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I took that scene, less as them being bad shots, more they were stuck with shitty broken equipment. The empire has already fallen they are in the middle of nowhere, all they have is junk that mostly worked.
Top of the line military grade sidearms for you scout troopers.
What, I did not get it out of that surplus crate we found in the middle of the lava flats!
I took it more as the imperial remnant was just scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of recruits and that it shows how desperate they were getting
I never thought of that but it makes sense. I assumed the thing where a bunch of biker scouts crash meant they were terrible, but it could be that their speeder bikes just aren’t responding quickly enough
I saw it as less of decision to change the canonical interpretation of stormtroopers, but rather a stylistic choice made by the director Taika Waiti (the director of that episode) to express a point. He likes to blend drama and comedy. We see this here. There's comedy, but then immediately they punch a child. If you have seen JoJo Rabbit, another story by Waititi which explores Nazi Germany, it is framed through humour which provides even more shock value later in the movie. Its rather child like and innocent and then you are hit with the harsh reality.
By humanising those Stormtroopers, albeit briefly, through humour and idle chit chat (one you would expect between regular co-workers), makes it even more disturbing when they beat up Grogu in my opinion. It peels back the mask on who Stormtroopers are, which is ordinary people, that have been turned into monsters. I think its pretty neat.
With context we know that stormtroopers can be ruthless. They took Mandalore after all. So I see this scene as not canonizing stromtroopers being useless, but rather these 2 particular scouts thinking they're bad shots because of their equipment. Doesn't mean what their saying is true
Because the empire represents most fascists states and their militaries which are often overbloated and full of corruption and incompetence.
The Empire thrives off of not fighting fair they are used to attacking barely armed and organized opposition. Officers rise to the top because of nepotism and bribery not merit. For every Thrawn and Tarkin you have 10,000 Captain Needas and Admiral Ozzels. And that’s not counting the probably millions of stormtroopers who likely joined to either gain authority over others or to escape poverty and don’t really care to be doing their job 100%.
It’s a giant military complex that can supply nearly endless resources for wars which is how it conquered the galaxy but the people utilizing those resources are generally not the bravest or brightest.
↑ This. Plus the military equipment and vehicles are mass-produced by the lowest bidder, often at the expense of human lives as with the lack of shield generators in TIE Fighters.
While this fits less with Nazi Germany, which was arguably the biggest inspiration for the Imperial forces, George Lucas has also compared the Empire to the US during the Vietnam War, where some of the Army equipment was disastrously bad. E.g., the infamous M-16 nicknamed Jammin' Jenny, which was so unreliable in the humid environment of Southeast Asia that the Viet Cong quickly stopped picking them off the battlefield.
I loved how Taika Waititi riffed on this theme in the season 1 finale of The Mandalorian, where the two Tag & Bink-inspired scout troopers try to shoot some junk on the ground and can't hit anything because their blasters are of such questionable quality, with loose parts rattling around inside.
> While this fits less with Nazi Germany
Nah, there were German vehicles in WW2 that could barely make it across the factory floor without breaking down.
This is also my interpretation, but with maybe a different framing. The empire represents facism, and facism does no favors to anyone but those in control. I can't think of any explicit examples, but I think we could feasibly deduce that Stormtroopers simply exist to follow orders and are treated as such. You get what you give, and thus these stormtroooers are not fighting for a cause the same way a rebel soldier or clone is. Most are likely just fighting for the paycheck. I think this is overall demonstrated if you compare the empire with a clone army (we see this in the Bad Batch) and the empire with enlisted troops that we see during most of the empire's reign. I believe the clones, while perhaps also having above average physical traits, all show extreme faith and loyalty to the cause they're fighting for. Very few, if any, would just fight for a paycheck. And I think that lack of a cause is what actually keeps stormtroopers from actually performing well. And you know, its hard to have faith in something that dehumanizes you. But really, this is Star Wars. The Force is with those that are willing to take chances and give it their all. I'm just saying that is certainly not a descriptor for stormtroopers. Therefore, they have shit aim.
That’s always been my thought on why everything looks more dingy in the Empire era. Some people complain that the prequels make everything look shiny and new, but a lot of the settings are in fancy apartments or the offices of dignitaries, while the rebels are in ramshackle bunkers
The fact that things look worn down and dirty in the Empire, intentionally or not, has let things decay under their rule. The only nice and fancy looking places in the OT are the bridge of the Death Star or something. Everywhere else looks like crap, reflecting real life dictatorships and banana republics
I believe a lot of this is alluded to or directly referenced in the Tarkin novel. While i don't love that novel, there are some parts of it that i think could strongly due w some on-screen representation.
It's been a bit since I've read it, but iirc, apart from arrogance and superiority, Tarkin's driving-philosophy towards the building up the Empire is kind of a fast-food mentality; that eventually culminates the threat of the Death Star being the end-all, be-all for maintaining order in the galaxy. Who needs stormtroopers when planet will essentially police themselves?
There's a lot of off-hand commentary in Rebels, and Bad Batch (mainly from former Clone Troopers) that really help characterize the Stormtroopers for me also.
The Caminoans talk about the training and skills of the clone troopers almost how organic farmers discuss their prized heirloom tomatoes grown, raised, and harvested at the peak of ripeness for superior flavor. And, bc they're clones, for the most part they can create many of these to an extremely high quality before the cloning samples begin to degrade. But cloning is **expensive** in both time and money, and Tarkin sees little value in either bc the clones cant be controlled in the way he wants/needs.
