Stormtrooper effect

The Stormtrooper effect, also called Stormtrooper syndrome, is a cliché in works of fiction where minor characters (cannon fodder) are unrealistically ineffective in combat against more important characters (almost always the protagonists "equipped" with character shields). The name originated with the armed Imperial Stormtroopers in the original Star Wars trilogy, who, despite their considerable advantages of close range, overwhelming numbers, professional military training, full armor, military-grade firepower, and noticeable combat effectiveness against non-speaking characters, were incapable of seriously harming or indeed merely hitting the protagonists. The effect is generally employed either to increase the dramatic tension of an action scene or to accentuate the heroes' fighting prowess.

The Stormtrooper effect is, in fact, much older than the Star Wars trilogy, and is common in cowboy films, action movies, martial arts films, and comics. It is often a source of mockery by critics, satirists and fandom, but it is generally recognized as bringing a camp appeal to works which employ it because of its use in quickly and effectively heightening a story's dramatic atmosphere.

A prototypical joke is to cite an "Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship" whose graduates are inexplicably poor shots; for example, "The Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade must all have studied at the Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship."

The Inverse Ninja Law

The Inverse Ninja Law is a similar phenomenon that occurs frequently in martial arts movies, and role playing games. It is also sometimes called the Anime Ninja Effect, the Rule of One, or less frequently the Inverse Ninja Effectiveness Principle.

The Inverse Ninja Law states that the effectiveness of a group of villains is inversely proportional to the number of villains in the group. While a single enemy is often portrayed as a significant threat to the protagonists, a large group of enemies are significantly less of a threat, and as such are easily defeated.

Some shows tend to explicitly illustrate the Inverse Ninja Law. Often the heroes' first battle is against a small group or even a single member of the villains' basic foot soldiers, who will often give the entire group problems, often to the point that they have to use their signature finishing move to defeat them. In most of their subsequent appearances, however, the heroes will usually easily defeat a large group of the enemy, who are typically all wearing the same outfit. Sometimes this is inexplicable; other times, however, the heroes receive a power-up, or simply find the opponent's Achilles' heel. A noteworthy example is Power Rangers, which played out that scenario for nearly every revamp of the series.

The film "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" shows both effects of this law: multiple times in the film, the turtles defeat dozens of FooT Ninja, but are at the end of the film, defeated by the lone Shredder even when they assault him together. As well, one Foot Ninja is able to track the turtles to their lair and spy on them undetected, despite the ninjitsu skills of the turtles and their master, proving this lone ninja was more effective on his own than in a group.

The Proportional Pirate Law

The Proportional Pirate Law states that the effectiveness of a group of pirates is proportional to the number of pirates in the group. While a single enemy pirate is often portrayed as a significant threat to the protagonists, a large group of pirates are significantly more of a threat, and as such can be defeated only with extreme difficulty. This is almost exclusively a pirate trait and is rarely applicable to other close combat–oriented foes.

Manifestations

The Stormtrooper effect may manifest in several different forms.

