Today, November 11, is Veteran's Day. I thought I'd mark the occasion by discussing how Star Wars has treated warfare and soldiers throughout the saga. Despite the name "Star Wars," the saga actually has very few prominent characters who are soldiers. The main characters tend to be Jedi, Sith, smugglers, or politicians. Moreover, in the Prequel Trilogy, the opposing armies consisted of Clone Troopers and battle droids, not ordinary men and women in uniform.
That changed somewhat with The Clone Wars animated TV show. The series started to individualize the clones, allowing them to develop unique personalities. The clones came across more like regular men than exact duplicates of bounty hunter Jango Fett. The fact that they're clones does mean they can identify more closely with each other, and as a result they exhibit a high degree of camaraderie. There's very little grumbling in the clone ranks (although there are a few cases of defection and desertion).
