Rogue One [Speculation] Several transmissions were beamed to this ship...

The seemingly bewildered and chaotic way they are running also affirms for me that they're not participating in the battle themselves. Rather, they exit the base with the plans in hand, and right into a full-scale battle between Rebel and Imperial forces (which was timed to provide a diversion, but Jyn and friends may simply be off schedule - the beat the clock routine which ratchets up the tension). They then have to avoid getting caught up in/ killed in the battle, for long enough to reach the Comms tower. Meanwhile, the Empire just thinks that the Rebels are attacking. They have no idea that under the surface, a small strike team stole their Death Star plans.

Similar to Aragorn's army diverting Sauron's attention to clear the way for Frodo and Sam. Only in this case, the battle and the heist are in the same location!

Man, this gets me excited. It just feels so clean. A much tighter story than TFA (which I still love), that for some reason, is very refreshing.

And to think that this moment may link up directly to the very beginning of the very first Star Wars film? Heaven. A great time to be a fan.

 

Yeah so, Pinnacle Troopers probably guard a Pinnacle?

 

Based on the teaser, I'm guessing that there are three stages to the mission.

1. Ancient city planet: Recruit Wen and Yen to the team/ something about freeing Rebel pilots
2. Undercover in a TIE: Use a stolen TIE fighter to infiltrate the Empire's lines and determine what the superweapon is, where it is, and how imminent its operationalization might be (Jyn may simply observe the DS from the outside and then fly back to Yavin IV)
3. Tropical planet: Infiltrate the Imperial base that contains the Death Star plans and beam the plans to a secure location that cannot be traced to the Rebel Alliance (either the Tantive IV or an intermediary spot).
4. Iceland planet: This is the rocky burning place where we see the Death Troopers. Not sure where this fits. Perhaps this is a secure location where the plans are beamed to first? And they need to be decoded before being sent to the Tantive IV? I imagine it's possible that Mads Mikkelsen, the possibly conflicted, Oppenheimer-esque Death Star scientist, has to decode them there. Vader shows up with his Death Troopers. And Mads beams them to Leia before being torched ala Owen and Beru.

The fourth point is pure speculation borne or trying to fit the Iceland location in. Otherwise, a transmission from the tropical location to the Tantive IV is simpler and cleaner. But that's not accounting what the heart of the personal story is. My guess is that it revolves around Jyn, and her father, Mads. And perhaps one reason for recruiting her is that her father is a prominent scientist in the Imperial military...

 

It is interesting now to me that Vader does not specify what the beamed messages contain. They also appear to have sparred before on the point of violating air space for humanitarian cause. Also, since this planet appears to be earth like, and might as well be earth like orbit with earth like local solar system, there is only need for Tantive IV to have gotten into reception range of that transponder, which from the looks of it could have allowed the Tantive IV to cruise through at a distance of something like Jupiter. This allows Leia to maintain the pretense that she has no idea what He is talking about, or, had no idea of what happened on that planet, or, had no idea that there were Rebellion ships taking any kind of action. Her pretense falls down when Vader hears that she, who went through this restricted system, is now not exactly going to Alderaan, but going to some even further out of the way place called Tatooine. A place we have been given abundant evidence to believe is somewhere Anakin Skywalker never wants to, never needs to, return to. And since he has no knowledge of his daughter, and of his son, and has no proximate sense of his former Master, it is passable in his calculus that this is a random destination, a ship making a run for it, anywhere, not specifically, There.

VADER
Don't play games with me, Your
Highness. You weren't on any mercy
mission this time. You passed directly
through a restricted system. Several
transmissions were beamed to this
ship by Rebel spies. I want to know
what happened to the plans they sent
you.

LEIA I don't know what you're talking
about. I'm a member of the Imperial
Senate on a diplomatic mission to
Alderaan...

 

Yes, yes, yes. It fits like s glove, really. Hard to imagine that there's not a lot of truth to this scenario.

 

Oh man, I bet the RO folks are wishing that line had been left in. Fine without it, but the more callbacks (call forwards?) link the two films the better.

 

I'm going to nickname them Piña Colada Troopers.

