So while I don’t do it often anymore, I used to go to the movies a lot. I have a relatively good suspension of disbelief. My dad used to show us Star Wars on tape when I was a kid; it was a recorded copy, and at some point we gave him a set of the trilogy on VHS.

I even have seen all 9 main movies in the theatre, with the mid-90s re-releases. While the original movies were the best, I actually enjoyed the prequels; while they suffered from a certain level of “Nobody can say no to George Lucas”, I understand some of what they were aiming for, and I feel that part of the problem is that they were more cerebral than the originals; there’s a lot of subtle political jockeying that I think was too complex for many to get. That said, they’re still better than the Disney stuff.

I also saw Rogue One. Rogue One is the most competently assembled of the Disney movies; it’s legitimately a solid movie and is the one I would watch again. But at the same time, it absolutely ruins A New Hope for me, and as such, I personally have to consider it non canon.

When Episode 4 opens, you initially see Leia’s ship, the Tantive IV, fleeing from an Imperial Star Destroyer. It fires lasers back in an attempt to delay as it jets for Tatooine. However, this fails; and is pulled in by a tractor beam, and while the crew attempt to resist, the Empire forcibly boards the vessel. Vader enters, and kills Captain Antilles when he fails to answer questions. Then he sends his men out to find Leia and the Death Star plans.

The entire scene is framed in a way that Vader comes off as evil, overzealous, and that he doesn’t actually have a good reason to pursue and board the ship. Leia alludes to this as she mouths off to him directly after being captured, noting that the Senate will disapprove of her arrest and it will cause turmoil.

But Rogue One ruins this.

Leia and her ship were present at the Battle of Scarif. This was a illegal terroristic uprising against the Empire, which, despite being evil, is the legitimate ruling government. Vader intervened in the battle, during which a copy of the Death Star plans were transmitted from the surface into space. The schematics for the Death Star were classified. There’s no way they weren’t. When Vader personally attempted to reclaim a data disk of the plans, and was attacked by several rebels as they played keep-away with them, eventually passing them through a stuck bulkhead to a crewman on the Tantive IV, which immediately flees the scene to go to Tatooine.

As such, Vader has ironclad evidence of the presence of the Tantive IV at Scarif, and has strong circumstantial evidence they could be in possession of classified military hardware data. This alone would be sufficient in many areas for a informal questioning by law enforcement, if not enough to get an arrest warrant, especially considering they fled the scene.

In his capacity as an agent of the government, Vader pursues the Tantive IV. According to Wookiepedia, within an hour, they meet above Tatooine, and the Tantive IV repeatedly fires on Vader’s ship; legally, they themselves are now shooting at the government, and Vader could arguably justify using lethal force to protect himself and his crew. However, he instead has the ship dragged in by tractor beam, and orders the ship hull to be breached and entered. The crew attempts to repel the empire and fails; legally, the Stormtroopers can probably claim self-defense.

Vader enters and attempts to interrogate the ship’s captain, killing him after he fails to break him. This is certainly over the top and unnecessary even in this framing. He then orders Leia to be captured, not killed, which is actually more levelheaded than many real life law enforcement agencies would be in this position.

Leia passes off the Death Star plans, and is cornered in a room by two Stormtroopers, one of whom she kills by shooting him in the face before she is incapacitated and captured.

Thus, at the point Vader finally gets her dragged up, Leia has the following charges that could reasonably be presented against her:

• Fleeing the site of a criminal offense.
• Illegal possession of classified military documents.
• Resisting arrest.
• Any injuries or fatalities on the side of the Empire from the gun battle or the boarding action.
• Assault of a government agent.
• Murder in the Second Degree.

Honestly I’m probably missing some, but with that list, the whole tone has now shifted. Vader has her dead to rights on several major felony offenses, some of which would could have conceivably ended much worse for her. Vader comes off as relatively reasonable given the situation; he’s an agent of the government ordered to investigate a crime, and he is following a realistically solid lead in that crime. And the fact that in that capacity, he and his crew were repeatedly assaulted and at least one person was killed, and he still takes her into custody, comes off as downright merciful.

Certainly, Vader has an ulterior motive for not executing her on the spot, and Leia can’t ACTUALLY be brought up on trial in court because she could use it to reveal the Death Star’s existence. But on the whole, the Tantive IV’s actions have given the Empire a mountain of evidence that would require very little manipulation to completely bury Leia and any other survivors in any theoretical trial. The Empire doesn’t need to lie about the situation much at all; the optics are absolutely terrible for the Senator from Alderaan. They had reason to suspect her and then she simply did Everything You Don’t Do when the cops want to question you.

Not that answering questions would’ve helped her, but it just ruins the tone for me when you realize all this.

Also Galen Urso is a bad engineer, but that’s a separate issue.

-Arrow

P.S. I know I missed yesterday. I’ll try and make it up this weekend.