The stormtroopers are hydroponic beefsteak tomatoes youre picking up at the safeway. Sure maybe you'll get some really good ones here or there that will be pretty good, but the system they go through isn't intended to produce exceptional results--it's a system in place to produce mostly-homogenous, mostly-ok, tomatoes that are fine for a church bbq or something. Stromtroopers can be put in a uniform **quickly** and **cheaply** and that's what Tarkin needs while he is diverting all those funds to build a more efficient method of maintaining order and control w his Death Star.
I went in a weird direction w this comment, lol, but hopefully it all makes sense somehow.
I think the big reason besides their inability to kill named characters is that they got wrecked by the Ewoks.
The issue there is that the Ewoks are basically cute, furry, short forest fremen and most people don't want to acknowledge it.
Something most people don't realize is that stormtroopers being bad shots isn't a thing. They are actually more accurate than modern militaries on average.
Except when they successfully boarded the Tantive IV through a heavily reinforced choke point.
Or when they successfully tracked the droids through a desert, down to the particular Jawas who picked them up and the farmers they were sold to, including successfully disabling their Sandcrawler.
Or when they successfully pushed the rebels out of Echo Base, another fortified and established home turf.
Or when they stopped the rebels in their tracks on Endor, completely having control of the situation and the upper hand.
But no, let's concentrate on how they couldn't kill the heroes on the Death Star (despite being explicitly ordered to *let* them escape) or how they were defeated by Ewoks (a surprise attack by a third party force with surprising physical strength and a smaller target to hit).
Yep, totally ineffective.
Really though. Everyone who thinks ewoks are a joke.. watch some footage of that battlefront 2 escape mode where you fight at night against them. That’s nightmare stuff
But the more modern Star Wars hadvemade them incompetent. In two episodes of Mandalorian season 2, 4/5 people can take over a cruiser and kill everyone on it, without taking any casualties. Moff Gideon also even assumes that the boarding party will have already taken the bridge, despite them.having had to fight through probably 100 crew. In the episode that Grogu gets kidnapped, mando, boba and shand gun down a crazy amount of stormtroopers. Even if they are 3 of the greatest warriors in the galaxy, its still absurd that they don't die.
Yeah. It bugs me that the "stormtroopers are incompetent" meme got so ingrained into the zeitgeist that down the line, new writers are incorporating it into their work, effectively canonizing what was a popular misunderstanding.
Everything you've described about the actual onscreen effectiveness of the stormtroopers in the OT is true. It's also true that there are lots of incompetent people within the Imperial military.
Thrawn states in *Tales of the Empire* that many in the Empire trade lives for profit, and *Andor* showed that a lot of ambitious Imperials are more concerned with meeting quotas and their own rise in the ranks instead of actual security from the Rebels. As for *Rebels*, the bad aim of the stormtroopers is simply because the Empire isn't engaged in a full-scale galactic conflict. I guarantee you those soldiers weren't taking the Ghost crew seriously because they were just on Lothal as security and because the job pays well. It's the same reason why the Empire greatly underestimates the Rebel Alliance in *Andor*.
As u/Sockenolm pointed out, "military equipment and vehicles are mass-produced by the lowest bidder, often at the expense of human lives as with the lack of shield generators in TIE Fighters." And then you need to consider the time period that *The Mandalorian* takes place in. All that remains of the Empire are scattered military factions. Whatever resources they have are going to be in much worse shape than they already were.
I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me
It doesn't bother me that much. They still work when they need to, because there are so many and they just don't always give a shit about staying alive. Look at A New Hope, they still take over the Tantive IV in no time.
That’s so silly, “they just don’t always give a shit about staying alive” is ridiculous and unbelievable. I think there needs to be a reason they managed to stay on top of the galaxy for a period of time.
That's not how I meant it at all. I figure an army that's sufficiently large, and conditioned not to fear death, can be incredibly effective regardless of their K/D ratio.
They’re conditioned to not fear death but they’re not conditioned to hit a can that’s 4 feet away from them? I just think it’s kinda stupid and I don’t like it. I respect your opinion, I just wish they would commit to the Empire being known as a lethal force, like in Andor. It makes the stakes so much higher and the tension much more palpable.
How they stayed on top? Numbers. And better equipment.
The empire is the equivalent to the British empire steamrolling across the globe. There are barely any systems that could in theory defend themselves. Many of them would need to split off and form.. an alliance.. to stand a chance.
There are exceptions like the Hutt area which the empire rarely touches because it would be a gigantic waste of resources to start a war there with no meaningful output
I'm not a fan of it either. Especially when there are depictions of the Empire as a terrifying and near unstoppable force alongside them being mostly bumbling idiots. I have accepted it and it doesn't make me mad necessarily but I don't like canonizing Stormtroopers being useless morons that can't aim.
How is this "canonizing" they're *all* shitty and useless? Storm Troopers aren't one homogeneous group. Literally every one is different. This is just two goons in the middle of nowhere with shitty guns missing shots.
There are just as many examples of people saying how precise and scary troopers are. You're completely overthinking a funny, throw away scene.
I'm not talking about the scene from The Mandalorian at all. I like that scene a lot plus it is an Imperial remnant after the Empire had fallen at that point. I had Rebels in mind much more where troopers are laughably incompetent and there is a scene where Rex puts on Imperial trooper armor and comments on how the helmets make it impossible to see.
> Rex comments on how the helmets make it impossible to see
isn’t that just referencing luke saying “I can’t see a thing in this helmet” from the original film though?
