Redshirts and the Stormtrooper Effect


From Wikipedia.com: “A Redshirt is a stock character, used frequently in science fiction but also other genres, whose sole purpose is to violently die soon after being introduced. Redshirts are a plot device used to indicate the dangerous circumstances faced by the main characters at the start of a narrative, akin to the 'canary in the mine shaft.'” The term originated from the original Star Trek series, where “typically, a landing party would consist of Kirk, Spock, McCoy (all main characters who stood zero chance of dying) and one never-before-seen red-shirted ensign, who would be dead by the end of the mission, usually within minutes.”

“The Stormtrooper effect, also called Stormtrooper syndrome, is a cliché phenomenon in works of fiction where minor characters are unrealistically ineffective in combat against more important characters. 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 armour, military-grade firepower, and noticeable combat effectiveness against non-speaking characters, were incapable of seriously harming the protagonists. The effect is generally employed either to increase the dramatic tension of a chase scene or to accentuate the heroes' fighting prowess...” It has been expressed in an equation,


“where n is the number of "bad guys", x is the number of "good guys", and J is the number of Jedi present (if any). The equation reads, "The probability of a bad guy hitting his target is equal to the inverse of: all bad guys present plus the cube of the number of good guys present (plus one) plus the number of Jedi present (plus one) to the tenth power." From this, one can infer that the presence of a good guy has a detrimental effect on the bad guys' accuracy, while having even one Jedi present is a veritable death sentence, as well as being more inaccurate in larger numbers.”

It should also be noted that this only seems to be in effect when the troopers are opposed to the protagonists, as Episodes II and III show the troopers to be quite an effective fighting force, up to the point where they no longer ally themselves with the good guys (ie., Order 66), and their ineffectiveness extends to the end of Episode VI.


The Stormtrooper Effect can oftern be seen in other movies such as The Lord of the Rings or the Indiana Jones movies, and scores of movies that both proceeded and followed Star Wars. Another classic example can be seen in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, where the pirates not only never kill Steve, but Steve seems to never run out of bullets on a single load.

(A related rule is The Inverse Ninja Law, which states that the skill level of any particular ninja in a group is inversely proportional to the number of ninja in that group. In other words, one ninja in a group of thirty ninja is no threat, while a single lone ninja is a great threat.)

These phenomena are often parodied in other works of fiction, such as Galaxy Quest, Family Guy, or Stargate SG-1 (where one minor character in peril (not coincidentally played by a Star Trek regular) exclaimed "We're dead! We might as well be wearing red shirts!")

Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_%28science_fiction%29

Labels: film/tv/books/arts, geek stuff