By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
In Star Wars, the Stormtroopers have long since been a punchline because of their terrible aim, as evidenced by the fact that an entire army of them inside the Death Star couldn’t manage to shoot a handful of intruders. However, there’s a popular fan theory that the Stormtroopers really are as precise as Obi-Wan Kenobi claims and that the only reason they kept missing our heroes is because Darth Vader and Tarkin were planning on letting the Rebels go. Interestingly, this theory seems to be proven in Return of the Jedi by the Stormtrooper who shoots Leia off her speeder.
To be clear, a big part of why everyone thinks Stormtroopers can’t aim is because they messed up shots that seemed impossible to miss when our heroes are on the Death Star. Sure, the visor may be hard to see out of, but how difficult can it be to shoot characters on an exposed platform when you have the high ground, or simply zap characters who are running down a tiny corridor with a gun that fires faster than the speed of light? Looking back, Return of the Jedi’s Stormtrooper with perfect aim may prove the fan theory about Death Star troopers missing on purpose.
The Stormtrooper Shot Heard ‘Round The Galaxy
In case you haven’t seen Return of the Jedi in a hot minute and need a refresher, the Stormtrooper (or, to be completely pedantic, the Scout Trooper) we are talking about really goes the extra mile to shoot Leia off her speeder bike. He doesn’t simply line up the shot and fire at her with his own speeder’s built-in lasers. Instead, when she is by his side, he takes out his sidearm pistol and, with his third shot, successfully shoots her off her bike.
This is one of the fastest-moving scenes in Return of the Jedi (in more ways than one), so most fans have never paid close enough attention to this Stormtrooper to credit his awesome aim. This guy had the quick thinking to pull out his sidearm and managed to hit a camouflaged target in under three shots while avoiding flying into trees (at least, at first). Furthermore, those speeder bikes can fly up to 310 miles per hour, so he managed to do all of this while traveling at insane speeds and still managed to stay on target.
Granted, this Return of the Jedi Stormtrooper ends up flying into a tree and dying right after this, so he’s not the smartest soldier in the Empire. But you don’t have to have a great brain to have great aim, and in his own way, this might be the best crack-shot Stormie that we ever see onscreen. And considering his limited screen time and his ignominious death, it’s fair to say he’s still not that special. In fact, he’s likely a representative sample of the galaxy’s scariest soldiers.
The Fan Theory In Action
And that’s the point, really: this Return of the Jedi Stormtrooper is proof that the Emperor’s favorite soldiers really do have good aim. He was just as precise in clipping Leia as the Stormtroopers who attacked the Sandcrawler in A New Hope, grimly impressing Obi-Wan Kenobi. The main outliers who make everyone think the Stormtroopers simply can’t aim are the ones on the Death Star who may or may not have been in on the plan to let our heroes escape.
It may not be an airtight case, but we feel confident that Return of the Jedi really does confirm the fan theory that the Death Star Stormtroopers were intentionally avoiding our heroes. Given that a Scout Trooper moving at hundreds of miles per hour was able to hit a Force-sensitive Rebel hero in only three shots, it’s fair to say these guys have secretly had great aim all along. And rumors to the contrary need to finally do what this ace Scout Trooper did immediately after shooting Leia: die in a fiery explosion.
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