All throughout the Star Wars trilogy (yes, we're calling it a trilogy, and always will) the enemy Stormtroopers spend almost every battle firing wildly, missing slow-moving targets, and are generally unable to land a shot roughly in the same zipcode as the good guys. But we know they're not incompetent: We see their handiwork elsewhere in the movies -- like when our heroes stumble across a destroyed sandcrawler -- and Obi-Wan Kenobi himself even says: "These blast-points... Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." These are supposedly squads of cold, calculating, efficient murder machines, professional soldiers literally bred for the purpose.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Yet, the second you put an Alderaan Princess in front of them, you've got five Stormtroopers missing a stationary target roughly eight feet away, three firing their guns wildly into the sky, and one asshole trying to ride his blaster rifle like a pony -- and none making the shot.

Fans jokingly refer to it as "Stormtrooper aim." But it's not lazy film-making (or at least, not just that): There's actually a perfectly logical, scientific reason behind this behavior. Soldiers in real wars behave in exactly the same way.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

In one war-time study, a Brigadier General found that "only 15 to 20 [percent] would take any part with their weapons." And that this was consistently true, "whether the action was spread over a day, or two days, or three." Eighty percent of the soldiers would not fire, due to nothing more than their innate desire to not take a human life. We also know that the vast majority of shots fired in battle, miss.

It's hard to aim at a man and pull the trigger. Even in firing squads, it's standard practice to give some soldiers blanks or unloaded rifles to diffuse the responsibility of killing amongst all men equally. This actually makes the soldiers more likely to pull the trigger, thinking their gun might not be loaded, as well as easing the men's consciences after the fact by letting them believe there's a chance they didn't actually kill the victim.



But we all know it was you, third from the left. You bastard.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

But even supposing you buy this explanation, there's one glaring omission we've left unaccounted for: If all of these Stormtroopers are missing on purpose, why don't the good guys seem to have the slightest problem murdering a city-bus worth of dudes every time they stop for gas? Are they more accepting of the brutal realities of war? Are they more faithful in their cause? Are they just a bunch of fucking sociopaths in space vests?

Nope. It's the helmets.

That's right: If the Stormtroopers had just taken off their helmets, they would have probably won the war. Especially considering that they're an elite battalion of well-funded techno-warriors, up against a space hillbilly, a gigolo, a pampered socialite and a furry version of Sloth from the Goonies. It all comes down to the basic principle of dehumanization.