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. 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.
