13 Fan Theories About Order 66 That Will Change How You Watch The Prequel Trilogy

From Redditor u/CeasarShahanshah:

I believe [a vision] is what turned [Pong Krell] to the dark side in part. 

It is already established that oftentimes visions (possibly implanted by the Sith) can screw with a Jedi's mind and lead them down the wrong path. Pong Krell was the psycho Jedi general who HATED Clone Troopers with a burning passion. At the end, after his plan to kill his and Obi-Wan's clone squads-he is arrested by the Clone Troopers. 

He then explains he turned to the dark side because he saw a vision of the Republic falling and being replaced by a "new power". He said he foresaw the Jedi losing the war. I believe that he also saw Order 66. This would explain why he hates Clone Troopers so much and why he may give in to the nihilistic defeatist attitude that the Jedi were done. They are too stupid and too weak and too connected to the Republic to see that those "inferior" clones bred in labs were mere pawns that would betray them. That is why he decided to jump ship and join the dark side-but not before killing as many clones as possible.

From Redditor u/Kryptonater:

...The entire arc leading up Order 66 was Ahsoka and Rex finding out about Sidious from Maul. The reason why Rex says Lord Sidious is because he pieced it all together before the chip took hold of him completely. It's why Palpatine pauses for a brief second, probably realising how close he was to being found out.

Redditor u/HTH52 adds:

I think Rex piecing it together is what allowed him to snap from it long enough to warn Ahsoka. The acknowledgment of Sidious as their leader seems to be a product of the chip. But Rex is the only one who was familiar with the name, and it is associated as the enemy in his mind.

From Redditor u/Cooldude971:

I believe the chips were the most effective when first activated, specifically when they were forced into a fight against the Jedi. This is when we saw a lot of clones saying “good soldiers follow orders.” However, even then there were signs of resistance: Rex was able to resist the effect long enough to warn Ahsoka Tano while Jesse and many of the clone troopers were shown to hesitate ever so slightly when Rex tried to talk them out of Order 66.

As time went on and adrenaline wore off, they had time to grow accustomed to the chip and for critical thought to re-emerge. The slight resistance we saw in the immediate aftermath of Order 66 would grow stronger. The clone troopers would thus be increasingly conflicted between their old personalities and what the weakened inhibitor chips were forcing them to do. While physically removing the chips would return the clones to their old personality, I imagine if given enough prodding that some clones would be able to basically snap out of it. This was seen in the comic series when Grey sacrificed his life to save Caleb Dume and in the Bad Batch when Captain Howzer gave that speech to his men.

To be clear, not every clone is going to resist. The Coruscant Guard (for example) were repeatedly shown to be goons who happily obeyed Palpatine’s orders when not under the effect of the chips. Further, the clones were bred to be loyal soldiers, so for many I imagine the combination of loyalty and inhibitor chip would remain strong enough to override their previous heroic nature. Many, however, are starting to resist.

Ultimately, the Grand Army of the Republic is re-emerging and I seriously doubt they are going to accept Imperial domination.

...What you probably had with Rex was maddening cognitive dissonance. He knew from Fives that the chip was there, that it might do something to him if he receeved the right trigger. When it finally happened, he knew that the order was wrong because of that knowledge, but literally could not think of a reason why he shouldn't follow the order because of the chip's influence. The end result being endless confusion until the chip shut down while he went through with what he'd been ordered to do, not really understanding why.

Rex being angry [seen in the series finale of The Clone Wars] fits with the cognitive dissonance explanation. The vast majority of the clones we've seen, in RotS and the various comics that have depicted Order 66, were basically just blase about the whole thing. They didn't attack the Jedi in anger, they just calmly carried out orders to kill them.

Rex though knows he shouldn't feel like he wants to kill her, but he doesn't know why he shouldn't feel that way or why he shouldn't do it. That kind of mental divide would be insanely frustrating, and anger would be a common reaction to that kind of frustration.