• When combined with the Inverse Ninja Law, the Stormtrooper effect takes on the meaning of "The accuracy of the attacker is inversely proportional to the number of attackers". While two or three attackers pose a serious threat, a room full of them all firing at once is almost never a serious threat. An example is found in Star Wars: A New Hope where the protagonists take great pains to avoid small patrols of only two to three Stormtroopers, yet rounding a corner and finding a room filled with them is used more for comedic effect than it is a threat.
• Cannon fodder are extremely poor combatants who, regardless of their supposed training or weapons, cannot inflict harm upon the protagonists. They are extremely easy to defeat despite any armor or protective cover, each one typically requiring only a single shot or blow to defeat. This is used in the official Star Wars D20 RPG, and the Mutants and Masterminds RPG, where Stormtroopers and other thugs do not possess "Vitality Points", which mimics the "character shield". As in M&M, they die in one hit, as well as the Foot Soldiers from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Cannon fodder can only be effective when the plot requires it, such as in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when they are unable to hit Indy while he runs vulnerably on elevated scaffolding with no cover, but are able to hit a rail switch from a fast-moving minecart.
• Cannon fodder can sometimes be defeated by simply knocking them down, or throwing them to the ground. This will render them unconscious or dazed, unable to get up for the remainder of that scene. This is for example seen in the Power Rangers series.
• When an important character is injured, the wound is usually trivial and not life-threatening; as seen in Predator, where the predator's plasma caster kills Blaine (Jesse Ventura) but, glancing off his rifle, merely injures Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Common locations for injury are the shoulder and upper arm, thigh, and the lower side torso, where the risks of paralysis and damage to vital organs are minimized.
  • Even if an important character's wound is severe, it only enhances the dramatic effect of the scene and is rarely incapacitating. If it is incapacitating, he or she can still get CPR and survive, in the style of Jack Bauer from 24. Maybe the best parody is in the final scenes of the The Last Action Hero where Jack Slater is dying of a real-life injury but has only a “flesh wound”, when he comes back in the movie.
• Cannon fodder can accomplish something against comparable numbers of other cannon fodder to demonstrate their combat prowess, but not against the underwhelmingly smaller numbers of main characters. This has given rise to the notion that when protagonists are present, the fodders' combat skills degrade. An example would be the destruction of the Jawa Sandcrawler (where the blaster hits were described by Obi-Wan Kenobi as being "too precise" for Sandpeople and thus must be from stormtroopers) and subsequent death of Luke's family.
• Cannon fodder can sometimes be seen "waiting their turns" when fighting protagonists. A closer look some scenes of a fighting sequence may show parts of the group of cannon fodder doing nothing while waiting for their comrades to be defeated first (Although, such as in the ninja attack in Kill Bill, this may be attributed to a fear of "going first").
  • This concept is notably seen in certain episodes of Walker: Texas Ranger, when Walker (Chuck Norris) stands in the middle of a ring of thugs, who run at Walker, one at a time and are each soundly defeated in turn.
• The Stormtrooper effect also applies in many video games, in which most enemies only pose a threat to inexperienced players, or when the player already has some factors going against them (such as difficult terrain). An example is in games like Knights of the Old Republic; although the assassins and thugs have advantages like double-bladed swords and active camouflage, they are easily killed by the protagonist.
• In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series the effect is known as "the Lore". It is one of the laws of physics on the fictional world, that the smaller the number of heroes and the larger the number of fodder, the more likely the heroes are to win. In The Last Hero, the handful of heroes, who were normally the outnumbered ones, realize that they are up against a single man — Carrot Ironfoundersson — and therefore are wary of attacking him.
• In the martial arts movie The One, a form of the Inverse Ninja Law is an actual law of nature and a critical plot point. In it, the villain attempts to eliminate the alternate-universe versions of himself, thus leaving all of the available competence for himself.
• In the original cartoon version of Aeon Flux, the Stormtrooper effect is actually exaggerated, when the main character runs between two walls with enemy soldiers on top firing at her, and manages to hit every last one of them without herself being hit.

Stewfoo is a master at the stormtrooper effect.

Nullification in Star Wars

In A New Hope, Obi-Wan explains to Luke that Sand People were not responsible for the deaths of the Jawas but instead makes an interesting note on the Stormtroopers' accuracy: "These blast points... too accurate for Sand People. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise." Proponents have claimed this shows stormtroopers are accurate when they have to be, or are perhaps camera-shy, a suggestion enhanced by the fact that the stormtroopers on the Tatooine assignment are members of the same elite 501st Legion that crushed Rebel resistance on Hoth and aboard the Tantive IV in surprisingly little time. The 501st in Revenge of the Sith eliminated the Jedi most effectively, although this is at least partly attributable to the surprise nature of their attack. When Luke and his companions are escaping the Death Star later in the movie the Stormtroopers fail to hit them despite numerous opportunities, but it is subsequently revealed that they were ordered to allow the escape so that the escapees could be tracked while making it look like they are serious in attacking them.

This explanation seems somewhat mitigated in other cases however, such as in Return of the Jedi on Endor in which the Stormtroopers very frequently and almost invariably miss Han Solo and Leia (though a blaster bolt grazes Leia's shoulder, and they kill at least two Ewoks) while the protagonists once again take down numerous stormtroopers without getting killed. Here, the Emperor explicitly states that the forest moon of Endor was to be a "trap" with a legion of his "best troops" awaiting them, apparently suggesting that he had no intention of letting the rebels escape this time. This, then, shows the hand of the director in the movie, as the markmanship of the troops storming Tantive IV is first rate and they suffer minimal casualties (almost none once they clear the first corridor). It should be noted, however, that in Return of the Jedi, the antagonists have a much higher accuracy in general. Non-Imperial thugs land non-lethal blaster hits on both Chewbacca and Luke during the skiff battle on Tatooine (this injury is why Luke wears one black glove throughout the rest of the film). Imperial blaster fire likewise incapacitates R2-D2 on Endor.

