SOLVED: The mystery of why film baddies can't shoot

It's a puzzle that's exercised the minds of ballistics experts for decades – Why can't film baddies shoot?

Now, a major new study claims to have identified the answer: Stormtroopers, Bond henchmen and other movie villains are so traumatised by their torrid working conditions they lack the motivation to aim properly.

Professor Clinton Swayne, a lecturer in ballistics at the University of Michigan, said: "Wherever you look in movie history, you’ll find baddies with otherwise impeccable motor skills firing shots harmlessly wide of goodies, while goodies are able to dispatch their enemies with a single shot. 

“The goodies and baddies generally look the same, walk the same and talk the same. The only difference is that when Chuck Norris pulls a trigger, 50 terrorists fall to the ground, but a baddy can fire off a hundred rounds without making a goody so much as spill his coffee."

Prof Swayne now claims to have pinpointed the reason why, after leading a team of researchers who have spent 11 years poring over millions of hours of film footage – and tracking down some of the film baddies with the worst ‘shots fired to goodies hit’ ratios.

“We found a whole host of complex reasons why baddies are terrible at shooting guns. Often, they haven’t received adequate firearms training. Other times, they are facing psychological pressures that you and I would know little about.

“We spoke to lots of Stormtroopers, for instance, who described how they were forced to wear their cumbersome white suits all day and night, even when they were sleeping. One said they felt so miserable they didn’t really care if they shot Chewbacca or not.”

An Albanian sex trafficker from the Taken franchise, meanwhile, described how he was told – on the eve of a crucial shootout with no-nonsense CIA operative Bryan Mills – that he wouldn't be getting a pre-agreed bonus even if he successfully gunned down Mills.

"It was a massive blow to my emotional wellbeing, especially as I was on the minimum wage at the time," said the trafficker, who wished to remain anonymous.

"I had no reason to bother trying to kill this guy if I wasn't being rewarded for my labour, so I didn't even try. There's one scene in Taken 2 where you can clearly see me aiming at at a billboard for Findus Crispy Pancakes that's about 10 yards above Mills' head."

Anecdotes such as this back up one of the study's key findings, which is that 41% of villains believe a lack of motivation is the biggest single reason for their failure to fulfil their henchmanly duties. Inadequate training (26%) is next on the list, while nearly a fifth of baddies claim 'emotional turmoil' is the main factor affecting their ability to shoot. 

Some of the survey questions are published below. The full research paper will be published at the premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi later this year.

“Carrying out this research was an exhausting process, as it involved watching literally every second of every film ever made," says Prof Swayne.

“Some of our guys were pleading with me to cut a few corners by skipping films that were unlikely to have any gunfire in them.

“But I was adamant that in order for this research to be credible, we couldn’t miss a single minute of cinema, and if that meant watching Marley and Me in case there was a bloody shout-out we’d all forgotten about, so be it.”

Some of cinema’s leading villains have welcomed Prof Swayne’s research.

A representative of James Bond nemesis, Scaramanga, said the study offered useful insights which could potentially increase the effectiveness of future villainy and dastardliness.  

Others have responded angrily, however. 

Abdul Rafai, a Lebanese terrorist in the 1980s Chuck Norris action thriller, The Delta Force, said: "This so-called research paints a picture that us villains are completely incompetent, when the truth is very different.

"I personally shot Captain Scott McCoy three times, right in the eye. It's just the camera angles and the selective editing that make it look like he got away unharmed."

Darth Vader, meanwhile, is said to be considering legal action over Prof Swayne’s allegations that Stormtroopers endure poor working conditions.

“Staff welfare is at the heart of all we do aboard the Death Star," said a Galactic Empire spokesman. "Lord Vader emphatically rejects the assertion that any of our employees were in any way mistreated during our numerous failed campaigns to obliterate Mark Hamill.”