10 Shocking Facts You Didn’t Know About Storm Troopers
Stormtroopers With Light Sabers If you are a true fan of Star Wars, you know
that Ralph McQuarrie was the visionary concept artist behind most of what we all love about
Star Wars today. He designed everything from planets to droids to Darth Vader and most
of his original ideas were green lit by George Lucas and the producers. Not all of his ideas
made it to the final film, though as some behind the scenes concept art revealed years
later that McQuarrie had originally designed Stormtroopers that wielded light sabers. This
idea was turned down for a number of reasons but chief amongst them must have been the
fact that most storm troopers are not coordinated enough to handle the complicated weapon that
is a light saber.
Stormtrooper Body Count Throughout the franchise The Empire killed
billions of people especially when they blasted using the Death Star, which of course prompted
the Rebels to retaliate and destroy their station/machine. While there is no official
canon death toll from the destruction of the death star, Star Wars Legends claim that there
were 265,675 people and that among those people were 30,984 Stormtroopers. These numbers come
from various sources within the Legends community and seem too specific to be fake, so we have
to think they are at least close to the truth.
Casting Controversy When John Boyega was cast to play Stormtrooper
FN-2187 in The Force Awakens, some bigoted fans took to Twitter to share their barbairic
opinions. This sparked the controversial hashtag #BoycottStarWarsVII, shared by low lives and
internet trolls who claimed that the new Star Wars film committed “white genocide” by
allowing a main character to be black. The illogical twitter campaign gained media attention
even though Boyega was not the first black Star Wars character. Boyega has taken a strong
and progressive stance on the issue stating that racist comments and ideas will not slow
him down and that people will have to “Get Used To It”.
Stormtrooper Armor One thing that fans all seem to know about
Stormtroopers is that they tend to die pretty easily. It seems like one or two shots to
any part of their body can apparently kill them, which is strange when you think about
it because they are covered in armor that is supposed to be able to deflect most laser
shots. More specficially speaking, each Stormtrooper’s armor contains 18 plastoid plates (the same
type of material that Darth Vader has). That means stormtrooper armor is technically one
of the strongest armors in the galaxy, not that it has actually helped stormtroopers
in combat.
Storming The Great Wall In order to promote The Force Awakens in
China, Lucasfilm set up 500 stormtrooper models on the real Great Wall. Fans took selfies
in front of the stormtroopers, posing with lightsabers and costumes alongside the iconic
troopers. This publicity stunt may seem immense and expensive, but China is proving to be
the next big market for movies so it makes sense for Lucasfilm and Disney to spend money
marketing their best content there. Star Wars already has one of the biggest fan bases in
the world, but they could always use another billion people or so, right?
Not Clones Unlike what many fans believed after the prequel
trilogy, stormtroopers are not the same thing as clone troopers. The clone soldiers that
were created on Kamino aged more quickly than other humans and died prematurely, and so,
the clone troopers had been replaced by Imperial stormtroopers, who were recruited and trained
at Imperial Academies. The clone troopers were in Revenge of the Sith and executed their
primary mission, Order 66, but not long after, they began to be replaced. The television
show Star Wars: Rebels confirms that the clone troopers were phased out before A New Hope
and Rogue One shows that Stormtroopers were around even before the events of Episode 4.
Specialized Storm Troopers While Stormtroopers may seem like they are
virtually interchangeable, there are actually a number of stormtroopers that have been adapted
for specialized tasks. For example, on Tatooine and other desert planets or regions, sandtroopers
are used, denoted by their orange shoulders on their climate specialized uniforms. Similarly,
snowtroopers are deployed in cold climates, such as the ice planet Hoth. Spacetroopers,
magmatroopers, and seatroopers also are also specialized in their respective climates.
Other stormtroopers receive specialized training to use specific equipment, such as cloaking
devices, flamethrowers, grenades, or blaster cannons. So, even though they all look similar,
it turns out they aren’t!
Stormtrooper History By this point, it’s quite evident that George
Lucas based the Empire and its determination for exterminating the Jedi on the Third Reich
and Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in World War 2. It turns out that Lucas also drew inspiration
from the First World War as the German Empire actually used highly trained soldiers called
stormtroopers, who specialized in infiltration. Throughout the Star Wars films there is certainly
a lot of infiltrating and storming so it looks like Lucas chose the right name for his antagonist
force.
Sneaky Storm Trooper Cameo In 2015 The Force Awakens brought fans back
to the galaxy far, far away and people were thrilled to see so many references to the
original trilogy in the film. While fans were looking for fun Easter eggs and references
they may have missed some awesome cameos, the best of which came from famous people
secretly playing Stormtroopers. Most famously Daniel Craig and Kevin Smith played a storm
trooper in the film but it is much less known that Michael Giacchino, the composer for Rogue
One played a trooper as well.
Famous Movie Mistakes As amazing as the Star Wars movies are, they
also famously feature some of the most hilarious and fun movie mistakes of all time and it
just so happens that two of the best ones feature Stormtroopers being goofy. In the
scene where Luke and Leia are about to swing across the canyon inside the Death Star, Leia
shoots one last time. She hits the wall with her blast, but the Stormtrooper falls to the
ground all the same. Another famous mistake comes when one Stormtrooper hit his head on
a doorway and then tries to cover it up as if nothing happened. Both have become fun
inside jokes for true Star Wars fans.
So there’s our list of 10 crazy Storm Troopers facts that you probably didn’t know. What
else do you know about Storm Troopers? What is your favorite Star Wars movie ever? Let
us know in the comments section below and be sure to subscribe to our channel for more
fun videos like this one!