What makes you think Obi-Wan didn’t recognize R2? All he says is, “I don’t seem to remember owning a droid…very interesting.”
You can read it that way, but based only on the first movie I’m not sure how many people would do so. Obi-Wan has a long history with him (“pupil of mine before he turned to evil” and all that), so if he called him by his first name instead of his title it would make sense.
God damn, those were awful.
Dark Empire: Oh look! Recycled villain with a superweapon!
Dark Empire II: Oh look! Recycled villain with a superweapon!
Empire’s End (Dark Empire III): Oh look! Recycled villain with a superweapon!
For those wondering, yes I did cut and paste. Doesn’t it say something sad that I COULD?
-Joe
I love the bit in Lord of the Rings where Frodo and Gandalf are talking, and Gandalf asks Frodo if he knows how Bilbo got the ring. Frodo laughs and explains that he knows the real story, not the one Bilbo put in his book.
So the first version of The Hobbit is the one Bilbo wrote, the second one is the “true story”. You gotta admire Tolkien.
He’s also the one who gets the homing beacon put aboard the Millenium Falcon…even though Tarkin had reservations about it.
Think of it like any dictatorship. Sure, there’s a chain of command and all that, but when the Emperor’s personal representative says, “I’m going to kill that guy for pissing me off” are YOU going to be the guy that tells him he’s not allowed to?
I always thought that, if nothing else, it showed that Tarkin had himself a big ol’ set of balls that he was willing to give Vader a direct order. He could have been next, after all.
-Joe
He what now?
On a tangent note, back when Episode I came out there was a theory floating around regarding Vader and See Threepio. There’s a scene in ESB in he carbonite chamber where Boba Fett goes to shoot Chewie. Chewie’s back is to Boba and See Threepio is strapped on. Vader bats down Boba’s arm. The theory is that either he
A) Recognized See Threepio
or
B) Remembered his old protocol droid and couldn’t stand to see one shot to pieces.
You know, I still think you are looking at Vader through the eyes of seeing the collection of films together. Think about seeing Star Wars for the first time without the rest of the films.
There is no mention of Vader being a special envoy of the Emperor. Throughout he comes off as a subordinate of Tarkin. Tarkin orders him to do things. Tarkin’s tone never shows his orders to be a request but a command or order.
Whenever news of Imperial goings on comes up it is Tarkin not Vader who announces them. If Vader were an envoy he would have been Privy to the informationand it would be his job to relay it. Instead it seems Tarkin is given the information first.
The Contempt which Vader is treated by the others certainly doesn’t make Vader look like the # 2 guy in the Empire or even a guy with an in with the Emperor.
Hell even Leiah referes to Vader “being on Tarkin’s Leash”
Yes he gets to go around and even help make descisions on things like planting a homing device but that doesn’t suggest anything more than his ideas are respected and he is allowed to work with some autonomy.
Fast forward to the next film and suddenly he is feared and respected by all.
Interesting that I didn’t notice that on my rewatching of episodes 4-6. But I don’t get how the two options you listed are different. Can you rephrase?
Okay
A) Vader recognized See Threepio as the droid he built as a kid.
B) Remembered a droid he built as a kid and thought, “Aw, those are hard to build. Boba shouldn’t shoot this one.” Making no connection that See Threepio was his droid.
In option 1, he knows it’s C3PO. In option two, seeing a procotol droid reminds him of C3PO, but he doesn’t know that’s actually who it is.
Okay, I get it now. When I get home tonight I’m going to rewatch that scene from ESB.
To say it is revisionist is a bit of a stretch, IMO. It seems top me that the whole concept was probably only vaguely concieved, some of it more fleshed out than others. But there was no way to know whether a whole serial type series could be made, so he made the most attractive movie he could at the time, with the available technology. Clearly as it was clear how successful it would become, he afforded himself the opportunity to flesh out the story line much more.
Better yet, IIRC Tolkien has Gandalf cite Bilbo’s revisionist version of the story as an example of the Ring’s influence on him (i.e. Bilbo was misrepresenting events to more firmly establish that the “precious” was his).
pwns = owns. Leet speak … think of it as spelling slang.
Yeah, forgot that bit. If only Lucas had half of Tolkien’s storytelling talent.
All of this actually makes sense if Vader is outside the formal Imperial heirarchy. The Emperor could loan his apprentice out, placing him under the command of whoever he might be useful to at the time, but always it would be known that ultimately Vader was directly answerable to the Emperor.
I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that Vader’s planting the homing beacon on the Falcon was actually part of his plan to get the Death Star blowed up. He obviously wasn’t crazy about the thing, but the Emperor was really proud of his shiny new toy, and Vader wasn’t going to say him nay. And, while he was at it, he could off a few annoying bureaucrats, knock off probably the biggest threat to his position vis a vis the Emperor, solidify his position of power, and all the while appear to be heroically defending this very important portable military installation.
I also don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to have Vader in command of the fleet. Tarkin was a territorial governor after all, and Vader is a warrior, not a politician, and, one annoying nearly choked-to-death commander aside, does seem to have quite a bit of pull with the military. Ultimately, the military serves the purpose of defense (and, if the Emperor so desires it, acquisition) of Imperial real estate, and thus would be subordinate to the government of whatever territory it was operating in, unless, of course, the governor himself stepped out of line, in which case…
Thanks. I had a feeling that I was going to get called on that one.
Gah! I’ve got really bad aim lately. This is the post I intended to quote.
But Vader’s title as a “Dark Lord of the Sith” was generally known at the time, wasn’t it? I suspect that Lucas might not actually have intended for the Emperor to be a wizard of the Dark Side of the Force at the time he wrote and filmed Ep IV.
The guy who mocked Vader in the Death Star conference room with “Don’t try to frighten us with your sorceror’s ways” implied that he doubted the efficacy of the Force. No Imperial flunky who wanted to advance in his career, let alone live, would say such a thing to the Emperor’s enforcer IF the Emperor was himself a practitioner of the Force.
Or was the Emperor so isolated from his subjects that few, if any, knew that he used the Dark Side of the Force?