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Stormtrooper (Star Wars)

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The Imperial Stormtroopers are fictional soldiers from George Lucas' Star Wars universe. Stormtroopers are the personal army of Emperor Palpatine and of his commanders.

They are portrayed in collective groups of varying organizational sizes ranging from squads to legions, and, for some, their armor and training is modified for special operations and environments.

Background

In Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the first troopers are cloned from bounty hunter Jango Fett, to be the Army of the Republic in the Clone Wars. In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the troopers execute Order 66 at the command of Chancellor Palpatine, attacking their Jedi generals.

Initially, the stormtroopers serve as the army of the Galactic Empire, putting down revolts and establishing Imperial authority.[1] The Stormtrooper Corps swell in size after Palpatine allows the addition of birth born recruits and conscripts alongside the clones.

When the Empire is firmly stabilized and an Imperial Army/Imperial Navy established, the stormtroopers become Palpatine’s personal army and are stationed on Imperial bases and cruisers, as well as on the Death Star. They maintain these roles until the Empire’s destruction in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Stormtrooper armor

The troopers' most distinctive equipment is their white battle armor, inherited from their time as clone troopers. The complete armor set completely encases the body and typically has no individually distinguishing marking (in contrast to the clone trooper armor, which typically had various colorings to denote rank or unit, stormtrooper armor has no rank affiliation).

The following is a summary of the production of the Stormtrooper costume for the movie called "Star Wars" (now known as "Episode IV: A New Hope" / "ANH") Employee Liz Moore sculpted a design for the helmet as did someone called Nick Pemberton. These designs were based off conceptual drawings by Ralph McQuarrie.

The armor pieces of the costume were also designed off conceptual drawings by Ralph McQuarrie. The production team at Elstree Studios including Brian Muir initially sculpted armor pieces for the stormtrooper costume. Preliminary moulds thus were produced in house for the armor. The initial plan was to build the entire stormtrooper costume out of fiberglass however the equipment on the studio premises had limitations. A working solution was difficult to achieve with the equipment available.

Through ongoing communications with John Barry (ANH Production Designer), John Mollo (ANH Costume Designer) and George Lucas (ANH Writer & Director), Nick Pemberton was presented the task of outsourcing the final production of the stormtrooper armor. Nick Pemberton shared this task with Andrew Ainsworth (Shepperton Design Studios) who later conversed directly with John Mollo.

The armor and helmets were manufactured at Shepperton Design Studios in England. The final molds produced and used for the stormtrooper armor and helmet in Star Wars (ANH) were hewed out of custom resin/metal composite by Andrew Ainsworth. The studio offered Andrew Ainsworth various plaster cast armor pieces for reference. A large vacuum forming machine which had a 15 ft x 3 ft bed was used for producing the armor and helmets. Preliminary production pieces were submitted for approval over a period of time. Some preliminary production pieces required redesign more than once before they were finally approved. Once approved, sets of armor were produced.

By the end of production, two different helmet were produced; one for the common stunt trooper and a second design for closeups. Fifty stunt helmets were produced in white-painted HDPE and six hero helmets were produced in white ABS plastic. Besides the material used, the two designs can be differentiated by differences in the eyes, the ears, and the mouth area.

The armor has also been the subject of light humor for years regarding its functionality. This is due to it making its wearer easy to see, restricting his movement and range of vision, and seeming to offer no real protection from blaster fire.

Specialized stormtroopers

Within the original Star Wars trilogy, a number of specialized Stormtrooper units are seen. These include:

Within the Expanded Universe media such as games and comics, a number of specialized stormtrooper units are seen. The Marvel-produced comics of the late 1970s and early 1980s featured Blackhole Troopers. Other specialists have included commandos and troopers equipped to work in outer space. Others, such as the Beach Troopers, are for comical effect. Appearing only briefly in Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, they are clad in a Speedo and the trademark stormtrooper helmet. In Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, they are also wearing life jackets. Shadowtroopers appear in Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast wearing black armour made from a lightsaber-resistant metal called "Cortosis". This armour has a green synthetic gem set into the breastplate which gives the wearer Force powers. Their armour can also render them near invisible, with only a small area of blue discolouration giving them away, they use this ability to lie in wait and ambush the prey, most often the game's protagonist, Kyle Katarn. Shadowtroopers appear in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and wear exactly the same type of Phase III armour as normal stormtroopers but not white in colour, it is a mixture of silver, grey and red detailing. These troopers also possess the invisible feature and use this tactic to ambush their enemies, but only if stormtrooper officers call out for support.

  • The Stormtrooper effect, a common cliché in action movies, was named after these soldiers and their poor marksmanship when encountering major protagonists.
  • Stormtroopers' 9/11 is a parody video on the CollegeHumor.com[2] website where a group of Stormtroopers discuss the destruction of the Deathstar which occurred in A New Hope. There are strong overtone references to the terrorist attack against the United States on September 11, 2001 and Luke Skywalker and the Jedis portrayed as the terrorist forces.

See also

References

  1. ^ Star Wars Battlefront II, LucasArts
  2. ^ Stormtroopers' 9/11 - CollegeHumor Video
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