CT Did people in the Imperial government and military care that Palpatine was a Sith?

True. Knowledge of the Jedi was very limited as well. Take, for instance, in A New Hope when Obi-Wan wanders through the streets of Mos Eisley and even dismembers the arm of a thug with his lightsaber. Presumably, nobody noticed the traditional Jedi robes that he was wearing either. The people inside the Cantina may have merely considered Obi-Wan's lightsaber to be just another bizarre weapon of the galaxy.

 

As he says in the ANH novel - "At one time they were widely used. Still are, in certain galactic quarters"- with the EU helpfully filling out the background- in certain sectors of the galaxy, the nobility routinely use lightsabers.

Ben's outfit closely resembles the clothes other people on Tatooine are wearing- maybe it's a Jedi nod to humility, to make such clothes their uniform?

 

I don't think a lot of people actually knew he was a Sith. Probably a few very close people like his guards, but that was probably it.

 

That was a criticism of the prequels in that making robes the standard Jedi wear meant that Ben never made an effort to even conceal he was a Jedi by changing his clothes.

Unless he was a total recluse he was risking someone recognizing the Jedi clothes, traveling off the planet and informing someone in the Empire.

 

Making the Jedi dress like a bunch of moisture farmers never made any sense

 

I always felt that after discrediting the Jedi and disposing of most of them, Palpatine and Vader pretty much chilled out on using the Force in public. At least until the Senate was dissolved. Then I believe it was all bets are off.

Which would explain why Motti had no idea of the consequences of talking back to Vader. As well as his speaking of the Force as, "sorcerers ways," and "ancient religion."

 

All I can guess is that it was a show of humility, wearing something very standard and basic. It is very similar to what Buddhists wear, and Jesus Christ himself wore basic robes.

 

And to back-up your argument further, I noticed that when Vader is force-choking Motti, the camera zooms to Tarkin who looks pretty startled at what is happening. This obviously hints that he didn't know of Vader's powers.

 

In my opinion, introducing the Death Star and Tarkin in the PT was a mistake. It doesn't make a lot of sense that it took some 20 years to build the first Death Star and just a few years for the second one. And I didn't like Tarkin in the PT for precisely the reason you mentioned, plus one other. Tarkin does seem surprised by Vader's force choke and he is also appears to outrank him in ANH. I think Tarkin would have witnessed Vader's force power at some point prior to ANH and I would think Palpatine would have Vader as his second in command at the end of ROTS.

 

It took longer to build the first Death Star because nothing as large and complex had never been completed before, so there would have been some mistakes in the process of building it ; and therefore it took only three or so years to build the second Death Star because the planners would have learned from those mistakes and I also believe that the Empire would have pressed on faster with the second DS's completion because they were eager to defeat the rebels once and for all. Whereas the build-up to the completion of the first DS may have been more relaxed as the Empire faced less serious opposition than it did after 'A New Hope'. As for Tarkin, I'm not sure if rank has much to do with it, but his expertise was central within the Death Star because he was a military commander after all and knew precisely what needed done within the Imperial war machine. Vader, on the other hand, was a Sith Lord and his expertise was in other areas. So it was perhaps only necessary that Tarkin took a more central role than Vader in the Death Star. And I think that Vader had a certain respect for him, as did the Emperor. This was obviously due to his ingenuity and his position as a great asset to the Empire. So I think Vader was just respecting his position. Lucas confirmed this in an interview when he said it was about respect and not hierarchy. Further, I think that Tarkin played a crucial part in the creation of the Death Star in the first place and so he was effectively the commander of the Death Star, so Vader would naturally have to respect his position.
Hope this helped.

 

The Empire reminds me of Nazi Germany. Did all Germans approve of killing Jews? No. But they let someone who wasn't even one of them (Hitler was Austrian) run their country out of fear due to his radical nazi group.

 

Good points about the Tarkin/Vader relationship. I can buy that. And while there's logic in the second Death Star taking less time to build than the first due to more experience with it, I still think the construction time needed for the first Death Star is too long compared to the second. Not a major gripe of mine, but I do think it's a minor inconsistency.

 

To be fair, three years compared to twenty years is indeed a huge leap, even with experienced planning.

 

I feel the same way. In fact, Lucas used a World War II Nazi helmet as the helmet of Darth Vader. You'll notice the two are very similar in shape. Also, the Imperial officers dressed in black also wear Nazi-style WWII helmets. And just as the Nazis only approved of Aryans; so too the Empire only approved of humans.

 

We also get the guy who plays Ozzel in ESB, playing Hitler in The Last Crusade- but this is more a case of the Indy movies and the Star Wars movies using a lot of the same actors. The guy who plays Veers also plays Donovan.

 

One of my favorite star wars comic series actually addresses this issue. in Star wars Empire a group of Moffs, generals, and Corcsucant Businessmen attempt a coup because they do not want to be ruled by a sith Theocracy. Now our favorite sith lords foil there plans. It also had a cool page of Palpatine and the Red guard putting down the attempt on him where Palpatines controll of force lighting is such that he is able to make it go around his guardsmen and just hit the rebellious storm troopers.