STAR WARS

The Little Princess

After the emmissaries and Lord Vader, we meet Vader's daughter, the Princess Leia.
Not 'a' Princess - THE Princess.
As her mother was THE Queen.
This family of the House Amidala-Skywalker are movers and shakers on a galactic level.

Leia is hiding all alone in the duct work because she can no longer trust her mutinous crew.
R2, trusty royal guardian, has found her and she is using the little droid to make a recording.
When C-3PO finds them he does something he never again does - shuts the fuck up and pays attention.
He knows Leia is in danger and that her position must not be given away.

Attempting to get Threepio's shiny metal ass into the escape pod, Artoo tries to fill him in.
And then Threepio loudly shrieks out, "Secret mission? What plans? What are you talking about?"
I imagine Leia listening, shocked and horrified to hear this idiot yelling about THE SECRET PLANS FOR THE DOOMSDAY WEAPON!!
This is akin to Sam Gamgee blathering, "I heard a good deal about a ring, and a Dark Lord, and something about the end of the world, but..."

At this point a blast misses Threepio but succeeds in making the corridor more dangerous than the pod - so in goes Threepio.
Um, who shot at him?
There's not so much as a trooper radio click, much less a telling piece of footage to actually SHOW us a trooper shooting at the droid.
And there's no report that comes through that someone SAW droids trundling into an escape pod...
I think Leia's the one who sends a bolt down the hall - she has to get the damned droids OUT of the ship and there he is yelling about the fucking PLANS!
So, kapow goes Leia, in goes Threepio, and the troopers no doubt hear the blast and come searching.
See, makes sense :D
Fanciful? Yes.
Impossible to prove? Yes.
Fun? Indeed.

Why didn't Leia join them in the pod?
And why doesn't Vader land on Tatooine to retrieve the droids?
We see Leia in ROTJ disguise herself to deal with the mighty Jabba - is there something between Jabba and Vader's family?
Well, there was that bit in Phantom Menace when Anakin as a child mentions dreaming of freeing the slaves of Tatooine...
And in A New Hope there isn't any reference to slavery - not slavery of organics anyway, just electronics.
Did Anakin Skywalker free the slaves of Tatooine?
That would make him a Great Emancipator as well as being King and Galactic Hero and Savior - holy shit
maybe he IS space jesus

Leia is quickly scooped up by Vader's elites and we see two things worth examining.
First, the lead trooper orders, "Set for stun."
This is the only time in the movies that the 'stun' setting is used, and it's used by Vader's men on Vader's daughter.
Second, after hearing him say this, Leia shoots the man in the chest.
Leia IS a Skywalker and as dangerous as the rest of her royal family.
Vader is staging this affair, and has been setting up this image of her as a renegade.
Shooting the trooper is possibly so she remains in character, in case some of Vader's own soldiers are reporting to other authorities, namely Tarkin.
OR - she may just be a royal rip and a half and maybe she's just that touchy and trigger-happy
And her peashooter may have knocked the battle-armored trooper down, but I doubt she did any real damage, much less killed the guy.
Um... I hope, anyway...
Hey, lives are at stake, all right?!
And anyway if these guys were all super loyal, Vader would be able to trust SOMEBODY besides just Leia.
Right?!

Anywho
Leia is brought before Vader
To understand what is going on here you have to realize that the real threat is the Death Star.
Vader is orchestrating it's destruction with his daughter because no else can be trusted.
The real villain is Tarkin who is about to have a planet killer at his command, far and away from the Emperor.
Vader is going to stop him, but he cannot do this directly or he will simply be shot out of the sky.
So.
It turns out that, surprise surprise, it's Vader's daughter who is leading the so-called Rebellion.
And look, she got the plans to the Death Star.
Vader knows this because he monitored the transmission.
He didn't block the trasmission.
Or just blow up her ship (of COURSE he didn't blow up her ship - it's his DAUGHTER! I really can't state this enough)
Their interaction is carefully staged - they are being watched and reported on by all around them (there should be a link here taking you to the ESB page showing that the Emperor is being kept current on Vader's activity - i'm workin' on it!)

Interesting to note here is that Vader issues this order: "Send a distress signal and then inform the Senate that all aboard were killed!"
We're not shown any executions and I get the feeling we're supposed to assume the Rebels are killed.
So why not just show us?
I contend this footage does not exist because no prisoners were executed.
This sounds more like he's trying to smoke out Rebel ties within the Senate.
Vader's hardcore, but he doesn't seem to be dealing out death to prisoners.
Just wanted to point that out :)

As the audience, we get to see the events on Leia's ship, and then we pick up Vader and friends on the Death Star later.
We don't get to see any footage of the journey there, however.
That's because Vader has a lockdown on the security cameras and recording devices aboard his own ship.
Lots of footage of Vader aboard other people's ships - he can't control that.
Classify this 'lapse' as a storytelling device if you want, and brace yourself for acres of footage of every tedious step of the droids' journey...