From the Empire’s Stormtroopers to the Trade Federation’s droids, the low-ranking military grunts of the Star Wars galaxy have long been a source of mockery for their convenient inability to hit their heroic targets. While the enemy soldiers of this latest trilogy have been no exception, a new fan theory suggests that Supreme Leader Kylo Ren is starting to get a little sick of these incompetent employees and may have plans to bring in a new workforce for Star Wars: Episode IX.
A Reddit post from user Animation_Bat starts off by quoting an exchange between Kylo and General Hux from The Force Awakens, in which the young Ben Solo shows skepticism towards their current set of Stormtroopers – an understandable feeling, given Finn’s recent defection to the Rebels. Amidst the two villains’ bickering, the Redditor has put in bold one potentially telling section of dialogue: “…perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a Clone Army.”
While Kylo’s words were perhaps meant as a mere passing wink to the events of Attack of the Clones, Animation_Bat argues that this line foreshadows the new leader’s impending shake-up of the First Order.
“I’m sure Kylo Ren is going to reflect on all that has happened and he’ll want to make changes to the First Order now that he has taken the role of Supreme Leader. One of the changes will be to get rid of the stormtroopers. It was Finn’s betrayal at the beginning of Force Awakens that set off the chain of events of the new trilogy. Finn also seemingly killed Captain Phasma, who is the Commander of the First Order’s force of stormtroopers. Even if Phasma somehow survived, her constant failures during the crucial events of Episodes 7 and 8, will be another motivating factor for Kylo Ren to get rid of the stormtroopers altogether and replace them with a Clone Army.”
With the original Clone Army template, Jango Fett, long dead, another model for this new military is needed. It’s here that Animation_Bat sees the fan-pleasing opportunity to bring back a certain bounty hunter.
“Clones were superior to birth-born recruit stormtroopers. The clone training was supervised by the clone template Jango Fett. Clones made after Jango Fett’s death were inferior because the Kaminoans were running out of Fett’s genetic material, and Jango was no longer there to supervise training. If the First Order makes new clones, they’ll need a new person to act as a template. It’s possible that this is how they could reintroduce Boba Fett. He’s an unaltered clone, so his genetic make up should be identical to Jango Fett’s without the side effects that the other clones had. Also, his experiences have made him even more skillful than Jango Fett, which would make him an even better Commander than Jango Fett or Captain Phasma.”
There are certainly worse ways to introduce the planned Boba Fett spinoff to audiences who haven’t been keeping track of this character’s almost cultish status among the Star Wars fandom. Moreover, it’s to be expected that Kylo’s ascendancy will herald some big changes in the First Order, and this could easily be the sort or drastic, impulsive move that this highly emotional character might try.
In any case, we’ll find out if such radical workplace restructuring is on the agenda when Star Wars: Episode IX flies into cinemas on December 20th, 2019.
