I’m well aware that across most of the rest of the franchise Stormtroopers generally are bad shots.
However I argue that it is easy to view the entire original trilogy as Stormtroopers being competent. A New Hope is easy as you already pointed out that they were supposed to let them go. Plus the off screen extremely effective results against the Lars homestead and the Jawas which is both combat and effectively following the droids.
Empire Strikes Back they are extremely effective with invading the Hoth base. Luke is supposed to get to Vader so that part can be ignored. Then for the rest escaping Lando arranges a lot of surprise trouble for the troops as well as R2D2.
Then for the Ewoks I think almost everyone has it backwards. They all look at how tiny and low tech they are and draw conclusions from that. The more important thing to look at is their results. Not just the main battle but look before that.
A scout (Wickket) is smart enough to make a reasonable level of basic communication with absolutely zero starting point with Leia.
They successfully trap/ambush a Jedi and a Wookie and a droid with sensors. Ok yea required some stupidity on Chewies part but still incredibly impressive on the Ewoks part.
They were literally planning to eat several of the heroes.
The traps everywhere. They clearly didn’t make the big traps just in the day or two when the heroes showed up. That forest is an absolute death trap and miracle that the trap the heroes triggered didn’t kill them.
Battle morale at large not breaking under attack from mechanized and ranged weapons.
Immediate willingness to ride a speeder and a successful dismount in spite of zero clue how they work.
That is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure there is more. Honestly they are closer to facing an army of fantasy dwarfs than what people say they are like.
Plus the Empire is pretty fascist, and they would definitely look at the Ewok’s and their low tech society in an especially dismissive way. Then when the Ewoks start winning, this would hit Stormtrooper morale pretty hard.
I’m well aware that across most of the rest of the franchise Stormtroopers generally are bad shots.
However I argue that it is easy to view the entire original trilogy as Stormtroopers being competent. A New Hope is easy as you already pointed out that they were supposed to let them go. Plus the off screen extremely effective results against the Lars homestead and the Jawas which is both combat and effectively following the droids.
Empire Strikes Back they are extremely effective with invading the Hoth base. Luke is supposed to get to Vader so that part can be ignored. Then for the rest escaping Lando arranges a lot of surprise trouble for the troops as well as R2D2.
Then for the Ewoks I think almost everyone has it backwards. They all look at how tiny and low tech they are and draw conclusions from that. The more important thing to look at is their results. Not just the main battle but look before that.
That is just what I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure there is more. Honestly they are closer to facing an army of fantasy dwarfs than what people say they are like.
Plus the Empire is pretty fascist, and they would definitely look at the Ewok’s and their low tech society in an especially dismissive way. Then when the Ewoks start winning, this would hit Stormtrooper morale pretty hard.