Uploaded May 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Luke Skywalker discharges a powerful bolt from his stolen E 11 blaster in the direction of two Imperial stromtroopers, and although the bolt strikes neither stormtrooper directly, it does hit a wall close enough to one of the armoured soldiers to incapacitate him with the blast, causing him to drop his weapon and fall from the ledge.

This implies that Luke may have been using a more powerful blast setting rather than the normal kill setting. Frame by frame the bolt can be seen impacting the wall just beside the stromtrooper; it is possible that the trauma from the blasts shock wave incapacitated this trooper, otherwise perhaps it was fast-moving shrapnel which struck the small unarmoured neck section between his helmet and backplate.
This is the bolt responsible for the blasted stromtrooper one frame before impact
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Blaster firepower from Star Wars A New Hope
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