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Spoilers Rogue One Imperial villians

S

Solid Snack

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
So it appears the two main bad guys in the film are going to be Krennic and Vader, with possibly a cameo by the Emperor (although Ian Mcdiarmid has stated he's not aware of anything).

Question is, where's Tarkin? He's kind of been associated with the battle station since the first film, and although AOTC revealed it was originally a Seperatist weapon (although possibly still Sidious's idea all along), he's still overseeing it in ROTS. There are some rumors that we'll see an actor that'll utilize a mix of CG and practical effects to get the Tarkin look. It's something Disney/ILM seem to be getting a lot better at, especially given the young Robert Downey Jr in Civil War earlier this year.

Also I think Krennic's fate might be an interesting way of another Clone Wars tie-in-We've already got Forest Whitaker portraying a Clone Wars character, Saw Gererra. But Krennic's outfit also bears some resemblance to Death Star council member Wullf Yularen: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wullf_Yularen

Yularen was one of the recurring cast of the Clone Wars, as the main Republic commander teamed with Anakin and Obi-Wan. Maybe he takes Krennic's place at the end of the film if he gets killed off?
 
Tarkin wasn't just in charge of the Death Star, he was the Grand Moff; oversector governor of the entire outer rim territories. So he has a very wide scope of authority and would have had a lot of places to be and things to do.
That he was overseeing of the station in ANH is probably due to 1) It's now fully operational and 2) Krennic was most likely killed or otherwise incapacitated in the events of Rogue One. So while I'd be surprised if he doesn't pop up or at least get a mention, I don't really expect them to feature him much.

Yularen would be an interesting possibility, but they may be saving him for something else, like say an appearance in Rebels. His relevance to the events of Rogue one are questionable as in the movie he was just an extra with no lines. He was probably only there for the meeting since I don't think we ever see him again.
 
There were rumours over a year ago that they were going to digitally insert footage of Peter Cushing into the move. At the time I was critical, thinking it would save a lot less time and effort to either use Wayne Pygram (who played Tarkin in ROTS) or a new actor. Given what is now known, and that Tarkin likely won't have a large role if he even is in the movie, maybe the footage of Cushing could work out after all?

I doubt Yularen is taking Krennic's place though. Even after we discount all the non-canon Legends stuff, Yularen did have a lower rank in ANH then Krennic has in Rogue One, and there are a few other Imperial officers on the Death Star in ANH wearing white uniforms. And given the leaked pages from the Visual Dictionary described him as the head of the Imperial military, it's entirely possible the next in line after him could have been on Coruscant and we won't be hearing from them at all. Of course, Yularen's lower rank in ANH is already contradicted by the fact he was already an Admiral in Clone Wars, so who the hell knows?
 
I think part of the reason we got "Admiral" Yularen is that Filoni thought that his white uniform in ANH meant that he was a Grand Admiral.
 
Has there ever even been a consistent rank insignia system in Star Wars? I know one of the RPG books had a chart, but from what I recall it didn't line up with what was on-screen and what was on screen seemed to change from movie to movie. Indeed I'm pretty sure just about everyone in RotJ had the same rank badge.
 
I heard a rumor that there is a new design for the stormtrooper uniforms in this movie. Is that true?
 
There are other types of stormtroopers in the movie in addition to the regular stormtroopers.

Yularen I this was listed as Assistant Director of the ISB to an unnamed Director. With Krennic is the Director and is killed, or otherwise unavailable, it would make sense that Yularen in filling in for him at the high cabinet meeting held by Grand Moff Tarkin.

If Krennic is in charge of the Death Star (or at least its security) than Tarkin is over him since the project is part of his command of the Outer Rim Territories. Darth Vader was assigned to Tarkin from what we know, so if there is a major problem, Tarkin will send Vader to assist....or deal with, Krennic.
 
Solid Snack said:
I think part of the reason we got "Admiral" Yularen is that Filoni thought that his white uniform in ANH meant that he was a Grand Admiral.
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I thought the white uniform was for the Imperial Security Bureau?

They had green for Army & Navy, and black for (rarely seen) Stormtrooper officers. I always thought white meant ISB.

As for rank insignia: It's all over the place. Higher ranking officers usually had more of them but they never worked anything out. Hell I don't think the actual ranks themselves were consistent.
 
LJones41 said:
I guess I should have known that Disney would pull something like this.
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Pull something like what?

IF you mean the extra types of troopers, they are adding three that I can recall, in addition to the mountain of Stormtroopers in the film.

Imperial Death Troopers: elite troopers under Imperial Intelligence control.

Shore Troopers: Specialist for beach settings and bunker defenses. They wear half a suit of armor it looks like. (top half).

