Rogue One questions

[Timo]

Those are all valid points. Yet there's no escaping the fact that Vader was born on that particular ball of sand (even though there was no reason to believe in such a thing in ANH yet). For the person of arguably greatest importance in Vader's life (that is, himself), it's the uniquely most important planet in the whole galaxy. The rest he just rules over; Mustafar he lives on, and previously died on; but Tatooine is where it all began, where the Jedi abducted him to his fate. Vader would necessarily give that planet a special place in his dark heart.

One of total oblivion? Or of obsessive remembrance? Either way, any reminder of the place should make said dark heart miss a beat, and start Vader down a boulevard of deep thought.

Rogue One slightly ups that ante, by making Tatooine a rebel destination rather than a random point of intercept. So Vader's response feels all the more underwhelming. A couple of apparent locals on dewbacks are the ones to locate the carrier of the message that Vader knows will decide the fate of the Empire - while Vader himself apparently flees the scene, admittedly sending two star destroyers there in place of his one, but having the crews of those mill around uselessly when at the very least they should be storming the pitiful three towns on the planet in decisive numbers, not just halting traffic but burning random blocks until somebody confesses to something.

Tarkin doesn't need Vader back on the DS. Or even Leia, for that matter; the rebels scratched the image of the Empire a bit at Scarif, but there is no real urgency in finding their hideout. Vader has every incentive to remain on Tatooine - as a local expert; because his presence will motivate the troops into performing; and because this all can't be a coincidence, and the fate of the rebellion will be decided on this spot, as per Princess Leia's expert opinion and indirect confession. And yet he doesn't.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[fireproof78]

Those are all valid points. Yet there's no escaping the fact that Vader was born on that particular ball of sand (even though there was no reason to believe in such a thing in ANH yet). For the person of arguably greatest importance in Vader's life (that is, himself), it's the uniquely most important planet in the whole galaxy. The rest he just rules over; Mustafar he lives on, and previously died on; but Tatooine is where it all began, where the Jedi abducted him to his fate. Vader would necessarily give that planet a special place in his dark heart.

One of total oblivion? Or of obsessive remembrance? Either way, any reminder of the place should make said dark heart miss a beat, and start Vader down a boulevard of deep thought.

Rogue One slightly ups that ante, by making Tatooine a rebel destination rather than a random point of intercept. So Vader's response feels all the more underwhelming. A couple of apparent locals on dewbacks are the ones to locate the carrier of the message that Vader knows will decide the fate of the Empire - while Vader himself apparently flees the scene, admittedly sending two star destroyers there in place of his one, but having the crews of those mill around uselessly when at the very least they should be storming the pitiful three towns on the planet in decisive numbers, not just halting traffic but burning random blocks until somebody confesses to something.

Tarkin doesn't need Vader back on the DS. Or even Leia, for that matter; the rebels scratched the image of the Empire a bit at Scarif, but there is no real urgency in finding their hideout. Vader has every incentive to remain on Tatooine - as a local expert; because his presence will motivate the troops into performing; and because this all can't be a coincidence, and the fate of the rebellion will be decided on this spot, as per Princess Leia's expert opinion and indirect confession. And yet he doesn't.

Timo Saloniemi

Vader is also a servant to his master's will, as his own identify was wrapped up and consumed by the Dark Side. Even if these things give him pause in his dark heart, he still has a task that must be accomplished, including ensuring that the Emperor's project has no weaknesses to take away from the Emperor's grand plan. And the destruction of the Rebels would ensure that such information will pose no threat again.

Now, his overconfidence in his own abilities, blinded perhaps by either uncomfortable memories or disturbances in the Force, result in missteps. But, at the same time, he had a mission. And his focus was that. Tatooine factors little when he has a potential leveraging point in the overall plan of things.

 

[Timo]

That's just it, though. Tatooine is his mission. This is where Leia brought the vital information; this is the route that will ultimately deliver it to the rebellion. There is no obstacle to him indulging in a personal thing, just as he indulges in Obi-Wan later on; Tarkin and the Emperor both would understand and approve if Vader turned Tatooine upside down, and in the process discovered what he was sorta hoping to find (Obi-Wan) as well as what he wasn't expecting at all (Luke).

Interrogating Leia is easily done aboard the star destroyer, or even down at Mos Eisley. It's a side job compared to hunting down the droids and discovering their destination.

That is, it's that in light of Rogue One, where Vader learns all about that message and its significance, from Krennic onscreen and no doubt Tarkin offscreen. In light of just ANH, Vader could have been but an errand boy who didn't really know what he was hunting for, and wasn't aware of the recovery or tracking of the message being a more important factor in defeating the rebellion than the interrogation of the random princess who carried and hid it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[fireproof78]

That's just it, though. Tatooine is his mission. This is where Leia brought the vital information; this is the route that will ultimately deliver it to the rebellion. There is no obstacle to him indulging in a personal thing, just as he indulges in Obi-Wan later on; Tarkin and the Emperor both would understand and approve if Vader turned Tatooine upside down, and in the process discovered what he was sorta hoping to find (Obi-Wan) as well as what he wasn't expecting at all (Luke).

