I had this theory way back when that once the Emperor assumed control, he had to police the galaxy pretty quick. I may be wrong, but don't the Geonosians say something to the effect that clones require a certain amount of time to make, cook. If you sped up that process, then you would get inferior clones. My theory was that he got a quick and dirty army to establish control. After that, there was little to no resistance (other than that pitiful rebellion) so there was no need to upgrade the clones.

Poke all the holes you want.

If we want to go with a more rational explanation it is simply the limit of the story. In the PT we see the clones kicking some major butt because they are destroying the droids and doing a good job of it. In eps III they start killing using very unhonarable means. Fast Foward to the OT and now we have a small group of about five against five hundred storm troopers. There is no way that they are going to look that competent. There are only so many targets. Look at how they are at Hoth and the space battles. They are much more competent as there are many more expendable characters. It is a literary flaw.

If you want to explain it in the context of the story I think the explanations of them aging and maybe the Caminos cutting corners to ramp up production. I mean as many as they had in the PT they have to have that much more to cover most of the galaxy in the OT.

We all saw what happens to clones of clones in Michael Keaton's Multiplicity!

I don't like the cloning a clone makes worse clones theory simply because it came from the movie Multiplicity.

You beat me to it. I was thinking the same thing after reading this thread.

If you want to get into the EU a bit, Palpatine cloned himself and his "clones" were rather weak.

I like pizza, Steve!

That's a good point and If anyone cares to know Han Solo was actually a storm trooper when he first saved Chewbacca because he didn't fellow the orders of his CO to kill Chewbacca then escaped with Chewie.

Once again the academy was for officers and various enlisted positions. The stormtroopers are clones and only clones, this was established as far back as 77

Do you just read every third post or what?

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showpos...55&postcount=8

The Stormtroopers in 4-6 are not all clones. They had recruits as well.

I am not sure if they are ever considered canon, but in Star Wars Annual 3 (from the Marvel series, of course), we do see a story about recruits who become Stormtroopers. It is a pretty good story, too.

They had accelerated aging to grow to full size. But when full size maybe they age normally. So if they were aged 25 in ROTS they'd be 45 in ANH.

I believe he wanted to be a pilot. Cause in Ep 4 he plays with a model of the T16 Skyhopper (there's also an action figure based on that).

Yea that theory is scientifically incorrect.

I would say that a good rationale would be that the Empire didn't want them to be trained so well and didn't want them to be good shots just in case they all ended up turning on them like they did to the Jedi in EpIII.

Yo yo yo, here's the scenes.
http://www.starwarscutscenes.com/episode4/episode4.html

The rest of the site is cool as hell.
http://www.starwarscutscenes.com

I am sure you are refering to a Star Wars book of some kind which i may remind you, is not canon. the Academy is mentioned in A New Hope but all other details surrounding it are not canon and therefore, do not offer an acceptable explanation.

No!No!No! The Empire is the EVIL side. It's the Rebellion that he wants to join.

sigh.... another reference to non-canon material... WILL THIS MADNESS NEVER END?!?!

When? I don't remember seeing that! Is this some sort of a deleted scene or something?

It is early on at his house after buying the droids, not deleted.