 

If you like stealing plans at midnight,
near the palms of the cape.
I'm the rebel that you've looked for,
but I don't think we'll escape.

 

My theory' the data tapes actually ARE tapes; that a plot point will be that the plans are stored on old technology as a way of safeguarding against hacking/copying etc. And that as a result, when the transmissions are made, it will be a tense scene as the tapes actually have to be transmitted in full, taking time as the rebels are being hunted

 

I know, right? Though I think the "several transmissions were beamed to this ship" line is enough to satisfyingly connect the two. I also suspect that we'll get some scenes of the Leia/ Mothma collaboration being put into place. A new Senator was cast for Rogue One, so there's a basis for assuming that the inside/outside, Rebel Alliance/Senate sympathizer collusion will be shown on screen.

I think that's right. There will be a very tense moment as Jyn, or the tech specialist, tries to do this in the face of Imperial fire.

 

Another item from ANH script. Motti is the only one to refer to the data by media, tapes. Vader does not advise/inform him of what he knows, as he has certainly informed Leia, that the data was beamed. Therefore it is possible from the script that Vader is hedging and managing expectations on who knows what of this security breach as he attempts to handle it. Motti is recipient of Lack of Faith award also. SO. Motti may know that the media went missing, and may have the anticipation that finding the physical media, itself, constitutes a closure to the matter.

MOTTI Don't try to frighten us with your
sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your
sad devotion to that ancient religion
has not helped you conjure up the
stolen data tapes, or given you
clairvoyance enough to find the
Rebel's hidden fort...

 

Couldn't the Iceland shoot be plates for Alderaan?

 

I'm with ya pretty much, with one exception -- if I were writing the movie I'd make the transmission of the plans occur in Act 2, and Act 3 would be about Jyn's confrontation with her antagonist and escape (or not). We know the plans get transmitted -- so there's less dramatic weight on that, right? Now -- whether Jyn and her buddies get out alive? That's a totally different story, and nobody knows (yet), so I would make that the actual climax of the film -- the final confrontation between Jyn, her crew, and whoever the most threatening antagonists (Vader, cape-guy, Shadow troopers) are revealed to be.

Yeah, the presence of the comm tower in that scene is no accident.

Playing off your thoughts on the Rebel ship crashed on the beach --

I think crashed Rebel ships and other symbols of Rebel defeat are going to be a theme because the film needs to establish the futility of the what the Rebels are doing, and thereby underscore the importance of the Rebel spaceships scoring their FIRST victory against the Empire, when it happens. So, we're going to see that X-Wing crash in the town, the pilots captured, the Rebel ship crash on the beach, etc. and even more bad news for the Rebels, throughout most of the film.

 

Good thoughts. Though they could combine, in Act 3, the transmission of the plans with the protagonist's confrontation with the antagonist. All rolled into one insanely personal and galactic sequence.

 

Vader could be referring to Leia's appearance in rebels where she violated the blockcade of Lothal.

 

Huh? That event occurred much further in the past than the beginning of ANH. Vader is referring to Leia having very recently passed through a restricted system. As in, immediately prior to the Empire capturing the Tantive IV.

 

I don't watch Rebels, but yes. This event you reference may disentangle Vader's "you weren't on any mercy mission [from weeks or months or even years ago, at] this [immediately present] time" from "[you just now in the last few days or hours] passed through a restricted system".