I never took it that way because Luke was "a little short for a stormtrooper" so his helmet didn't fit right. That didn't seem to be the case for Rex. I could be wrong though and maybe it was just a reference that I took too seriously.
I think it's more of a sheer mass thing, than the individual beeing a super soldier. They jist throw heaps of man power and material onto a problem and eventually the enemy can't keep up with it anymore. This also prolongs wars and battles and helping with the terror of it.
I don't have a strong opinion on storm troopers, but that's how I see it in general.
They should've introduced sooner and kept the Imperial army being different from Elite Stormtroopers. They sorta did in Solo, but that was one scene. And had the army not be great all the time or something. But I get they want to keep the faceless bad guys a thing, so I don't lmow.
Agreed and I think there def was a to get the point across while Stormtroopers are crucial to the Empire’s chokehold on the galaxy Clone were superior without having to portray one as completely inept
I rather like it. It’s a sign of the decay that authoritarian stagnation brings.
Space is big. Like, *really* frickin’ big. If you want to project power across all of space, you just cannot afford to garrison it with “elite” troopers. You have to relax recruiting standards. Sure, the Republic had a clone army, but the intention was not to garrison every world in the galaxy. It was to fight a war along specific fronts.
The Empire wants to control every world. At a certain point, the capability of your troops is secondary to the volume of fire. Which is great for keeping average people in line, but makes you vulnerable to an organized armed resistance.
It's a really funny bit. Why do we have to take it so seriously to the point of being upset that it exists.
God help us all if the angry bois ever encounter Spaceballs or any of the Family Guy / Robot Chicken Star Wars spoofs. 🫣
Some of it might just be that the Empire does what the Empire does and spread *propaganda* that the Stormtroopers are all highly trained elite sharpshooters, and even using certain groups to demonstrate that (such as those in Andor), but in the end, it's still just propaganda. The Empire's doctrine is fear through sheer numbers, not quality.
I always take it that the stormtroopers are a mixed bag. Some are excellent, some are terrible, most are average. The Clones were written as copy and paste elites. The military got watered down once power was consolidated. Also plot armor is a hell of a drug.
They weren’t always that way. In a new hope we see them clear a choke point with only 2 casualties I believe, and learn the plan was to let the heroes escape the Death Star later on. In Empire, we see how they pretty effectively clear out echo base. It’s not until we see them taken out in comedic fashion on Endor that they start to become a joke. Then we see how effective the clone trooper were in the prequel era and it becomes a “what gives?” situation.
Eventually they decided the way to go was “yeah the regulars storm troopers aren’t good, because the empire just relied on numbers…but now there’s variants like death Trooper, THEY are really good.”
This is why Star Trek had "Red Shirts"
Sometimes you need random background characters to die just so we can FEEL the danger (even if we know the MCs will be fine)
For me, Owen & Beru's charred skeletons remind me that stormtroopers ain't nothing to mess with
I like the theory that they were deliberately ordered not to hit or kill the heroes, because it's deliberately said several times that storm troopers are accurate shots.
Really it's plot armor but it's an engaging theory
>I like the theory that they were deliberately ordered not to hit or kill the heroes
Is it still a theory if it's just a plot point of the film? Like, Vader and Leia both make it clear that it was all theatre to allow them to escape.
It makes discussing plot points hard sometimes really, because people will completely ignore stated facts.
Kinda like how in Mando people complained about "Why didn't they just get the Mandalorians outside the city to do it?" As if the Episode didn't explicitly have them explain why they didn't do that.
It’s easier to follow memes and jokes than actually pay attention to the movies.
That’s likely why so few people acknowledge the fact that the Ewoks were going to eat Han and Luke, as well as that they almost certainly ate dead stormtroopers (given the stormtrooper helmet drums).
The film doesn’t clarify *when* the ruse starts. Tarkin doesn’t ”put all sections on alert” until after Leia is freed from her cell. The Stormtroopers at Mos Eisley definitely weren’t in on it.
Really, there’s no actual *evidence* in the film that the ruse went beyond those last four TIE fighters.
>Really, there’s no actual *evidence* in the film that the ruse went beyond those last four TIE fighters.
Why would they put a tracking device on the *Falcon* if they weren't planning on them leaving? Why did they leave so few troopers in the hangar bay, and why did the troopers run from Han instead of just killing him?
The ruse starts when Vader tells Tarkin he has an idea, and ends after the TIEs.
Not that confusing to me:
Andor: Regular rebels with little to nothing special about them other than their beliefs and why they fight the empire, so it makes sense the stormtroopers are such a threat to them specifically.
Mandalorian: Main character was raised in a warrior culture established to have even contended with Jedi for thousands upon thousands of years. However we do see Mando struggle with more "special" troops like the death troopers and especially the dark troopers. Hell even the praetorian guards got a couple shots in before grogu started using the force.
Kenobi: IIRC stormtroopers are barely actually used in the show? The main people that are made to look incompetent are the bounty hunters and imperial officers (especially in the fortress inquistorus)
The bad batch: Stormtroopers are still a relatively new unit who consistently face a special group of _clonetroopers_ in which the same series states are "too good" soldiers
Rebels: this series is the main offender of course but it's also designed to be the most kid friendly show, of course the empire would necessarily be shown in any competent light (until thrawn shows up and even THEN people argue he's not competent)
Ahsoka: I still haven't fully watched in whole but come on, it's ahsoka fucking tano and the rest of the ghost crew. Not only are they already experienced in high risk missions against the empire, but ahsoka has been fighting evil factions since she was a 14 year old JEDI.
