In a testament to the randomness with which I dream, it occurred to me last night that there’s something bothering me about the original Star Wars film (Episode IV).
Last week, when the flu drove an armored tank through my house, my daughter and I were watching the original trilogy. She was very disturbed by Obi-Wan’s decision to just take Darth’s lightsaber in the side; she was convinced that he’d have ben better off trying to woop Darth’s ass.
I had originally responded to her concern by pointing out that Obi-Wan sacrificed himself so that Luke and company could sneak up to the Falcon and take off. At the time, it seemed logical; he’d been distracting the storm troopers and Darth, but knew that there was no way he’d be able to get to the Falcon and leave with the rest of them. So he jumped on the Qui-Gon bandwagon, and looked to the immortality technique that his former master had developed. Obi-Wan was a genius, right?
But wait a minute…the Falcon was already carrying a tracking device, and as Leia says later, “They let us go.” That proves to be true, as Tarkin and Vader later confirm her suspicions. Given the amount of fighting that our heroes did trying to get out of the Death Star, the implication here is that every storm trooper on the station was directed to shoot to miss. After all, killing the good guys wouldn’t have resulted in the Falcon’s departure, it wouldn’t have led the Death Star to Yavin, and the Empire wouldn’t have had a legitimate chance of squashing the rebellion.
I find it hard to believe that the entire sequence on the Death Star was orchestrated by Vader and Tarkin, with the intent of tracking the Falcon. But maybe it was…
Before you people start slamming with emails about my dorkiness, take a minute and really think about what I’m saying. Was the tracking device a backup plan, the primary plan being to capture Luke/Han/Chewy and torture the rebel base location out of them?
Hey, George Lucas: if you read this blog, please respond to these questions in the comments. Danke.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Brian // Dec 22, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Since Vader had no knowledge at this point in Luke, Han or Chuwy he would have had no interest in them or the Falcon. The only thing he knew was that Obi-Wan was lurking around as he “felt” his presence. He probably surmised that the only reason he was about was either to confront himself or to rescue Leia. Since he was unlikely to underestimate his old master he probably would have covered his bases by installing a tracking device just in case the old man managed to pull it off. But there are a few other problems with this part of the story. If Leia did suspect that the ship was being tracked why would she fly the ship straight to the hidden rebel base? Better to attempt some sort of diversion. Did Vader really count on this stupidity? Or perhaps it can be explained by good old Jedi foresight. Maybe Vader had some knowledge of the events.
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