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One of the most
interesting scenes from Star Wars, for me, is the part that takes
place in that conference room on the Death Star, where a group of
upper-level space navy officers and one nobleman (it's Lord Vader,
not Captain Vader) have a sit down about the status of their new
ultra-weapon. It stands out from every other scene in the movie
because it's so solidly bureaucratic, giving the audience a window
into the kind of functional, boring details that make up life on a
fictional space station. The movie opens with a shoot-out, we see a
weird bar full of creepy aliens, stellar dogfights and a lightsaber
duel, but for about five minutes, thirty-odd minutes into the run
time, we watch a board meeting.
Lucas demonstrated an
even deeper commitment to sci-fi C-SPAN in The Phantom Menace, where
the action—such as it is—grinds to a halt halfway through so the
characters can discuss how things are going to go down in space
Congress. Serious stuff is supposed to be happening, there's a rouge
Sith Lord on the loose, and the violent occupation of a peaceful
planet is in progress. But the important thing is to dramatize how
senators lobby for votes, entirely through expository dialogue. The
scene feels like it goes on forever, and was the point where I
stopped the DVD the last time I watched Episode I and told myself,
Never again. I probably won't keep that promise, but it'll be years
before I make myself sit through that. It's maybe the worst scene in
a pretty sloppy trio of prequels, and that's really saying something.
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The scene in the
original Star Wars differs for a few key reasons. One, it's terse.
It feels a lot tighter, a result of the fact that it's better
written, leading me to believe that Lucas either didn't write it, or
he was a much better writer as a young man than he was in his
sixties. Maybe it's the editing; the documentary Empire of Dreams
all but accuses Lucas of making a mediocre movie that had to be saved
in the editing room. Whatever the cause, it comes off much better,
no less so because it ends in harrowing violence.
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Many people have
commented on the cause of that violence; who did that one admiral or
commander or whatever think he was mouthing off to Vader that way?
Was he nuts? You'd think he knew who he was talking to. Even if
Vader doesn't technically outrank that guy (leading me to wonder
exactly what Vader's role on the Death Star was—consultant?
Snitch?), Vader's reputation alone should have shut his yap. Are we
to believe word of his lethal powers hasn't gotten around the Empire?
It must have to some extent, because he mockingly refers to Vader's
“sorcerer's ways”. Had Vader never force-throttled an Imperial
officer before? Or one of the enlisted men? I find that hard to
believe. Sith Lords don't bother much with impulse control. Maybe
that officer is just a cocky sonofabitch, and likes to push people
and see how much he can get away with. If so, it was the wrong day
to try that trick with Vader.
A few scenes earlier,
aboard the blockade runner after Princess Leia is taken into custody,
an Imperial officer essentially chastises Vader for potentially
getting everybody in trouble with the Senate (how much authority can
the Imperial Senate possibly have? It's a police state, for
chrissakes). Vader placates him with hurried assurances that he'll
handle the situation, and so we see the first instance of the Sith
Lord having to deal with a disrespectful co-worker. That makes the
incident in the conference room the second time in one day he's had
to take shit from somebody who doesn't consider him a serious threat.
Clearly that was one time too many, but I'm still a little
perplexed.
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If everyone knows who
Vader is, and has some idea of his role toward the end of the Clone
Wars, you wouldn't think they'd want to get on his bad side. Also,
they have to know what his relationship to the Emperor is. Unless
that's all kept a secret, but what would be the point of that?
Wouldn't it be a better use of Vader's talents to make sure everyone
knows he's an efficient and enthusiastic killer, just to keep them
all in line? I don't understand why else he's there. Maybe the
Emperor couldn't think of anything else to do with him, and told him
to go hang out on the Death Star for a while. Vader obviously has
real authority—he appears to be in charge of the blockade runner's
capture—but his duties don't look any different from those of the
average mid-level officer. It seems a poor use of someone with so
much inherent power.
That's how it goes
sometimes, though. You have a resource at your disposal and don't
know exactly what to do with it. Some of the expanded universe stuff
implies that Vader was helping the Emperor hunt down and kill the
last remaining Jedi; I read a pretty cool comic story once where he
was doing that, having an awesome lightsaber and force fight with a
refugee Jedi. Obi-wan Kenobi tells Luke that was how things went
down, but years later Lucas undermines the backstory by having the
clone troopers kill off most of the main Jedi. The final shot of
Episode III shows the Emperor and Vader standing on the deck of a
Star Destroyer supervising the construction of the Death Star; Vader
goes from badass warrior to a contractor in just a few days, or
however much time elapses between that silly scene in the operating
room and a shot of two of the most iconic heavies in cinema history
staring out a window.
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In Empire, things look
much better for Vader. With Grand Moff Tarkin dead, Darth gets a
promotion, and a brand new, super-humongous Star Destroyer to cruise
the galaxy in. Now he can choke Imperial officers to death with
impunity. The only person who can tell him any different is the
Emperor, and that guy shocks people to death with his fingers. At
first glance, it looks a bit like failing up, when you consider that
Vader didn't manage to stop the Rebels from blowing up the Death
Star. But remember, Grand Moff Tarkin was in charge of mounting an
effective defense against the attack, which he stoutly refused to do
apart from a few fighters and the laser cannons that were already
lining the trench anyway. Vader was just doing his job. Besides,
who else was the Emperor going to promote to second-in-command? Does
anyone else in the original trilogy look qualified?
Still, it all seems
kind of a mess, what with high-ranking officers being killed in front
of the crew. That's a shitty work environment, and you'd think
people living in a super high-tech sci-fi universe would have some
idea of how ineffective it is to use death as a motivator. You just
don't get the best work out of people that way. They have to love
their job, love where they work, if you want really top-drawer
workplace performance. It's one thing for a totalitarian
dictatorship here on Earth to do that “Fail me and I'll kill you”
stuff, but those space people ought to know better.
Going back to that
scene in the conference room, you can see the problem is an endemic
one. There's Vader, magically strangling a guy, and it takes Tarkin
a minute to finally say, “Hey now, come on, knock it off you guys.”
You call that discipline? The Empire's unlikely defeat at the hands
of talking koala bears with sticks now makes a lot more sense. This
is what happens when an organization is headed by a cranky old wizard
who doesn't get out much, and finds it worth an afternoon's amusement to pit a son against a
father in a battle to the death. Lucas' message here seems to be:
Arrogance and complacency lead to a downfall. Too bad that, when he
started the process of producing the prequels, he didn't take a few
hours to review his own best work and remind himself of that lesson.
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