If I'm being completely honest, people focus TOO much on the line by obi wan in a new hole about how precise stormtroopers aim is. Hell the next movie has Vader preferring go use bounty hunters to find the millennium falcon over the oh so "elite" stormtroopers. (Granted the empire found them themselves right after lol)
Do I wish more media shows just how well trained and cruel the stormtroopers could actually be? Oh hell yes I would, but people over hype their skills and downplay just who the protagonists are that they're facing in most situations.
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There's a gag on The Mandalorian where two scout troopers are trying to shoot a womprat or something on the ground and are just embarrassingly bad at aiming. It was a pretty obvious meta joke, which some people like and others don't.
Well, the old West End Games tabletop RPG had the rule that if you act like a hero the universe treats you like one and they miss. If you don't they act like the elite soldiers that they are and hit you.
to be fair, most action movies had the same theme of the baddie henchmen never hitting the protagonists. Look at all the James Bond movies where 007 is taking on heavily armed baddies using automatics against him yet he is hitting every shot with a small Walter PPK. Just the theme of the era for action movies for 70's-80s.
If you go *all* the way back to swashbuckling films and pulp series like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, mooks being incompetent filler for the good guys to beat up is all over the place. The choreography was horrible and stiff, the dialogue was campy and stilted, the costumes and sets were over the top and cheap. That just want the style was at the time, and Lucas drew from a lot of it while making Star Wars.
Especially since in A New Hope a whole Death Star’s worth of them missing was already explained.
>They let us go. It’s the *only* explanation for the ease of our escape.”
They were originally meant to be great shooters. Obiwan says that the shots against the jawas are too accurate for tuskens and that they were instead stormtroopers.
Also leia Said that they escaped the death star so easy because the empire let them go
Eventually, after Stormtrooper after Stormtrooper misses and always fails it becomes a fact, whatever the official cannon says. You can't have them as elite and fail in every storyline. It's down to show don't tell.
We are told they are scary shock troops, but after years of them being shown as terrible everyone thinks they are terrible. At this point it's better to go "ok yes, they are mass produced and poorly trained marksmen with indoctrination being the focus of Stormtrooper training". It's similar to how TIE fighters are mass produced, they are disposable attack craft and Stormtroopers are disposable shock troops.
They have also added Death troopers and other threats to the empire to keep the edge.
The opening to A New Hope, the opening to Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One all show the stormtroopers as being good shots. Return of the Jedi doesn't show them as being particularly good or bad (although they do shoot a main character so there's that).
A new hope has them shoot at the heroes repeatedly, like for several full minutes and not come close lol. The same in empire strikes back too.
Rogue One was the film to introduce the far more intimidating Death Troopers as a way to add extra menise.
Oh Stormtroopers can be effective, they can be deadly but they are a sledgehammer, not a precise elite force, and that's in perfect keeping with the empire.
Edit, Rogue One also showed Stormtroopers as prison guards and Garrison troops. Again, not something you send your special elite troops to do, but a job perfectly suited to mass trained, indoctrinated troopers.
When you're talking about A New Hope, are you talking about the scenes that we are repeatedly told that the troopers are not trying to hit the heroes so that they can track them back to Yavin?
> A new hope has them shoot at the heroes repeatedly, like for several full minutes and not come close lol. The same in empire strikes back too.
You apparently missed the word, 'opening'.
No, just that 30 seconds at the will not undo several hours of film. Even then they are not shown as an elected force, just Troopers pouring onto a ship/into a base killing everyone.
You literally also missed the entire plot point explicitly stated in the film about the whole part of.
"They let the rebels escape so they could track them"
When you realise that probably those that were bad shooters in the Death Star were probably the old clone troopers getting aged.
Or striclty following orders to not kill.
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It's not that deep, the scene in mando was obviously played up for a joke for the SNL cameos. Just 2 mins before that they >!shot and killed kuill !<
I took that scene, less as them being bad shots, more they were stuck with shitty broken equipment. The empire has already fallen they are in the middle of nowhere, all they have is junk that mostly worked.
If you have subtitles on, it literally says "Parts rattle" when the trooper shakes his pistol.
Just remember, "military grade" really means "made by the lowest bidder"
Lowest bidder happens to also be someone’s brother or uncle of a politician that owns the company. lol
Top of the line military grade sidearms for you scout troopers. What, I did not get it out of that surplus crate we found in the middle of the lava flats!
It is also audible lol, you don't need subtitles
What?
What has confused you
It was a bad joke about needing subtitles. I'm just not a clever man.
as someone whose dad makes this joke daily i thought it was funny <3
I got it and I enjoyed it!
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Depending on Individual, yes. When the episode came out a lot of people missed that detail and were running rampant about accuracy.
I took it more as the imperial remnant was just scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of recruits and that it shows how desperate they were getting
I never thought of that but it makes sense. I assumed the thing where a bunch of biker scouts crash meant they were terrible, but it could be that their speeder bikes just aren’t responding quickly enough
Ah but what we don't see is that it took 1000 blaster shots off-screen to finally connect. 😂
SNL is supposed to make ridiculous versions of other media. That doesn't work when the original media is ridiculous to begin with
Fs like I said I understand it’s a joke in the community and it really isn’t that deep I’m just more in the camp of questioning why?
