I think about this guy and also Admiral “There Are So Many Uncharted Settlements” Ozzelfrom Empire sometimes.
My pet theory is that, from their perspective, Vader is primarily a gigantic pain in the ass. He has no official rank; he’s just the Emperor’s buddy. But he’s constantly commandeering Imperial resources, up to and including entire fleets, diverting them away from carefully coordinated military planning, because he has “a feeling” that some survivor of Order 66 is hiding out on some backwater.
So then the entire damn fleet needs to go on a side quest, possibly destabilizing some other part of the galaxy where they’re supposed to be part of a blockade ordered by the Admiralty, and Vader goes down with a platoon of expensive troops and equipment, and maybe even a bunch of them get killed or lost, and Vader flies back up to the Star Destroyer and announces “mission accomplished,” because he managed to kill one guy that no one has even heard of.
So now the fleet is out of position, the Admiral is probably all pissed off because his orders got overridden, and you better believe that neither Vader nor the Emperor is going to hand out any medals for any of this. And God forbid Vader doesn’t find the guy he’s looking for! If that happens, he’s even more pissed off than usual, and liable to cause even more property and personnel damage when he gets back to the ship. You’re trying to run a fleet and subjugate a galaxy, and the Emperor and his Best Buddy with no discernible military experience whatsoever are constantly screwing it up with their weird personal vendettas.
So it’s no wonder that the serious-minded military types are totally fed up with them, and maybe this guy figured that now that they can blow up planets they won’t have to tolerate any more of Vader’s bullshit.
Bronson’s got to pay!
Ummm, Anakin Skywalker was highly regarded as a military strategist throughout the clone wars. Non conventional maybe, but highly effective
But no one is supposed to know that Vader is Skywalker, so that reputational credit doesn’t transfer
Ohhh god vader is musk.
Dont tell him i said that, he will take it as a compliment
I was thinking Vader is Hegseth.
musky. how often do you think he cleans that suit
Don’t be ridiculous. Vader has no idea who Musk is, let alone care.
No discernible military experience, wasn’t he a general in the clone wars? Ah but they wouldn’t know that
Sure, he has combat experience, but he knows nothing about occupation and running a military empire. Can you imagine Vader doing the paperwork it takes to maintain supply lines?
Yularen knows. Which is probably why he transferred over to running the ISB and seemingly does nothing all day.
It’s likely that Tarkin does as well, given his direct interactions with Anakin towards the end of the war.
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Might be right in general, but Ozzel did screw up. The Rebels at Hoth had little time to evacuate after running into the probe droid. The Empire could have easily camped the hyperspace exit from a distance and picked them all off. Ozzel chose to come in too close, and that made them vulnerable to the ground ion canon.
The whole rebellion should have died that day. Vader knows plenty enough about planetary sieges to figure this out.
Didn’t Vader tank that on a subliminal level by sensing his daughter’s presence? Ozzel might have been influenced to screw up there on purpose
… Vader didn’t know he had a daughter at that time?
He had a prior run-in with Leia, no? He might not have known that she’s his daughter, but I believe he had quite the vendetta against her.
There’s no evidence he thought of her as anything special. “I told you she would never consciously betray the rebellion” is a fairly neutral take, not overtly showing fondness or disdain.
Him having a “vendetta” against her, as you say, would not justify him sabotaging the attack on Hoth, which is the theory I was replying to.
I could have sworn there was some bit somewhere about Vader getting pissed at someone else hunting Leia because she’s his prey. But maybe that’s no longer canon, or never was, or is a Mandela effect candidate, or is a product of my own imagination – I can’t find it again, in any case.
Anakin wasn’t ever known for being level-headed and strategic, even before he gave himself over to his hate and anger. It’s plausible that he would sabotage an attack if his emotions got in the way. But like I said, the premise of my argument was a vendetta I can no longer find any evidence for, so my case is void.
did The Force know tho
But his subconscious did. Search your feelings. You know this to be true
“Sister… So. You have a twin sister.” -Return of the Jedi
That was the moment Vader discovered he had a daughter.
consciously yes
I think that has too many wishy washy assumptions about the Force.
I guess you could say this whole thing is a matter of destiny, but that’s the problem with using the idea of destiny that way. You can use it to explain away anything.
Just change a few words in there and you basically described Trump’s first 90 days in office. Vader is Elon.
