The Stormtrooper Paradox 

this is very confusing

maybe the helmets have poor visibility

@@heroichitsuji that is the canon reason lol

@@_aWiseMan is it really? i dont know much about star wars

Because he wasn't shooting at Jedi or people with plot armor

The First Order is clearly a humanitarian regime.

there aint NO way this got 1 reply

@@underworlds2794 lmaooooo literally

brilliant

Ik this comment section weird… most old top comments have no replies.

No no he has a point

But it’s not black and white like that. If you were part of the nazi army, watched your friend die and then realized what your army was doing, wouldn’t you fight back? Not that you’d be happy to kill other soldiers but it’s also necessary in war, especially when the greater good is in question. What your saying is implying everything in life is black and white when really everything is grey.

​@@jonahcody if the film showed him struggling in killing them (emotionally) that's another thing but being happy nay proud to kill them, that's completely different he was ECSTATIC TO KILL THEM

😊

@@jonahcody It is completely necessary and understandable that he kills his colleagues in combat, what is not, however, is that he feels absolutely nothing while does the thing

no replys lol 25k likes

1 reply lol 5 likes @@IstandwithIsrael236

The needless death of his friend shuck him out of his illusion but I don't doubt that the massacre of the villagers contributed to it.

I always thought that was stupid. Someone shoots and kills my friend, I am NOT going to be their friend a few hours later. It made Finn look shallow to me, like he was Poe's friend only as long as he got something out of it.

​@@Folker46590Honestly he would've been more interesting if he WAS just trying to get something out of it, I mean I'd be totally into a former stormtrooper who, while still a rebel, uses and manipulates people to get what he wants, but that's leaning far too much into anti-hero for Disney to work with.

@@grawlix-man463 I, like many thinking people, hate what they have done to Storm Troopers. The first movie (ep 4) made it clear the ST's were bad asses. They were like the Sardaukar of Dune, or the Royal Marines of our world, people you do not want to f*ck with. But over a few years, thanks to Lucas being himself (I. e. stupid) and poorly made video games, the ST's became a joke. They are the Keystone cops who can't shoot, stand in the open waiting to be shot, and are considered idiots by everyone else in the Star Wars universe. Seeing them on screen now means nothing to me, because they mean nothing to anyone. They're not a threat, just targets. I hate it.

I was shocked,and iI dont overanaliese blockbuster movies much!

What makes you think there's any brotherly connection at all?

​@@DrewLSsix well right at the beggining u can see how sad he was for his friend stormtrooper dying. That was literraly the reason he has rebelled.

@@everydayman123I’m pretty sure that was one of his few squad-mates or something

Aren’t storm troopers in the first and third trilogy drawn from the general population

But perhaps the problem for Finn isn’t so much who killed him (if it even registers amidst the hell-fire,) and thank god we’re spared a boring revenge tale, but him realizing they are all faceless pawns used by the FO, and maybe those with faces, including Poe, take the more righteous side. The blood (beautiful and meaningful imagery) gives Finn a “face,” which is functional for setting him apart just visually as well.

Maybe they weren't really friends, and Finn was just shocked at the realization of their true mortality. They often walk straight into battle against impossible odds, it seems reasonable that they would be brainwashed to see themselves as part of an invincible and overwhelming force. A lot of U.S. soldiers are brought face-to-face with that and some of them... can't handle it.

Easy. Stormtrooper misses every shot. Red Shirt has a heart attack and dies anyway.

Similar outcome to Lasgun vs. Shield.

Unless Aang can conjure nonlethal avalanches or freeze people UNDER solid ice without them suffocating. I'm pretty sure he is a mass murdering cult leader pretending to be a pacifist when it suits him.

Not to mention how, like with Droids in The Clone Wars, there are often small scenes and lines from the Fire Nation soldiers that are often funny, but also humanize them in small but significant ways, showing that they aren't mindless.

long endured and hidden trauma.

@@DWUnkownNo sir. I’m sure he had that but the movie gets no breaks for giving no effort into bridging those two states.

@@austingreen1274 it was a missed chance to to show someone turn. too artistic for Disney.

He wasn’t written as a survivor of conditioning very well. It’s like he’s a stormtrooper just to introduce him and then there’s little to no relevance from then on

@@abejohnson1590That’s exactly right. By the time he meets Rey, he’s charismatic, quippy, and handsome. Could there be any traits less associated from someone who was kidnapped from childhood and trained only to kill and follow orders while wearing a mask? When he asks Rey if she “has a cute boyfriend”, it’s funny but it ages poorly given the character background.

