10 Star Wars Answers Given YEARS Later

Despite evidently fighting on the side of the new Galactic Empire by the time Episode III - Revenge of the Sith reached its end, clone troopers are nowhere to be seen in the original trilogy.

Though their disappearance was somewhat touched on during the Expanded Universe stories, explaining that clones were just too expensive to keep producing, an official canon answer was something fans were left waiting years for.

But the truth behind precisely why/when clones ultimately got replaced by human stormtroopers was finally shown in The Bad Batch animated series in 2023.

In that show, after initially serving as Imperial stormtroopers during the early days of the Empire, it was again a case of the clones not being seen as cost-effective. The Empire began secretly having clones train some of their human recruits before eventually using the destruction of the Kaminoan cloning facility as a way to phase them out.

In the wake of Vice Admiral Edmon Rampart's attack on said facility on the orders of Grand Moff Tarkin, the Emperor appeared before the Senate and explained that the clones blindly following Rampart's orders here was a sign that change was needed.

Just like that, an Imperial Defense Recruitment Bill that had been rejected multiple times - legislation which involved not relying on clones as much and recruiting more human soldiers instead - was finally passed as the clones began to be gradually replaced, finally answering the question of what happened to all the clones.