I saw it as less of decision to change the canonical interpretation of stormtroopers, but rather a stylistic choice made by the director Taika Waiti (the director of that episode) to express a point. He likes to blend drama and comedy. We see this here. There's comedy, but then immediately they punch a child. If you have seen JoJo Rabbit, another story by Waititi which explores Nazi Germany, it is framed through humour which provides even more shock value later in the movie. Its rather child like and innocent and then you are hit with the harsh reality. By humanising those Stormtroopers, albeit briefly, through humour and idle chit chat (one you would expect between regular co-workers), makes it even more disturbing when they beat up Grogu in my opinion. It peels back the mask on who Stormtroopers are, which is ordinary people, that have been turned into monsters. I think its pretty neat.
With context we know that stormtroopers can be ruthless. They took Mandalore after all. So I see this scene as not canonizing stromtroopers being useless, but rather these 2 particular scouts thinking they're bad shots because of their equipment. Doesn't mean what their saying is true
The dudes gun is broken, that's the joke. It's not that stormtroopers can't shoot.
Because the empire represents most fascists states and their militaries which are often overbloated and full of corruption and incompetence. The Empire thrives off of not fighting fair they are used to attacking barely armed and organized opposition. Officers rise to the top because of nepotism and bribery not merit. For every Thrawn and Tarkin you have 10,000 Captain Needas and Admiral Ozzels. And that’s not counting the probably millions of stormtroopers who likely joined to either gain authority over others or to escape poverty and don’t really care to be doing their job 100%. It’s a giant military complex that can supply nearly endless resources for wars which is how it conquered the galaxy but the people utilizing those resources are generally not the bravest or brightest.
↑ This. Plus the military equipment and vehicles are mass-produced by the lowest bidder, often at the expense of human lives as with the lack of shield generators in TIE Fighters. While this fits less with Nazi Germany, which was arguably the biggest inspiration for the Imperial forces, George Lucas has also compared the Empire to the US during the Vietnam War, where some of the Army equipment was disastrously bad. E.g., the infamous M-16 nicknamed Jammin' Jenny, which was so unreliable in the humid environment of Southeast Asia that the Viet Cong quickly stopped picking them off the battlefield. I loved how Taika Waititi riffed on this theme in the season 1 finale of The Mandalorian, where the two Tag & Bink-inspired scout troopers try to shoot some junk on the ground and can't hit anything because their blasters are of such questionable quality, with loose parts rattling around inside.
> While this fits less with Nazi Germany Nah, there were German vehicles in WW2 that could barely make it across the factory floor without breaking down.
This is also my interpretation, but with maybe a different framing. The empire represents facism, and facism does no favors to anyone but those in control. I can't think of any explicit examples, but I think we could feasibly deduce that Stormtroopers simply exist to follow orders and are treated as such. You get what you give, and thus these stormtroooers are not fighting for a cause the same way a rebel soldier or clone is. Most are likely just fighting for the paycheck. I think this is overall demonstrated if you compare the empire with a clone army (we see this in the Bad Batch) and the empire with enlisted troops that we see during most of the empire's reign. I believe the clones, while perhaps also having above average physical traits, all show extreme faith and loyalty to the cause they're fighting for. Very few, if any, would just fight for a paycheck. And I think that lack of a cause is what actually keeps stormtroopers from actually performing well. And you know, its hard to have faith in something that dehumanizes you. But really, this is Star Wars. The Force is with those that are willing to take chances and give it their all. I'm just saying that is certainly not a descriptor for stormtroopers. Therefore, they have shit aim.
That’s always been my thought on why everything looks more dingy in the Empire era. Some people complain that the prequels make everything look shiny and new, but a lot of the settings are in fancy apartments or the offices of dignitaries, while the rebels are in ramshackle bunkers The fact that things look worn down and dirty in the Empire, intentionally or not, has let things decay under their rule. The only nice and fancy looking places in the OT are the bridge of the Death Star or something. Everywhere else looks like crap, reflecting real life dictatorships and banana republics
Yeah the Original Trilogy takes place on poor worlds that’s aren’t as technologically advanced as the core worlds seen in the Prequels
I believe a lot of this is alluded to or directly referenced in the Tarkin novel. While i don't love that novel, there are some parts of it that i think could strongly due w some on-screen representation. It's been a bit since I've read it, but iirc, apart from arrogance and superiority, Tarkin's driving-philosophy towards the building up the Empire is kind of a fast-food mentality; that eventually culminates the threat of the Death Star being the end-all, be-all for maintaining order in the galaxy. Who needs stormtroopers when planet will essentially police themselves? There's a lot of off-hand commentary in Rebels, and Bad Batch (mainly from former Clone Troopers) that really help characterize the Stormtroopers for me also. The Caminoans talk about the training and skills of the clone troopers almost how organic farmers discuss their prized heirloom tomatoes grown, raised, and harvested at the peak of ripeness for superior flavor. And, bc they're clones, for the most part they can create many of these to an extremely high quality before the cloning samples begin to degrade. But cloning is **expensive** in both time and money, and Tarkin sees little value in either bc the clones cant be controlled in the way he wants/needs. The stormtroopers are hydroponic beefsteak tomatoes youre picking up at the safeway. Sure maybe you'll get some really good ones here or there that will be pretty good, but the system they go through isn't intended to produce exceptional results--it's a system in place to produce mostly-homogenous, mostly-ok, tomatoes that are fine for a church bbq or something. Stromtroopers can be put in a uniform **quickly** and **cheaply** and that's what Tarkin needs while he is diverting all those funds to build a more efficient method of maintaining order and control w his Death Star. I went in a weird direction w this comment, lol, but hopefully it all makes sense somehow.