Wasn’t “bad batch” just that

This comment was before bad batch was announced

@@quickscopez573 o h I just say the 5 years ago marker

Storm troopers are killers. He’s killing killers. Don’t be daft

@@JaiJai177 People will really make up any excuse to defend bad plot huh?

@@JaiJai177I wish this could go without saying… But Finn, one of our protagonist, is a storm trooper. 🤓 The movie instantly wakes us up to the fact that storm troopers are kidnapped, brainwashed people by simply introducing Finn… and then it scraps it by acting like he’s the unique regular dude of the bunch.😂

​@@JaiJai177for a normal person that is a perfect reason but he is not normal. He was unwilling to kill as a stormtrooper people who are neat to kill. He could killed later but it should been forced too Cuz as a trooper he struggled so hard against his orders since his only order is to kill by his officers who raised him childhood. Telling him to do something against conscience. He couldn't do it for the people he was expected it to do it. for now imagine liking those same people. Eventually he could go kill frenzy since the flip might make him hate them more than the average rebel true but not within ten minutes of leaving the first order. He should been crying as poe was forced to kill troopers to escape. He should tried to and failed at first. For the rest of us killing killers isn't easy but believable but for finn it isn't since he's a pacifist member of the killing group

The First Order is not the same as the Empire, and also stormtroopers have never been shown to have British accents. Only the imperial brass have.

They just liked his American accent better than his English one.

americans good british bad in american movies

@@teenybeepboop I think the argument here is that stormtroopers are "human," not that they're "good." Also, you might be interested in looking up the deleted scenes from Return of the Jedi were Jerjerrod hesitates in giving the order to fire the Death Star on Endor. It's a good example of Imperial officers being humanized, and it's a shame it was cut from the final film. I always assumed that Imperial officers' accents worked much that same way in Star Wars as received pronunciation does in reality. That is, it was a semi-artificial accent that the educated class were trained to speak with to separate themselves from the "common folk." Hence, the socially-superior officers spoke with this accent while the socially-inferior stormtroopers spoke with a standard American accent.

I think you’re asking a lot from a guy whose two entries are meh remakes of the original film and ROTJ

Thanks. I hope the next two movies in the series explore this in more detail. Perhaps Finn goes on a mission to recruit more defectors with valuable intel for the resistance?

God I hope so. I've read a bunch of fanfic and seen a bunch of other fanworks that use the premise of Finn's desertion as the impetus for the First Order falling.

I don't think they'll follow up on it. To me it felt very much like: "Wouldn't it be cool if one of the heroes was a Stormtrooper? How can we make that happen?" The Stormtrooper with the big cattle prod calling Finn a traitor served as a way to make it alright again to kill Stormtroopers by the dozens, because they wanted to recapture the action-adventure tone of the original trilogy. It feels very much like they didn't think about the consequences of making the Stormtroopers basically like Game of Thrones' Unsullied.

I think Star Wars Rebels is slowly starting to show the humanity of people within the military of the empire. We are seeing high ranking spies, and their reasons for assisting the rebellion. We are seeing the students within the Empire academies, and their values and fears, and even some of those students joining the Rebellion. Rogue One showed a tiny snippet of the humanity of storm troopers, such as discussing something being phased out and replaced with a newer model. Rogue One has been my favourite movie so far because it showed the dark side within the Rebellion; violent extremism, murder, betrayal, disobeying direct orders, death. So I think the next Rogue movies will slowly begin to show the goodness of the Empire. I think that Hollywood struggles without clear definition of who the good and the bad are. It struggles if the Good Guys are obvious good guys, and it struggles if the Bad Guys aren't evil. The Empire was highly successful for 19 years before the assassination of the Emperor. In areas of the galaxy not controlled by the Empire, the community was controlled by crime lords, such as Jabba, and the people were impoverished. We should also acknowledge that the Rebellion was a small movement. So was the rest of the galaxy content with the Empire running things? Or was it a small movement because the rest of the galaxy was too scared? We don't know, because we see things from the perspective of the rebellion. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

Imagine actually believing that the US starts wars over FREEDOM!1!1!! and not the ultra rich's business interests lmao Sure they've resulted in some relatively small extremist groups that do pose a problem (to the local population, mostly), but- really?

Yep.