I haven't done further looking into it, but the very term "Blockade Runner" (a pleasurable assonance to Blade Runner, btw) shows up immediately in the script as location, which is to suppose that the magical flavor of the term, referencing age of sail and the British naval blockades of the American Revolution and War of 1812 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_blockades), did not require at that time any specific 1:1 signification. For the longest time it was only referred to, in the early 80's, as Blockade Runner. Then later at some point someone back filled the 'role' with a ship type and ship name. Now the shape of the ship immediately suggests that the ventral and dorsal gun turrets can in fact rotate forward, but cannot concentrate fire forward of the ship itself. I.e., look at the cowlings around both gut turrets: they cannot together converge a firing solution, even a parallel line of fire, ahead of the ship. But they can when turned back to a pursuer. So the very shape of the ship rehearses the sense behind Leia's assertion that Alderaan has no weapons - the consular ship has defensive weapons only and cannot offensively "attack" (forward direction) any thing at all, but is constructed to place great value on the lives of its dignitaries within. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tantive_IV back fills further by saying it has "As a vessel of state, the ship featured dining rooms for hosting state dinners as well as conference centers suitable for negotiations with interstellar dignitaries." That matches the visual elegance of the porcelain white retro-future (very THX 1138) that we first see with C-3PO and R2. SO. That places greater strain on the cross purposes of the ostensible design of the consular ship - for the big people, versus Leia's stated reasons to use it (or things like it) to do humanitarian work - for the little people. In any normal distribution of ship types and ship roles, the best and the finest shall not be diverted to what can be accomplished with the merely suitable. So here I am pulling one thread in Lucas' ingenious integrated set up and finding that the knit is tight. It holds up upon fractal scrutiny (for my money.)

So, I'll predict "restricted system" in RO indicates there cannot be a case for mercy mission, for, it is devoid of humanitarian context, for, it is entirely devoid of civilians not under military control. I'll be curious to see where the story makers place this planet in reference to Tatooine and Alderaan. The geography of GFFA was relevant and on display in AOTC and drove Padme's decision to go rescue Obi-Wan.

 

Vader may have missed that episode of Rebels. Or, in-universe, the bumbling captain/admiral probably covered the whole thing up.

This thread has some nice theories on how RO could tie into lines from ANH. That does not, however, require the Tantive IV to appear (much less Leia). Because ANH already exists, we only need RO to supply the process, not the result. We only need to know how the characters executed their mission. From ANH, it may be inferred the mission was a success.

As a final note, what it Jyn doesn't die at the end of RO, but is transported to the Death Star for questioning (who IS occupying all the cells on the detention level????) and therefore dies when it goes kaboom?

 

You touched a subject I tried not to think too much about it, but since you started it: Jyn stays on the Death Star and performs the sabotage required so that Luke Skywalker can really blow up the Death Star.

 

Good idea there... Because two miserly rockets can't blow up a huge space station by themselves, so I won't be surprised that Jyn sacrificed herself by sabotaging the Death Star at the same time...

Likely by placing high-powered explosives at, say, the reactor and other vulnerable areas and detonating them at the same moment Luke fired his missiles!

 

I doubt that they'd do that. I doubt that they'd take away from one of Luke's first major triumphs (especially since ANH explains how two missiles could take out the DS if shot into the right spot, there's a whole briefing scene about it) by saying that this character that we've never seen or hear of or been referenced before this new film, was so heavily involved in that.

 

I like that.

The best EU stuff causes you to look at the saga films in a new way. Lost Stars does that so well. This would be a similar wrinkle that would totally re-color how we look at ANH.

It would be a ballsy move on the writer's part, for sure, but I think it would work. One of the themes of the OT (and SW in general) is loss, and the cost of things.

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

p.s. You know, somebody had to occupy that cell right next to Leia's...

 

If (and that is a huge IF) Boba Fett is in this film I would like to see him do the torching... That way the "No disintegrations" line would have meaning Not that we need it to - would just be fun!

 

Avnar

I heard about this theory before but don't really like it because it will inevitably come at the expense of efficient stormtroopers (i.e. had Boba Fett not told the sandtroopers to attack the Jawa sandcrawler single-filed, the stormtroopers would have left their tracks all over the place and the "precision fire" Kenobi observed was probably just Boba Fett's doing).

On the other hand I wouldn't mind seeing Boba Fett in action elsewhere in Rogue One so that Vader's order in ESB comes as an echo to a previously unknown event in R1.

 

Question: What other reasonable explanations are there for:

1. Our heroes running towards the AT-ATs.
2. That insanely tall satellite tower dwarfing the AT-ATs in size.

I think it's clear that at the very least, they need to get to that tower to do something. If not to beam the Death Star plans away, at least to transmit a message to the Alliance to extract them from the beach.