Star Wars: Why Clone Troopers Existed For So Long Despite Stormtroopers

As shown in Star Wars: The Bad Batch, the Empire wasted little time replacing clone troopers with stormtroopers after the Clone Wars ended, but other Star Wars material shows that Imperial clones continued to exist for some time, despite this. The Republic’s Clone Army was one of the galaxy’s most efficient fighting forces, but the Empire chose to cease production of new clones and begin using recruits to serve in their military. This decision was largely made by Admirals Tarkin and Rampart, the former of which held a personal dislike of clone troopers. This decision ultimately hurt the Empire, as their recruited Stormtroopers were, even at their most effective, far inferior to their clone predecessors.

Clone troopers were created for the sinister purpose of gaining their Jedi leaders’ trust and assassinating them once Order 66 was enacted (their compliance was ensured via brainwashing). This eliminated the greatest threat to Palpatine’s coup and allowed him to replace the Republic with the Empire, scapegoating the Jedi as the perpetrators of the Clone Wars. Imperial Stormtroopers were fanatically loyal recruits who carried out the will of the Empire with no mercy. While demonstrably deadly in Star Wars and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, they’re portrayed as comically incompetent in Star Wars Rebels and The Mandalorian.

An ongoing plotline in the first three episodes of The Bad Batch has been Admiral Tarkin assessing the brainwashed Imperial clones and beginning the process of their replacement with recruits. By the end of episode 3, “Replacements,” he tells Rampart that clones will continue to serve the Empire as the growing number of conscripts begin to replace them. Though recruited stormtroopers quickly became the Empire’s standard foot soldiers, brainwashed clones continued to serve the Empire, as shown in the Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith and Thrawn comics, as well as the 2015 novel Lords of the Sith. In their last appearances, clones took on elite roles within the Imperial military, such as purge troopers and at least one of the Emperor’s Royal Guards. The reason for this is that recruits take time to enlist and train, while the clones were already at the Empire’s disposal.

Clone production is technically a longer process than Stormtrooper training. The Republic’s Jango Fett clones to a decade to reach maturity and their training was taken extremely seriously to produce the highest quality soldiers. The last batches of Jango clones were grown, brainwashed into Imperial service, and became the first generation of Imperial purge troopers, helping the Sith and Inquisitors hunt down Jedi who survived Order 66. Stormtrooper training took roughly three years to complete and encouraged far less critical thinking than Republic clone training. Nevertheless, clones sometimes oversaw stormtrooper training to ensure a higher level of competence. This position was offered to Rex in the Rebels episode “Stealth Strike”.

In addition to brainwashing the clones into murdering their allies and fighting for a fascist regime, the Empire also tarnished their image. While the Jedi were blamed for the galaxy’s woes, the Clone Troopers were used to inspire citizens to enlist in the Imperial military, associating the clones with a regime that they’d abhor before their brainwashing was activated. By the time that the Rebel Alliance was fully formed, the clone troopers were seen by some as villains, particularly surviving Jedi, such as Kanan Jarrus. By the original Star Wars trilogy, the Empire simply allowed the clone troopers to fade into obscurity, having already replaced them with stormtroopers as Tarkin intended in Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

About The Author

David Miller
(618 Articles Published)

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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