You know what always pissed me off with the special editions and onward- them getting rid of the Ewok song for that generic elevator music. It's cool that they show the other places like Coruscant and elsewhere celebrating in addition to the forest moon, but the Ewok song was awesome.
Something funny about that. When I was growing up I had a VHS of the original theatrical cut of Star Wars, just the first film. I also had the VHS set of the special editions. I was vaguely aware of the difference, and I remembered certain scenes being different between the regular film and the special edition, such as that awful Jabba scene in front of the Falcon. I could also see in the little introduction to the special editions some examples of the changes and what it looked like originally. But I never had actually seen the original cuts of Empire or Jedi. Years went by and I soured on Star Wars due to the prequels, my newfound understanding of the alterations to the OT, the fact that the DVD and blu-ray contained more changes, and most of all the original cuts being withheld. Then in the wake of Last Jedi my opinion of the franchise was at an all time low, so I needed to remedy the situation by finally watching the despecialized fan edits. So basically only in the last six months did I finally see the theatrical cuts of Empire and Jedi.
Anyway, the point of all that was to say that I always knew the crappy pan flute music from the special edition. And the stupid CGI beak in the sarlacc pit. And that fucking awful CGI musical number at Jabba's palace. Oo-la wang choo koo-chee-pa-tie tan-ga ris-pa ta ya lee oh Yo, ahh, yal-lie. God that fucking scene has got to be the worst thing in any Star Wars film.
It always baffled me in a new hope, first appearance of grand Moff and the top brass meeting in the war room.
This little middle aged puke says to Vader in this impudent tone "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer ways. You and that sad religion...fuck u and the horse u rode in on...."
Lmao...wtf is this guy thinking? Did he think that was going to end well?
hahah. Yeah that guy is classic because he speaks to Vader with absolutely zero fucks given. My only thought (and I know nothing about the character and I'm sure others do since everybody has a backstory in the extended universe) is that the guy was close to Tarkin and was confident that Tarkin would protect him from Vader should the shit go down.
Meanwhile, it was a nice touch that Tarkin WAS in fact restraining Vader's aggression a bit throughout that movie. Leia makes the point about Tarkin holding the leash and then in Empire, Vader is killing Imperial officers that fail him at the drop of a hat.
Yeah that scene doesn't really jive with how Vader is depicted in the rest of the series because they hadn't fully established the hierarchy of the Empire and Vader's place in it. Vader was originally just a Jedi who turned to evil and betrayed his fellow Jedi to the Empire. Vader being Luke's father is technically a retcon, but a good one since it's a great twist, although Kenobi's explanation of Vader betraying and murdering Luke's father being true "from a certain point of view" is rather flimsy. Much better twist than Leia being Luke's sister, which I honestly try to ignore.
Anyway, something else apparent from that board room meeting scene and the first movie in general is that the Emperor was not originally intended to be a force user. There is no other explanation for why some random Imperial officer would be talking shit about the force, calling it a sad religion etc. This is driven home when Vader tells Tarkin that Kenobi is on the Death Star, and Tarkin calls Vader the last remaining remnant of the Jedi religion. This could possibly be logically retconned by saying that the Emperor kept his force powers a secret, but this doesn't fit with the officer in Return of the Jedi being so scared at learning the Emperor is personally on his way to the new Death Star, and it seems unlikely that the Emperor would keep his powers a secret from people such as Tarkin.
On a related note, it's also clear from Return of the Jedi that dark force users were not intended to use light sabers. The Emperor refers to it as a "Jedi weapon" and does so rather disdainfully. There is no indication he has ever used one himself, and obviously he wouldn't need to considering how ineffective Luke was against his force lighting. Vader used a light saber simply because he was the fallen Jedi.
Regarding that guy who gets choked, one could perhaps assume he had not previously seen Vader's powers in action? And if he had, he certainly didn't believe Vader would give so few fucks that he would just choke him right there for shit talking. Although part of it could be Vader proving a point? The guy was professing his disbelief in the usefulness of the force, so Vader force chokes him while specifically saying "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
It is very nice continuity that Tarkin is the only guy until the Emperor to boss Vader around, including ordering him to refrain from choking a guy to death, Leia says he's "holding Vader's leash," then after Tarkin is gone every officer is scared witless by Vader, and he kills people left and right for simple mistakes. He even killed the guy who took responsibility for losing the Falcon and apologized, even though it wasn't his fault.
