I came across a thread about a scene in Revenge of the Sith where the clones suddenly look left-handed while carrying their blasters. And that little detail got me curious, so I got deeper into it. The more I looked, the more explanations I found – some from what we see in Canon, and some from Legends material that expands on clone training and weapons.
Table of Contents
Clones Aren’t Just Carbon Copies
Even though they all come from Jango Fett’s DNA, The Clone Wars makes it clear clones aren’t perfect duplicates. They grow up with slight differences – hair color, scars, even personality quirks. That individuality suggests something as small as hand preference could vary too.
Think about it like identical twins in real life. They share the same DNA but they don’t always share the same dominant hand. It’s the same idea here. So when you see a clone holding a blaster in his left hand, it doesn’t break continuity at all. It’s just another way individuality slips through.
Eye Dominance And Training
There’s another layer that helps explain why some clones fire left-handed: eye dominance. When you aim a rifle, the eye you line up with the sights often matters more than the hand you write with. Sometimes your dominant eye and dominant hand don’t match – this is called “cross-dominance.”
In real life, militaries actually train for this. A U.S. Army program at Fort Drum specifically works with “crossed dominance” soldiers, teaching them to shoot with the shoulder that lines up with their dominant eye so their accuracy improves. Research has even shown that recruits whose hand and eye dominance matched scored higher in rifle qualification than those who were cross-dominant.
Clones would have been trained the same way. As soldiers engineered for precision, they were drilled to shoot from either shoulder. For some of them, using the left hand wasn’t just a preference – it was the natural way to line up their sights and hit their targets.
Legends: Ambidexterity Built Into Training
If you step into Legends material, the explanation gets very straightforward. In the Republic Commando novels, clone troopers are described as being trained to shoot ambidextrously. Their Kaminoan training program specifically drilled them to be equally capable with either hand. That made them adaptable in any situation, whether their dominant hand was injured or they needed to switch sides in combat.
This matches what you sometimes see on screen with clones who move their rifles easily between hands or fire off-hand without losing accuracy. Legends just spelled it out clearly – it was part of their design as soldiers.
The Stormtrooper Connection
When I noticed the clones in Revenge of the Sith holding their rifles left-handed, it reminded me of the stormtroopers in the Original Trilogy. A lot of them were lefties on screen too. That came down to the E-11 props, which were built from Sterling submachine guns. The magazine stuck out on the left side, and holding it against the armor in a right-handed stance was awkward. Many of the actors naturally switched to left-handed grips to make it work.
And that little production detail actually creates a nice throughline.
Legends: The DC-17m Rifle Problem
Another detail from Legends ties into the gear clones used. The DC-17m, the modular rifle carried by Republic Commandos, had a power pack mounted on the left side. That design caused problems for right-handed users. Some commandos preferred to fire or draw it with their left hand, since holstering it on the right could be clumsy.
There’s even a line in the Star Wars: Republic Commando novel where a commando complains about it: “Which moron… ordered Deeces with the clip on the left? … Can’t holster it right.” That quote shows the frustration wasn’t just an outside observation – it was built into the stories themselves.