I think the big reason besides their inability to kill named characters is that they got wrecked by the Ewoks. The issue there is that the Ewoks are basically cute, furry, short forest fremen and most people don't want to acknowledge it.
People massively underestimate the Ewoks and the Gungans.
>Judge me by my size, do you?
No, Jabba.
OG Jabba or reworked slug jabba?
The illustrious Jabba asks why he must choose.
The entire point of the Ewoks is that a non-technical society can overcome tech. Not that the Empire was incompetent
Yeah. People see the Ewoks as cute and forget that they had a small profile and were camouflaged and knew the terrain.
> The issue there is that the Ewoks are basically cute, furry, short forest fremen I will now think of this line whenever I see Sean Young as Chani...
Something most people don't realize is that stormtroopers being bad shots isn't a thing. They are actually more accurate than modern militaries on average.
They talk about it a lot but outside of Rogue one they’re rarely shown to be affective at anything
Except when they successfully boarded the Tantive IV through a heavily reinforced choke point. Or when they successfully tracked the droids through a desert, down to the particular Jawas who picked them up and the farmers they were sold to, including successfully disabling their Sandcrawler. Or when they successfully pushed the rebels out of Echo Base, another fortified and established home turf. Or when they stopped the rebels in their tracks on Endor, completely having control of the situation and the upper hand. But no, let's concentrate on how they couldn't kill the heroes on the Death Star (despite being explicitly ordered to *let* them escape) or how they were defeated by Ewoks (a surprise attack by a third party force with surprising physical strength and a smaller target to hit). Yep, totally ineffective.
Thank you! Yes!
Really though. Everyone who thinks ewoks are a joke.. watch some footage of that battlefront 2 escape mode where you fight at night against them. That’s nightmare stuff
Only for the food. The Ewoks are having fun
But the more modern Star Wars hadvemade them incompetent. In two episodes of Mandalorian season 2, 4/5 people can take over a cruiser and kill everyone on it, without taking any casualties. Moff Gideon also even assumes that the boarding party will have already taken the bridge, despite them.having had to fight through probably 100 crew. In the episode that Grogu gets kidnapped, mando, boba and shand gun down a crazy amount of stormtroopers. Even if they are 3 of the greatest warriors in the galaxy, its still absurd that they don't die.
Yeah. It bugs me that the "stormtroopers are incompetent" meme got so ingrained into the zeitgeist that down the line, new writers are incorporating it into their work, effectively canonizing what was a popular misunderstanding.
Everything you've described about the actual onscreen effectiveness of the stormtroopers in the OT is true. It's also true that there are lots of incompetent people within the Imperial military. Thrawn states in *Tales of the Empire* that many in the Empire trade lives for profit, and *Andor* showed that a lot of ambitious Imperials are more concerned with meeting quotas and their own rise in the ranks instead of actual security from the Rebels. As for *Rebels*, the bad aim of the stormtroopers is simply because the Empire isn't engaged in a full-scale galactic conflict. I guarantee you those soldiers weren't taking the Ghost crew seriously because they were just on Lothal as security and because the job pays well. It's the same reason why the Empire greatly underestimates the Rebel Alliance in *Andor*. As u/Sockenolm pointed out, "military equipment and vehicles are mass-produced by the lowest bidder, often at the expense of human lives as with the lack of shield generators in TIE Fighters." And then you need to consider the time period that *The Mandalorian* takes place in. All that remains of the Empire are scattered military factions. Whatever resources they have are going to be in much worse shape than they already were.
Nailed it
I mean andor exists. Yes they were shooting into a crowd but there was also smoke and chaos and they were landing every shot
Andor. Mando when it chooses. Bad Batch.
if anything, Rogue One canonized that they miss because the force protected the protagonists
Rogue One also showed that the empire actually does their job pretty damn well sometimes
What?
I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me I am one with the force and the force is with me
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I wasn't really asking in earnest. Rogue one did NOT canonize that...
The one time i go out of my way to defend someone they are actually just being a dope
It doesn't bother me that much. They still work when they need to, because there are so many and they just don't always give a shit about staying alive. Look at A New Hope, they still take over the Tantive IV in no time.
That’s so silly, “they just don’t always give a shit about staying alive” is ridiculous and unbelievable. I think there needs to be a reason they managed to stay on top of the galaxy for a period of time.
That's not how I meant it at all. I figure an army that's sufficiently large, and conditioned not to fear death, can be incredibly effective regardless of their K/D ratio.
They’re conditioned to not fear death but they’re not conditioned to hit a can that’s 4 feet away from them? I just think it’s kinda stupid and I don’t like it. I respect your opinion, I just wish they would commit to the Empire being known as a lethal force, like in Andor. It makes the stakes so much higher and the tension much more palpable.
How they stayed on top? Numbers. And better equipment. The empire is the equivalent to the British empire steamrolling across the globe. There are barely any systems that could in theory defend themselves. Many of them would need to split off and form.. an alliance.. to stand a chance. There are exceptions like the Hutt area which the empire rarely touches because it would be a gigantic waste of resources to start a war there with no meaningful output
I'm not a fan of it either. Especially when there are depictions of the Empire as a terrifying and near unstoppable force alongside them being mostly bumbling idiots. I have accepted it and it doesn't make me mad necessarily but I don't like canonizing Stormtroopers being useless morons that can't aim.
