A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

 'During Vader's confrontation with Admiral Motti, why doesn't the Dark Lord choke Governor Tarkin when he intervenes?' Because, as powerful and menacing as Darth Vader is, he can’t Force-choke anyone who is equal in stature, or even above Vader’s standing in Imperial hierarchy, even if he is tempted to. It’s just not something one does in a chain of command, and especially not in the ruling circles of the Galactic Empire. Understand. In  Star Wars,  aka  Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,  Vader is not the big bad villain representing the Empire. That role belongs to Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Territories, author of the Tarkin Doctrine, and commander of the Empire’s new Death Star battle station. He is also a confidante and friend to Sheev Palpatine, aka His Imperial Highness, Emperor Palpatine. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  In  Episode IV; A New Hope,  in which the “I find your lack of fai...

The Galactic Empire's Death Star 1 battle station in its final stages of construction. © 2016 Lucasfilm Ltd. Why wasn’t the Death Star re-engineered after the Rebels exploited the flaw with the thermal exhaust port? Actually, the Death Star  was  modified heavily after the destruction of Grand Moff Tarkin’s DS-1 at the Battle of Yavin. Although the movies don’t address this - there’s a three-year time jump between  A New Hope  and  The Empire Strikes Back -  it’s extremely likely that the Emperor called his most senior advisors and formed an Imperial Death Star Investigative Committee to discover how a single Incom T-65 X-wing fighter was able to destroy the Empire’s ultimate weapon with two proton torpedoes. Such an investigative body would have had access to archival copies of the DS-1 plans, perhaps provided by the Emperor himself. The original plans were destroyed along with the Imperial Citadel on Scarif shortly before the Battle of Yavi...

Photo Credit and © 2018 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Hi, there, Dear Reader! It's Thursday, March 28, 2019, and it's a nice spring day in my corner of Florida. And, as you can see, it's time for another Star Wars action figure review. In this installment of A Certain Point of View, I'll be talking about the Star Wars Black Series 6-inch scale action figure based on Grand Moff Tarkin, the Governor of the Imperial Outlands and commander of the Galactic Empire's ultimate weapon - the Death Star. Released early last year as part of a consignment that included Death Star Trooper, Han Solo, Jawa, Range Trooper, and Lando Calrissian, Grand Moff Tarkin (Black Series figure #60) marked the debut as a 6-inch figure of the fearsome Imperial villain from Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope. Hasbro intended it as an April release to whet fans' appetite for Solo: A Star Wars Story and related merchandise, but many retailers put this wave of figures on store ...

When I first watched  Star Wars  at the age of 14, I thought Darth Vader was the main villain of the movie for maybe the first 30 minutes. In this scene, as well as all the others set aboard the  Tantive IV,  the guy in the black armor seemed to be in charge of the Imperial army. He gave orders, the scary-looking stormtroopers and the various officers deferred to him and called him “Lord Vader.” And younger  Star Wars  viewers thought  he  ran the entire Galactic Empire. Then I saw  this  scene and realized that Vader, while clearly a powerful Imperial leader, was assigned to  assist , not lord it over, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Regions and commander of the Death Star. Vader  could  give orders to field grade Imperial officers. And, even though the film never made this clear, he had an Imperial-class Star Destroyer (the  Devastator ) and its entire complement at his dis...