In this great saga called Star Wars, there are many scenes that take place off camera. We know the essentials of what happened, but can only imagine the details of the situation. I just thought I would take some time to give my ideas on what happened in some of these situations and maybe stir up some fan debate.

Vader And Tarkin Take A Coffee Break Before Blowing Up Alderran -- A New Hope

We have all seen the original Star Wars, Episode IV (my favorite by the way) and we all remember the cantina scene, escaping Tatooine, and seeing the Death Star destroying Alderann. But what we never see is just what Darth Vader and Tarkin are doing on the Death Star when Han, Luke, Ben, the droids, and Chewie are taking care of business on Tatoinne.

Let me roughly outline the sequence of events for those who don't have the jedi memory capabilities of a certain three meter tall Dagobah inhabitant (I had to go back to my DVDs as a refresher before writing this blog afterall). Luke discovers the force in Ben's Tatoinne estate. Then we see Vader force choke an annoying Imperial Officer (Motti) in the Death Star meeting room. Following this Luke travels back home only to find a crispy version of Beru and Owen. Leia then takes on the intimidating interrogation droid (not to mention Vader himself). Then there is an entire area where we don't see any Death Star until after Han kills Greedo. Here we see a brief filler scene of Vader and Tarkin picking Alderran as their first target. This is followed by more Tatoinne scenes. Finally, after the Falcon escapes from the Star Destroyer, we see the destruction of Alderran.

We have have basically two big gaps of time in which we see no Death Star happenings. First between interogation and plotting the first target and then between the brief scene and the destruction of Alderran. We can also infer that some time has passed between announcing the destination of Alderran and its actual destruction. I have never traveled through hyperspace and even though the falcon is fast, it still had to take at least an hour to get to Alderran. Enough time for Chewie to engage R2 in a game of holographic chess at the very least. So, what happened in these chunks of time, what were Vader and Tarkin doing.

My theory for the first break in time is pretty simple. Tarkin goes about making sure the Death Star is up and running. While Vader probably meditates and seeks guidance from the force as to how to get information out of Leia. Tarkin, who was always skeptical of Leia and Vader's ability to get info out of her, takes things into his own hands and comes up with the blow-up Alderran plan.

After Vader basically gives up on trying to get information out of Leia he meets with Tarkin and they both agree to set a course for Alderran. Then what do they do? They have some time to kill before reaching Alderran and my guess is that they were both probably too apprehensive about the upcoming "test" to nap or sleep. I don't think Tarkin has any reservations about killing millions, but he might be anxious to see if the Death Star actually works. So, like normal people maybe they went to the board room for coffee and lunch. This would be a rather odd scene, lots of odd silences, and wierd breaks, maybe something like this:
Tarkin: So, you see the latest podrace?
Vader: Nope.
Odd, long silence
T: Is that salami or ham?
V: Ham.
T: Good choice, this salami sucks.
Odd, long silence
T: Are we there yet?

Okay, we probably never see anything like this in a Star Wars movie, but it was fun to think about. In all likelyhood, Vader probably meditated the entire journey and Tarkin probably just sat around recieving status reports. Maybe during this period, Vader confronted his misgivings about this mass murder. It probably brought back some memories of Order 66 for him.

Well, thanks for reading again. This entry was a little more goofy, but I promise my next entry will be more analysing and insightful. For those of you who read my previous entry you will note a discontinuity. I originally planned to write about the time between Alderran's destruction and Vader snooping around for Old Ben, but then I realized that those things don't occur very far apart in time. So, sorry.

And as to the comment about the Radio Dramas. I own them, listen to them, and love them. But I am just focusing on what is seen in the movie for this blog. But you have not checked out the gems, get them immeadiately. If you are waiting around in C4 lines, or sitting back home listen to them as they are a valuable source of Star Wars knowledge. Thanks to gencrs for the comment.

And I would like to wish a happy 17th birthday to The Empire Strikes Back today.

Next time: Han and Chewie go cruisin' while Luke battles the Death Star.

MTFBWY