1) Because Lucas is a hack.
2) Because otherwise the movie’s real short.
3) “Only Imperial Stormtroopers are this precise”.
( 4) “Because they’re under orders to let the rebels escape the Death Star so they can be tracked back to their base.”)
If a Star Trek redshirt and a stormtrooper get into a fire fight, what happens since redshirts die so easily and stormtroopers miss so often?
That would stretch the encounter out into a mini-series, at the very least. Maybe even a full-length season.
The sci fi version of “And then there were none.”
The “they were told to miss” argument might work for the Deathstar scenes, but not for the rest of the franchise. In pretty much every other scene Storm Troopers appear, they can’t hit the broad side of a planet and get mowed down like last week’s lawn by what is usually just a handful of good guys. It’s really embarrassing.
My own theory is that working for the Empire (or the First Order) is a truly soul sucking experience, so most Troopers are just filling out their time card and waiting for their shift to end. Risking their lives to get off a good shot probably doesn’t sound like a good idea in most cases.
Something like this makes the most sense. In the Clone Troopers series, they are shown as being much better fighters, and at one point some clones mock Storm Troopers.
But the practical, if boring, answer is of course “otherwise the movie’s really short.”
The lengths people are willing to go in order to suspend their disbelief. It is magical thinking and yet some very intelligent people are not self aware they are doing it, or why they are doing it.
Honestly, most action movie bad guys are terrible shots unless the plot demands they be good. Part of the issue is it’s just hard to film people missing in realistic ways on screen.
Oh sure, I’m just referencing how the exercise is an example of how humans operate, even the ones who think they are super smart.
Shooting is actually really hard, especially one handed at moving targets and when the shooter is injured or has been moving vigorously. We can look at all the videos of police shootings to see how often people miss. Portraying action realistically is difficult because you would first have to explain reality to the audience.
It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only….
Why do they wear armor that hand gun fire defeats?
Supplied by lowest bidder, of course.
Environmental and debris protection?
Same reason people wore flak jackets before modern body armor, combined with same reason people wear coats.
I seem to recall reading somewhere, years ago, that in WW2, for each combat death, an average of 3 million rounds were expended. The explanation is the article I vaguey remember was, the average soldier, on both sides, wasn’t willing to kill anyone, so a lot of firing in the air went on. Observing the hunters banging away out here in the sticks, I wonder if most people simply can’t be trained to shoot straight. Watching a man in a red hat train a scoped rifle on a deer a hundred yards away and miss is interesting.
3 million is rather high, at least if we mean ground combat.
(AA fire is necessarily very inefficient with WW2 tech, and all the suppressing fire with German machinegun doctrine necessarily blew through ammo mostly just to keep the riflemen alive as they advanced.
The sources are awful and dubious, but I see a lot more 5k-50k rounds fired per combat death being suggested.
“Combat death” doesn’t include “wounded but not killed” – but seriously wounded soldiers are an excellent outcome tactically, since they both can’t really fight AND take up supplies and other people’s effort, they’re militarily important.
But equally we shouldn’t compare AA fire and deliberate suppression or “shoot that clump of bushes we saw someone run behind” with “being bad at deliberate fire or simple attack”, which is what we see in the movies, as Lucas is no tactician AND accurate tactical behavior is rare outside of deliberately accuracy-focused historicals.)
Cover fire, suppressive fire, shooting at moving targets, and many other reasons why one bullet one kill is the wrong way to think.
1) Because Lucas is a hack.
2) Because otherwise the movie’s real short.
3) “Only Imperial Stormtroopers are this precise”.
( 4) “Because they’re under orders to let the rebels escape the Death Star so they can be tracked back to their base.”)
If a Star Trek redshirt and a stormtrooper get into a fire fight, what happens since redshirts die so easily and stormtroopers miss so often?
That would stretch the encounter out into a mini-series, at the very least. Maybe even a full-length season.
The sci fi version of “And then there were none.”
The “they were told to miss” argument might work for the Deathstar scenes, but not for the rest of the franchise. In pretty much every other scene Storm Troopers appear, they can’t hit the broad side of a planet and get mowed down like last week’s lawn by what is usually just a handful of good guys. It’s really embarrassing.
My own theory is that working for the Empire (or the First Order) is a truly soul sucking experience, so most Troopers are just filling out their time card and waiting for their shift to end. Risking their lives to get off a good shot probably doesn’t sound like a good idea in most cases.
Something like this makes the most sense. In the Clone Troopers series, they are shown as being much better fighters, and at one point some clones mock Storm Troopers.
But the practical, if boring, answer is of course “otherwise the movie’s really short.”
The lengths people are willing to go in order to suspend their disbelief. It is magical thinking and yet some very intelligent people are not self aware they are doing it, or why they are doing it.
Honestly, most action movie bad guys are terrible shots unless the plot demands they be good. Part of the issue is it’s just hard to film people missing in realistic ways on screen.
Oh sure, I’m just referencing how the exercise is an example of how humans operate, even the ones who think they are super smart.
Shooting is actually really hard, especially one handed at moving targets and when the shooter is injured or has been moving vigorously. We can look at all the videos of police shootings to see how often people miss. Portraying action realistically is difficult because you would first have to explain reality to the audience.
It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. It’s only….
Why do they wear armor that hand gun fire defeats?
Supplied by lowest bidder, of course.
Environmental and debris protection?
Same reason people wore flak jackets before modern body armor, combined with same reason people wear coats.
I seem to recall reading somewhere, years ago, that in WW2, for each combat death, an average of 3 million rounds were expended. The explanation is the article I vaguey remember was, the average soldier, on both sides, wasn’t willing to kill anyone, so a lot of firing in the air went on. Observing the hunters banging away out here in the sticks, I wonder if most people simply can’t be trained to shoot straight. Watching a man in a red hat train a scoped rifle on a deer a hundred yards away and miss is interesting.
3 million is rather high, at least if we mean ground combat.
(AA fire is necessarily very inefficient with WW2 tech, and all the suppressing fire with German machinegun doctrine necessarily blew through ammo mostly just to keep the riflemen alive as they advanced.
The sources are awful and dubious, but I see a lot more 5k-50k rounds fired per combat death being suggested.
“Combat death” doesn’t include “wounded but not killed” – but seriously wounded soldiers are an excellent outcome tactically, since they both can’t really fight AND take up supplies and other people’s effort, they’re militarily important.
But equally we shouldn’t compare AA fire and deliberate suppression or “shoot that clump of bushes we saw someone run behind” with “being bad at deliberate fire or simple attack”, which is what we see in the movies, as Lucas is no tactician AND accurate tactical behavior is rare outside of deliberately accuracy-focused historicals.)
Cover fire, suppressive fire, shooting at moving targets, and many other reasons why one bullet one kill is the wrong way to think.