Bruh what a parallel. Narcissistic and vindictive strongmen are similar to eachother.
It’s not like there’s a shortage of historical persons to model your villains on.
or evil cyborg wizards
True… But much, much less cooler. Would explain that picture of Muskrat standing behind Mr. Trump with arms crossed. Maybe he wanted to specifically imitate that.
It’s still the height of stupidity to tell the evil wizard cyborg boss such stuff to their face, when they have the legal right to immediately kill you (as well as ability, from the cyborg parts if biting else).
Then again, he was probably brown-nosing for Tarkin, taking a gamble that he’d live and earn points with him… which actually ended up happening so I guess I have to retract my earlier statement about stupidity when it worked out so well for him.
It was still quite a risky move.
A tactical gambit, essentially? I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense
dude has balls of beskar
Behold! The power of storytelling and imagination when not every single detail is explicated upon and shoved in the audience’s face!
Apologies for a bit of a rant that probably nobody else cares about, but I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about MAHQ (the biggest forum for mecha anime, and Gundam in particular) and how the moderators handle interpretation. There’s an assumption that everything has to be spoonfed to you or it isn’t right. It’s really dumb and limiting.
Especially when he was clearly alive while that religion and its teachings were still actively being demonstrated to be true every day and its adherents were shaping the galaxy.
EDIT: ITT people defending their space wizard fairy tales with Doylian arguments.
So not a G, but just stupid.
Sometimes the |ine between G-ness and stupidity is very thin.
It’s a vibe
A G’s vibe is different than that of a square.
Did he know the emperor was a Sith who had powers, or was he just one of billions or trillions of people who had never actually interacted with anyone who openly used the force?
Sure, later movies made force use way more commonly used within a couple decades of this guy’s bold choice, but at the time of the movie’s release it was supposed to be an uncommon thing that hadn’t even been around for a very long time.
it was supposed to be an uncommon thing that hadn’t even been around for a very long time.
The Jedi had been around for over 25,000 years before A New Hope. There had to be volumes of evidence for Jedi powers by the time of that film.
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-jedi-order-origin-timeline-canon/
The guy in the meme and Han Solo were just Straw Atheists I’m afraid.
Edit: “For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, before the dark times. Before the Empire.” -Obi Wan in ANH
How long was it though - maybe a couple of decades?
It’s more like inside of an authoritarian regime, propaganda is quite strong - e.g. China is the good guy and there are no questions (allowed) about that.
It was about 19 years at the start of A New Hope. So if they talked to literally one person that was over the age of 30, they’d probably know that Jedi were very real. Not common outside of active war zones and the Jedi Temple, but real. The galaxy was huge, with plenty of relatively untouched planets with sparse populations, that were relatively untouched by the Empire’s influence. There were also plenty of planets that had people, but were able to just dismiss them as nuisances most of the time (Koboh and Tatooine for example).
The propaganda thing was definitely real and a problem, but likely far more common in the Inner and Mid rims. Still, even on Coruscant, the capital world, as flooded with the Empire’s influence as a planet could be, people just had to leave the surface and go to a slightly lower level to escape their influence.
From what I’ve seen, a large portion of the population knew that the Empire was restrictive and bad, but they just didn’t feel like they could do anything about it (like real life). So, it still doesn’t make sense for anyone to not believe that the Jedi were real, and imo, makes Han and this guy (forgot his name) the equivalent of flat earthers. Again, made sense at the time, but certainly not now.
makes Han and this guy (forgot his hame) the equivalent of flat earthers
Be fair to Han - he was in the underworld where people were probably trying to scam him every day. Scepticism is self-protection.
Fair point. Still, weird thing to be skeptical about considering the abundance of evidence, but slightly understandable.
Speaking of flat earthers, did people believe that the Force did not exist, or merely claim that? In this particular case it seems like bravado, showing off for Moff Tarkin (I forget if he was Grand Moff at this point).
No way, TIL Moff was a rank
Unfortunately, I have no idea what the backstory of the character is. Maybe he was trying to do that, maybe not. I don’t think that Tarkin would’ve been impressed by not believing in the force (he served with Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi during the Clone Wars), but maybe he didn’t realize that.
