Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?

dyl10

Over the years, pretty much since Attack of the clones was released, I wondered about the exact moment in a New Hope, when Luke bursts in to save Princess Leia and she responds to his greeting with the major ego deflator "Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?"

Now I wonder, maybe someone can shed some light for me.
Was this line supposed to be a hint at Stormtroopers being clones(thus uniform heights) or was it just meant to be a demonstration of Princess Leia's sassy, unimpressed disposition?

Opinions please

namelessguy

A little bit of A and a little bit of B.

By that time period in the Empire, Stormtroopers were made up of a wide range of clone templates and regular human recruits. And after all the Gardaí used to have a height requirement so there's no reason why the Stormtrooper corp wouldn't.

But I'd say it was more to show Leia's 'attitude'.

This was the same shortly after she says this a tall stormtrooper hits his head off the door way.

namelessguy

Ah but in fairness those helmets are hard to see out of.

evil-monkey

namelessguy wrote: »

But I'd say it was more to show Leia's 'attitude'.

Exactly. Weren't a huge amount of clones left in the Imperial Navy then.

dyl10

Although I know the "clone wars" had been mentioned earlier in the film, does anyone know if the concept of clone stormtroopers had actually been decided by the time of filming or if George Lucas ever stated it prior to the expanded Star Wars universe?

Delta1138

At the time of a new hope the clone troopers were all dead or discontinued after the kamino uprising so tyhe emps thought they should conscript and use new clone templates the only clones of jango where in the 501st legion.
But since the emps didnt buy body bags for clone troopers it most unlikely that theyd fit armor to troopers of different sizes so the empiral army set storm trooper corp height at 1.82 meters the same as the original troopers.

evil-monkey

dyl10 wrote: »

Although I know the "clone wars" had been mentioned earlier in the film, does anyone know if the concept of clone stormtroopers had actually been decided by the time of filming or if George Lucas ever stated it prior to the expanded Star Wars universe?

Supposedly he had it all worked out from the start apart from Boba Fett. He allegedly wrote 9 scripts, deciding the make the middle 3 first as the technology of the time wasn't suitable for the first 3.

Delta1138 wrote: »

At the time of a new hope the clone troopers were all dead or discontinued after the kamino uprising so tyhe emps thought they should conscript and use new clone templates the only clones of jango where in the 501st legion.
But since the emps didnt buy body bags for clone troopers it most unlikely that theyd fit armor to troopers of different sizes so the empiral army set storm trooper corp height at 1.82 meters the same as the original troopers.

I'm pretty confident that Karen Travis' next book in the Republic Commando series will put pay to the idea that the Kamino clones were the last.

Kirby

evil-monkey wrote: »

Supposedly he had it all worked out from the start apart from Boba Fett. He allegedly wrote 9 scripts, deciding the make the middle 3 first as the technology of the time wasn't suitable for the first 3.
.

Total retcon tbh. He made that up after the fact. He called the first one "Episode IV" to give it a perceived air of added depth. The more people asking at the time "Where are episodes 1, 2 and 3?" the more people there are talking and hyping the film.

Nephilim Wolf

Luke is bit short in comparison to Han or anyone else, so maybe thats why Leia said it.