In the penultimate scene of the movie, Darth Vader confronts a squadron of Rebel soldiers as they try to make off with the Death Star plans. He ignites his lightsaber in the darkness of the powerless corridor, his iconic form alight for all to see and fear... And the Rebels respond with "Drop this guy!"...? Perhaps the weakness of the Alliance is that they don't know who Darth Vader is. Really? "Drop this guy"? Comments -- did I mis-hear the line?
The first command the trooper commander gave after Vader lit up his lightsaber was "Open fire!" followed by a terrified "Help us!" to the troopers on the other side of the jammed airlock hatch after Vader started deflecting their shots back at them and cutting them down.
Unless it was something relatively quiet or someone in your audience...yes you misheard. I half imagine someone in the audience said what you heard.
Even if they did say "drop this guy" so what? Chances are very few if any have actually survived fights with Vader, so there's no one who can provide a first hand account of what fighting him is like. Sure there's likely stories, legends and myths if you will about Vader being an unstoppable dark Jedi or what have you. But in a world where the Jedi have themselves become myths from the past, and the Force is not believed to even exist by the majority of people, this group of soldiers are probably just dealing with empirical facts of the matter. Dismissing the stories about Vader as exaggerated, they see a guy in a life support suit who just brought a sword to a gunfight. Of course they don't expect a challenge.
Yeah I've seen the movie twice now and nobody said "drop this guy". Just "open fire!" Followed by various screams and desperate calls for help.
I think knowledge of the Jedi and the force is preserved as much as possible among the alliance. Jedi are a symbol of hope or used to be. Though no doubt the Empire is doing its worst to counter that with their propaganda. How well propaganda works everyone of us is experiencing first hand daily in an age where factual news are a dying phenomenon. Or at least it feels that way. You'd think it takes generations for general knowledge of an accepted truth to die, but in reality it goes a lot faster.
Not in a single generation, when people of that generation are still alive and kicking it. That's a bit silly, especially for something as jaw-drapping as bloody wizards and magic.