The main advantage that clones have over droids is that despite all of those weaknesses, they are able to come up with an Improvised plan on the spot. But the Stormtroopers are skilled enough that they stand a chance and are almost on par with a Clone Trooper as an overall fighter. Clues can be seen as early as Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, as the Kamino leader Lama Su explains the clonesвЂ™ life cycle to Obi-Wan Kenobi: growth acceleration is essential. Better training and skill beats out the superior equipped Stormtroopers. However, a canon explanation does exist, covering not only when the Empire replaced the clones with Stormtroopers, but why. Legends vs Legends = Clones win but the Stormtroopers put up a close fight. What is the most powerful weapon in Star Wars?.Why do Star Wars blasters kill in one shot?.Why are stormtroopers so much worse than clone troopers?.But knowing that they are essentially conscripts, unwilling participants (that was the only life Finn ever knew, and not one he chose), such mass killing becomes a messier proposition. At this stage weвЂ™re accustomed to seeing swarms of these white-suited shock troops getting mowed down by Rebel, now Resistance, fighters. Instead of being recruits, these new stormtroopers are essentially child soldiers, kidnapped from, as Finn says, families theyвЂ™ll never know brainwashed, programmed, and forced into servitude against their will.Д®ven though they donвЂ™t have a choice and are molded to become efficient, effective killing machines, as we see in FinnвЂ™s case, this programming doesnвЂ™t always take and can be broken. This isnвЂ™t the army of identical, homogenous soldiers that weвЂ™ve become accustomed to over the previous movies. An acolyte, a true believer is much deadlier than a flat, indifferent foot soldier. More than just First Order soldiers, theyвЂ™re beginning to come across as fanatical, which makes them both much more frightening and dangerous.

Indoctrinated or not, drinking the Kool-Aid or not, not matter how deeply programmed they are, how much they believe, these new jack stormtroopers are still individuals. Up to this point, itвЂ™s always theyвЂ™ve always had a detached, cold, impassive approach to everything around them. WeвЂ™ve never encountered this level of emotional investment from them before.

So right from the very first scene, we know that weвЂ™re in for something very different.Д«ut even this rage, possibly even something that resembles hurt feelings, is very different look for a stormtrooper. Hell, the fact that they have friends is something of a new concept - we've assumed so, but never really seen it before. WeвЂ™ve never seen a stormptrooper stop their stormtrooping to hold a dying comrade before. When his friend is killed in battle, he has a reaction, an emotional response. HeвЂ™s a fully formed human being with thoughts and feelings and emotions and a moral sense of right and wrong, something no stormtrooper has ever been before. But for the first time it the saga, The Force Awakens gives these heretofore faceless shock troops a face, personalities, their own individual identities.ДЇinn is a stormtrooper who, during his first mission, doesnвЂ™t like what he sees and makes the conscious choice to not do that anymore, to escape and go AWOL. On the surface, this is a relatively minor change, and for the most part, the role of stormtroopers doesnвЂ™t really change much in the larger narrative context. Even though they haven't been clones for some time, The Force Awakens takes greater pains than ever before to differentiate them from one another. ThatвЂ™s all that is really said on the matter, and itвЂ™s easy enough to let it sit at that and not give any more thought than that. Okay, stormtroopers arenвЂ™t clones anymore - we know that, that's part of the canon - theyвЂ™re John Boyega, Daniel Craig, Gwendoline Christie, and more. They are meat to the grinder and the first ones that are defeated by the JediвЂ™s and rebels.

In the Star Wars canon, stormtroopers are the bad guys, even though they have some of the coolest armor in the franchise. ThatвЂ™s rightStormtroopers, the foot soldiers for the Empire. I didnвЂ™t even pay it much mind until the second time I saw the movie. Some of the most recognizable characters from Star Wars are the soldiers in all white with the helmets. Initially, when General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) have a quick exchange about the capabilities of HuxвЂ™s troops, it feels like almost a throwaway line designed to do little more than explain why John BoyegaвЂ™s Finn doesnвЂ™t look anything like the clones of Temuera Morrison.

Stormtroopers are not clones