Throughout the past century, the typical salesman has created a stereotype for himself. They are very convincing, yet possess a friendly and agreeable demeanor. The goods ones have an initial degree of likeability that even masks the bullshit that they intend to sell you. And towards the end of the sales pitch, you start to think that he’s a good guy, and kind of reminds you of your uncle Herold. But as he gathers your trust, he now becomes more aggressive as he’s smelling the sale. Before you know it, you’ve done the “ballpoint to the check” and he does the ”pedal to the metal“, squealing tires and all.
But few have even thought about the greatest salesman in the history of fiction. An unsung and unseen rebel hero whose presence was even too great for the screen. A man who contributed more to the demise of the Emperor then even Luke Skywalker himself. This man, of course, being the salesman who sold the Emperor those piece-of-shit stormtrooper bodysuits.
Some say he was a simple man just trying to make a living, while others say he was secretly working for the rebel cause. But before we get into the legendary sale, let me backtrack and say that the suits themselves are only part of the problem.
I speak mainly of the idiocy of the troops themselves. Pink slips need to be issued to virtually all of the generals and commanders in charge of infantry recruiting and training. In fact, I would encourage The Emperor to re-examine his galactic-domination model and possibly hire a consultant from the outside for restructuring.
As everyone has seen, the storm troopers just might be the most incompetent group of a-holes ever assembled. For one, their marksmanship needs a severe re-vamp. There are scenes where they’re missing their stationary target by 30 feet. Han Solo realizes this, and there are scenes where he hardly bothers to take cover.
On the other side, it seems that storm troopers skill set apparently doesn’t contain that fairly important act of “taking cover” in warfare involving firearms. They almost instinctively seek out the most vulnerable positions on the battlefield such as wide open spaces with heavy crossfire.
And to this day, I have been unable to explain why they have never been able to take out R2-D2. There is one particular scene where R2 and the other rebels were on the death star, trying to make their way back to the Millennium Falcon, while being shot at and chased by stormtroopers.
I calculated R2’s top speed right around 2 mph, with C3P0 moving a bit faster, and with the other running rebels moving at 10 mph. Once the rebels made it to the Falcon, they’re providing cover fire for R2, as it finally rolls it’s way into the the ship. I estimated that Solo and company had to fight off the Troopers for 45 minutes to wait for R2. Unless R-2 has some never-been-filmed Adrian Peterson- like elusiveness, there is no reason why he shouldn’t have had multiple lasers to his CPU.
There’s a reason why those “How many stormtroopers does it take to change a light bulb?” jokes are told time and time again by the patrons at the Mos Eisley Cantina bar.
Now to the other half of the problem – the stormtrooper’s bodysuits. A couple things:
1. The suits lack of mobility – Storm Troopers run the same way you ran to the bathroom as a kid – after grandma made you eat those prunes. You can’t use your body’s full range of movement as an accident may occur, but nonetheless you’re still trying to run as fast as you can.
2. The suit actually serving as “armor” – What a joke. Here’s a rule-of-thumb – If you’ve been incapacitated by a rock thrown by a cocker-spaniel sized Ewok, then you’re not wearing armor. I won’t even mention that a little nick on the shoulder by a rebel laser results in a ridiculous helicopter sidespin to the ground and complete immobilization.
Imagine the salesman who sold these suits to The Emperor and Vador. He’s pitching his sale to couple of ruthless dictators who can even use Jedi mind tricks on him. It probably went something like this.
VADOR: Can I offer you a cup of coffee?
SALESMAN: (Hands Emperor business card) No thanks, I had a cup on the way here. Too much caffine makes me crazy. (uncomfortable silence) Beautiful day, isn’t it?
EMPEROR: (Leaning back in chair with hands behind his head) Let’s get down to business.
SALESMAN: Well, as I told you on the phone, our company is willing to offer you a great per unit for the brand new storm trooper armored suits because of your desire to buy in bulk. Besides offering all of the battle ready functions that you desire in a battle suit, these new models have the creative touch of one of the galaxy’s most up and coming fashion designers – Gronewall F. Slaymaker, who works exclusively out of his studio in Dagobah. How many were you thinking?
EMPEROR: 120,000 units.
SALESMAN: We can definitely do that, but I must mention that a significant price break occurs with the purchase of 150,000 units.
VADOR: We realize that, but the 120,000 units is the maximum our budget can allocate.
SALESMAN: Ok, that’s not a problem. Perhaps you would be interested in refurbished suits? They are guaranteed to function like the new, at a fraction of the price.
VADOR: (becoming noticeably agitated) No, we would like new. This is not a second-rate production.
SALESMAN: Alright, just thought I’d offer you that as a money-saving alternative. Now you mentioned that you need some financing. Since you’re willing to put 30% down, we can offer you a rate of 7.75%.
VADOR: I was told 5%
SALESMAN: Hmmm, no. I’m sorry you were given some false information. Who was it you spoke to? Was it a droid? Or maybe Virgil in accounting?
VADOR: (now becoming very agitated) I’m not sure who it was. It was my assistant who spoke with them.
SALESMAN: Is this assistant around?
VADOR: No, she left for Yavin 4 on a weeks vacation last Friday.
SALESMAN: Do you have her cell number?
VADOR: (now employing force choke) Maybe you will reconsider and give us the 5% rate.
SALESMAN: Alright, *cough* *cough* release me… *cough*… please..
VADOR: (loosens force choke)
SALESMAN: How does 6.75% sound?
Etc. etc. etc.
Here are the two existing theories behind the salesman’s motives:
#1 Money. This salesman knew the product that he was selling was virtually worthless. In fact, he probably dropped of the useless suits, received his payment and was never heard from again, making a massive profit from that 30% alone.
#2 Sabotage. He may have been an insider working for the rebel cause with an ingenious plan. He knew that if he could get them to commit a large amount of money for these suits, the emperor would use them – even after finding that the suits are sub-standard. It’s psychologically brilliant, with the notion being that if one invests a lot of money into something, they will not want to abandon it no matter what.
Either way it went down, the rebels owe this guy a lot of gratitude. There would have been nothing stopping the Emperor’s quest for full galactic rule if his infantry had somewhat functional armor. And by “somewhat functional”, I mean at least something that could fend off a Pylat bird dropping .
-craiglutterguitar.com
*Authors note: Though my level of nerdism may indeed be above the average national standardized level, it is nowhere near what this blog may imply. Mos Eisley Cantina (tavern), Yavin 4 (planet) and Pylat (bird) were terms found when googling “star wars bar” “star wars planets” and “star wars bird”. These were specific names that I was not familiar with. I swear.