Out of all the things that people talk about when it comes to Star Wars, the poor aim of the average stormtrooper is one of the many elements of the story that is constantly being brought up since the truth is that the supposedly highly-trained troopers are used by the thousands in service to the Empire and the First Order aren’t exactly adept at handling their own weapons. There have indeed been times when stormtroopers have managed to hit their target, but this has either been due to luck, the fact that a stun charge can’t be dodged as easy, or because it was needed to advance the plot. Otherwise, the general feeling is that the average stormtrooper can’t hit the broad side of a barn from a foot away, even if their weapon is set on full auto. That’s a huge exaggeration obviously, but it’s the general feeling that many people have about stormtroopers since following A New Hope, a lot of people had to wonder how intelligent and how skilled stormtroopers really were since they appeared to be fools with blasters that couldn’t hit anything.
There are a lot of scenes in the movies that prove this, since the moment that Han Solo charged down a hallway in the Death Star, yelling at the top of his lungs at armed troopers who had their own weapons, the troopers started to gain a seriously bad reputation. They might have been able to be effective after Obi-Wan called their shots precise after finding a ruined Jawa Sandcrawler, but one might as well admit that there are swoop bike gangs that are more precise than stormtroopers. But getting to the point, it’s been seen in the comics and the books that troopers are far more accurate and fearless than they’ve been seen as in the movies. If stormtroopers were able to hit anything in the movies, then things would have been a lot different.
Think of it this way, if the troopers had managed to kill Han or disable the Millennium Falcon, the Rebellion would have been without Han, Chewie, Leia, or Luke, and it’s very possible that they would have died on the station. It’s even more possible that the Death Star would have blown up Yavin 4 and ended a major part of the Rebellion since, without the key figures in their arsenal, the rebels didn’t have anyone that could do much of anything at that time. It’s fair to think that someone would have stepped up to the plate and done the job, but just think, had good aim been a part of the training regimen, the Empire would have remained strong for quite some time. That’s a stretch, I know, but the fact is that stormtroopers, despite being trained to fight for their lives and ignore the deaths of their fellow troopers, aren’t really given a lot of chances to show any sense of accuracy when it comes to handling their weapons. It’s more about pointing and shooting, not really delivering the most effective shot. I suppose that makes sense, as a wall of blaster fire would be extremely hard to get away from unless one is a Jedi.
There are specialized troopers that are a lot deadlier, and the dark troopers in The Mandalorian are by far superior to human troopers, but the fact is that no matter how specialized or how skilled a stormtrooper is, it almost always turns out that they’re going to be disrespected somehow since whether they’re a part of the Empire or the First Order, they’re bound to be lumped in with the rest of the trooper and only given recognition when they’re allowed to do something great. A lot of people do feel sorry for stormtroopers simply because they get the idea that a lot of these troopers joined up with the Empire for the right reasons, even if they ended up doing horrible things in the name of someone that they never even managed to see. In a big way, the Empire and the First Order were machines in which the troopers weren’t even cogs, they were meat for the grinder that was used to fuel the war effort and instill fear in the worlds they ruled over.
The stormtroopers were and still are kind of a joke since against anyone other than civilians who don’t know how to fight, they’re fodder that only matter in great numbers. Those troopers that have been elevated and shown to be an exception at some point in the movies and shows have been given some semblance of respect, but the rest of them are essentially empty shells with bad aim. That’s pretty cynical, but it’s about as close to the truth as anyone’s going to get when talking about how a lot of people feel about stormtroopers and their place in the franchise.
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