There is even one Imperial trooper with a Lewis gun in the first movie and the rebels on the frozen planet of Hoth carry MP44s. Rebel blasters throughout the franchise are Sterlings
There are several reasons for the choice of weapons;
- Using existing weapon platforms is cheaper than making things from scratch
- The movies were made in England and Morrocco, where these were the props that were available
- They needed the weapons to be able to fire blanks. Early CGI technology needed the muzzle flash as an index for direction and duration for the laser blasts. If you watch the first movie carefully, you will see the Sterlings ejecting brass from the custom, abbreviated magazines that were developed for the movie, (I'm guessing 3-5 round capacity). The scene where this is most obvious is where Luke swings himself and Leia over to a port inside the Death Star, where they get trapped on the ledge. As Luke fires back at Storm Troopers across the gap, you can see the brass ejecting from his blaster and hitting the wall next to him.
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