Combat staging in the original Star Wars trilogy, particularly A New Hope and Empire, is actually surprisingly grounded.
I understand we have assistant director Brian Johnston to thank for that.
In Rogue One, Jyn and Cassian just have to point their blaster in a random direction and a dozen stormtroopers drop dead.
And I’m only slightly exaggerating.
Not so in the original trilogy. Obviously, the stormtroopers can’t hit, because the only targets are the main cast. Always good to have a few expendables along for the narrative ride. But what many people ignore is that the heroes fire plenty of shots that don’t hit either.
This is true to actual combat: most shots don’t hit anyone, contrary to what playground battles would have you believe. Typically, an average of 60 shots are needed to take out an enemy combatant.
In other words, the people complaining are simply ignorant playground fantasists.
Further, the bad guys (and heroes) use cover, and will duck in and out to fire. Again, quite realistic. You see this on the Tantive IV at the beginning, on the Death Star, and in Cloud City.
As the Star Wars franchise has gone on, however, combat staging has become increasingly infantile.
Jedi and Sith back flips, hundred foot leaps, whirling twirling and parrying blaster bolts by the dozen are the order of the day.
I get that, they’re magical space wizards, but the grunts?
Clone troopers just walk around, standing straight up, across open terrain, making no effort to protect themselves or minimize likelihood of getting hit. They don’t drop prone, they don’t cluster behind vehicles or obstacles, they just walk in the open. Sane people don’t do that, unless egged on by sergeants or NKVD units threatening to shoot them if they don’t.
I get these sort of silly suicidal tactics for robots; droids can be programmed to have no self-preservation instinct.
But for humans? Or clones who are supposed to be the best of the best, battle trained and genetically engineered from the galaxy’s greatest bounty-hunter warrior?
Pft.
Perhaps this is meant to be evocative of the American Civil War, from which the clone GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) gets its name. In those days, troops were armed with largely inaccurate weapons that required massed firepower to be effective. The Civil War saw the introduction of repeater rifles and more accurate weapons with rifled (hence the name) barrels. These helical grooves on the interior barrel surface greatly increased accuracy. This was more expensive, so these weren’t distributed to the majority of troops, and were used primarily by snipers and cavalry. By the time of the Franco-Prussian War, however, they were more common, and the shift began towards taking cover and the German storm troop infiltration tactics of WWI (from which we get the name ‘stormtroopers’).
But it doesn’t make sense here, because these weapons are no different than the ones used later, or thousands of years earlier at the advent of the Galactic Republic. Technology canonically hasn’t evolved substantially for thousands of years in Star Wars, so there’s no way they don’t understand basic infantry tactics, and there’s no reason why it has to be staged with such grandiose, blatant incompetence.
Combat staging in Andor, on the other hand, is generally good, particularly in season one. The action sequences with the corporate cops trying to stop Andor are entirely believable.
True, the stormtroopers on Ghorman in season two stand in the open, sans cover, which doesn’t make as much sense… except here the Empire wanted to take casualties.
But in Andor? The troopers don’t bother. Every shot the heroes fire hits. Why? Because audiences expect heroes to hit with every shot, because that’s how they think combat actually works. They’re wrong.
On Jeda, Imperials pop on stage and fall like ten pins, with stunning narrative convenience.
None of it feels remotely believable, even for space opera.
Given the amount of effort Gareth Edwards went to to create a believable, grounded setting, including 360 degree sets, incredible costume and set design, and fabulous cinematography, it’s sad it’s all undermined by combat staging designed by a six year old.
Incredibly, The Mandalorian is even worse: it undermines the villains deliberately, making them canonically incompetent, armed with weapons that don’t shoot straight: these boobs can’t even hit a stationary object a few feet away.
What menace can they muster? Not much. What's the value of victory over the inept and incompetent? Small wonder the Empire collapsed.
And when the Impies gather to assault a bar, they don’t bother with cover, they stand in a big crowd out in the open, waiting to be shot. Have you ever seen a SWAT team do that? No, because they take cover behind whatever is available… because people don’t like getting shot.
If you want to have a believable fantasy world, you need to have the inhabitants behave in believable ways, or the bubble of disbelief pops like a Death Star shot up the thermal exhaust pipe.
Making the villains a joke turns the franchise into playground pantomime, operating at the level of the children for whom it’s made.
