1 The problem with the clonetroopers is that they aged at an accelerated rate.  That meant that they "wore out" quickly, with only a few remaining by the time of Episode IV. 

They were replaced by both volunteers and draftees.

Jango Fett was seen in the movies! 

2 Well, that's the canon explanation.  But the stormtroopers were not originally clones.  The clone thing didn't come along until, IIRC, a George Lucas interview between Star Wars and Empire.  And it was never in a script until Attack of the Clones.  The stormtroopers in Star Wars were normal, Imperial Academy recruits.

Oh, and the clones in the Clone Wars were originally the conceptual predecessor of the Mandalorians.  The "Clones" were a race of cloned soldiers that were the sworn enemies of the Jedi-Bendu.

3

The term "Clone wars" appears in ep IV; Luke says "You fought in the Clone Wars?" to Ben Kenobi.

So Lucas had to come up with something to be the "clone wars" for the prequel. And what he came up with was pretty pitiful.

What I was hoping for was that the "clones" were ringers, duplicates of important people who replaced them to infiltrate the top levels of the government. The reason, then, that the Jedi were important was that they were the only ones who could tell who were clones and who were not. Or so I imagined it.

I think that would have made for a lot more interesting story than the one he ended up with IMHO.

4 I think that would have made for a lot more interesting story than the one he ended up with IMHO.

I think that sentence applies to the entire "first" trilogy.

5 I keep meaning to put together a t-shirt design for the slogan "Kurosawa Shot First!". What Lucas did with the prequels was prove that he's a terrible writer and director who still doesn't understand his accidental masterpiece.

-j

6 The sad thing is that it's essentially true that the prequels are, except for Vader being a Skywalker, the story he intended to tell.  He just didn't have anyone around to tell him he was doing a crap job anymore. 
As to the original point, Abrams has sort-of kind-of  hinted that he's mostly ignoring the prequels.  However, they are still "officially" canon.

7 The canon, as mentioned is that Imperial Storm Trooper != Republic Clone Trooper.  And, without going into spoilers, First Order Storm Trooper != Imperial Storm Trooper.  But the background of the character and how he became a storm trooper is explicitly brought up in the movie and it makes as much sense as anything else in the universe.
I saw the movie last night.  The first two thirds was amazing,and if the whole movie had been like that, it would undoubtedly place as the best movie in the franchise by far. Unfortunately the last third was ripe with refrigerator moments.  It still blows eps 1-3 out of the water, but I'm not sure it will dethrone episode V as "the best".

8 From Wikipedia, The official Star Wars canon consists of the seven released Star Wars theatrical feature films, the Star Wars animated film and television series The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, and every other material released after April 25, 2014, unless otherwise stated. The Clone Wars animated movie got bad reviews, but the animated series is considered very good, some even saying it makes up for the prequels. Rebels recently introduced three clone troopers from the series as recurring characters, along with Ahsoka Tano. One of them, Captain Rex, said the official Empire line was that the Clone Troopers had outlived their usefulness and were replaced by the Storm Troopers. (At least the clones could hit things when shooting.) When Rex had to disguise himself as a Storm trooper, he complained about how inferior the armor was.

9 So, nothing Zahn wrote, nor Anderson is canon? No Thrawn? No Pellaeon?
By this movie, I would think Han is too old to have twins plus one, so they're out?
No Mara Jade?

Man.

10

So, nothing Zahn wrote, nor Anderson is canon? No Thrawn? No Pellaeon?
By this movie, I would think Han is too old to have twins plus one, so they're out?
No Mara Jade?

Pretty much.  Disney dropped the Expanded Universe into the round container not long after they bought the franchise from George Lucas.  So my Mara Jade action figure (For the longest time, among the most valued action figure released for Star Wars.) is no longer part of the franchise proper.

11 Lucasfilm had this multi-tiered canon definition for a long time.  It was basically A)  What's in the movies  B)  What Lucas says or writes, until it's confirmed or contradicted by a movie, and C)  licensed properties, until contradicted by B or A.


And as usual, Zahn has pretty strong evidence that Lucas did in fact originally intend the Thrawn trilogy to be chapters 7 - 9, just as Splinter of the Mind's Eye was originally Star Wars 2.  When the Zahn books showed how much demand there was for Star Wars stories, the expanded universe was born.  Although it's always had an asterisk next to the name.