The Star Wars original trilogy introduced viewers to the evils of the Empire, and the badges and insignias worn by Imperial officers are actually quite important. The first Star Wars movie and Return of the Jedi tend to be inconsistent with their depiction of Imperial Officer rank plaques. In fact, all Imperial Officers seen in Return of the Jedi wear badges indicating the rank of Commander, due to a mistake by the film’s costuming department. However, The Empire Strikes Back and most of Star Wars' recent live-action shows maintain a consistent portrayal. Thanks to costume designers Glyn Dillon and David Crossman, Imperial Officer ranks can be accurately identified by their single-layer badges of colored tiles.
Among the most prominent branches of the Imperial Military are the Imperial Army, Navy, Starfighter Corps, and Stormtrooper Corps. But in order to recognize the difference in Imperial ranks in the original trilogy, what has now been established are two eras for the Imperial Military, one before the destruction of the Death Star (shown in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor) and one after (seen in The Empire Strikes Back). The key difference between the two is that the first era’s badges were nearly always single-layer while the second’s have two vertically-stacked layers of tiles. The first era is well-documented by canon, and the second is explained by Legends via the Imperial Sourcebook.