But that wasn't his focus-his focus was on the plans, or the person who could lead him to the plans. Vader did not have the freedom to indulge on Tatooine as he had to report back to Tarkin regarding the plans, and engage in efforts to ensure the Emperor's project had not been compromised. Vader, again, has no reason to know about Kenobi on Tatooine, or about Luke. And, honestly, he has every reason to avoid Tatooine because of the painful memories of his past self.

Vader's job was the security of the Death Star. Retrieving the plans was minimal, since there was no apparent resistance in the pod. Leia would be more valuable at that point because who had the plans, and where they had been sent would be more pressing information than just retrieving the plans themselves. And, as Vader notes, he wants the information Leia has regarding the hidden Rebel base. So, his focus is on destroying the Rebels, not engaging in personal indulgences when there is a mission to accomplish.

He can indulge on the Death Star just fine because he and Tarkin feel they have the Rebels cornered. He doesn't have that luxury above Tatooine.

 

[Tuskin38]

in the new canon comics, Boba Fett is tasked by Vader to find and capture the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. He fails, but does find out his family name and tells Vader. Vader is visibly upset (his anger cracks the viewport he's looking out of).

He keeps this from the Emperor, so he actually knew that the force sensitive pilot was a Skywalker before the Emperor told him in ESB, he was just acting surprised with this context.

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-comic-darth-vader-window-crack/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/comments/kb1ntd/darth_vader_discovers_who_blew_up_the_death_star/

He then goes to Tatooine to figure everything out because that's where Boba Fett tracked him to.

Vader hates Tatooine, Palpatine once sent him there to personally negotiate with Jabba as punishment because he knows Vader hates the planet.

 

[Kor]

It kind of adds some weight to Vader's angry line in the first NPR SW radio drama about Tatooine being "this miserable speck of a planet" or whatever the exact wording was.

Kor

 

[Turtletrekker]

It kind of adds some weight to Vader's angry line in the first NPR SW radio drama about Tatooine being "this miserable speck of a planet" or whatever the exact wording was.

Kor

"This miserable speck of a planet. This... Tatooine!"

With the line, and the last word in particular, delivered with such disgust and anger delivered passionately by Brock Peters as Darth Vader.

*Chef kiss*

I thought the exact same thing.

 

[Timo]

But that wasn't his focus-his focus was on the plans, or the person who could lead him to the plans.

And that's what Rogue One changes.

ANH: Vader might be intercepting a suspicious ship on the off chance it has the goods (of an exact nature unknown to Vader), and it is discovered the random courier there dumped the goods onto the nearest planet in panic. It turns out the courier is a suspected rebel sympathizer, so she, rather than her goods, becomes the new focus.

R1: Vader is in hot pursuit of an explicit rebel agent who assuredly has the high-stakes goods stolen from Scarif, and was in the obvious process of delivering them to somebody on Tatooine.

The former might warrant going to HQ and reporting "no real progress" or "matter taken care of, contraband dumped on a sand heap". The latter does not warrant abandoning the hot pursuit, and in fact calls for Vader to squeeze much harder than he originally thought he would need to.

And, honestly, he has every reason to avoid Tatooine because of the painful memories of his past self.

Which probably should up the ante big time. Is this agent going to Tatooine because she knows Vader would be unlikely to go there?

Vader's job was the security of the Death Star.

In ANH, yes. In R1, he has a different immediate mission, just with an obviously related significance to the wider one.

R1 adds other nuances, too. In ANH, Tarkin might simply be keen on testing whether the DS works, and doing it callously on a major inhabited world. As per R1, he already knows it works, and has deliberately cockblocked Krennic's earlier testing so as to make a bigger impact when he himself gets to give the command. In ANH, Tarkin's real goal is to blow up the rebel nest, and Alderaan is a means to that end. As per R1, he's just raining indiscriminate terror on the galaxy so that the single DS can fulfil its galaxy-wide mission without actually having to go places; Yavin won't be his ultimate or last target.

So it's a conflicted issue. As per the R1 additions, Vader really should pursue the Tatooine angle, because all ambiguity about it has been stripped away. But as per the R1 angle, finding the rebel nest is not a matter of urgency as such, and merely keeping the rebels at an arm's length till Tarkin has had the opportunity to blow up a sufficient number of worlds to establish his reign of terror is the immediate goal.