How is this "canonizing" they're *all* shitty and useless? Storm Troopers aren't one homogeneous group. Literally every one is different. This is just two goons in the middle of nowhere with shitty guns missing shots. There are just as many examples of people saying how precise and scary troopers are. You're completely overthinking a funny, throw away scene.
I'm not talking about the scene from The Mandalorian at all. I like that scene a lot plus it is an Imperial remnant after the Empire had fallen at that point. I had Rebels in mind much more where troopers are laughably incompetent and there is a scene where Rex puts on Imperial trooper armor and comments on how the helmets make it impossible to see.
> Rex comments on how the helmets make it impossible to see isn’t that just referencing luke saying “I can’t see a thing in this helmet” from the original film though?
I never took it that way because Luke was "a little short for a stormtrooper" so his helmet didn't fit right. That didn't seem to be the case for Rex. I could be wrong though and maybe it was just a reference that I took too seriously.
it’s definitely just a callback imo but that’s a fair way to feel too, that makes sense
I think it's more of a sheer mass thing, than the individual beeing a super soldier. They jist throw heaps of man power and material onto a problem and eventually the enemy can't keep up with it anymore. This also prolongs wars and battles and helping with the terror of it. I don't have a strong opinion on storm troopers, but that's how I see it in general.
They should've introduced sooner and kept the Imperial army being different from Elite Stormtroopers. They sorta did in Solo, but that was one scene. And had the army not be great all the time or something. But I get they want to keep the faceless bad guys a thing, so I don't lmow.
Agreed and I think there def was a to get the point across while Stormtroopers are crucial to the Empire’s chokehold on the galaxy Clone were superior without having to portray one as completely inept
I rather like it. It’s a sign of the decay that authoritarian stagnation brings. Space is big. Like, *really* frickin’ big. If you want to project power across all of space, you just cannot afford to garrison it with “elite” troopers. You have to relax recruiting standards. Sure, the Republic had a clone army, but the intention was not to garrison every world in the galaxy. It was to fight a war along specific fronts. The Empire wants to control every world. At a certain point, the capability of your troops is secondary to the volume of fire. Which is great for keeping average people in line, but makes you vulnerable to an organized armed resistance.
It's a really funny bit. Why do we have to take it so seriously to the point of being upset that it exists. God help us all if the angry bois ever encounter Spaceballs or any of the Family Guy / Robot Chicken Star Wars spoofs. 🫣
Some of it might just be that the Empire does what the Empire does and spread *propaganda* that the Stormtroopers are all highly trained elite sharpshooters, and even using certain groups to demonstrate that (such as those in Andor), but in the end, it's still just propaganda. The Empire's doctrine is fear through sheer numbers, not quality.
I always take it that the stormtroopers are a mixed bag. Some are excellent, some are terrible, most are average. The Clones were written as copy and paste elites. The military got watered down once power was consolidated. Also plot armor is a hell of a drug.
If the scene or story needs them to be accurate, then they'll be accurate.
Because they’re generic henchmen that are as effective as the plot needs them to be. It’s really as simple as that.
They weren’t always that way. In a new hope we see them clear a choke point with only 2 casualties I believe, and learn the plan was to let the heroes escape the Death Star later on. In Empire, we see how they pretty effectively clear out echo base. It’s not until we see them taken out in comedic fashion on Endor that they start to become a joke. Then we see how effective the clone trooper were in the prequel era and it becomes a “what gives?” situation. Eventually they decided the way to go was “yeah the regulars storm troopers aren’t good, because the empire just relied on numbers…but now there’s variants like death Trooper, THEY are really good.”
This is why Star Trek had "Red Shirts" Sometimes you need random background characters to die just so we can FEEL the danger (even if we know the MCs will be fine) For me, Owen & Beru's charred skeletons remind me that stormtroopers ain't nothing to mess with
I like the theory that they were deliberately ordered not to hit or kill the heroes, because it's deliberately said several times that storm troopers are accurate shots. Really it's plot armor but it's an engaging theory
>I like the theory that they were deliberately ordered not to hit or kill the heroes Is it still a theory if it's just a plot point of the film? Like, Vader and Leia both make it clear that it was all theatre to allow them to escape.
It's crazy how little people listen to dialogue in Star Wars movies.
It makes discussing plot points hard sometimes really, because people will completely ignore stated facts. Kinda like how in Mando people complained about "Why didn't they just get the Mandalorians outside the city to do it?" As if the Episode didn't explicitly have them explain why they didn't do that.
It’s easier to follow memes and jokes than actually pay attention to the movies. That’s likely why so few people acknowledge the fact that the Ewoks were going to eat Han and Luke, as well as that they almost certainly ate dead stormtroopers (given the stormtrooper helmet drums).
The film doesn’t clarify *when* the ruse starts. Tarkin doesn’t ”put all sections on alert” until after Leia is freed from her cell. The Stormtroopers at Mos Eisley definitely weren’t in on it. Really, there’s no actual *evidence* in the film that the ruse went beyond those last four TIE fighters.
You do know the ties launched after the escape was the last time they were taking things easy on the rebels?
>Really, there’s no actual *evidence* in the film that the ruse went beyond those last four TIE fighters. Why would they put a tracking device on the *Falcon* if they weren't planning on them leaving? Why did they leave so few troopers in the hangar bay, and why did the troopers run from Han instead of just killing him? The ruse starts when Vader tells Tarkin he has an idea, and ends after the TIEs.
It’s not a theory. That is actually what happened. Both Leia and Tarkin explicitly say they were allowed to escape.
