PT The reaction to the Rogue One Vader scene is exactly what Lucas wanted to avoid in ROTS

Exactly. This isn't the time for us to reflect on Vader's tragic past. He doesn't care, the Rebels certainly don't care. All that matters is the plans. Literally no one in that scene is about to sit down and discuss feelings with Vader. It's "kill the crap out of everyone" for Vader or "run like hell" for the rebels.

 

According to Pablo Hidalgo, Vader didn't know those Rebels were carrying the plans. That's why he still thinks the plans were beamed to the Tantive IV at the beginning of A New Hope.

 

Yes my impression was that Vader didn't and really couldn't have known about the plans being on the disc. There is no reason to think he knew about the disc. He was trying to get into the Tantive IV before it took off.

 

Of course, that begs the question "Why?" We just saw him being informed that the plans were beamed aboard the larger ship he was already on. And the novelization apparently says that Vader was after the Rebels because they had the plans--which makes sense with the movie, since they're passing the disc from one to the other in plain view of Vader and shouting about it. But on the other hand, this doesn't make sense with A New Hope.

But that's another discussion, I guess.....

 

Well, Vader doesn't know what the Rebel officer who has the plans is trying to get them through the door. He doesn't see it as he's too busy killing the others. So to him, he's seeing the officer yelling for help, but doesn't see him pass the tape along. This way when Vader comes aboard the Tantive, he thinks that it is in the main computer and orders it to be searched. Then he realizes that they were put into a data tape and sent into the escape pod.

 

Smart Rebels, if the plans only exist as a hard copy, they'll be no incriminating trace of them left on the Tantive after Leia's flight from Scarif.

 

Why is he after them if he doesn't know they have the tape? How does a guy as savvy as Vader not notice what's going on right in front of him? Why is the Tantive's escape followed by a shot of Vader looking wistfully out at the Tantive IV rocketing away through space, clearly communicating in cinematic storytelling terms a villain whose ambitions have been narrowly thwarted?

It's a continuity oversight, plain and simple.

There would be no incriminating trace of them left on the Tantive if they erased them from the computer after desperately transferring them to disc, which is what was supposed to have happened before Rogue One came along and confused things for no reason in a sequence that was explicitly designed to link up seamlessly with the beginning of A New Hope.

Seriously, it can still be a good movie overall even if there is a continuity error. The only reason I harp on this is because I find it faintly amusing that no one is willing to admit that the filmmakers obviously didn't really watch or understand the beginning of ANH that closely, even though it's patently obvious that this is the case. They could have had the exact same scene only with a bunch of Rebel officers rushing with the disc toward a transmission station on the larger ship, then cut to the Tantive IV receiving the plans. Then continuity would be preserved, the dialogue in ANH would make perfect sense again, and Vader wouldn't look like a complete idiot.

 

I don't see an error. The Profundity received the transmission while the Tantive was docked inside it. To Vader the ships are one & the same as a receiving point for the transmitted plans. It would be like a ship receiving something & then one of their shuttles running off with it. So he's not going to split hairs when demanding the plans in ANH. When he asks "where are those transmissions you intercepted?" he's referring to the Rebel sympathizers, both on the Tantive & on the Profundity, which to him are all part of same group of traitors. All complicit in the theft & espionage. If he were a stickler for the facts he could've said "where are those transmissions that larger ship received that you were docked within, which were then transferred to your ship??" ...but as dialogue goes it just wouldn't be as punchy.

 

No, they're two different ships. Vader's dialogue in ANH clearly indicates that he believes that the plans were beamed aboard the Tantive IV. There's just no other reasonable way to interpret it. No one interpreted it otherwise before Rogue One came along.This is all just grasping for straws to try to make things work. It's a clumsy mistake, plain and simple, which confuses the situation in ANH and hurts Darth Vader and Leia as characters in their introductory scenes in the OT. And there was no compelling story reason to do things this way.

Hell, the EU version of events made way more sense and was clearly based on an actual understanding of the dialogue in ANH:

Here, we see that Leia devises an intelligent plan to enter the restricted system by establishing a reasonable alibi, as opposed to literally traveling inside a warship during a pitched battle against the Empire. She then literally intercepts the transmissions while on an ostensible diplomatic mission of mercy that would plausibly take her through the system. However, in a bit of bad luck, Darth Vader's ship manages to detect the transmission and as a result orders the Tantive IV to stop and prepare to be searched. Captain Antilles asserts the Tantive IV's rights as a diplomatic vessel as an excuse for not obeying the order, then jumps to hyperspace after being fired upon, establishing an at least minimally plausible alibi for the ship's disobedience and subsequent flight.

