clone trooper

Clone troopers are fictional characters from the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas. First introduced in the live-action film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), they have since appeared in various other Star Wars media, including Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) and the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014; 2020), Star Wars Rebels (2014–2018), and Star Wars: The Bad Batch (2021–present), as well as comics, novels, and video games set in both the Star Wars Legends expanded universe and the current canon. All clone troopers are artificially produced soldiers, created at special cloning facilities on the planet Kamino from the DNA of bounty hunter Jango Fett to serve as the military of the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars, which takes its name from the troopers. They are genetically engineered to age at twice the rate of a normal human in order to be ready for deployment much quicker, and be unquestionably loyal to the higher chain of command. During the Clone Wars, the clone troopers serve under the command of the Jedi Order as they fight against the droid armies of the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS), a movement organized by numerous planets that sought to secede from the Republic. At the end of the war, Palpatine, the Republic's leader and secretly a Sith Lord who orchestrated the conflict to gain political power, issues Order 66, which brands the Jedi as traitors and causes the clone troopers, under the influence of an inhibitor chip implanted in their brains, to execute them. Following the formation of the Galactic Empire, clone troopers become more and more uncommon as they are slowly replaced by Imperial stormtroopers, who are regular human recruits. One notable legion that remains composed entirely of clones is the 501st Legion, which serves directly under Darth Vader. During the development of The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas initially conceived a planet of clones, which is why the Clone Wars was mentioned for the first time in the original Star Wars (1977) film. The clone trooper armor was designed to suggest an evolution into the stormtroopers of the original trilogy, and it incorporated features from both the armor of stormtroopers and Boba Fett, revealed in Attack of the Clones to be an unaltered clone of Jango Fett. The armored troopers in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith are computer-generated images voiced by Temuera Morrison, who played Jango Fett.