Stormtroopers are notoriously bad shots.
The Empire’s expendable front line, Stormtroopers appear in pretty much every Star Wars offering out there, and people took notice of their terrible aim years ago. Through dozens of releases, spread across decades, audiences have watched countless Stormtroopers shoot wildly near — but never directly at — the various protagonists of the Star Wars world.
Now, one viewer thinks they have an explanation. Rather than join the masses, who simply assume that poor shooting skills are a requirement of Stormtrooper training, Reddit user angrybeaver200 whipped out some actual history to explain why the Stormtroopers never seem to hit their mark.
Noting that they recently finished reading On Killing, a psychological examination of the military, law enforcement, and the act of killing, angrybeaver200 explains their theory that psychology is behind the Stormtroopers’ bad aim. This is grounded in a study contained within the book, in which S.L.A. Marshall discovered that “less than 25% soldiers shot directly at the enemy” with the remainder purposefully aiming poorly, or refusing to fire their weapons at all.
This is a reasonable, and surprisingly academic, explanation for a bit of longstanding Star Wars plot armor. As angrybeaver200 notes, “Stormtroopers probably struggled with the same complexities of taking another humans life, and maybe even more so since they were fighting for an empire, whose ideals they may not have stood for.”
They even find time to theorize why this same explanation doesn’t apply to alternate Empire forces, like droids and Clone Troopers, both of which are — in their own ways — manufactured without that pesky empathy.
The explanation is great, and — even if it was an unintentional choice — it could serve up the perfect excuse for all those missed shots. Its also reinforced by the existence of Finn, a former Stormtrooper that experiences exactly what angrybeaver200 laid out upon entering combat for the first time. Finn finds himself unable to handle the violence of that altercation, a fact that eventually pushes him to abandon the First Order and fight for the Resistance.
Plenty of commenters disagree with our original poster’s theory, of course, but few provide real arguments against them. Except for one, who cleverly pulled out a quote showcasing that George Lucas never intended the Stormtroopers to be poor shots: “…and these blast points, too accurate for sand people. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise.”
The psychology explanation fails to hold water, once it becomes clear that Stormtroopers are simply bad at aiming because we can’t have our favorite heroes getting shot all the time. Still, its nice to have something grounded in realism and information to lend a better — albeit fan-created — explanation to one of Star Wars‘ most persistently criticized elements.
We can also go with commenter iwastherefordisco’s explanation, which might hit the nail directly on the head. They attribute poor Stormtrooper aim to “crappy helmets with reduced vision” and “armor that makes them run like stickmen.”
They’ve got a point.