No interpretation changes the one underlying issue of conflict there, though. In R1, Tarkin blows up an entire Imperial installation to make sure the super-sensitive data on the DS stays out of rebel hands. In ANH, Tarkin utterly dismisses the idea that the data would actually pose a threat to his beloved DS. So which version did he tell Vader? "Go play inside that rebel ship for your usual sadistic fun and, oh, get me those data tapes if you can, too"? Or "Those tapes must never reach the rebellion - do whatever is necessary to secure them"?

If the latter, utter destruction of Tantive IV might suffice, and capture would be unnecessary hassle. But merely blockading Tatooine would appear insufficient, and the slightest failure to enforce that blockade should have been a cause of massive concern, the capture of the Falcon warranting not just a search party of two but a hangar siege of three platoons, with three in reserve, and with TIEs swarming to block the exit while Vader personally tears the ship apart with his lightsaber.

...Why wouldn't Vader tell Tarking to point the DS on Tatooine there and then?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

In A New Hope, Darth Vader knows exactly what he is looking for when he intercepts the Tantive IV. When he confronts Leia he knows Rebel spies sent the ship a transmission and he knows that it was the plans for the Death Star. That Leia is a part of the Rebel Alliance. She is the only obvious important person on the ship, and thus Vader sees her as his only living link to finding the elusive Rebel Base. The only danger he has in all of this is the Imperial Senate. Thus he still has to make up a cover story that the ship was lost and all onboard were killed. After he brings her back to the Death Star, Tarkin gets world that the Emperor has dissolved the Senate permanently. Princess Leia is being interrogated to find he location of the Rebel Base.

Vader is only informed on the missing plans after confronting Leia is that they are no longer on the ship, but an escape pod with no lifeforms aboard was launched during the fighting. He sends down his own troops to get the plans back, but head off to deliver Leia to Tarkin, seeing as if the pod was devoid of life, it should be a simple task for a bunch of Stormtroopers to go down, find the plans in the pod and take the next ship back to the Death Star. If there are complications, Vader's veteran elite Stormtroopers should be enough to handle whatever is down there. Sending a small blockade of Star Destroyers helps as well. But they still need to cover their tracks, as they still have the Senate to worry about (doubtful if these troopers got word of the disbanding until after the Falcon took off). These Troopers were still able to contact Vader, as by the time the Falcon was captured, the Death Star had an ID on it being the ship that blasted off Tatooine, and that Vader figured whoever was on it was attempting to return the stolen plans. He also knew about the plans being hidden with droids, since he asked about that when he checks on the Falcon and orders a scanning crew to search the ship. It was then that he started to feel the presence of Kenobi.

While Vader is looking for the plans, he primary goal is finding the Rebel's hidden base. Vader himself does not think too highly of the Death Star anyway, so the plans are just the means to an end for him to find Rebels to route out or use as leverage with Princess Leia to get her to talk.

As for Tarkin blasting the base on Scariff in R1...that was more an excuse to kill a rival. As for Tatoonine as a target...it suffers, probably worse than Dantooine in terms of remoteness as a demonstration of the Death Star's full power (which had not been tested as far as we know...only low power setting in R1). Plus the entire point of blowing up Alderaan was to get Leia to tell them were the Rebel Base was. Than demonstrate the Tarkin Doctrine by blowing up Alderaan anyway (and I suppose punish Leia for being a traitor), since the Senate was gone, the Emperor via Tarkin could begin the rule through fear part of the Empire.

 

[Reverend]

Yeah in ANH Vader doesn't even set foot on Tatooine. He has the Princess and he thinks that'll be enough to get him the location of their base, at which point the plans themselves are more or less meaningless, so he just leaves a detachment behind to smoke them out.
The fact that he grew up there just means he knows how insignificant the place is and how few places the plans could be hidden. Not worth his personal attention.

He keeps this from the Emperor, so he actually knew that the force sensitive pilot was a Skywalker before the Emperor told him in ESB, he was just acting surprised with this context.

We already knew that in the movie though; Vader namedrops Luke in the scene with Ozzel & Piett like 15 mins in. The whole point of the battle of Hoth wasn't to root out the rebellion, it was to extract Luke. Why else do you think he committed his whole fleet to scouring a damned asteroid field for a rinkydink freighter while half the rebellion is basically left to flee with hardly any pursuit? why else do you think he was leading the charge with his troops, and made a bee-line for the hangars?
The message from Palpatine wasn't about him telling Vader anything about Luke he didn't already know, it was about Palpatine letting him know he's now aware of what Vader is up to, and yanking his leash HARD.

 

[Shawnster]

ANH: Vader might be intercepting a suspicious ship on the off chance it has the goods (of an exact nature unknown to Vader), and it is discovered the random courier there dumped the goods onto the nearest planet in panic. It turns out the courier is a suspected rebel sympathizer, so she, rather than her goods, becomes the new focus.

