Why does Vader lower Boba Fett's blaster?

In a ESB when Chewie freaks out at the carbon freez Fett goes to fire his blaster and Vader puts his hand over it to lower it. Anyone have a clue to why?

 

Cause there's expensive equipment to be damaged, and hostages to be harmed.

This topic has actually been discussed to death, all the way from him recognizing Threepiom, down to him sensing Leia, and unconsously wanting to protect her. But at the time of the movies creation.... Equipment and Hostages.

 

Because chewie is carrying C3PO on his back. Remember Anakin built C3P0. I think Vader recognizes him, and does not want him destroyed.

Their is still good in him, the emporer hasnt driven it from him fully - Luke Skywalker.

 

He tells the bounty hunters that he wants them alive (for bait to lure Luke to Cloud City).

After that he also tells the others to bring Leia and the Wookiee to his ship, so my guess is that he wants to keep them alive as hostages.

At any rate, he doesn't want them killed because they are more valuable alive.

 

Those reasons are good enough for me. For some reason he want them alive. Later when it looks like they will be caught in the tractor beam he tells them to set weapons for stun. I guess he still wants to use them as bait to lure Luke back in. Which now makes more sense now because we see his love is what led to his turn.

 

It's not because of C-3PO.

 

Because he can.

 

Vader actually has a nervous arm twitch. He didn't mean to do that at all.

 

During filming for ESB, Lucas didn't know that he would later make Vader either the father of Leia or the creator of Threepio. Nevertheless, it's interesting speculation. And in light of the PT, I posit to you that Vader wants three things during that scene:

1 - He recognizes Threepio, and wants to investigate whether the droid has anything remaining in his memory banks about Padme... how she died, etc.

2 - He feels a tremor in the force, briefly glimpses a recognition of Padme in Leia, and wants to investigate this further.

3 - He wants to find out more about Chewbacca, to see what he knows about Yoda and the battle of Kashyyk.... maybe so Chewbacca can lure Vader to Yoda, if he's still alive.

 

Wait till you see RotS.

No, it doesn't actually explain anything, but I miss that as a reply


Anyway, I liked the answer where Vader just wants to get on with business. He has a potential apprentice to catch.

 

1 - He recognizes Threepio, and wants to investigate whether the droid has anything remaining in his memory banks about Padme... how she died, etc.

Me - Nice thought but I personally think it's just his desire to keep live hostages. Plenty of similar looking protocol droids around. Anyone remember what the ESB novel says?

2 - He feels a tremor in the force, briefly glimpses a recognition of Padme in Leia, and wants to investigate this further.

Me - He knew of Leia through her involvement with the senate and obviously interogated her in a New Hope so had plenty of time to recognise a similarity to Padme

3 - He wants to find out more about Chewbacca, to see what he knows about Yoda and the battle of Kashyyk.... maybe so Chewbacca can lure Vader to Yoda, if he's still alive.

Me - Like this but I think it's still his interest in taking live hostages to lure the son of Skywalker at this stage

 

Bottom Line.

He does not want to kill the people he is using to set a trap for young skywalker. As for taking the wookie and the princess, just a couple of nice hostages, hmmm, some that could be of use afterall.

Also, throw all that away, and it may just be Vader, thinking "Boba, what the Fu%#$, i need to find out if this carbon freeze will work and keep Skywalker alive, and your about to kill my test subject. You are as stupid as you are incompetant"

(come back could be, "Vader was eveil, he would have used anyone in that room to test it"

 

half of Empire's plot is Vader trying to get his robotic hands on Han, Leia and Chewy so they can be used as bait.

he knows that they specifically are close to Luke (or at least he knows that the four of them were on the death star together in eppy iv) and that, sensing their peril, Luke will rush to their rescue.

if they're already dead (killed by fett), Luke could sense their spiritual absence in the force, realize he's too late, and fly his not-ready-for-prime-time behind right back to swamp.

 

Darth lowers Boba's blaster because he hears 3PO and realizes that 3PO is on Chewie's back and sees he needs repairing. That is also why Darth says to Calrisian to take the princess and the wookie to his ship!!!! hee

 

Ain't no way Vader is going to going to let some bounty hunter scum kill his prisoners. If Vader's prisoners are to die then it will be at Vader's discretion. Frankly, Boba Fett is lucky Vader didn't kill him for his rashness.

 

I love this 3po theory..haha. I think he was covering all the bases regarding luke, what if luke escaped, he'd have future bait to lure him back..it's that simple..what would vader care about a droid that can be put back together again? What was always more interesting to me is..what was leia feeling at that moment..the close up..hmmm.

 

He recognizes 3PO? C'mon, that's a HUGE stretch. Considering in 1980 Lucas hadn't even thought of doing 1-3 I highly doubt he intended Vader to have built 3PO back then.

 

He needs them alive.

