Star Wars' Stormtroopers Originally Wielded Lightsabers? Yep - And Shields
There are many ingredients to the success of 1977's "Star Wars," from its spectacular cast of mostly unknowns to the groundbreaking special effects that revolutionized the industry and its lived-in universe rich in details and history. But another vital ingredient that ensured "Star Wars" would remain in audiences' minds forever was its use of iconography. Every visual aspect of the movie is memorable and striking, from the look of the human characters and alien creatures to the spaceships and buildings.
Take the stormtroopers, the faceless mob of soldiers with terrible aim and a tendency to bonk their heads on the ceiling. Though mere blaster fodder in the franchise, the stormtroopers are as much a part of "Star Wars" as the lightsaber or the Millennium Falcon. Even after 40 years, the franchise continues to find new uses for the stormtroopers, like finally showing how they became the main army of the Empire in "The Bad Batch."
Like every aspect of "Star Wars," things evolved throughout pre-production on the original 1977 film. It's known that creator George Lucas went through several script drafts before getting to his final version, with everything from the story to the way that characters like Chewbacca, Han Solo, and Darth Vader even look changing significantly from one draft to the next. The stormtroopers evolved a lot, too, and at one point, they had something big in common with the Jedi — they used lightsabers.
You get a lightsaber! And you get a lightsaber!
Ralph McQuarrie is responsible for a lot of the designs in "Star Wars," that of the stormtroopers included. Intriguingly, though, some of his early concept art for the original 1977 film features a stormtrooper wielding a lightsaber and carrying a shield as he faces down Chewbacca and Han Solo (who also wields a lightsaber).
Having swords and shields in space was not rare; it was a pretty common trope in science fiction in the '50s and '60s. Isaac Asimov, one of the biggest sci-fi writers of all time, introduced the idea of energy swords in space in his short story "The Traders" before later building upon it in "The Complete Adventures of Lucky Starr." From "Buck Rogers" to "Dune," many of the sci-fi works that eventually inspired "Star Wars" also featured swords in futuristic settings. "Dune," in particular, found an elaborate way of justifying this by making projectile weapons ineffectual in its universe.
Eventually, Lucas would also scale down on the number of swords used in "Star Wars" by making them only available to Jedi. Why he took away the stormtroopers' shields is another matter (though given how ineffective their armor is, they definitely could have used them).
Still, there is at least one stormtrooper who wields a lightsaber in canon. In the 2015 "Star Wars" Marvel comic book by Jason Aaron and Stuart Immonen, we are introduced to Sergeant Kreel, a member of Vader's 501st Legion who fought Luke Skywalker with a lightsaber several times. Granted, he simply stole that lightsaber from a Hutt's Jedi artifact collection and has no Jedi training, but it still counts!