Star Wars fans finally learn why Stormtroopers can’t aim properly
Topics: Star Wars, TV And Film, Lucasfilm
Featured Image Credit: Lucasfilm
Topics: Star Wars, TV And Film, Lucasfilm
The age-old Star Wars debate about how bad the Imperial Stormtroopers' aim is has been brought up again.
We all know the running joke in the Star Wars universe about stormtroopers.
It turns out that sometimes they’re pretty terrible shots.
Any time Luke, Han, or anyone else in the gang are being shot at by them, the stormtroopers just never seem to be able to hit them.
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There is, however, a pretty obvious clue that explains exactly why the stormtroopers have a bad aim, at least in A New Hope.
And no, it’s not just because they’re shooting at the main characters.
In A New Hope, once our heroes escape the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon and start heading to the Rebel base on Yavin IV, Leia suggests that the ease of their escape is due to the fact they let them escape.
Indeed, in the next scene we see this was indeed Tarkin and Vader’s plan, as they had managed to plant a homing beacon on the Falcon before it took off.
This would explain why the stormtroopers had such a bad aim while on the Death Star, and it also fits with what we see from the stormtroopers in the rest of the film.
The stormtroopers absolutely demolish the Rebel Alliance soldiers on the Tantive IV, with very few casualties too.
Obi-Wan also takes note of the precision of the shots placed on the Jawa sandcrawler, saying that Tusken Raiders could not have made shots that accurate.
So, the fact that the stormtroopers have such a bad aim later on fits the theory that it was their official orders to not kill.
That so many people seem to miss this, evident due to the fact that stormtroopers’ bad aim has become a joke in the Star Wars community, has led to some fans wanting the theory to become canonised.
“That the Stormtroopers in A New Hope were INTENTIONALLY missing shots, so they could plant a homing beacon on the Millennium Falcon and find the rebel base/Luke,” writes one comment in a thread asking which Star Wars theories should become canon.
“I always thought this was the intention and that people didn't realise it and that's how we ended up with the Stormtroopers are a bad shot trope,” wrote another comment.
I guess the debate on this topic will never end, despite there being a pretty good reason within the text itself.