Interesting how Tarkin is the main villain of the original Star Wars film, but Darth Vader’s significance in the other films overshadows him when taking the series as a whole. It’s also fascinating how such an important character gets no mention in the later films and only has a brief cameo in the prequel trilogy. There should be more media that elaborates on his character.
shareThere's a novel by James Luceno.
shareFor ESB and Jedi there's really no scene where it's necessary to reference his character. He may even be in disgrace for being in command of the Death Star when it was destroyed.
With the prequels we're given no backstory for seemingly any of the generals or important Empire villains not related to the Sith. George seemed to have no interest in expounding on those elements. That said, Tarkin was supposed to be featured more in EP 3 via CGI and archive footage but it was felt the tech wasn't good enough to achieve this, hence just a quickie long shot of a guy in prosthetics.
It's probably for the better though. Tarkin plays a large role in Rogue One and it ends up further diminishing the competence of his character.
I always considered the bartender in that Mos Eisley bar to be the biggest villain in this movie because I hate racism and its a disturbing scene when the droids are not allowed to enter. At least Tarkin and Vader were not racists
shareI don't know if you can call that "racism" not wanting robots in your bar. There might be some kind of insurance liability considering robots don't do well with drinks in the first place. It may have been for their own good that he had them thrown out.
If I walked into a bar today with a Roomba following me, should I just expect everyone to be cool with it?
There are no insurance companies in their galaxy. Its racism and its wrong regardless of what galaxy its in. And yes, if you had a roomba following you into a bar, that would be a good thing. You can never be too clean
shareIt proves that Vader was never meant to be a significant character. All that stuff that Lucas said about the star wars saga ultimately being "the story of anakin skywalker/darth vader" is all horseshit. Guy was a henchman in the first movie.
shareI thought this when rewatching it for the first time in decades last night.
Its Tarkin who decides to blow up Alderaan , without any discussion with Vader or anyone else.
But Vader was the one who survived, not Tarkin.
shareThere are some fans who claimed that they added the footage of vader steadying his ship and flying off at the end when they realized the film was a mega hit and wanted to keep him for merchandising reasons. His original fate was to keep spinning out of control indefinitely into the abyss of space after he collided with the Tie fighter - this is what the very first screenings showed according to some fans.
Regardless if that's true, Vader doesn't come off as important in the 77 movie, not the centre of everything like they said he was. Vader and Leia confront each other in the first scene, and yet Vader feels nothing, he only feels something in the presence of Obi Wan on the Death Star, but not his own force sensitive daughter standing right before him?
Vader was nothing more than Tarkin's lackey.
There are a lot of theories. Anyway, they realised that it would be a mega hit, of course, some time after the movie was released, not before and the version that was showed at the theaters from the very beginning is the one we know. I am not arguing that Tarkin was not important, but he died on the death star.
On the other hand, Vader was very important from the very beginning, just in his first appearance, without any dialogue (the music of John Williams was enough) you know that he is going to play a key role in all of this.
Or when Obi-Wan explained Luke, at least a little bit and " from a certain point of view ", who Vader was.
Is that true about vader's ship spinning off into space and not coming back? There was a guy on the old imdb boards who was adamant he saw the original ending in 77 where vader dies, and there were a few who swear they saw the same thing, but it could be one of those things they talk about where your memory plays tricks on you.
I think it's more than likely that Vader was always supposed to be a major character from the beginning, just not Leia's father, and neither was the entire saga meant to revolve around him like Lucas said during the making of the prequels where he repeatedly stated that star wars was always "the story of darth vader/anakin skywalker". I don't buy that having seen this movie.
no
share100% accurate. Vader was a henchman. Getting promoted to second in command was a retcon.
shareYep. Vader didn't even have a theme in Star Wars like he did in the other movies.
shareNo! Watch episode 3. Its very clear Vader is 2nd to Palpatine
shareGrand Muff Porkin
shareAs others have stated, I always thought that Vader simply got 'promoted' after Tarkin died.
I also feel that Lucas, being the smart filmmaker that he was, adapted to what was most successful from ANH for the rest of the films, eg. Vader resonated so well with audiences so he was made more prominent.