Editing Stormtrooper (section)

=== Clones? Skill Level? ===
Lucas has waffled on if Stormtroopers are cloned or not. The original films had large groups of uneven height stand next to each other and in his early notes for Expanded Universe material, he stated there were female Stormtroopers at other duty stations. Later on he made edits in the special edition and other rereleases, plus a gag in the prequels that the Stromtrooper hitting his head was inherited from Jango, that implied they were. Stormtroopers are also said to be elite soldiers with peerless marksmanship ("Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."). Despite this, their poor showing during the Death Star escape (people often forget they were ''intentionally'' letting them get away to track them) and the Battle of Endor (for which there is no excuse) and minimal appearance of "normal" Imperial soldiers (The Holiday Special and SOLO: A Star Wars story are the only places in live action where they're anything but background details) have resulted in the expanded universe and most RPGs showing them as disposable mooks. But the fact is, Stormtroopers remain a separate institution within the Imperial military, kind of like the Waffen-SS or Napoleons Imperial Guard, with their own resources and command structures separated from the rest of it.

The actual rank-and-file in the Imperial military is the aptly named Imperial Army which sees very little representation in any Star Wars media and many writers completely forget about, at least until recently. The brief occasions where the Army is represented in any capacity are the AT-ST pilots in Episode 6 and the poor schmucks slaughtered by the dozens in the awesome-as-heck Battle of Mimban in ''Solo''. Apparently, Army troopers are mainly defensive garrisons and PDF forces, and they're not very willing to carry out the Empire's more ''dubious'' orders, which is why they tend not to be featured in the major climactic events shown in most media. But again, most people, fans and writers alike, forget about this detail, and so Stormtroopers are made the primary infantry force in the franchise, even when it doesn't make sense for a supposedly elite force being used to garrison some no-name outpost. And consequentially, often portrayed as the lowly fodder. This was ''eventually'' rectified by establishing that while Vader's personal 501st Legion, the only ones Kenobi was familiar with (besides his own unit from the Clone Wars, the 212 under Cody, and other GAR units who obviously are better than conscript masses due to combat experience), were indeed cloned elites and the only unit to fully retain the Jango Fett template due to them being fanatically loyal, the majority of Stormtroopers in the galaxy are merely recruited humans with much lower standards or cloned from younger, inferior, clone daddies. The Commando Clones were also brought into the 501 and the rest of the Fett clones either retired early due to accelerated aging, defected to Mandalore through Kal Skirata or gave training to others like Cody and then retired after a few years of that. The 501st had their moment of glory at Hoth as the main infantry force accompanying Vader, but even then between the loss of several AT-ATs to Luke, Wedge and the other Rogue Squadron pilots and to the ice breaking under some of the others and the accelerated aging reducing performance, it was a tactical win but a strategic failure as many rebels managed to escape. The 501st Legion Fett clones were then retired in the next year before Endor due to the aging problems with clones and degradation in the original DNA sample, which helps explain their losses there. Thrawn later rebuilt the 501st with elite recruits and this version of the unit continues for more than a century with the best of the best being placed there, transferring from Thrawn to the Imperial Remnant at Bastion and serving until the end of Legends history.

Another phenomena in the expanded universe is attempts to explain the poor accuracy with gear issues. These range from poor vision in helmets to defective components in blasters. These two could be used together, saying that the armor was designed for a very limited size range (a literal bunch of clones) and fit poorly on recruited soldiers. This is especially so when it's outright canon that early generation clone armor was made by non-humans and did indeed impede movement. However it is also worth pointing out that in the real world 90% of the shots a soldier takes will miss anyway.

Where Stormtroopers do excel consistently is in fights against equally nameless foes. All RPGs stats and asymmetrical video games show Stormtroopers are flat out better than the typical Rebel soldier, B1 droid or Hutt thug. This isn't so curbstompingly better that Stormtroopers would win with 2-1 odds without better tactics (which they'd have in narrative but isn't represented mechanically) but they do have better stats. Officially they're just worse than any hero. If you watch the original Star Wars movie (whether remastered or not), the Stormtroopers whenever fighting non-plot armored people absolutely ''curbstomp''. Like in the first scene of the movie when they go through a single-file door into a heavily defended and narrow corridor and yet slaughter the absolute ''fuck'' out of the Rebels. In fact, the only time we see them faring badly in firefights in the movies is on the Death Star in the first movie (when there was a beacon on the Falcon and so their misses were likely due to orders to let the heroes escape), against Luke on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back (he's a freaking Force-sensitive with some training and combat experience, oh and also the son of the literal Chosen One of the setting, so that isn't a fair measurement), and we don't really see anything in Return of the Jedi due to Ewok shenanigans. When the Millennium Falcon was escaping Tatooine where the troopers were arguably trying to damage the ship's engines and not actively trying to shoot Han Solo. With the Imperial Remnant they show competence fighting at the Yuuzhan Vong War and continue service until the end of the known timeline, even fighting on both sides of the last known war and one company takes part in the last battle known, witnessing the extinction of the Sith.

Within the Disney canon, Rogue One also indicates another factor in which Force Adept Chirrut Imwe walks out of cover (after a Rebel Soldier gets wasted by Stormtroopers for being exposed from cover for a second) and walks through a hail of blaster fire sedately while chanting a matra to the Force. This indicates that the Force is to some degree actively intervening for force sensitive individuals by making shots run astray, though even this is not a 100% fool proof solution as he was eventually gunned down.