Rogue One Hypothetical: Chirrut vs Vader

If things had gone a little differently and we saw a showdown/duel between the Guardian of the Whills and the Lord of the Sith, how do you think it would go? I'll post my description after I give the rest of you a chance to share your ideas.

 

Had Vader landed on the planet the natives of Jedha would be terrified of him and run away. Chirrut would have Baze by his side and Vader could have been blown away by his firearm coming too close. I don't for one second believe Vader would take any chances. He might enter the Jedha shrine and confront the Guardian inside the Monastery, sacred ground or else have Stormtroopers rain down phaser fire on the Guardians i expect to drive the Guardians deeper into hiding.

Chirrut's weapon would not be able to take on Vader's lightsaber and with the power of the Sith Vader could stop Chirrut's heart from beating and torture him with is abilities right their in front of Baze. Should Chirrut somehow be able to obtain a lightsaber in what is a Jedha temple than his chances would steadily improve. Vader would be fighting two against one and with one damage to Vader's suit i could see Vader retreating to the Death Star.

In conclusion Vader would be stronger than Chirrut and a better fighter but seeing as he is in the company of well trained Jedhi worshipers the prize of victory in mortal combat would be too high and for what a stupid temple in a city full of Jedi equipment that is repellent to the Sith. The Guardians know how to treat Sith's entering their sacred places of worship. Baze's firearm is precisely the sort of weapon that would make Sith's & Stormtroopers take a step back before rushing down a dark alley.

 

Imo, Vader could have out-powered Chirrut easily. Although Chirrut knew of the Force and was able to use it to a limited degree, Vader had years of training and was naturally much stronger in the Force. I think Chirrut could have made an admirable attempt, but he would have lost.

 

I have to agree with Anakin.Skywalker. Chirrut was an amazing martial artist and seemed to be able to use the Force to a very, very small degree, but Vader was the most powerful of them all with the Force, a full blown Jedi Knight and now Sith Lord with years of battle experience. He would have beat him like a red-headed step child.

 

At what age would Anakin be to equal Chirrut? 14?

 

Hmm.....9?

All he has to due is to cut Chirrut's staff with this lighstaber and, boom, dead man.

 

I really like Chirrut and found him to be quite impressive in RO. But, yeah... this.

 

"How many seconds Chirrut would last against Vader?"

Fixed title.

 

Chirrut would be too busy explaining how smart and in tune with the force he is, to which Vader would get annoyed and silence him with a force choke, ask him if his foot is alright, and then tell Chirrut he will truly be made one with the Force and the Force is truly with him (Vader being the Force personified here) before slicing and dicing him up.

 

I like that version. Very much so.

 

Chirrut would get rekt easily..

 

Vaders breathing apparatus would be his downfall. Chirrut's hypersensitive ears would pick up Vader's intentions before he acts. And of course the fwoom sound of the lightsaber... it's all a gift to a talented blind man with The Force by his side.

PS, force choking...
Perhaps the way to counter Vader's Darkside butalising of The Force into choking a person, is exactly Chirrut's Zen peaceful communing with The Force. He doesn't fight it, he calms it. Like taming a savage dog with a pat and kind words.

 

Right. Chirrut's stick would immediately go for Vader's chestplate, turning off his ventilator and ending the Dark Lord of the Sith once and for all.

 

Unless said dog mauls your face off first....then you've really got a problem.

Nevertheless, I get your point.

 

If Chirrut had a lightsaber, I think he would have done about as well as Finn did against Kylo. He might hold his own for a few moments, but the outcome was never in question.

 

tbh i think they made vader too over powered in this film. dont get me wrong that ending scene is intense and i love it but for me it isn't believable that someone- even if it is darth vader- could block like twelve blasters at once and some parts of that scene actually looked kind of silly.

chirrut imo displayed more impressive fighting skills of anyone in any star wars film. I'd like to think that chirrut could fight on equal terms with vader, but it all depends on how much emphasis the writers place on force abilities. you could easily say that vader wins no matter what cause of force sensitivity.

