Rogue One Why was Vader's location not named?

Why do you need to name somewhere that is obvious to anyone familiar with the whole story?

 

Vader's castle and its surroundings were first described in the first draft of ESB which neither provided the planet's name:

137 EXT DARTH VADER’S CASTLE
A grim castle of black iron that squats on a rock in the midst of a crimson sea.

138 INT DARTH VADER’S CASTLE
In a tower room, grim and darkling, lighted by the red glow outside. Vader is at home, at ease.

I wouldn't exclude the possibility that Gareth Edwards intended to leave it like that in RO, i.e. a planet without name.

 

If didn't name the location because of "prequel stink" then they wouldn't have even used that location at all. They would have had his castle on a random planet instead of a volcanic planet that people familiar with ROTS would recognize as being Mustafar.

 

...or Sullust from the Star Wars Battlefront game.

 

No, a lot of people didn't initially know Vader was coming during that scene. That's clear from the early discussions here after the opening week. Pablo said exactly why they didn't put the name up. And let's count the other examples of RO avoiding prequel stink, shall we?

1. Prequel actor playing Bail Organa
2. Prequel actress playing Mon Mothma
3. Two prequel planets (Mustafar and Coruscant)
4. Prequel juggernaut vehicle

And if they were afraid of prequel stink...why make the planet Mustafar at all? And then later announce that it was indeed Mustafar?

Use logic.

 

Actually it's only one prequel planet, Coruscant was featured in an OT context (Thrawn Trilogy), adopted by George Lucas as canon, illustrated by Ralph McQuarrie in 1995 (in an OT context, example above) and ultimately featured at the end of the Special Edition of ROJ in 1997:



In my book it's therefore an OT planet.

 

But some people like the smell of prequel methane. It spurred a lot of creativity for EU novelists.

 

A Chorus of Disapproval

Since you seem to have asked for it, here is the rest of the scene in its complete beauty:

In a tower room, grim and darkling, lighted by the red glow outside. Vader is at home, at ease. He has companions; several small gargoyles that perch or caper on the massive furniture. He is feeding them tid-bits from a golden bowl, enjoying their ugliness and their greed. Abruptly he stiffens. He sweeps the gargoyles aside and stands up, his fists on the table. The gargoyles skitter away, fightened (sic).



(I think I don't have to explain why I had to suppress a giggle or two when I watched the castle scene for the first time...)

 

You aren't alone in laughing when Vader's Castle popped up. Back in the 80s, my Uncle made a "fanfilm" when he was around 8 or 9. This was before the Mcquarrie painting and knowledge of the idea of the Castle were widespread. Anyways, in the film, he wears an ill-fitting toy Vader mask and asks another character to "Meet me at my castle!" He (my uncle) was at the premiere of RO with me and we were filled with pure joy when the castle came on. It's probably my favorite scene in the movie.

The fact that VC is canon now is so great. Even going by kid logic, it makes sense for Vader to have a castle! All the cool bad guys have castles, so why wouldn't Vader?

And these small gargoyle creatures that Vader feeds space-popcorn interest me greatly. It'd be interesting to see how Lucas and the crew would have pulled them off if the scene made it into the final draft.

 

nope.

 

Vader in the tank. Sunroof top. Diggin' the scene with a gangster's ease.

 

Snax Rebo wrote

And these small gargoyle creatures that Vader feeds space-popcorn interest me greatly. It'd be interesting to see how Lucas and the crew would have pulled them off if the scene made it into the final draft.

I don't recall when it was decided to use a lot of stop motion animation as VFX work for ESB (e.g. Tauntaun, Snow Walker, Dagobah flying creatures), but I'm certain that would have been used for these gargoyles, too. IMHO, it would have added a hard to overlook Ray Harryhausen touch to the film, but I guess most of us are relieved that they decided to use stop motion animation VFX for creatures and objects with a more *realistic* feel...

 

LucasFilm, not Disney.

lucasfilm makes the story decisions.

 

For the moment. Disney could override Lucasfilm's decisions if it wanted to, though. That's the trouble with nested corporate ownership: the parent company has final say, and if they don't feel like granting independence to subsidiaries, that's just too bad.

 

It's possible the could've done something like Salacious Crumb for the sitting gargoyles and wider shots to allow for the less detailed, stop motion ones to fly away.

 

According to The Making of ESB, Lucasfilm actually considered hiring Ray Harryhausen to work on the stop-motion animation in ESB, but decided his techniques were too outdated and unrealistic-looking. Instead ILM animator Phil Tippett came up with his own brand of "go-motion" animation in-house. (Ironically, Tippett later quipped that Jurassic Park's CGI dinosaurs had passed him by as well: "I think I'm extinct.")

 

The Dejarik table in ANH always was very Harryhausen-esque to me. Very cool use of stop motion.

 

In The Art of Rogue One, there is a two page segment with the castle and MUSTAFAR written in font size 72.

Hard to miss.

 

Reminds me of Carry On Follow That Camel.

Now excuse me, I need to go to Mustafaleek

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they won't.

 

This may have been discussed already, and I might be sounding like Ric Olié, but the shot of Vader striding toward Krennic appears reminiscent of Luke walking in the hallway of Jabba's palace. Vader's door has similar trapezoidal security blocks that we also see on Jabba's front door (although, more solid than Jabba's door blocks).

Spoiler

 

To surprise us & to keep it secret.