Who Was the Clumsy Stormtrooper? - Page 52

C2 Proficiency · Gapped Text · Ready for C2 Proficiency Workbook, Macmillan

You are going to read an article about a Star Wars mystery. Seven paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A–H the one which fits each gap (1–7). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.

However, two subsequent contenders would emerge, each claiming to be the baron of bump. The challenge Stangroom set himself in his documentary was sorting fact from fiction.

One of them is a regular at conventions. He is still signing pictures of the head bump. He says. 'I can't prove it but I know it is me'. So it means a lot to him. His reputation is on the line in a way.

Then along came the internet. The clumsy villain with the naughty noggin was elevated, like an X-Wing rising from a swamp, into an object of cult obsession.

The two assistant directors on the film had contrasting recollections of the incident, when Stangroom tracked them down. One recalled it clearly. The other was completely unaware of the biff until Stangroom called him up. 'He told me it was quite shambolic and they were moving on as quickly as they could.'

And it shows how a flub can go viral: in the end even Lucas recognised the joke, adding a head-bang sound effect to a 2004 DVD re-release of Star Wars.

It's possible, says Stangroom, that each of them indeed clunked their crown during the shoot. The Star Wars set at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire was by every account a chaotic environment, where everybody was flying by the seat of their interstellar trousers.

The former has carved out a career on the Star Wars convention circuit signing photographs of the Stormtrooper banging his head (always making it clear he cannot definitively prove he's the one in the picture). Reid is a retired Shakespearean actor who lives in the countryside and seems happy to have left Star Wars behind.

His new documentary, The Empire Strikes Door, is presented as the first and last word on the incident. 'It's pretty famous. Even the director himself paid tribute to it when he had Jango Fett bang his head getting into his ship in Attack of the Clones'. In the case of the head-banging Stormtrooper, there is an additional layer of mystery in that his identity has been disputed for years.

Who was this mystery man in cheap moulded plastic? Why had director George Lucas left such a glaring flub in his movie? How has a not-very-significant mishap become so fascinating to so many? 'The Stormtrooper banging his head has become a meme classic,' says Jamie Stangroom, filmmaker and Star Wars superfan (though not a super-superfan who has read all the tie-in comics and novels, he points out).

No fewer than three actors have claimed to be the baddie banging his bonce as Imperial forces break into the Death Star cubbyhole where R2-D2 and C-3P0 have been ordered to hide by Luke Skywalker.

The real question is which of the contenders was caught doing so on camera. 'The obvious thing to say is that there were probably lots of people banging their heads in Star Wars,' says Stangroom. 'I've worn one of the original helmets. They're not especially easy to move around in. I don't think it would have been an isolated incident.' Bragging rights for the on-screen 'oof' for many years rested with Michael Leader.

'If you googled it, then two names came up,' he says. 'One was Leader, who has since passed away. The second guy was Laurie Goode. Then I went on Saturday Live on Radio 4 and mentioned I was doing this project. I got an email from a third person claiming to be the Stormtrooper, Martyn Reid.' Leader refused straight up to be interviewed by Stangroom. Goode and Reid, meanwhile, each insisted they were the Stormtrooper caught on camera.

Yet, as we see in the film, it matters to him that he gets his due as the Stormtrooper. 'I met Martin and Laurie separately,' says Stangroom. 'Each did a polygraph test. One of them failed. It was fun as I'd never done one of those before. But I don't think the result really came into the final verdict.' The Empire Strikes Door starts as a slightly whimsical survey of the bump heard around the universe. But it turns into a rollicking mystery and a rumination on human memory and the degree to which one person's version of the past clashes with someone else's.

The climactic moment in Stangroom's documentary comes as Reid and Goode square off and politely try to demolish each other's stories. No lightsabers are swung. This is nonetheless a confrontation as pulse-quickening as Luke v. Darth in The Empire Strikes Back.

In addition to these rival claimants, Stangroom also spoke to Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz, who, like Lucas himself, seems astonished that the head-bump has become the one meme to rule them all. 'Gary Kurtz did notice it. They did another take. When they brought it to the edit room they realised it [the head bump take] was the best one. It just had that imperfection they couldn't afford to fix. They couldn't go back and do it again. Initially, I think, they were embarrassed. They came to see the funny side, which is why Lucas put that sound effect in.'

It's the most famous silent 'oof' in cinema history. 82 minutes and 21 seconds into the original 1977 Star Wars, a Stormtrooper bangs the top of his head walking through a door on the Death Star. The blooper is easily missed and for decades passed essentially undetected. ___ Who was this mystery man in cheap moulded plastic? Why had director George Lucas left such a glaring flub in his movie? How has a not-very-significant mishap become so fascinating to so many? 'The Stormtrooper banging his head has become a meme classic,' says Jamie Stangroom, filmmaker and Star Wars superfan (though not a super-superfan who has read all the tie-in comics and novels, he points out). ___ No fewer than three actors have claimed to be the baddie banging his bonce as Imperial forces break into the Death Star cubbyhole where R2-D2 and C-3P0 have been ordered to hide by Luke Skywalker. ___ The real question is which of the contenders was caught doing so on camera. 'The obvious thing to say is that there were probably lots of people banging their heads in Star Wars,' says Stangroom. 'I've worn one of the original helmets. They're not especially easy to move around in. I don't think it would have been an isolated incident.' Bragging rights for the on-screen 'oof' for many years rested with Michael Leader. ___ 'If you googled it, then two names came up,' he says. 'One was Leader, who has since passed away. The second guy was Laurie Goode. Then I went on Saturday Live on Radio 4 and mentioned I was doing this project. I got an email from a third person claiming to be the Stormtrooper, Martyn Reid.' Leader refused straight up to be interviewed by Stangroom. Goode and Reid, meanwhile, each insisted they were the Stormtrooper caught on camera. ___ Yet, as we see in the film, it matters to him that he gets his due as the Stormtrooper. 'I met Martin and Laurie separately,' says Stangroom. 'Each did a polygraph test. One of them failed. It was fun as I'd never done one of those before. But I don't think the result really came into the final verdict.' The Empire Strikes Door starts as a slightly whimsical survey of the bump heard around the universe. But it turns into a rollicking mystery and a rumination on human memory and the degree to which one person's version of the past clashes with someone else's. ___ The climactic moment in Stangroom's documentary comes as Reid and Goode square off and politely try to demolish each other's stories. No lightsabers are swung. This is nonetheless a confrontation as pulse-quickening as Luke v. Darth in The Empire Strikes Back. ___ In addition to these rival claimants, Stangroom also spoke to Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz, who, like Lucas himself, seems astonished that the head-bump has become the one meme to rule them all. 'Gary Kurtz did notice it. They did another take. When they brought it to the edit room they realised it [the head bump take] was the best one. It just had that imperfection they couldn't afford to fix. They couldn't go back and do it again. Initially, I think, they were embarrassed. They came to see the funny side, which is why Lucas put that sound effect in.'

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