You're really going to tell me this isn't far more fitting with the dialogue in ANH, that it doesn't make a whole lot more sense and make everyone involved look a whole lot less hapless and stupid?

 

No, I agree that the EU scenario does fit better. The dialogue isn't perfect now between R1 & ANH but I see the discrepancy as very minor. It's not in the league of the issues the PT created, like the 1000 years/generations thing, or Leia remembering Padme while Luke didn't. In this situation all we need to assume is that Vader, in his dialogue in ANH is conflating the two ships together. Which is not unreasonable given that one was docked inside the other at the time of the transmission. That's not perfect but IMO it's good enough. Chalk it up to Vader being imprecise with his description. No big deal.

 

Just to expand on the EU scenario, I bought the OT radio dramatisations last month and they intially find out about the Death Star when Leia is stuck on a planet under Imperial jurisdiction, so she can't take off yet, at the same time an injured Rebel soldier stumbles towards her who tells her about the Death Star and she has to smuggle him on to their ship.

The only reconcilliation between RO and the original I can come up with is that Vader believed the plans beamed in to the ship were received by the Tantive whilst it was docked, but then you have to assume that he also didn't see the data tape being passed down the line. All in all its a question mark that didn't need to be there, the source material is clear that they are working from and is laid out in the original film. They should have easily been able to tie them together.

 

That's not what I said. He knows that there was a transmission, but not that the Rebel officer had a data tape. And as I pointed out, he's too busy killing to see the tape being passed through the door. That's why he orders a search of the computer banks and when he is told it isn't in there, he realizes that it is hidden elsewhere. And then concludes that it was a data tape.

Except that Vader is heading for where the Tantive is. He doesn't go to the command center of the Profundity. He knows that transmissions were sent aboard the ship.

IMPERIAL OFFICER: "The Rebel flag ship is disabled, my Lord, but has received transmission from the surface."

But he deduces or is lead by the Force to where the Tantive is parked, which is why he is there and not in the command center. When he sees the Tantive, because it is inside the Profundity, he concludes that the transmissions were beamed to the Tantive and not to the Profundity itself. Hence the Tantive is taking off. There is no mistake.

 

Yes, I think it's dumb that he'd be too busy killing (and why is he killing again?) to notice the tape being passed from officer to officer right before his eyes. I'm not sure what

There's really no reason in the film why Vader heads immediately to where the Tantive IV is parked--he just does, in another example of lazy writing. In Star Wars, "the Force" generally isn't invoked as an explanation for characters gaining mundane knowledge about secular circumstances. In ANH, Vader doesn't use the Force to figure out that Leia stowed the plans in the escape pod. That's not really how the Force works; instead, he has to use his intelligence and cunning to deduce what the Princess did with the plans. Similarly, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan aren't magically led to Otoh Gunga by the Force in Episode I; they have to find out about it from Jar Jar. The meme that the Star Wars movies rely overly much on "the Force did it" is overblown. It doesn't actually get invoked that much to explain things. The writing generally justifies how the characters come to know things. The Force doesn't work as a data dump about fine plot details. It provides broad insights about the larger course of events and provides a window into others' emotional states.

I'll grant you that it makes sense that he'd simply assume the transmissions were sent aboard the Tantive IV, were it not for the fact that he literally witnessed the plans being passed before him. And if he only assumed that the plans were beamed to the Tantive IV because it ran away from him, then that again begs the question of why he was on a warpath to the Tantive IV in the first place. It's circular logic.

And none of this deals with utter idiocy of Leia hiding inside a warship during a treasonous battle against the Empire and then running away to pick up Obi-Wan Kenobi with the Empire right on her heels, as opposed to the much smarter plan implied by ANH, whereby she used her diplomatic privileges to engineer a mercy mission through a restricted system to clandestinely intercept plans--a quite plausible cover which the formidable Darth Vader nevertheless sees right through. Leia running to Tatooine to pick up Kenobi with the Empire right on her heels is also therefore not yet another idiotic part of her actual plan, but merely a desperate necessity born of the fact that her clandestine activity was unluckily and unexpectedly detected.

 

Vader's intuition and decisiveness was established in Empire Strikes Back when it took him half a second to look at a probe transmission and conclude that the search for the rebel base was over.

It seems odd that simply because movie time isn't devoted to showing this same decision make process playing out, again, that it makes no sense for Vader to be so close behind his objective on the Tantive IV.