For a new character that makes sense for a veteran no, cuz a veteran while having PTSD very likely is way to dark for star wars but the hesitation is okay. Thing is a veteran killer doesn't hesitate. Unless the kill triggers something that said Luke should had a pause in blowing up the ships. With Han telling him to give up( not cuz real men kill but cuz Hans being a dick) but George Lucas wanted to play his sci fantasy safe and I do prefer safe. Still he had Luke's family be burned alive he could had Luke either be scared to kill at least once or happy to kill out of anger just a bit of darkness wouldn't hurt since he made His family get burnt alive and that isn't kid friendly

Aren’t storm troopers in the first and third trilogy drawn from the general population

I'd feel sorry for the ones who realize and the kids they once were not the normal ones lol. Finn would be tragic if he was done right but captain phasma isn't tragic at all. She knew what she didn't and didn't care.

​@@oscarosullivan4513They were recruited during the empire by fanatic loyalists to the empire at a young age and then conditioned to like it more out of choice and the sequels have the First order kidnap the kids from the get go cuz they can't afford to recruit just train up babies... Messed up I know

*Finn's

*arc

fantastic idea! I always have thought that Finn would play a greater role. There are some remains of cut plot lines for him here and there(what did he want to talk about with Ray???), but they didn't risk getting away from nostalgia and fan service....

At least the Jedi try to make them good guys tho and it usually works out minus Anakin and the fact they are afraid to cold, tho it is still terrible nonethless

Lol it might be way to much, Iikd the empire or the first order being evil but the empire had recruitment to be realistic and survive.

Aren’t storm troopers in the first and third trilogy drawn from the general population

The thing is the choice not to show any humanity whatsoever in any Stormtrooper but Finn was a decision made by the filmmakers. If other Stromtroopers were show making the choice to stay that would be one thing, but they're basically just mindless robots. It feels like they didn't think the implications of Finn's origin story through all the way.

Okay, let's say you're right: they have free will and made a free choice to continue fighting for the Evil Team. So what? As you said "this does not change any conclusion we could derive from this analysis". So why say it other than to create some kind of defensive smokescreen? Your "does not change any conclusion" is like a "no offense, but" --- it's pretty implicit, or at least easy to interpret your post as saying that it's OK to kill them and have a blast doing it because they made the wrong choice. WHICH, I may remind you, many people actually believe.

+Keith Burgun doesn't necessarily change, meanining it may or may not, but my point that without examining that line of thought the analysis is incomplete. Which is besides the point of the video as I've realized after commenting since the point is the inconsistency in the portrayal across stormtroopers in the film. In any case, I do not mean to say that if we assume they freely chose to become or at least keep on being enforcers for the First Order that makes morally right any and all acts of violence against them and any enjoyment the characters might derive from them; rather what I mean to say is the further analysis not explored in the film but on the video on any such moral questions is incomplete without examining this idea, and even if any of us were to arrive at the same particular conclusion, the analysis would be fundamentally invalid without examining this or any other possible line of thinking we might logically deduce.

I don't think brainwashed kids have that level of "thinking outside the box logic" that others do.

I actually like the lack of complexity , Finn was wasted opportunity thi

I agree but why do people think we didn't have greyness. Luke blew up a deathstar full of millions of not billions of people. Yeah it was for the greater good but he massacred tons of imperialists. Tho it is presented as a good thing

@timbirdie8180 I appreciate a reply to a comment I left 6 years ago lol I agree that that was morally gray but i don't think they ever really addressed it, which would be the interesting part. Like actually showing Luke feel conflicted about what he had done after realizing that he was also murdering ppl. I guess they tried to sort of explore some of those ideas a bit in the last trilogy, with Kylo Ren being more of a "conflicted" character but I don't think they did it successfully. Dont get me started on the sequel trilogy tho 🫠 I actually really liked the force awakens, they had a lot of interesting stories they couldve explored with it but decided to make the worst choices! I still shed a tear thinking about how Finn and Poe could've been such cool characters and the trio could've been so interesting but they decided to split them up and not develop their characters and just do another chosen one plot line. If you want a cool star wars story about morally gray characters you should check out Andor! Very cool and way better writing

those were clone troopers

Lmao it feels that way Darth Vader killed kids, he gets to be redeemed cuz he's Luke's Dad tho

I hope that's not the case. It would make Finn's transformation a lot less interesting for the Star Wars Universe. The idea that only those born with special midi-chlorian powers can grow a conscious is troubling.