which is the number one thing i hate about these new star wars films. force using characters are overpowered and it's not balanced at all. george might have introduced midichlorians in the pt but he didnt go out of his way to show that non force sensitives cant do much. I hope this is corrected, cause the message basically ends up being: gifted people always win, disadvantaged people always lose. even rogue one, a great film that is meant to celebrate a non-jedi cast, was paired with a bunch of condescending 'everyman' themes. one idea we've been floating around in the finn thread (no spoilers; just pure speculation) is that non force users could become strong enough to resist most force powers, which would even the playing field a lot. we already know the strong minded can resist jedi mind tricks. and it would make a lot of sense for someone like chirrut could learn to 'tame the force' so to speak as suggested earlier.

this doesnt necessarily mean he would win, but it would make it more evenly matched.

but whatever in battlefront i beat vader all the time as jyn erso #allheart

 

I'd say Chirrut's scenes are some of the best filmed in terms of "force fighting" with the obvious advantage that like Ray Park as Maul Donnie Yen is obviously bringing a lot of existing skill to such work.

In terms of what we actually see him do its obviously on a much more limited level taking out about half a dozen ST's who badly underestimate him, really no inference that he's at all close to Vader in terms of abilities for me.

If they had met I'd imagine a scene with Vader after the plans on the planet surface and Chirrut facing him as a delaying tactic to allow Jyn to escape with them, maybe with Cassian shouting "get to the choppa!".

 

If Chirrut had a lightsaber or his staff doubled as one, am sure he'd give Vader a good fight - if it was one on one Vader would still win. Chirrut used the Force or the Force him, in a different manner than Jedi/Sith who are Force wielders, that places Vader or any Dark Jedi at a different level. If Vader held back like Maul did Vizsla, Vader would still obviously win.

 

If I'm hired to choreograph the fight, this is how it goes. Let's assume Chirrut, Jyn, and any other surviving Rogues are fleeing with the plans and Vader is coming after them. Chirrut stops and faces Vader to delay the pursuit while Jyn runs away with the plans. Brief dialog between Chirrut and Vader, something like this but better and cooler: "I am one with the Force." "You don't know the power of the Dark Side of the Force." "I know the dark. I live in it."

Chirrut is standing relaxed and ready, balanced and centered, staff horizontal across his chest. He is biding his time, delaying Vader. Vader has no time or patience for this and advances rapidly, swinging his saber in a powerful overhand cut. Chirrut steps forward to meet the attack, raising his staff to parry, and then steps back as the saber severs the staff between Chirrut's hands. The tip of the saber just grazes Chirrut's tunic as Chirrut instantly steps forward and to his left, swinging both halves of the staff at Vader. The stick in Chirrut's right hand smacks Vader's helmet, a hard blow but ineffective. The stick in his left hand hits Vader's forearms, pushing the saber slightly to Chirrut's right. Chirrut is now standing with his left shoulder almost touching Vader's right shoulder. Chirrut drops both sticks and grabs both of Vader's wrists. Vader slowly raises his arms to near vertical, Chirrut is still holding Vader's wrists, not letting go, knowing that to release Vader's wrists will free the saber and end the fight fatally. Chirrut is lifted off the ground. He kicks Vader hard to no avail. Vader's right hand releases the saber and reaches down. Chirrut is still holding both Vader's wrists, but is powerless to halt Vader's hand as it reaches inexorably for his throat. "I am one with the Force, the Force is with me." Chirrut kicks again, futilely, as Vader's hand closes on his throat. Gruesome cracking/crunching sound, and Chirrut goes limp. Vader hurls the body away and moves out after Jyn.

 

Of course Force users are going to be overpowered, that's kind of the point. They're like superheroes of the Galaxy Far Far Away. If you don't like the idea that some people are just born more gifted than others and destined for greatness, I'm going to say Star Wars as a whole may not be for you. I think Star Trek is more egalitarian in that way. If you look at the basic plot of Rogue One, it's pretty much a bunch of ordinary people doing their best, the best that they can do, but ultimately they all die so that Luke Skywalker -- the real New Hope -- can go on his epic journey and save the galaxy. If you're familiar with some of these philosophical arguments and perspectives, when you look at Star Wars you will see a philosophy with which I agree as well -- it's called heroic existentialism. The basic idea is that history isn't decided by the average people, the masses, no matter what they want or what they do. History is decided by great individuals and great individual actions. Of course, those individuals make use of the regular people in their armies, but ultimately when I see history I don't see a bunch of random people doing this or that, I see specific great people who others got behind and followed and those great people are ultimately mostly responsible for the events that transpired. As an example, many people would see a huge event like World War II and they view what happened as being largely the responsibility of someone like Hitler, along with certain other high ranking people. Of course, there ARE other ways to see history, and it's often more complicated than just a few individuals, but as I see it, sure, the "time" has to be right for someone like Hitler or Palpatine to rise, but the person also has to be right. Not just anyone can have exactly what it takes to achieve power, only these few "great" people do. Keeping in mind the word "great" in this case isn't like saying Menchie's frozen yogurt tastes great, but using in the way of saying that Hurricane Katrina was a great catastrophe (a very large, very out of the ordinary event / person). You combine the right timing with the right person and that person seizes power and impacts much of what comes after.

