Let’s say the top brass were unwilling to recast Tarkin. I find that hard to believe given we’re getting a young Han Solo in a couple of years, but fine. It may well have happened anyway.

The story group for Rogue One were incredibly fortunate in the fact that, even given this eventuality, the best and most popular Star Wars villain is tied directly into their story as well, and can be played by literally anyone of David’s Prowse’s approximate height, as long as James Earl Jones can still be tapped to do voice work.

Episode IV opens with Darth Vader being moments from recapturing the Death Star plans, and so this is also what we get at the very end of Rogue One. But for some reason he is not the film’s main villain, either.

Why not?



What can Lucasfilm possibly be saving him for? The amazing sequence where Vader super-murders the poor hapless soldiers whose ilk we’ve spent two hours with is exhilarating. It would have been exhilarating for all two hours. Where is that movie? Frankly, we could stand to have a little more footage in the bank of Vader being a terrifying monster, viewed through the eyes of everyday pedestrians. It would help new viewers who came in with Episode VII get on board with why Kylo Ren is so totally into him.

When Krennic goes to Mustafar to visit him, I was certain that this was the moment that Vader was being “tapped in” as the shark who would hunt and eat our intrepid crew of Rogues. Instead, he made a pun about choking, and then nothing happened. A moment straight out of the prequels.

I was also certain that, given this movie’s branding as a gloomy tale of desperation recounting what was always likely to be a suicide mission, Chirrut’s faith and general indestructibility would definitely be tested by confronting him with Darth Vader, the last remaining “Jedi” in front of whom Chirrut is simultaneously nothing, and yet completely superior - due to his faith, compassion, and general goodnessness.

Imagine Vader just physically demolishing Chirrut, seemingly demonstrating that his faith is worthless, but then not being able to hurt him with the Force. Having the trusty force choke fail him, for once.

This would renew Chirrut’s faith in the moments before Vader kills him, as well.

Instead, Chirrut just dies in an explosion. As does Baze. As does Bodhi. As does Galen Erso. I’ll talk more about this phenomenon later, but for now let’s just focus on the fact that Vader crosses paths with no named character other than Krennic, and is in this film for like 10 minutes.

So imagine this instead: we can only imply Tarkin’s presence as the guy running the Death Star, and we can maybe hear his voice a little bit (because we couldn’t recast how he looks and didn’t want to creep people out with CGI), but luckily we have unlimited access to Darth Vader and can easily throw Ian McDiarmid back into heavy Emperor makeup if we want Vader to take orders from someone, or answer to them/be frustrated and embarrassed by his own failures. You know - how he did in the original trilogy.

We thus elevate Darth Vader to be the main villain of Rogue One. I think it would be hard to find an exec at Lucasfilm or Disney who would oppose this from a business perspective, and it makes sense from a story perspective as well.

We lose the villain’s relationship with Galen Erso (since Vader hates people almost as much as he hates sand) but we do get given the wonderful gift of being able to use the Star Wars brand to combine a war movie with a monster movie. Everything here is gritty, realistic, and fairly clear in terms of plotting: we must free Jyn, to get to Saw Gerrera on Jedha, to get to Galen Erso at the Kyber facility, to get to Skarif, to steal the plans, to beam them to the blockade runner, to roll the credits, to start Episode IV.

That’s all written on a bunch of post-its somewhere already, and doesn’t have to change. But now, onto all of it, we drape the spectre of a monstrous, undefeatable Darth Vader, whose counter-post-it to all of these plot points is STOP THIS. KILL EVERYONE.

To Jyn, Vader could be the childhood bogey man who came and abducted her father/killed her mother. To Cassian, Vader represents something he needs to avoid becoming, despite doing a lot of questionable things himself. We’ve already touched on what he would mean to Chirrut, and by extension Baze. To Bhodi, Vader is the punishment for his betrayal of the Empire. Hell, even K-2SO would have a unique connection to Vader, who is “more machine than a man”, you might recall.

In my perfect world, Vader would join the story on Jedha, surprising everyone with his presence at the final Kyber harvests. You know - because secretly Anakin cares about the history of the Jedi. Then, he would still test-fire the Death Star on the city because any leaning toward his old self would cause him to slingshot back toward evil HARD. While on Jedha, Vader would find out about the missing pilot, figure out Galen Erso is involved and go to confront him.

My first instinct here was to have Vader kill Erso in front of Jyn for his betrayal, but then I realized that Vader would be able to look into Erso’s mind and read exactly what the flaw in the Death Star was, so it actually ups the stakes to have him actively doing this, saying aloud (as he likes to do when tucking into people’s choice secrets) that the Death Star has a deliberate flaw that can lead to its destruction, which is located in…

...and then have Cassian actually sniper-assassinate Erso before Vader can find out the crucial missing piece.

Harder for Jyn to forgive, harder for Cassian to redeem himself, but My God The Stakes.

Naturally, Vader would be mad and probably kill one of our heroes then and there, but be forced to leave the fighting and go right to Scarif, in order to scour the plans for the flaw, which he doesn’t even know where to begin looking for, and doesn’t have the scientific knowledge to find easily. His method would be to yell at, and threaten, smarter people. But he’s on Scarif now, between the plans and our heroes. Which is perfect.

Imagine a third of the rebels on Rogue One immediately deserting as soon as they found out Vader was in the area. Imagine the ones that stayed knowing that they were drawing the attention not of Stormtroopers in general, but of Darth Vader specifically.

Vader is unstoppable to these people, but they don’t need to stop him, they just need to delay him long enough for the plans to be broadcast. Trick him, mislead him, misdirect him. To triumph over something much more powerful, you need to be smarter. “Darth Vader is a man,” I can imagine Jyn telling her terrified rebels in her motivational speech, “He is just a man. Let’s remind him of that.”

Cut to Vader practicing to breathe on his own in his little air bubble thing. Or watching some Imperials in a breakroom betting on a hologrammed podrace. Something to remind us Anakin is in there behind the mask. Chills, right? Podrace chills?

Then, it’s the final act and we watch him murder our heroes one by one in a 40-minute version of the 4 minutes we got at the end of the film you saw. In which we got Krennic, who is a mid-level bureaucrat that sort-of knows Jyn, and we got Tarkin who never meets any of our heroes at all. Nor, bafflingly, does Vader.

SAW, LEIA, AND TELEGRAPHED PLOTTING