If the torture of Han doesn't attract Luke's attention, then he needs to do it again to his other friends.

Also, if the Carbon Freezing kills Han, they need others to test any adjustments they make. (although I'm not sure chewbacca would even fit in there).

 

This was brought up in a ROTS thread not long ago. I distinctly remember hearing that Anakin Skywalker had built 3PO and that he had lowered Boba Fett's blaster to spare him from being harmed. This was years ago, like around when Shadows of the Empire first came out. Maybe I'm crazy, but does anyone else recall hearing that explanation that long ago?

 

The C3P0 theory is neat, but like others have said I think Vader was just keeping the situation under control by stopping Fett.

 

I'm going to go ahead and say this: I don't really think the Prequels should be used to explain stuff like this.

I'm not saying the prequels did not shed some light on some things... but highly situational stuff like this cannot be justified through the prequels.

My reason being is that Lucas probably instructed for Vader to lower Fett's blaster due to wanting his hostages alive back then.
Now it could be assumed that he recognized C3P0. But we all know that Lucas would have laughed if you suggested to him that Darth Vader built C3P0 back then. We all would have laughed until he decided to make tons of impossible connections to make the prequels seem to have the same magic as the originals.
Suggestions like this just make the movies bad to me. It makes the Galaxy seem far to small.
Lets just take a step back...

Anakin Skywalker as a boy builds a protocal droid. That droid manages to tag along through tons of adventures, befriends an R2 unit that just happens to save the lives of almost everyone essential to the saga at some point, survives the clone wars, finds himself in the service of a senator and years later managed to get marooned on a desert planet where... guess what... he ends up under the ownership of Anakin's son. After that he manages to tag along through some adventures including brushes with his maker, who is now an abnormal cyborg, and finds himself around all the central people along the way in the birth of an empire and the fall of it...

That just sounds hilariously stupid doesn't it?
Thanks to the prequels we can map out a similarly stupid line of "It's a small world after all" type events for nearly every character except Han and Lando, who Lucas decided not to create trype originals for...

Wow, I just got out alot of frustrations about the prequels right there... anyone besides me feel relieved?

 

That droid manages to tag along through tons of adventures, befriends an R2 unit that just happens to save the lives of almost everyone essential to the saga at some point, survives the clone wars, finds himself in the service of a senator and years later managed to get marooned on a desert planet where... guess what... he ends up under the ownership of Anakin's son.

Doesn't sound stupid to me- it's no coincidence that Leia sends R2 down to contact Kenobi. It doesn't 'just happen'.

Threepio becomes part of a set of people of a certain class- senators, and goes from being owned by padme, to being owned by her friend bail- who's involved in the rebellion, and connected to obi-wan, who's watching over luke. No great leap of faith. He's just a part of that group in the star wars universe.

I think Lucas joined the dots quite convincingly. This has never come across as contrived to me.

 

I'm glad I found this thread because, after watching ESB AGAIN, last night, I caught that!

I figured that Boba was going to shoot Chewie who, to me, wasn't a valuable hostage to Vader. But, I agree that Vader may have thought Boba would miss or the fire would deflect off something and hit Leia.

And...that look Leia gives Vader. Was it a look of contmept for what he was about to do to Han? Was it a look of bewilderment because he prevented Boba from firing?

 

this is by far the best explanation so far. Its the Occam's razor theory, that the simplist explanation is the best explanation.

There are flaws with all of the other theories proposed.

There are no clues whatsoever that Vader recognizes Threepio. There are millions of protocol droids throughout the galaxy, why would Vader suspect that this one was his?

Vader wants to ask Chewie about Yoda and Kashyyyk...C'mon. besides the obvious Lucas hadn't thought of that yet, do you know how many Wookiees the Empire enslaved? Vader probably couldn't have cared less which Wookiee it was, plus, how would he know that Yoda and Chewbacca were friends? All he knows is that Yoda went to Kashyyyk, and that he has good relations with the Wookiees. Before Yoda leaves Coruscant, there is no mention whatsoever of Chewbacca by name. All Vader knows is that it is Chewbacca, the faithful wookiee companion of Captain Solo, his test subject to determine whether carbon freezing can be used on Luke. He has no way of knowing if Chewie personally knew Yoda.

Vader recognizes Leia? nope. This is proven false by watching ROTJ. Vader doesn't realize that Luke has a sister until he probes his thoughts during their duel in the throne room. If he recognized Leia in TESB, it completely goes against Jedi. If he even hinted at sensing Padme in Leia, he would have discovered the truth in ANH, while torturing her, not when she is in the Carbon Freezing chamber a few years later.

 

after all this time, good one. It's sort of explained in the movie itself: "No disintegrations!" The order just stands longer than the initial capture. Vader wants Luke after all, which he didn't have yet.
(and then Boba fired straight at Luke )