Star Wars shares that view of history, as you can see from the movies themselves. Sure, there are a lot of Rebels, and we see TONS of literally faceless Stormtroopers, and there are tons of people who didn't like the Empire, but ultimately it was Luke Skywalker who brought the Empire to its knees by his heroic actions. Luke blew up the first Death Star, Luke confronted Vader and the Emperor and came out the only one alive, and Luke was the New Hope who everyone in Rogue One died so that he could go on his quest. Star Wars literally does not give a Bantha poo about any of the Stormtroopers or anyone else who might have died on the Death Star or anywhere else and perhaps not been "entirely evil," because it's unconcerned with the actions or lives of normal, ordinary people. It's only concerned with the small handful of decision-making powerful people at the top. We literally see pilots bite the dust left and right in ANH, and again in Rogue One, and none of that is shown to matter much at all because it's the cause that matters. We see a big Throne Room celebration in ANH at the end, we don't see a memorial for the pilots who died tragically during battle. The heroes get their medals and the others are just casualties of war. That's one of my biggest arguments for Star Wars taking an heroic existentialist view of history. It's the heroes who shape the future and shape the world around them; everyone else just exists to serve the cause or oppose the cause.

The Republic may have on a superficial level fallen because of corruption, scandals, lack of clear actions and poor leadership, all of those things certainly contributed, but it actually fell because of one great man (not great in the sense of morality, but in terms of power and influence, again I re-iterate) and that was Palpatine, who orchestrated the coup and very carefully manipulated every situation to his advantage. He quite literally made other people tools of his own plan for power and his will shaped the entire galaxy. So far, there hasn't been any Star Wars that has embraced anything but a heroic existentialist view of history and Rogue One if anything just shored that up even more. So while you can personally not like Force users being overpowered, it's entirely consistent with the rest of the films.

 

Chirrut: I am One with the Force
Vader cuts off Chirrut's hands
Vader: Now you are Three with the Force

 

Are they?
There have been a few things we haven't seen before, but that isn't unusual. It's not like this is something unique to force users. Poe shot down something like seven TIEs in just a few seconds, plus taking out some stormtroopers on the ground. That didn't fit to anything we had seen from any pilot before. If anything, we have seen a general trend to more "impressive" feats, but that isn't really something that started with these movies, it is a trend that happened throughout the saga. The prequels were a whole lot more elaborate than the original trilogy, and the new movies take it a bit further. It mostly follows the trend in actions-scenes as a whole, thanks to more active stunts and choreography, not to mention digital enhancement.

And how exactly would one "resist most force powers"?
It's one thing to be strong-minded and thus somewhat immune to mind tricks, after all, those work on the weak-minded, but that's an attempt to break into someone's mind, not the use of the force in a "physical" manner. It shouldn't really be possible to resist getting pulled, pushed, choked, hit by lightning or whatever else you can think of, unless you are capable of using the force yourself. Even then would you need to be prepared against it. Maul managed to push Obi Wan down the chasm, Dooku hit Anakin with lightning and threw him against a wall, he also picked up Obi Wan and threw him away. Even Yoda and Palpatine, with all their skill, couldn't defend against everything the other threw at them. To counter such a thing, you would need to actively use the force. See Anakin and Obi Wan on Mustafar, for example, where Obi Wan blocked Anakin's attempt to push him away, and they ended up deadlocked for a short time, before both were thrown away. It would make very little sense for regular people to resist those kind of powers.

 

Force choke.
The end.

 

Perfect!