CT Was Vader going to choke Tarkin?

He appeared to be going for the force choke in ANH after the officer reports that there is no Rebel Base on Tatooine. Vader tells Tarkin that "she would never consciously betray the Rebellion" then his hand looks like it is doing the force choke. What's up with that?

 

Poor audio editing. That's always irritated me a bit. Vader's said his bit, but continues to elucidate briefly with his hands (presumably the on-set audio would have been Prowse continuing his dialogue).

It's just a mistake, nothing more. Given the ridiculously tight schedule they were all on, it's surprising that there aren't more of these sort of errors (the 'ghost' in the Falcon cockpit, the stormtrooper banging his head, couple of lightsaber FX missed) than there are in the original film.

This thing with Vader's hands is about the only one I find even mildly irritating in any way, largely because it's Vader, who otherwise dominates every second of the nine minutes or so he's on screen like no other character since Harry Lime in 'The Third Man'.

 

Not to nitpick, but Dantooine. (Sorry, it's been years since I was on the boards and I just wanted to converse.)

 

Haha wow, I thought I said Dantooine, thanks for the correction.

 

I always wondered why the names were so similar. Two planets orbiting one sun, okay. Two planets colonized by the same religious cult, okay. But as far as I know the planets were not connected in any way, except for nearly identical names. Did that ever strike you as strange?

 

Dave Prowse was intentionally exaggerating his gestures to better aid voice looping that would occur during post-production. You couldn't see his mouth so he frequently moves gratuitously at the director's instruction to help cue his dialogue added later. Personally, I think his pronounciated movements only made the character appear even more menacing.

(Hey, Callista, it's my first visit to the board too in almost five years! And yes, it is strange that Lucas chose the name Dantooine since it would reasonably confuse a casual viewer)

Mr. K

 

I just sorta assume -tooine is a common second syllable for planets.

 

Oh, cool. I never thought of that.

 

In this case, though, it's an actual mistake. His hand gestures are over dead silence, & they're the sort of gestures clearly meant to accompany dialogue. They don't lead into any further dialogue from Vader, either.

 

Just had a thought re the whole 'Dantooine/Tatooine' thing.
Does anyone even say the name Tatooine in the film?

 

Very good point - it's not uttered once, & doesn't appear in the opening crawl.
It's in the script as a location, though.

Similarly, the name 'Boba Fett' isn't mentioned in ESB (although it is in a deleted scene), & 'Ewok' isn't said at all in ROTJ.

 

I was under the impression there was some additional dialogue that was cut out. Something along the lines of "I told you she would never consciencely betray the rebellion, unless it meant destroying us as well."

 

Tatooine is only spoken once in the original trilogy, by Luke at the end of ESB. And then it appears in ROTJ's opening crawl. But it's not mentioned in the ANH film at all.

 

I think it's funny that C3PO even wonders which planet he's on and Luke doesn't even tell him the name, then later an Imperial officer tells Tarken the Falcon matches the description of a ship that "Blasted it's way out of Mos Eisley"

 

on a related note dantooine is a planet you visit on the first knights of the old republic game... if i remember correctly you take jedi training from some hiding jedi masters.

 

Have they fixed that?

I remember the mistake was in the Special Edition when I saw it in the cinema?

 

Not fixed. I have fun thinking about the kind of vitriol that would be going Lucas' way if such a mistake had been in any of the prequels.

 

harry lime in The Third Man?

A Film Noir fan, eh?

And you'd pick Harry Lime over, say,....

Cody Jarrett in White Heat:

"Made it Ma, Top of the world!."

Not to mention...

Captain Queeg in The Cain Mutiny:

"Ah, but the strawberries, that's when I had them..."

Or Dinero in Raging Bull?

Or, Ray Miland in The Lost Weekend?

Or, Jeff Bailey: "Oh, I may die, but I'll be the last one." in 'Out of the Past'?

 

I was referring to characters with a bare minimum of screen time virtually stealing their entire films - Orson Welles as Harry Lime, Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider etc.

 

Tarkin had more power than Vader.

 

Star Wars Monthly, the first source to describe the "volcano battle" where Vader was injured, suggests that Vader "merely suffers Tarkin as a pawn in a larger game plan":

http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post2-02.jpg

But that was very early on. Among other things, while it was Tagge that was Force-choked in the book, it was Motti according to the later EU.

 

That's not actually the first public source for The Duel, that's from Star Wars Poster Monthly #2, November 1977. George Lucas revealed it a bit earlier to Rolling Stone in August of 1977:

SW Poster Monthly was obviously taking their information from the RS interview. The bit about "suffering Tarkin as a pawn in a larger game plan" seems to be their take on a passage in the novelisation:

 

The ANH novel is a wonderful repository of things that would eventually become stories in their own right. So are the scripts.

 

Tarkin can stop Vader from choking someone. He is extremely powerful, and Palpatine holds him in a similar place of value. Vader would not get away with killing Tarkin (during ANH, at least). He would not even have the guts.