imperial officers.
In the PT, we see only clones and Jedi in the republic army.
At the end of RotS and in the OT, now all of a sudden we have loads of officers that are not clones.
From generals and commanders to pretty low ranking officers exist and we have those guards with black helmets on the DS.
They are not clones.
So the empire have clearly a lot of non-clones in their army. Even for fairly simple jobs like guards.

Given the 1,2 million clones in AotC, it does seem that the empire drafted/recruited a lot of humans to fill out their army at the end of RotS.
Officers, guards, technicians etc. So them having regular soldiers as well is not strange.
Possibly the old clones were still in use but they were phased out over time.

Lastly, if Kamino is the only source of clones for the whole Empire.
Isn't that a risk? The rebels could find out and if they hit the planet and destroy the cloning facilities, the empire's source of soldiers dry up.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

I agree with both bolded statements: the prequels clearly show the evolution of the Republic (with the clone army) becoming an Empire (with the same army). And I'm certain that the intention, during the making of the prequels (and posibly the OT) was that the stormtroopers were clones.

And ultimately it's an irrelevant point: it's never important in the films whether they are clones or not (and that's why I believe most people would naturally assume that they ARE still clones).

Every viewer has a different kind of experience watching SW: a lot of them aren't interested in the EU, rebels, canon books and whatnot (personally, I have zero interest in all that stuff). And the original post of this topic clearly states that we should be discussing evidence WITHIN the films that the stormtroopers are or aren't clones.

Anyway, personally I've never noticed such clear differences in heights, seizes and voices.

 

In ANH the difference in height is VERY obvious. So for me they are not clones, period, no matter what Lucas may have said in 1976. If clones were so important to him he could easily have found 10 to 20 guys of about equal height to play the stormtroopers. Even Leia's question makes it clear that stormtroopers are recruits. "Aren't you too short for a stormtrooper?". If they were all clones they would be equal height from the very beginning. They would have been grown to be stormtroopers, so one of them being "too short" doesn't make any sense at all. As a clone he could not possibly be shorter than others. As a recruit he might have been, if he fulfilled other requirements. At least that's thinkable.

 

And this too.



carry on.

 

This was supposed to be an aspect of Revenge of the Sith, but all those scenes were excised before filming. Although by the end of the film, we did see the Empire in a state where Imperial Officers and Clonetroopers coexisted. The proposed inclusion of Imperial Officers in the Clone Wars Revenge of the Sith seems to have been carried over to the Clone Wars series in an accurate manner, though.

Well, there's two ways to take Leia's quote; either they're all automatically expected to be a certain height, or the Empire has a tendency to hire taller troops. Nothing definitive either way there. For what it's worth, the reasoning behind CGI Clones is that they would all have the exact same height and build. Obviously a moot point because the technology was unthinkable back in 1977, but at some point, it did become stressed more that Clones would be identical in battle.

 

CGI wouldn't have been necessary, a bunch of actors roughly the same height would have done, if Lucas had wanted to stress that they were supposed to be clones. Also, if STs were still mostly clones, why would the "Clone Wars" have been such a big deal? It sounds like something that happened a generation ago, and everyone knows about. If clones were still involved in the current civil war, would they not call it "Clone War II" or something. If clones were still used in that time they wouldn't even have to call the CW that, "Separatist War" would have been more appropriate. Clearly clones and clone wars were a thing of the past in ANH. I know, "clone war" was first used right after it had begun in AOTC. But it seems Yoda came up with the phrase, so it wasn't really "official". Strange that everyone else adopted that name too.

 

The fact is, the term is both never said in the films and was invented by marketing people so the films would not contradict with the EU. However, it is not an official movie used term.

Its your opinion that he did not. It is also not my opinion the dubing in ANH is bad, shody ADR was indeed used as Lucas used a freaking hand held recorder in his residential garage rather than a proper sound studio. He just had voice actors randomly take turns saying different lines off a hand written piece of paper the actors shared. It was indeed shockingly crude and that is a fact.

They are identical, in Rifftrax's riff of ANH, Kevin Murphy points out the two tractor beam guarding stormtroopers have the same voice. Their intercom does nothing to diminish their individuality as it is a real world side effect of Lucas using a cheesy hand held recorder in his garage for ADR. OT stormtroopers have always lack individuality by design. Heck, stormtroopers being clones explains how old Obi knows how to handle them as he once lead with them in the clone wars. If they were changed to something else during his exile, then how would he know so much about them? How they operate and whatnot?

As Palblo once said in 2005, it is 1970s limitations (as Lucas had severe budget and time constraints then) as well as fans just nit picking. Leia's line can imply clones are a standard height which Luke doesn't meet. Other thing is the extras in the stormtoopers outfits were constantly tripping, falling, bumping into stuff, and hurting themselves which is why they were all CGI in the PT to avoid such problems.

AOTC goes to extra pains by stating they have growth acceleration, not age acceleration. This means they mature to adulthood twice as fast but not age twice as fast into old age. In real world biology, growth to adulthood and aging in adulthood are two related, but very different and separate processes. The film states faster growing, instead of faster aging for a reason.

