So, there's a thing called the "Stormtrooper effect"...

You know these guys, right?

They are the butt of many jokes in cinema. They are inept, inaccurate, and above all, expendable cannon fodder for the Empire. The very idea of useless evil henchmen being unable to hit the barn from the inside is named after them. The "Stormtrooper Effect".

Here we are going to take a look at the original trilogy, and nothing else. There will be no explaining away the issue with faulty equipment here, just what we see in the movies.

Is this reputation justified?

Here's the thing...in-universe they are said to be fanatically loyal soldiers, with accurate aim and ruthless efficiency. Their Wookiepedia entry describes them as 'elite', and incapable of betrayal.

And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise.

- Obi Wan Kenobi

The entire franchise starts out with stormtroopers slaughtering the crew of the Tantive IV.

The enemy had superior cover, while the Empire's soldiers had to blast through the door and go in two at a time at most, while under heavy fire from a corridor full of rebels, all pointing their weapons at said door.

Yet, they managed to take control of the ship in no time with minimal losses, completely annihilating the opposition.

Then why is it that when it comes to the main characters, they appear incredibly incompetent?

They were ordered to be...

Remember Vader saying that Leia could still be of use to them, after the Grand Moff sentenced her to death?

When the rebels were discovered, and it was apparent that they are trying to rescue her, he recognized the value of keeping her alive, and convinced Tarkin to halt her execution.

And so the stormtroopers were ordered to let them escape with a tracking device hidden on the Falcon. They put on a show, appearing to try to stop them. And since they were supposed to be loyal to the extreme, they were willing to lay down their lives in order to make the ruse believable.

It was all kinda obvious though...

Leia: They let us go. It was the only reason for the ease of our escape.
Han: Easy? You call that easy?
Leia: They're tracking us.
Han: Not this ship, sister.

Yes this ship, mister.

Next time we see our heroes, they are assaulting the rebel base on Hoth.

Ok, here they had tremendous advantage. Imperial walkers were decimating the defenders in the trenches, and by the time they gained access to the main base, almost all rebel personnel had been evacuated.

We do see however their attempt at grounding the Falcon. When they discover the hangar, they are met with heavy turret fire from the ship, yet they were disciplined enough to assemble a heavy turret on the fly while suppressed. That's some badass discipline right there.

Surely they were incompetent on Bespin...

Well, not quite.

What do we know? Vader had the hyperdrive on the Falcon disabled. He intended them to reach the ship, just in case his duel with Luke didn't go as planned, and his son somehow escaped.

Since Luke did escape by jumping off after his hand was cut off, the Falcon was a contingency plan. They can pick Luke up, and try to jump out the system (they obviously didn't factor in R2-D2, and his ability to fix the Falcon, in that plan). So, this was the Death Star all over again. The troops were ordered to make the pursuit believable, but still let the rebels reach their ship.

With the hyperdrive being disabled, they weren't supposed to escape anyhow, so it wasn't a risk to let them take off in the Falcon.

And now, the big one, Return of the Jedi. Surely he cannot explain away the teddy-bear massacre...

First, we see Leia almost getting captured. First, one of the scout troopers lay down suppressing fire to keep the rebel pinned down, while the other one circles around and disarms her. Textbook stuff.

She only escapes because of Wicket.

And it all comes down to this. A few dozen stormtroopers versus hundreds of carebears.

So, what do we know of this battle?

On one side, we have (supposedly) less than a hundred highly trained soldiers with space age weaponry, and a handful of walkers, more suited to smoke out entrenched positions, rather than hunting down scattered, small primitives hiding in heavy undergrowth. We know they didn't throw all the soldiers at the battle, as there were still quite a few left inside the base that were captured later.

On the other side, we have about 20 rebel commandos, slightly less well equipped than the Empire. And of course, the ewoks. We know they are dangerous. They are eating the flesh of their prisoners, they despise the Empire, and their god in golden armor just descended from the heavens to lead them in a crusade against their evil oppressors (yeah, 3PO was reluctant to impersonate a god, but that didn't stop the others from taking advantage of the munchkins' religious thirst for blood and retribution).

Personally, I REALLY-REALLY don't want to know what happened to the previous owners of these helmets.

Yub-yub? More like 'Yum-yum'.

But I digress...

Just to reiterate, on one side we have about one company worth of elite troops.

On the other side we have a handful of elite rebel commandos, and of course a horde or carnivorous savages, fueled by their hatred of the Empire and their religious zealotry to see their home rid of the alien menace. They not only have an overwhelming numerical advantage, but superior experience in guerrilla tactics. These lovable teddy bears of death don't fuck around.

As for the accuracy of our intrepid heroes...

They managed to incapacitate R2 with a single shot, taken after aiming for just a fraction of a second...

...and wound Leia with a blast even less aimed than the one before. He's not even using both hands to steady the weapon.

So there. As it turns out, stormtroopers are not as inept as people first think. Throughout the movies they are shown to be efficient and quite accurate with their weapons, not to mention their unquestioning loyalty to their leaders.

They were not perfect. They made mistakes, they were not immune to force-manipulation (those were the droids they were looking for), they still missed a lot even when they didn't mean to, but in the grand scheme of things they were a bunch of badasses willing to die for the Empire.

cat tax