And the last seem to be some kind of tank drivers or some helmet modification for a gunner.
 
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Yeah! How dare they! The original movies never introduced any new trooper designs after the first mov....oh wait... ;)
 
Solid Snack said:
I think part of the reason we got "Admiral" Yularen is that Filoni thought that his white uniform in ANH meant that he was a Grand Admiral.
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Hey, I only just discovered a few months ago that white uniform does not automatically mean Grand Admiral. Interestingly, I noticed in the full body shots of Krennic he is in fact wearing black pants, as opposed to Thrawn who wears white pants, even now in Rebels.

Although getting back to Yularen's rank (well, sort of) I noticed Clone Wars actually had an odd habit of presenting every officer in command of a cruiser as "Admiral." Ironically, the one exception was Tarkin when he was first introduced in the show, he was a Captain but was promoted to Admiral by the end of the series anyway.
 
Might have been temporary ranks for the non-clones to be in charge. Sort of like how most of the Jedi Knights became "Generals" overnight while their Padawans became "Commanders". The Admirals would I suppose ship captains or maybe senior ship captains from whatever little military forces the Republic had before the Clones and their toys arrived, or part of some of the Planetary, System, or Sector Defense Forces. After the Clone Wars, their ranks might be have been returned to their pre-war levels.

This is not without precedence in history. In the American Civil War, several officers were promoted to high ranking positions within the Union Army only to be demoted as the Army was reduced following the war. Take George Armstrong Custer, for an example, was promoted many times during the war, and was a Major General at the war's end. He was then demoted back to Captain, then promoted again to Lt. Colonel, which he held until his death ten years later (at the age of 36). He was likely not the only one to have this happen to among the officer corps. So Yularen might have followed a similar fate in terms of rank, but also seems to have switched branches at some point from the Navy to the ISB. For what reason? Who knows?

Though there in an interesting question, does he get along with Darth Vader?
 
Yeah, the ranks are a bit on the confusing side. I remember some of the old RPG books basically stated that the Stormtroopers were simply an elite force, whereas the guys with the big helmets (Called "Death Star troopers" in a lot of merchandise) were the regular army guys, while other sources (and the later films) actually flip that around.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only green-uniformed Imperial officers with the caps in ANH were the scanning crew guy voiced by Harry Shearer and the guy who warns Tarkin (and who also appears in the deleted scene redubbed for the holiday special).

Also I think some of the dialogue got flipped during the conference scene. Pretty much every source has Motti as an admiral, and Tagge as a general, so why is he lecturing Tagge about his 'starfleet'? (I think the Darth Vader comics worked around this a bit, even having Tagge be the original commander of the Executor).
 
Ithekro said:
The Admirals would I suppose ship captains or maybe senior ship captains from whatever little military forces the Republic had before the Clones and their toys arrived, or part of some of the Planetary, System, or Sector Defense Forces. After the Clone Wars, their ranks might be have been returned to their pre-war levels.
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That could work, but then Rebels is continuing the trend with Admiral Konstantine, who so far has only really been seen commanding his Star Destroyer and doesn't seem to have other command responsibilities.
Solid Snack said:
I remember some of the old RPG books basically stated that the Stormtroopers were simply an elite force, whereas the guys with the big helmets (Called "Death Star troopers" in a lot of merchandise) were the regular army guys, while other sources (and the later films) actually flip that around.
Click to expand...
I thought I heard somewhere Disney has gone with the idea that the stormtroopers were an elite force, as their novels does differentiate between them and "naval troopers" which I'm guessing are the guys in the black helmets. But then, in TFA we find out Finn worked sanitation detail which seems an odd assignment for someone in the elite corps. Wouldn't low-ranking enlisted army/navy personnel make more sense?
 
The First Order might have attempted to go back to the Clone Wars era idea, which is everyone is a trooper, unless you are an officer (or something like that), and some of them might have been troopers too.
 
Yeah, we don't know for sure that First Order military works exactly the same as the Imperial military did. The FO split off/was inspired by The Empire, but it isn't the Empire.
 
I wonder what some of the old school Imperial officers might think of the First Order. I doubt they would all approve of it.
 
Given that the idea of the First Order is that it's a leaner, meaner version of the old Empire, I'd say it has a much lower tolerance for incompetence and political climbing. Palpatine's Empire seemed to have been intentionally designed to make sure nobody too powerful by setting up the upper ranks (military and political) to eat each other alive.
Also, they can't follow the old doctrine of overwhelming numbers and a flagrant disregard for casualties because they don't have the resources to loose.

Another factor in this is that since the First Order is *vastly* smaller than the Empire, there's a level of bureaucracy they simply don't need in order to function, which greatly simplifies the politics and the resultant trickle down complications and corruption.
 
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