In a small and unwitting reference to Stormtrooper Effect, The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner remarked during the commentary while Chewbacca and Leia are fleeing Cloud City that, for some reason, "Good guys always shoot straight. I don't know why, but they do." This inexplicable rule also holds true in the Star Wars spoof Spaceballs.

Zenryou is a kung fool expert.

In video gaming

The Stormtrooper effect often manifests itself in computer games, given that it is easier for the game creators to program a single non-intelligent enemy and insert many of them into a level than it is to create even a single very intelligent enemy. Thus, enemies will seem to pose more danger by their strength in numbers even though they are individually weak. This game mechanic means that the player still stands the risk of dying, increasing the challenge without necessarily increasing the complexity of the game program.

The Stormtrooper effect is quintessential to video games, many of which have the player fighting hundreds or thousands of adversaries; all of whom have much less health than the player.

For the Stormtrooper effect affecting human players, see Zerging.

Cultural references

In the episode "And the Wiener is..." of the television show Family Guy, Peter attends a firing range of the "National Gun Association" (a parody of the NRA) where a man is shown firing and hitting a target, a blind man is shown hitting the broad side of a barn, and finally a Stormtrooper is shown widely missing every shot at a target resembling Luke Skywalker.

In the cult film UHF, during a Rambo-style fantasy sequence, George Newman ("Weird Al" Yankovic) easily mows down dozens of enemy soldiers after they fire at him and miss. Another soldier is killed after he shoots at George several times and misses, despite taking time to carefully aim and being little more than arm's length away with a clear shot.

The film Austin Powers in Goldmember mocks the Stormtrooper effect, where at one point, the character of Nigel Powers asks Dr. Evil's henchmen who are holding him at gunpoint "Is this your first day on the job or something? Look, you attack me one at a time, and I knock you out with a single punch, okay? Go." And the henchmen follow their orders and attack separately, each falling to the ground with a single chop to the neck. When a third henchman appears, Nigel asks him "Do you know who I am? Have you any idea how many anonymous henchmen I've killed over the years? Look at you! You haven't even got a name tag. You've got no chance." The henchman then proceeds to lie down and play dead, to save time. Likewise in the film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Austin Powers easily dispatches several guards with a pistol, while the henchmen are unable to kill him despite their superior weapons and the fact that he is standing still. He achieves this feat twice, when he goes back in time and kills the guards again.

In the movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, during a scene when the character Marvin the robot is walking through a field of Vogon blaster shots, he remarks, "I don't know what all the fuss is about. Vogons are the worst marksmen in the universe." Indeed, earlier in the movie no Vogon blaster shot has managed to hit its target. Moments after speaking the line Marvin is hit in the back of the head, but in defense of Marvin's comment, Marvin's head is roughly five times the size of a human head, approximately 1 yard in diameter, and spherical.

In the TV program Red Dwarf, in the episode "Quarantine", when running away from the psychotic hologram Dr. Lanstrom who has manifested a kind of psychic laser-vision Lister comments "Why can't we ever meet anyone nice?". The Cat, running past the camera, then says "Why can't we ever meet anyone who can shoot straight?", an obvious reference to the Stormtrooper effect.

Among Spanish speakers, a common saying is "Mas lento que el caballo del malo", which translates roughly as "You run slower than the bad guy's horse".

