Star Wars Rogue One: 10 Big Questions From What We Know So Far
7. What Are 'Shadow Troopers'?
One of the details of Star Wars: Rogue One that has leaked online pertains to a new type of Imperial foot solider expected to feature in the film. Theyre apparently called Shadow Troopers, boasting black helmets with silver features. Since this news broke, Shadow Troopers have cropped up as playable characters on EAs new Star Wars: Battlefront videogame. In the old canon of the Expanded Universe, black Stormtroopers popped up quite a lot. There were also 'Dark Troopers'; heavy duty anti-Rebel droids that the Empire created around a similar timepoint. In the 1990s comic book series Dark Empire II, it was revealed that some droids like these contained the minds of deceased Imperials and had been endowed with the Dark Side of the Force, allowing them to link mentally with Emperor Palpatine. Could the new Shadow Troopers have similarly dark backstories in Rogue One, or are they just a redesign for the sake of selling a few more toys? Even they're not tied to the Force, it'd be nice to find out that they're dressed in black for a reason. Perhaps these are black ops soldiers, trained for the most deadly and dangerous combat that the Empire faces. Force-brains or no, introducing a more brutal brand of Stormtrooper would certainly be a way to up the ante in Rogue One. In the original trilogy, most Stormtroopers were woefully inaccurate and easy to defeat. If the Shadow Troopers can remedy that and make them a genuinely difficult threat, Rogue One could engineer some seriously high stakes battle scenes.
