'Star Wars' Stormtroopers Are Now Enforcing Social Distancing At Disney World's Shops

Even though Disney World in Orlando, Florida isn't slated to reopen until July, the Disney Springs collection of shops and restaurants is back up and running. However, there are still social distancing policies in place, and in order to make sure guests adhere to the guidelines set by the Disney theme park locale, they've brought in First Order Stormtroopers to make sure people are keeping their distance from each other by way of some playful banter and crowd interaction.

Keeping a safe distance away from guests by standing atop a balcony, a male and a female Stormtrooper banter back and forth about their current job and also doing a little bickering about keeping their distance from each other.

The female Stormtrooper is not too happy with her current assignment since she's usually working on Star Destroyers, guarding flight decks and whatnot. But they look down among the crowd, telling them to move along and comparing them to banthas, the hairy creatures that Tusken Raiders (AKA sand people) are known to ride. When the male Stormtrooper offers some fun facts about banthas, the female responds, "Yeah, I'm going to need you to move one male bantha's length away, please."

The bumbling nature of Stortmroopers is played up to as one of them tries to show the other how to be more authoritative. The male trooper says, "Hey, you! With the face covering!" That prompts the female trooper to chastise him by saying, "They all have face coverings."The male responds, "Well, we made them all look," and the female backs him up with, "And now they all know who's in charge."

The Stormtroopers also try out different renditions of saying, "Move along," talk about finding a Resistance spy among the crowd, and say that the face coverings on guests might be nicer than the helmets they're wearing.

It's all in good fun, but one can't help but think about the optics of this setup. Even though the banter between the Stormtroopers is lighthearted, they're also part of an oppressive regime that is trying to control the galaxy. It's like making a police state environment playful and fun. And considering everything that's going on with our own police in the United States right now, maybe turning the galactic equivalent of cops into family friendly comedy bit isn't the best idea right now. But Stormtroopers are already situated around Star Wars Galaxy's Edge and playfully hassle guests from time to time, so this is probably something we'll see more of when Disney World reopens next month.