It is also especially a very low number to fight a large scale war against droids. The CIS should have easily out manufactured the Republic and won, it is one of the reasons the Allies defeated the Axis. We could supply replacements faster than they could. Also, you need far more troops in wartime than for a police state in peacetime, which makes the argument that the Empire needed more troops in peacetime than in wartime during a massive war deeply flawed.

In TPM, we see Republic ships have human officers. Republic ship bridges are not shown until near the end of ROTS, but it can be surmised that the Republic used human officers on SD bridges thoughtout the whole film.

The CIS also have non droid, organic guards and officers. Not sure what the big deal is?

 

And nowhere are clones called stormtroopers.

What does that have to do with the fact that the stormtroopers have different voices? Just get the same actor to do "shoddy" ADR and it will be the same shoddy voice coming out of every stormtrooper.

Oh, well then. Another guy did a "riff" on it so that means it's not an opinion.

Most people who saw the OT first and then the PT just cannot buy that the troopers in the OT are clones just like the troopers in the PT. It does not matter what people might conclude from the plotline. If it doesn't work it doesn't work. And it's nothing to do with Lucas's garage that he made no attempt to have one actor do all the "clones" voices or not have troopers varying considerably in height.

 

Ben used the Force or "Jedi mind trick". Those work not only on clones but all other kind of creatures, with a few exceptions - Watto and Jabba. He himself said the Force can be used on weak-minded creatures. So was that drug dealer on Coruscant a clone too? Or Bib Fortuna? Luke had never met him before but knew how to handle him.
Being brainwashed indoctrinated soldiers, stormtroopers would naturally be "weak-minded" as well, without being clones. Why would Ben not have known that? In his 20 years since ROTS, he must have seen or met other stormtroopers. Of course he would have known what kind of people the Empire used as soldiers.

How would Ben know how to handle stormtroopers? Well, it could be that he's a Jedi and knows how to handle lots of situations an average person would not.
And being in exile doesn't mean Ben didn't know what was going on in the galaxy. I'm sure he was pretty well informed. Though Owen thought he was a "hermit" it doesn't mean he really was. And he must have had his sources.

 

He even recognizes a TIE as a "short-ranged fighter" despite it entering service after he'd gone into hiding.

 

And most people who watch the PT first and the OT second just assume that the stormtroopers are clones regardless of the small differences in height and voices that are only noticeable in certain moments.

 

The difference in height and voice though should disabuse you of the assumption that they are the clones. Since the clones in the PT were defined by the fact that they all look and sounding exactly alike.

Unless you prefer to believe that they were presented as clones in 1977 and that they just didn't do a very good job, or they forgot sometimes when they were hiring, directing, photographing, rerecording and dubbing the artistes who played them.

 

Yet the creators of that meme forgot the guy on the right could not hit a fleeing middle age senator or several being taken out by a child. In ROTS, they were only able to kill the Jedi with a combination of surprise, overwhelming numbers, and overwhelming violence and thus mostly a result of Palps planning. Without all 3, it was difficult to impossible for them to kill a Jedi.

 

still funny, this pic is.

 

I did not mean mind tricks only worked on clones as they did work on Bib in ROTJ. What I am saying that since Obi did serve in the clone wars and lead the clones, and later had to escape from them. Then it would explain why he has such detailed inside knowledge about them such how well they hit targets and such.

Ben was in exile for 20 years and likely kept his contact with other people very limited to avoid being discovered as well as avoid putting others in danger. Remember, both Owen and Luke referred to Ben as a strange hermit, not a swinging party dude who showed up to all the big get togethers. Also, stormtroopers and the Empire normally did not have a presence on Tatoonine, just like with the Republic. They were only there searching for the droids, and left after the droids escaped on the MF.

Also Ben did not know the name of the TIE fighter, he just recognize it as a short range design similar to the old V wings and called it that. However, what is strange is that Han did not seem to know what the TIE was other than it being trouble. Being a sumggler, you think he would have seen TIEs before.

 

regarding Bail - the trooper aiming at him was specifically told not to shoot him by his commander "Let him go".

In the context of TCW, a young Padawan with a lightsaber can be very deadly - Ahsoka, in her very first appearances.

 

Nothing in Han's dialog suggests that he isn't familiar with TIEs:

"There's another ship coming in!"
"There aren't any bases around here, where did it come from?"
"Not if I can help it. Chewie, jam his transmissions."
"Well he ain't gonna be around long enough to tell anybody about us."
"I think I can get him before he gets there. He's almost in range."

 

The order let Bail go was given after he made it inside his speeder. The Padawan had surprise which gave him a fighting chance. My feeling is the padawan jumped out to stop the clones from shooting Bail in the back from getting too close. By the time he got in his speeder, they could no longer make the shot look like a good shoot so they stopped.

Tim, its strange that Han never called the fighter by its name. Then again, the rebels did not either, perhaps just early canon weirdness.