Maybe the replacement of "Bring my shuttle" with "Alert my Star Destroyer....blah, blah,blah" and the accompanying embarkation, departure, arrival, debarkation footage to show what we've just been told is going to happen has altered some fan's expectations of how a story ought to be told.

 

What do you mean? Where is it shown that Vader's SD tailed Leia all the way to Tatooine & that Leia new about it? In fact at the end of R1 we see the Tantive go into light speed alone, with no ship following her. So how does R1 change the situation? Originally the Devastator could've appeared out of hyperspace in the Tatooine system, catching Leia by surprise. That could still be the case. We also don't know how much time passed between the end of R1 & the beginning of ANH.

As for the Tantive being inside the Profundity, that makes perfect sense. This mission was of such importance that if the plans were successfully transmitted it paid to have a second smaller more nimble ship that could get away if necessary. Turns out it was necessary. They also probably wanted to use Leia's diplomatic status as cover, if they were able to get the plans to her. All of that is consistent with what followed.

 

To me the latter doesn't really make sense. Leia is a Senator working covertly for the cause of the Rebellion. She wouldn't get within 12 parsecs of that battle. A ship fleeing the scene to deliver the plans to Leia on some secret location would make sense. Leia's ship fleeing the scene right under the eyes of the Imperial fleet does not. It makes Leia seem dumb for assuming, she has ample time to make a stop on Tatooine to pick up Obi-Wan, especially considering Vader was about to enter her ship, making his pursuit a mathematical certainty.

 

Well again we have no idea how much time passed between the two movies. The Tantive was seen entering hyperspace alone. Clearly we have to believe that enough time passed for Leia to mistakenly believe it was safe to go after Obi-Wan. Really though these questions were raised even before R1. Leia had vital plans. Why did she also at that same time have a mission to pick up an old Jedi who'd been hiding on a remote world for 20 years? Why not get the plans to safety & worry about Kenobi another time? If she was being pursued why continue trying to reach him & expose his location?

 

That's not an error in ANH.

Leia is being pursued with the plans, and needs to get them to safety. She can't get to Yavin while being pursued, so heads to the trusted General Kenobi on Tatooine, so that he can complete the delivery of the plans. She's not there for Kenobi specifically, she's there so Kenobi can deliver the plans.

R1 is the one that adds the contradiction there, by adding Bail's mission, which is not why Leia was at Tatooine to begin with.

 

In ANH Leia says in her message "I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed".

 

That's because at that point, Alderann is where the plans will be safe, with Bail. Leia planned to travel to Tatooine, presumably visit Obi-Wan in person, and offload to the plans to him.

Then he takes them to Alderann as he eventually ends up doing anyway. It's all about the plans, nothing to do with recruiting Obi-Wan specifically.

 

I don't agree. Leia had a dual mission: get the plans AND Kenobi to her father. Why else would she "bring" Obi-Wan to Alderaan herself? If she could get there then she could get the plans there. So why else would she need him? No, she was headed to Tatooine to pick up Kenobi & she was intercepted. Her dialogue makes that clear. R1 correctly included Bail's direction to Leia RE Kenobi.

 

She was taking the plans to Alderaan under the cover of a diplomatic mission. She also was to pick up Obi-Wan along the way. By the time she reached Tatooine, she was intercepted by Vader, but there's no reason to assume she was being pursued before this point in time. Leia was not aware her cover had been blown, and thus was taken by surprise, when her ship was intercepted, at least until RO was released...

 

You're right, the EU backstory I posted has its own small element of implausibility in that regard. Based just on ANH, it would make more sense to assume that she was taken by surprise and intercepted by the Devastator at or very close to Tatooine.

But overall, it generally fits with what we're told in ANH. That was my point. It's not as if the meaning of the ANH dialogue was somehow so obscure so as to be up to interpretation. I don't have an intrinsic problem with them reinterpreting things like that; the problem for me is there doesn't seem to be any conceivable reason for them to have done so, apart from lazy writing.

 

Not quite. While she's trying to reach Alderaan ASAP to deliver the stolen plans, she's on a mission to bring Obi-Wan home at Bail's request:

"General Kenobi. Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack and I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed."

She only sends Obi-Wan the plans and asks him to deliver them to Bail as a lost resort since her ship was captured.

 

Yeah, getting Obi-Wan for the rebel cause was always her mission and, reason for being over Tatooine. Rogue One didn't create that element of the story, it was always there.