Notable uses outside of Star Wars

The Stormtrooper effect is seen in most plots involving a single, extremely important hero or group of heroes, including various martial arts movies and tokusatsu shows. Some productions use the Stormtrooper effect very frequently:

• 24
• Æon Flux
• Agent Aika
• The A-Team
• Austin Powers (these films frequently make fun of this trend)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
• Batman films and cartoons
• Black Lagoon (manga and anime series)
• Blake's 7
• Charlie's Angels
• Charmed TV series (demons getting shot down like 9-pins in later series)
• City of Heroes- One of the Invulnerability powers, Invincibility, enhances defense and accuracy based on the number of nearby enemies, making mobs easier to fight than single enemies.
• Code Lyoko
• Commando
• ''The Dragon Ball Anime Series
• Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon
• The G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon series
• Dan Abnett's Gaunts Ghosts series of novels
• Equilibrium
• Firefly and Serenity - often used to accentuate Mal's gunslinging skills
• Full Metal Panic series
• Galaxy Quest (this film also pokes fun at the Stormtrooper effect, as an "unnamed character" fears for his life as he is little more than a glorified extra)
• Godzilla: Final Wars (many of the monsters controlled by the villains save for Monster X as well as many of the alien gunsmen)
• Hellsing (Though the enemies in Hellsing display remarkable accuracy, the heroes of Hellsing are basically immune to bullets so it really doesn't matter.)
• Hot Shots! Part Deux Commando is parodied in particular for its Stormtrooper effect
• I, Robot
• ''Indiana Jones
• Inuyasha
• Jak II
• James Bond films
• Kamen Rider (TV/movies/video games)
• The Kentucky Fried Movie - in the "Fistful of Yen" sketch, a parody of Enter The Dragon.
• Kill Bill - this is used to ironic effect as the film is a tribute to the films of Bruce Lee.
• Killzone
• Kung Fu Hustle
• The Lord of the Rings
• MacGyver
• Madlax
• The Matrix
• Mobile Suit Gundam series
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith
• Noir
• Predator (although this applies to the protagonist's human opponents, rather than the titular Predator).
• Road House
• Stargate SG-1 (attempts to rationalize effect in Season 5's "The Warrior" by saying Jaffa weapons are weapons of intimidation versus weapons for [...] along with a comparative demonstration of both.)
• Rambo
• The Redwall series
• Science Ninja Team Gatchaman - the Science Ninja Team regularly faces fights where they are vastly outnumbered by Galactor troops with automatic weapons and usually defeat them.
• Spriggan (manga and OVA Versions)
• Starship Troopers (the movies amplified the effect enormously from the novel)
• Super Sentai (and its Western counterpart Power Rangers)
• Three the Hard Way (the heroes have tremendous success using glorified cap pistols while the villains constantly miss with fully-automatic weapons, in close quarters)
• Transformers (in the actual series, blasts rarely incapacitate the Transformers, but in Transformers: The Movie, numerous Transformers are killed through the same sort of blasts)
• Trigun - Vash regularly dodges veritable storms of enemy gunfire while sustaining no damage whatsoever (In the first chapter of the manga, this ability is accentuated when he ends such a display by shooting his opponents in their heads with a suction-cup gun. The enemies then quickly surrender)
• True Lies, in which even a dropped machine gun manages to take out several henchmen as it falls down a flight of stairs.
• UHF - during the "Rambo" sequence, the main character withstands an absurd amount of ammunition, including standing directly in front of the shooter.
• Ultraviolet is a particularly egregious example - in one scene, the protagonist Violet Song jat Shariff takes on several hundreds of soldiers at once
• Where Eagles Dare
• The X-Men films

Related phenomena

The Stormtrooper effect appears in the cinematic rules of the Gurps role playing system, other effects under the cinematic rules include Bulletproof nudity and mini-nukes/firecrackers. Under the Bulletproof nudity rules the fewer clothes the heroes wears the better his or her protection from incoming fire, e.g. Rambo & Conan the Barbarian. Under the mini nukes/firecracker rule a hand grenade in the hands of a hero will have the ability of wiping out endless numbers of cannon fodder, whilst the same grenade in the hands of the enemy will instantly transmute into a firecracker only able to blacken the faces of the heroes and maybe singe or dislodge some of their clothes a little; and thereby instantly improving the hero's Bulletproof nudity. Heroes will always have an infinite amount of ammunition unless dictated otherwise by dramatic neccesity, however the hero will find that any random source of ammunition he finds will instantly restore his store of infinite ammunition.

See also

• Redshirt (stock character) (Crewmembers put in scenes in order to die early on, originating from Star Trek)
• Character shields

External links

• The Law of Inverse Ninja Strength at Netjak.

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