Violence, Star Wars, and Why It’s Difficult to Shoot Someone
Contrary to what you might think, violence just doesn’t happen. Violence can only occur when certain situational factors are present. These factors allow individuals in confrontations to minimise the natural reluctance to be in violent situations with other individuals. For example, street fights will only get to the level of violence if one side has a number of supporters and the other doesn’t. Alternatively a street fight may occur because there are interested onlookers. Without these factors, a confrontation on the street will mainly result in bluster and shouting.
This is the general gist of sociologist Randall Collins. In his book Violence: A Microsociological Theory, he explores how people manage the emotional processes of confrontations they may find themselves in.
He looks at a wide range of confrontations, from combat between military forces, street fights, domestic arguments to sports brawls. At the core of Collins’ theory is the situational context: he argues that it is not so much individual tendencies to engage in violence that allow it to occur, rather, the ability of the individual to deal with the emotional pressures of a situation.
I thought it might be a good exercise to explore a situation using this theory. Like for most other purposes in life, Star Wars is useful here. But a disclaimer is required: Collins’ theory is used to examine real violence. Hollywood violence looks VERY different to the point of being unrecognisable, which allows us to actually enjoy it. The effects of real confrontation and violence can be seen in the messy body movements of participants, their facial expressions, their breathing, their heart rate. None of this is really applicable to a movie — there’s no real confrontation, even among the best method actors. So instead of focusing on the individual, I’m going to look at the emotional confrontation between two groups, and the mechanisms which allow them deal with the pressures of confrontation and of doing violence to another. For this, I chose the Detention Block shootout scene, found here from 0:00 to 2:18.
Let’s set the scene and the situation: after being caught by the Death Star’s tractor beam, Luke, Han and Chewbacca have learned that the Princess Leia is being held captive on the detention level. They decided to launch a rescue mission, with Luke and Han disguised in stormtrooper armour, escorting Chewbacca as a prisoner.
The use of disguise, beyond aiding in their Wookie-Prisoner deception, actually serves an important micro-sociological function. Confrontations are inherently difficult for people to deal with, particularly when there is significant risk of violence. It is not so much the violence itself that is worrying, but the mere state of being at cross-purpose with another individual. You’ve no doubt felt this in your life — when you’re arguing with someone and you start to feel tense and uncomfortable. Collins calls this “confrontational tension and fear” or “ct/f”. In the context of violence, bypassing ct/f is often very important in allowing violence to occur. Otherwise, it’s common for people to abort violence (by mutually deescalating or leaving the scene). Bypassing ct/f is even more important when you’re on a moon-sized space station, full of people wanting to kill you. Luke and Han manage to avoid a state of ct/f by eliminating confrontation: they’re just two ordinary stormtroopers transferring a prisoner. This allows them to stay relatively calm and ready to act.
So the trio arrive at the detention block and come face to face with an imperial officer. Despite not having received a transfer order, the officer does not recognise the situation as one of significant confrontation — meaning that for Luke and Han, there’s no real state of tension to cope with. Thus, when violence does occur and Chewbacca attacks an approaching guard, our heroes possess the emotional advantage. This is a tactic most successfully employed by suicide bombers who avoid ct/f by maintaining a calm and cool emotional state by blending in. People around the attacker don’t recognise the situation as one of confrontation until it is too late. The lack of recognition means the attacker slides through the ct/f barrier, and can empower the attacker with even more confidence as they realise they possess situational mastery.
The Imperials are mostly taken by surprise, and such a rapid escalation in violence against them would impose a significant ct/f burden upon the individual. Collins has shown that being in a state of ct/f results in a reduced ability to actually perform violence — some of this is physiological, as the body deals with the flood of adrenaline being pumped into the system. Some of this ineffectiveness is as result of being at an emotional disadvantage , similar to how a sports team may perform increasingly poorly as the other team asserts their dominance. Some of the ineffectiveness may simply be a inbuilt reluctance to engage in conflict with a fellow human — a problem for militaries throughout history. S.L.A. Marshall performed a controversial study of US Army units during the European and Pacific theaters of war in the Second World War. He found that the majority of soldiers in front-line units engage in battle failed to fire their weapons, even with when faced with enemy attack. While much has been said about his methodology, his findings prompted a shift in US Army training practices that resulted in a much higher participatory rate of fire during the Vietnam War, even if much of this fire was an emotional crutch in itself (shooting for the sake of shooting, rather than at a specific target).
Even soldiers who had extensively trained with their weapon struggled to pull a trigger on another person, particularly if they lacked conditioned reflexes. Even if they did fire, there is no guarantee they would be particularly effective. From what we can see in the movie, we must assume that the stormtrooper corps lack any sort of weapons training that conditions its members in reflexive shooting. Instead, their weapons training likely resembles that of many World War 1 era armies, whose riflery practice was done upon round targets at relatively long ranges in a methodical manner. This was a factor which contributed to the relative reluctance to aim properly at enemy soldiers. Instead, soldiers would often aim high over the heads of the enemy — firing, but not with any particular intention of hitting. This is extremely prevalent in the stormtroopers we see in the movie — in conditions of ct/f, they simply fail to hit anything.
