Have you seen the new Star Wars film yet? We have, and we noticed one very interesting fact – the Stormtroopers are no longer left-handed!
Use this link to see a picture of the original left-handed stormtroopers from Return of the Jedi in 1977
So what’s happened to Stormtroopers in the intervening years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens? Sadly, it isn’t down to some intergalactic conspiracy, and instead it’s down to a quirk of props.
In the original 1977 film, most of the Stormtroopers held their grip of their weapons in their left hands because of how the weapons are constructed. The original Stormtrooper blasters are based on a real weapon, essentially the Sterling L2A3 9mm SMG (sub-machine gun), a military weapon developed in the late 1940s in the UK and adopted by the British and Canadian Armies in the 1950s.
This weapon had the magazine on the left hand side, as did the original design of the Stormtroopers rifles.
Unfortunately, this construction caused the magazine to keep hitting the actors in the chest. Therefore they had to switch grip of the weapon, which made them appear left handed.
Full credit, however, to George Lucas for the Star Wars prequels where the Clone Troopers (the original versions of the Stormtroopers) still hold their weapons in their left hands:
In the world of the films, all Stormtroopers and Clone Troopers are clones, so it makes sense that they should all be lefties!
So what about The Force Awakens? Why are these new troopers not left-handed as well? As it turns out, these new Stormtroopers are just normal soldiers rather than clones, so assuming the Star Wars universe works like our one, the majority of them are probably going to be right-handed.
Have you spotted any left-handed characters in any films recently? Let us know in the comments below:
Comments 25
And some things are ambiguous as to whether they are left-or-right handed.
Like video game joystick. Most of us are right handed, and we did better in Street Fighter with what most people would call a left handed joystick (stick on left, buttons on right). To read about this story, visit 56ok.org/Ambidextrous/index.htm
I may have a mild trivia obsession.
Perhaps that must be why they were so poor shots in the original trilogy: They had to fire left-handed despite being naturally right-handed.
Perhaps it may be because of less anti-left handed stigma? Also, cookery is quite a creative skill-perhaps that's why.
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