No.

It's clear from ANH Vader knew the Death Star plans were on the Tantivie IV. There was no off chance randomness to the entire capture, boarding, and search. The troops storm the ship and take control. Vader boards and interrogates Antillies. He is confident Antillies is lying and, after throwing his limp body to the ground Vader orders the ship torn apart until the plans are found. What he doesn't know and stumbles upon is Leia. He clearly wasn't expecting her as is indicated by his sarcastic question "If this is a counselor ship, where is the ambassador?"

Neither did Rogue One change Tattooine from a random destination into a rebel destination. Kenobi lived on Tattooine. Leia was sent to retrieve Kenobi and bring him to Alderaan. ANH is clear that Tattooine was the intended destination.

What Rogue One did was make Antillies look like an idiot for defying Vader and lying to him about the plans. Before Rogue One you get the feeling that Vader's Star Destroyer might not have been following them the whole time. Antillies definitely acts like that when he that they did not intercept any plans and that they were on a diplomatic mission. Takes some big balls for a criminal (which is what Antillies was in the eyes of the Empire) to lie like that to the man who just watched the Tantivie IV peel out of Scarif and make a run for it. Vader could have just as easily said "Dude, don't lie to me, I just single handedly killed several of your crew as they were getting on this ship and running away."

Rogue One made Antillies look like either a dip or an arrogant SOB with a pair of brass ones.

 

[fireproof78]

A dip, sadly. That hallway scene diminished the opening of ANH.

 

[JD]

I never put that together, but it does make Antilles look kind of bad.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Could Antilles have been just stalling Vader until the droids got away with the plans?

Also, and I apologize if this is a stupid question (which it probably is), but...is Captain Antilles related to Wedge?

 

[Xerxes82]

I never put that together, but it does make Antilles look kind of bad.

How so? It makes him brave. He KNOWS he's lying. He KNOWS Vader knows he's lying. But his faith in his cause is such that he does it anyway, almost certain of the outcome awaiting him. And he does it on the off chance that the 10 seconds he buys doing it might make all the difference. Which, as it turns out, they do.

Could Antilles have been just stalling Vader until the droids got away with the plans?

Also, and I apologize if this is a stupid question (which it probably is), but...is Captain Antilles related to Wedge?

To your first question, I don't think he's specifically stalling for the droids. But he 100% is stalling for Leia. He's trusting her to come up with something, some crazy rabbit out of a hat. I don't think he necessarily knows about R2, or even about Kenobi. He might, but he doesn't have to for the scene to work. He puts his faith in Leia, and in the Rebellion, and gives his life to buy her half a minute to make some kind of play. 30 seconds that brought low an Empire.

As to your second question, I doubt it but I'm not sure it's ever been explored one way or the other. Wedge is typically portrayed as being Corellian (not sure if Disney canon has said one way or another yet, just that he was an Imperial trainee). I always just kind of assumed Captain (typically Raymus) Antilles was Alderaanian given his role. I suppose he doesn't need to be, however.

 

[fireproof78]

Could Antilles have been just stalling Vader until the droids got away with the plans?

Also, and I apologize if this is a stupid question (which it probably is), but...is Captain Antilles related to Wedge?

No.

 

[The Wormhole]

Also, and I apologize if this is a stupid question (which it probably is), but...is Captain Antilles related to Wedge?

No. According to the EU, Antilles is just an incredibly common name in the Star Wars galaxy, like Smith or Jones, meaning there is no relation between Wedge Antilles, Captain Antilles or Bail Antilles. The EU also claimed, Bail is also an incredibly common name, the equivalent to John, to explain why Bail Antilles and Bail Organa ore two different people but to make it look less odd that two guys with the same first name held the same job, representing Alderaan on the Galactic Senate. Which I guess means Bail Antilles is the literal John Smith of the Star Wars universe.

 

[Tuskin38]

A dip, sadly. That hallway scene diminished the opening of ANH.

I don't agree at all. But that's what opinions are for.

 

[fireproof78]

I don't agree at all. But that's what opinions are for.

Indeed. And I have no doubt that is a highly controversial opinion, especially since that hallway scene the ultimate Star Wars creation (trademark pending) until that other hallway scene!

Jokes aside, I just found the scene so completely unnecessary. It cuts against the grain of what is presented in A New Hope of how Vader tracked that ship. "Several transmissions were beamed aboard this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you." And Vader just strolling on through the pile of corpses instead of being the one to cut the door down himself and kill the troops. It's jarring.

 

[Tuskin38]

And Vader just strolling on through the pile of corpses instead of being the one to cut the door down himself and kill the troops. It's jarring.

I've always rationalized it as he knew the ship was captured and secure in ANH. He had no reason to rush in.

While in Rogue One he was trying to prevent them from escaping.