If he did not have personal experience with force users, or had not seen them successfully use their abilities, that explains how he would not see them as being demonstrated in the current running of the empire. What he would see is a lot of people pulling off massive industrial and military accomplishments being dismissed by Vader as less important than the force, which is generally subtle and difficult to see by non-force users.
“Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, Lord Vader! Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels’ hidden fort—”
He is being dismissive of the effectiveness of the force based on his personal experiences, not denying its existence.
Fair enough. I had a really long response but it got deleted, so I’ll just summarize. If he knew a single one of Vader’s accomplishments (rumors of them were definitely spread by the witnesses), he would’ve never believed that. Vader served the important purpose of striking fear into those that would oppose the Empire, keeping most of the galaxy in line. He probably served as an officer in the Republic as well, possibly alongside the Jedi. Even if he didn’t, he’s in a room full of people that did. It’s ridiculously stupid to insult your extremely violent boss, especially about something that he’s provably correct about.
Sure, later movies made force use way more commonly used within a couple decades of this guy’s bold choice, but at the time of the movie’s release it was supposed to be an uncommon thing that hadn’t even been around for a very long time.
An excellent point - it’s not about what the lore says, but what it said at the time:-D.
Having the people (clones) carrying out the mass killing being close to them on a personal level and also absolutely brainwashed probably helped, too.
Yeah, probably!:-P
I mean, Han Solo did the same. I don’t think that Lucas thought that it would really be much more than the three movies, and evidently didn’t come up with much lore or backstory. I don’t think they ever touched on what happened to Darth Vader and Sidious that put them into power (it’s been a few years since I’ve seen them, could be wrong). Closest thing we got was a mention of the Clone Wars, with about no description of it.
Lucas didn’t even plan for Vader to be Luke’s father at the start. Leigh Brackett, the main scriptwriter for ESB, never even knew that (she died of cancer when the script was in the final stages). That’s why there’s this awkward “certain point of view” discussion with Obi-wan in RotJ to explain away the cave conversation in the first movie; Lucas didn’t plan that from the beginning, and he had to patch over a plot hole.
He very much made it up as he went.
i’m not familiar enough with the source material to know what these conversations were offhand. little help? links to parts of the script or youtubes or whatevers?
In the original “Star Wars” (now known as “Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope”), Luke asks Obi-Wan how his father died. Obi-Wan tells him “A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered you father.”
In “Return of the Jedi”, (Episode VI) Luke sees a ‘Force Ghost’ of Obi-Wan. Luke asks him “Why didn’t you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.” Obi-Wan responds “Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true- from a certain point of view.”
thanks. i was trying to figure out what the cave conversation was, like “luke! look out for that wampa”
Exactly. We have to ignore a couple lines that don’t make much sense, but that’s not a big obstacle to enjoying the stories.
There’s very few Doyalist arguments in the replies here. Besides my own argument about how Lucas doesn’t plan things out, but that’s not exactly complimentary to the narrative.
Watsonian: there are very few Force users in the galaxy. At its height, the Jedi Order is a few million Jedi in a galaxy of trillions of sapient beings. Force users were always more legend than something people saw on the regular. If you ever saw one lightsaber in person, it’d be a day you remember forever. The propaganda job wasn’t even that hard. Just pretend they never existed and most people will go on with their lives.
Even as far as Motti is concerned, the Jedi were never that prominent. Just a sad old religion. He would have internalized Imperial policy against Jedi, and he only makes any exception at all for Darth Vader because people above him say he’s important.
That random force lady on Yavin that Andor met? Andor has a good reason to believe she’s a charlatan. Pretty much anyone you meet claiming to have force powers, even before Order 66, is probably a grifter.
In the book “from a certain point of view” Admiral Motti complains about Vader chocking him to the empire’s HR department!
And do they do anything about it? Or is a certain amount of chokage to be expected as an occupational hazard on an Empire vessel?
Imagine the PR flunky trying to writeup Darth Vader, along with signing a form promising not to do it again.
Did they draw straws? Get the intern to do it?
As soon as I saw the picture I thought, Robot Chicken did it. Also Kevin Smith in the Cinema Sins video, if you enjoy Smith but never seen it,you’re missing out, though it does back and forth like they just let everyone say their own sins, but seriously is this the dudes the first day as a senior officer on the death star?
“This could have been an email.”
“email me harder, force daddy”
But, the “stupid religion” turned out to be actual magic. Shut him up PDQ.
