One of the most dramatic moments in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith was Order 66, but the final Star Wars prequel didn’t reveal everything about the sinister directive. The events of Order 66 and what happened after are covered far more extensively in non-movie material from canon books, animation, and games to non-canon Expanded Universe (now called Legends) featuring alternate universe stories of the event. As a result, a lot has been revealed about Order 66, which wasn’t shown in Revenge of the Sith.

The Star Wars prequel trilogy shows the fall of the Galactic Republic and its replacement with the fascist Galactic Empire. The Sith Lord Darth Sidious, aka Palpatine, orchestrated the Clone Wars as a phony conflict that gradually frightened Republic citizens into accepting authoritarianism. Order 66 was essential to Palpatine’s master plan. With the Jedi spread out across the galaxy, fighting the Separatists alongside their allies, the Clone Troopers, Palpatine issued the order, turning the clones on the Jedi and initiating the Great Jedi Purge, a galaxy-wide genocide that nearly wiped out the Jedi. Meanwhile, Palpatine scapegoated the Jedi as the true perpetrators of the Clone Wars and all the Republic’s woes.

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The Clone Wars were over, the Jedi were all but destroyed, and the Separatists’ assets were absorbed into the new Empire. Palpatine’s plans were successful, though they weren’t necessarily perfect. Revenge of the Sith showed the broad strokes of the order via a montage of clones turning on their Jedi leaders and murdering them, but it didn’t explain the intricacies of the order and the many complications surrounding its execution. This was because Revenge of the Sith only needed to show the successful Sith coup and the near-extinction of the Jedi after Anakin Skywalker’s fall from grace. The finer points of Order 66 would be left for the TV shows, comics, novels, and video games of canon and Legends.

Many Jedi Survived Order 66

Although Order 66 was a success for Palpatine, not all Jedi were killed by their Clone Troopers. The most notable survivors were Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, who were shown evading their clone assailants in Revenge of the Sith. Yoda and Kenobi would go on to be pivotal in the fight against the Empire, training Luke Skywalker in the ways of the Jedi and helping him defeat Palpatine and redeem his father. But there are far more Order 66 survivors in canon and Legends non-movie material.

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In Legends, one of the survivors was Jedi Master Qu Rahn, who went on to help guard the Valley of the Jedi (once the battleground of ancient Jedi and Sith) against the Empire. Another Jedi, the Miraluka known as Jerec, surrendered to Imperial forces and became a powerful Sith Inquisitor and a member of the Prophets of the Dark Side. In canon, Caleb Dume fled the Empire and changed his name to Kanan Jarrus, and helped found the Rebel Alliance. The former padawan Cal Kestis completed his Jedi training in the years following the Jedi Order’s near-destruction. Both Kanan and Cal fought against Imperial Inquisitors, who were all former Jedi and Order 66 survivors in canon. Stories of Jedi escaping are common enough that it’s not nearly so surprising to see Jedi (or former Jedi(, such as Ahsoka Tano popping up during the time of the original trilogy.

Order 66 Was A Known Contingency Order (Legends)

The status of Order 66 within the Republic military is not made clear in Revenge of the Sith, but canon and Legends have two different explanations for it. In canon, Order 66 is highly classified and its full extent was only known to Palpatine and Dooku. The Kaminoans who created the clones were aware of their control chip implants, but not their true purpose. The meaning of Order 66’s name is unknown in canon as a result of its secrecy. In Legends, however, Order 66 is known to all members of the Republic military and is one of 150 contingency orders to prepare the Clone Army for any crisis.

Order 66’s full text can be found in the 2007 novel Republic Commando: True Colors. The order mandates that all Jedi be killed on sight and that the Republic Army (and the Republic itself) will be subsequently restructured. The order is essentially the perfect tool for perpetrating a coup, but it was cleverly buried under a plethora of other contingency orders. Order 66 was interestingly, and likely intentionally, preceded by an order to detain the Supreme Chancellor with lethal force if necessary. The placement of these two orders likely discouraged Jedi and clones from examining Order 66’s alarming wording too closely.

Clone Troopers Were Brainwashed Into Compliance

Revenge of the Sith understandably focused on the tragedy of the Jedi during Order 66, but canon and Legends show that the clones were victims as well. Throughout the Clone Wars, both continuities show that the Clone Troopers had free will. In addition to genuinely believing in the Republic’s democratic ideals, most clones formed close friendships with their Jedi leaders. No clone would willingly betray the Jedi or support an autocracy like the Empire, so their compliance was achieved through brainwashing. How the clones were brainwashed differs slightly in canon and Legends, but the result was the same.

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In canon, several episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars explain that all clones are given a control chip implant during embryonic development. These brain implants are activated when Order 66 is given, erasing the clones’ free will and fundamentally altering their demeanor. In Legends, the clones are simply indoctrinated to follow Order 66 at all costs, and their personalities similarly become more hostile.

Many Clones Disobeyed Order 66

Just as the few but notable Jedi who survived Order 66 were not shown in Revenge of the Sith, the clones who overrode their programming and disobeyed the order were also omitted. The film focused on the near-complete victory of Palpatine, so survivors other than Yoda and Obi-Wan and clones refusing to follow the order would have needlessly complicated this. Canon and Legends, unsurprisingly, reveal that several clones didn’t follow Order 66, and in many cases did so by overcoming their brainwashing.

In Legends, there were instances of standard Clone Troopers and Pilots, such as Able-1707 and HOB-147, who were missing in action or incapacitated when Order 66 was given, and later decided not to follow it due to ideological or personal reasons. Legends-era ARC Troopers were altered far less than the rest of the Clone Army, and most of them refused the order due to a lack of conditioning. In canon, several notable clones, such as Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor, had their implants removed and thus didn’t comply due to their free will being restored. The Bad Batch, a squad of mutated clones, are immune to their chips as an unintended side effect of their modifications. Like the other details that Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith didn’t reveal, this ultimately didn’t hinder Palpatine’s success in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

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David Miller
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David Miller is a staff writer for Screen Rant, indie comic writer, and life-long lover of all things Star Wars, Marvel, and DC. He was born and raised in New York and has a degree in English from Rider University. He relates to Peter Parker maybe a little too much.

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