Back in the detention block, we can assume the Imperial military possesses a strict unit hierarchy. Strict group hierarchical structures often focus collective group emotions through their leader. The one exception to this seems to be the officer, who quickly grabs his weapon and enters a firing position. He seems better able to deal with the effects of ct/f.
The fact he, as a leader, is shot first, further stratifies the emotions between the Imperials and the heroes. Leaders are often emotional focuses and reflectors for a group — individuals can often derive their own emotional levels from a their leader’s high levels. Think about the difference between having an active, positive boss, and a negative, inactive one. One charges you up and allows you to perform better, the other does very little for you. In the later Star Wars movies, Han and Luke both act as important emotional centers for a wider group, propelling less charged members forward into situations of ct/f. When this emotional focal point is removed (by say, a laser blast), it is disorientating. Suddenly, the individual guard loses a significant source of emotional confidence, increasing the effects of ct/f and reducing their ability to perform violence effectively. Their shots are wild, missing our heroes entirely. The guards also fail to take any initiative and instead of finding cover or coordinating between each other, walk blindly into blaster fire — a symptom of the stress they are under.
No doubt this stress is heightened by the posturing actions of our heroes. Posturing actions seek to assert emotional dominance in a conflict — think shouting, firing your gun into the air, or looking particularly tough. Chewbacca is significant here, as his physical strength and imposing physique is underlined by his animalistic roaring — no doubt unnerving to the already stressed guards.
Our heroes also show a much higher level of group entrainment. This means they are in sync in terms of their focus — clearing the room of Imperials. Their effectiveness is improved in a number of ways. They work together, warning each other of dangers in contrast to the silent Imperials. Most importantly though, each of our heroes gains an additional emotional boost by being a part of a tightly-bonded group. Group entrainment brings with it synergistic benefits.
Towards the end of the firefight, a lone guard runs down the corridor towards our heroes. Han fires at him, missing the charging guard and hitting the wall. Despite this, the guard falls down, seemingly dead.
This is not unusual in the context of this situation, and there are many accounts of soldiers in combat becoming inert, laying down and playing possum. This guard is the last one alive, his comrades having all been shot in a rapid ambush. He is at a massive emotional disadvantage. Moreover, there are no fellow compatriots left to conduct “surveillance”. Surveillance is group contexts is the action of monitoring another group member’s actions and can be considered to be a form of peer pressure. An individual is much less likely to engage in actions that break with group values (such as playing dead in combat) if they are monitored by other group members. So it’s not surprising this guard decided to just… fall over.
The rest of the Death Star sequence is largely the Imperials reasserting their emotional dominance. This takes place against several chase scenes. By this point, our heroes are simply looking to escape and have largely relinquished emotional control. However, they continued to function under the influence of ct/f by relying on their strong group entrainment. Theoretically, the stormtroopers should also have a strong level of entrainment by virtue of being in the same military force. However, the largely anonymous, de-personalised nature of the stormtroopers means there may be less strong social and group ties with one another. Clearly, the Imperial military is in need of squad-level reform so that personal and unit level ties can be developed.
Our heroes also have another advantage over the stormtroopers: the stormtrooper armour. While the armour conveys a strong unified identity, it also totally dehumanises the individual. Ct/f is strongest when an individual can perceive another’s facial expressions and eyes. The stormtrooper helmet ironically serves to make the stormtroopers easier to shoot at. The impact of one’s violence is minimised: there is no blood, no agonised faces. They just fall down, silently. This allows even a novice like Luke to cope with the psychological burden of ending another life with relative ease.
It’s worth considering the situational context as Luke, Han, Chewbacca and Leia reach the Millennium Falcon. We see a shift in the emotional high-ground — our heroes are on the run, pursued by many stormtroopers.
The Imperial’s emotional dominance is further solidified by the presence of Darth Vader — a very strong emotional anchor, the death of Obi-Wan, and the flight of our heroes. Chases often give rise to a situation called a “forward panic”. This is a situation that develops after one side in a tension confrontation suddenly has the overwhelming emotional advantage — through the arrival of reinforcements or some other positive event. The side with the advantage suddenly bursts with energy with the effects of ct/f gone — historically, this has led to many massacres or particularly violent crimes. Fortunately, the Millennium Falcon is able to escape with our heroes and they avoid being caught in a forward panic. Given their outlet for their forward panic disappears (their quarry escapes), it’s likely the stormtroopers remained charged and energetic afterwords. This would have been a situation of boasting and inflated storytelling — emotional energy would flow to those able to capture the attention of other troopers, their individual standing in the wider community growing. If anyone can remember each other’s stormtrooper number.
So there we go — a brief look at the emotional dynamics of a single scene in Star Wars. I was surprised at how much you can infer from treating the scene seriously, and I can only get excited about how well this theory would work in an actual analysis of real violence.