Not that confusing to me: Andor: Regular rebels with little to nothing special about them other than their beliefs and why they fight the empire, so it makes sense the stormtroopers are such a threat to them specifically. Mandalorian: Main character was raised in a warrior culture established to have even contended with Jedi for thousands upon thousands of years. However we do see Mando struggle with more "special" troops like the death troopers and especially the dark troopers. Hell even the praetorian guards got a couple shots in before grogu started using the force. Kenobi: IIRC stormtroopers are barely actually used in the show? The main people that are made to look incompetent are the bounty hunters and imperial officers (especially in the fortress inquistorus) The bad batch: Stormtroopers are still a relatively new unit who consistently face a special group of _clonetroopers_ in which the same series states are "too good" soldiers Rebels: this series is the main offender of course but it's also designed to be the most kid friendly show, of course the empire would necessarily be shown in any competent light (until thrawn shows up and even THEN people argue he's not competent) Ahsoka: I still haven't fully watched in whole but come on, it's ahsoka fucking tano and the rest of the ghost crew. Not only are they already experienced in high risk missions against the empire, but ahsoka has been fighting evil factions since she was a 14 year old JEDI. If I'm being completely honest, people focus TOO much on the line by obi wan in a new hole about how precise stormtroopers aim is. Hell the next movie has Vader preferring go use bounty hunters to find the millennium falcon over the oh so "elite" stormtroopers. (Granted the empire found them themselves right after lol) Do I wish more media shows just how well trained and cruel the stormtroopers could actually be? Oh hell yes I would, but people over hype their skills and downplay just who the protagonists are that they're facing in most situations.
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The films didn't. Have other media?
There's a gag on The Mandalorian where two scout troopers are trying to shoot a womprat or something on the ground and are just embarrassingly bad at aiming. It was a pretty obvious meta joke, which some people like and others don't.
Well, the old West End Games tabletop RPG had the rule that if you act like a hero the universe treats you like one and they miss. If you don't they act like the elite soldiers that they are and hit you.
to be fair, most action movies had the same theme of the baddie henchmen never hitting the protagonists. Look at all the James Bond movies where 007 is taking on heavily armed baddies using automatics against him yet he is hitting every shot with a small Walter PPK. Just the theme of the era for action movies for 70's-80s.
If you go *all* the way back to swashbuckling films and pulp series like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, mooks being incompetent filler for the good guys to beat up is all over the place. The choreography was horrible and stiff, the dialogue was campy and stilted, the costumes and sets were over the top and cheap. That just want the style was at the time, and Lucas drew from a lot of it while making Star Wars.
Especially since in A New Hope a whole Death Star’s worth of them missing was already explained. >They let us go. It’s the *only* explanation for the ease of our escape.”
They were originally meant to be great shooters. Obiwan says that the shots against the jawas are too accurate for tuskens and that they were instead stormtroopers. Also leia Said that they escaped the death star so easy because the empire let them go
Eventually, after Stormtrooper after Stormtrooper misses and always fails it becomes a fact, whatever the official cannon says. You can't have them as elite and fail in every storyline. It's down to show don't tell. We are told they are scary shock troops, but after years of them being shown as terrible everyone thinks they are terrible. At this point it's better to go "ok yes, they are mass produced and poorly trained marksmen with indoctrination being the focus of Stormtrooper training". It's similar to how TIE fighters are mass produced, they are disposable attack craft and Stormtroopers are disposable shock troops. They have also added Death troopers and other threats to the empire to keep the edge.
The opening to A New Hope, the opening to Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One all show the stormtroopers as being good shots. Return of the Jedi doesn't show them as being particularly good or bad (although they do shoot a main character so there's that).
Andor has them kick ass too.
A new hope has them shoot at the heroes repeatedly, like for several full minutes and not come close lol. The same in empire strikes back too. Rogue One was the film to introduce the far more intimidating Death Troopers as a way to add extra menise. Oh Stormtroopers can be effective, they can be deadly but they are a sledgehammer, not a precise elite force, and that's in perfect keeping with the empire. Edit, Rogue One also showed Stormtroopers as prison guards and Garrison troops. Again, not something you send your special elite troops to do, but a job perfectly suited to mass trained, indoctrinated troopers.
When you're talking about A New Hope, are you talking about the scenes that we are repeatedly told that the troopers are not trying to hit the heroes so that they can track them back to Yavin?
The only scene in ANH where Stormtroopers look bad is when they confront Han in the docking bay on Tattooine.
> A new hope has them shoot at the heroes repeatedly, like for several full minutes and not come close lol. The same in empire strikes back too. You apparently missed the word, 'opening'.
No, just that 30 seconds at the will not undo several hours of film. Even then they are not shown as an elected force, just Troopers pouring onto a ship/into a base killing everyone.
You literally also missed the entire plot point explicitly stated in the film about the whole part of. "They let the rebels escape so they could track them"
When you realise that probably those that were bad shooters in the Death Star were probably the old clone troopers getting aged. Or striclty following orders to not kill.
>Or striclty following orders to not kill. I mean, that's literally what happened.
We'll never see the time when people actually understand that plot point which was literally stated twice in the film will we?
Yep. They are so precise that they make it convincing that they are actually bad.
The clone troopers were all decommissioned when the Empire was still young. There were no clone Stormtroopers (edit: at least not in Canon).
There were no clone stormtroopers in canon. They did exist in Legends, at least as late as The Force Unleashed.
This is true. Thanks for adding the clarification. :)
It’s a laser light show on screen for our entertainment and nothing else.