"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

Vader at the end of Rogue One is pretty well on par with Vader in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The main difference is that he's fending off a dozen Rebels all firing blasters at him simultaneously, rather than engaging in duels against Jedi who are his Force equals.

 

Fair enough. Like I said, I haven't seen it so I am picturing Vader being all Kung Fury on some rebels.

 

Yeah, and also in the original release of "Star Wars," it wasn't really clear that Darth Vader was supposed to be the big bad villain; he is definitely shown as subservient to Tarkin, basically he's Luca Brasi in a cape.

Throughout most of the original movie Vader looked like an enforcer / hitman for Tarkin, who appeared to be running the show. At the behest of the unseen Emperor of course.

In the wake of the reception of the movie it became clear Tarkin was disposable and Vader himself was supposed to be badass.

 

Should have kept Tarkin as the big baddie:

"Luke, I am Grand Moff Tarkin, and I am your father."

"You sure you're not my grandfather, old man?"

 

I read somewhere (Buzzfeed or EW.com, I think) that Rogue One kind of raises the stakes of the original trilogy in a way. The original trilogy really focuses heavily on Luke's small group, none of whom actually die. We only see unnamed Rebels bite it at the hands of the Empire. By giving us a group of characters who we get to know and like, and then killing them all, it emphasizes how destructive and evil the Empire is across the galaxy.

I think there's something to that. By focusing on the war in Rogue One, rather than the resurrection of the Jedi Order, it gives the original trilogy a grander scale.

 

Timeline question ...
At the end of III, Luke is a newborn and Ben appears to be in his early 30s.
Yet in IV Luke appears to have aged 20 years while Ben has aged 30-40 years.

 

It's almost like George Lucas didn't have all this planned out from the beginning.

If he did, we wouldn't have had this scene in "Empire":

 

Nah. That was a good scene.

 

McGregor was 33, so yeah, that doesn't exactly sync up perfectly. Insert BS about how using the Force can age you prematurely.

 

How old was Guinness? This was 1977. Fifty-year-olds didn't look 30 back then.

 

Guinness was 63.

But, seriously, who gives a shit?

"Some people age differently than others." Boom. Problem solved.

 

Must have been due to sun damage caused by living in the desert.