From Redditor u/gunjeecigarbeer:

First off we know that Plo Koon was killed during Order 66 right? Wrong! We know his ship was shot down but we never had a confirmation of his death. The clones shooting at him were soldiers he had fought alongside for 3 years in the Clone Wars. Plo also was a phenomenal pilot and the lego model of his spaceship has an eject button.

Second, we know that Plo Koon was the Jedi who brought Ahsoka Tano into the Jedi order and was her mentor for years. Were he to make a cameo it would be huge for the upcoming series.

Third, Dave Filoni is a huge fan of Plo Koon and he has stated in an interview that he does not believe Plo is dead. Who is Dave Filoni you ask? The director of the Clone Wars series and [showrunner for the Ahsoka series].

Finally, Plo Koon is one of the only canon Jedi who do not speak to Rey in Episode IX! Of all the voice actors who make an appearance in episode 9 Plo Koon's voice actor James Taylor is not one of them (I went back and listened 4 times to confirm).

To summarize this whole thing we know that Plo is a member of the Baran Do order, a Force-sensitive order of Kel Dor who survived Order 66 due to their small size. Plo Koon likely ejected from his ship, fled to his home planet, and has remained with the Baran Do order until his appearance in the Ahsoka Tano series in 2022.

From Redditor u/AceWriterDude:

Note: I don't think this was intended subtext, but if there is a book making this clear I haven't found any info on it.

In Star Wars, (movies and otherwise) we almost always focus on the exciting exploits of Jedi Knights or war heroes fighting against the Sith. But whenever we do see average people, they are often apathetic to the larger Galaxy. The people on Coruscant barely seem to notice the war and don't really seem to care when the Empire takes over. My theory is that apathy combined with increasing hatred of the Jedi caused Order 66 to be a non-issue.

Let's think about it from some average dude in the galaxy's perspective. Just watching the Holo-News everynight. He sees the Warrior Monks who guide the people of the Republic. The prequels don't go into government functioning that much outside of the Emperor but from what we can tell they are...

1.) Answerable only to the Chancellor and even then might not be willing to submit to his order if they are more powerful. An unarmed Jedi could beat a battalion of elite troopers unarmed and supposedly helpless.

2.) Command the military and get automatic command positions despite no military experience, and the only reason they make effective soldiers is because of their magic powers.

3.) Take small children away from their homes to be indoctrinated into their order despite being to young to make such decisions. Sure their parents give them away willingly, but if that happened in our world, (and we are shown people tend to think the same way in the Star Wars galaxy) wouldn't your thought be "cult"?

4.) They not only can use physical powers but mental powers to change your mind, read your mind, and make people give them whatever they want.

5.) Employed an army of child soldiers given no choice in their service and treated like disposable. In the thousands! This may have been the final straw for the majority of people to start hating them, and ever safe in their temple on Coruscant never noticed how much the public hated this move.

Combine all that and not knowing everything we the audience are privy to and you can see why people would think less of the Jedi. If, knowing all this Palpatine orchestrates a 3 year war that cost billions of lives. He starts ordering them badly or gives them false information for the generals to go on the general public is probably gonna think "Those Jedi are f**kups or traitors". So when the "Jedi Rebellion" starts people don't really doubt that those child enslaving, free-will subverting, sorcerers would try to take over the Republic entirely. Since nobody knows that the Emperor is a Sith this essentially means everyone trusts the man who finally got the jedi out of the way.

What of the incredibly evil child killing you say? Simple, the Jedi Rebellion killed them, or they were caught in the crossfire. The Jedi do all kinds of things to train these impressionable children behind closed doors, whose to say these monsters wouldn't use them as human shields, or kill them so they never become so powerful?

The people in the Star Wars galaxy aren't idiots, they were tired of, (what they thought) was a corrupt caste of warrior monks controlling them and wanted anyone to take them down, or anything to happen to justify their fear. Palpatine decided he was the right man for the job.