Not to jump on the Brad Grenz Star Wars Express, but most of those explanations don’t hold up. For the droids, I would think that meeting his longtime companion that he built with his own hands would merit some sort of remark. Had Vader decided to check into it and find out how the droid managed to get there, he would have found out about Luke and their relationship (even though it was just coincidental that C3PO ended up with Luke–in fact, it’s a massive coincidence that Leia’s ship happens to get waylaid right over Tattooine, but we’ll let that go for now).
For Vader figuring out Luke, I totally don’t get it. How does Vader know that Luke is his son in “Empire?” He can’t have picked it from Luke’s mind, because Luke doesn’t know it yet. One possible explanation is that he can just “sense” Luke is his kid through the Force. But if that’s so, why can’t he sense that LEIA is his kid, especially since he spends WAY more time with her than he does with Luke? I can’t think of any other possible explanation, unless you want to assume that some unnamed person told Vader that Luke was his son at some point that isn’t in the movies. Either way, lame.
Not to jump on the Brad Grenz Star Wars Express, but most of those explanations don’t hold up. For the droids, I would think that meeting his longtime companion that he built with his own hands would merit some sort of remark. Had Vader decided to check into it and find out how the droid managed to get there, he would have found out about Luke and their relationship (even though it was just coincidental that C3PO ended up with Luke–in fact, it’s a massive coincidence that Leia’s ship happens to get waylaid right over Tattooine, but we’ll let that go for now).
Like Ben mentions, the one time Darth and C3P0 share screen time is in Bespin when Threepio isn’t even with Luke. He’s in pieces with Chewbaca. As Threepio is one of any number of droids that look just like him in Cloud City (as is established by how C3P0 wanders off in the first place, bumping into the rude protocol droid, then hearing an astromech droid), why would Vader give it a second thought? Was a droid in pieces a threat to him at all? Not after the trap was sprung. Would you recognize a toy you had when you were 7 when you saw it (one that looks like millions of others made)? If you did, and you were the 2nd most powerful man in the universe, would you even care? If he does recognize it, maybe that’s one of the clues that lead him to the conclusion that Luke is his son. He could also have realized that the droids he was searching for in Star Wars ended up with Beru and Owen, who perhaps he knew for a fact had no children of their own. After realizing luke was force sensetive he could have gone back and done some research and figured things out. The Emperor could also have given him some more information. Luke and Leia were still seperated, so finding out about Luke wouldn’t have told him about Leia. We’re speculating about an incomplete story, though. We don’t know what will go on in Episode III, so it’s premature to be lambasting Lucas for lacking continuity.
I think there’s some things that were left unsaid, and I think much of that is because they decided to make Vader Luke’s father and Leia his sister during production, so there wasn’t much planning ahead in either case. But I think it works out fine.
I can’t picture Vader doing research. Being evil was a full time job for him, even if it was just choking people, or using Force Trip or Force Flatulence.
“Vader, in my old age I have started developing a less than favorable… condition. You see… I just can’t get the old man-sabre up anymore. It’s to expected, when you’re as old as I, but it’s still no excuse. None of the Royal Imperial Slave Girls want to come anywhere near me, and I keep killing all the good Royal Imperial Bath Boys… could you, you know, please go and do some research for me on some, say, male stimulus drugs?”
Vader knows that Obi Wan is on the Death Star, because Vader tells Tarkan that he has sensed him. They also know that Obi Wan did not come alone, because the prison break would have been reported. And they suspect that the droids the hold the stolen Death Star plans are also with him, because they recognize the Falcon as being the same ship that busted out of Mos Eisely. Vader and Tarkan probably assume that Obi Wan and his companions have come to rescue Leia, and they elect to let them escape (after placing a tacking beacon on the Millenium Falcon), figuring that they can follow the Falcon to the rebel base and destroy it before the rebels can make use of the information in the droids.
It’s never made clear that Vader knows specifically who the droids are. They are never refered to by name.
Had Vader decided to check into it and find out how the droid managed to get there, he would have found out about Luke and their relationship
Even if he recognizes the droids, it’s not like he’d be surprised to discover that R2-D2 and C3P0 are tagging along with Obi Wan Kenobi, since that is exactly what they were doing the last time he and Obi Wan met. He’d certainly be more likely to make this connection (which is the most obvious one) than to assume that the person hanging out with the protocol droid that he built as a kid is somehow his long lost son.
For the droids, I would think that meeting his longtime companion that he built with his own hands would merit some sort of remark.
What kind of remark? And to whom? Vader isn’t really into the “sharing my personal feelings” thing.
For Vader figuring out Luke, I totally don’t get it. How does Vader know that Luke is his son in “Empire?”
You answered that question yourself. Stormtroopers raided Owen and Beru’s farm. They knew that the droids were gone, and that someone had taken them. If they searched the farm, they probably would have uncovered the fact that Luke was living there. Vader probably pieced the rest together from there. Thus, he figured it out based on available evidence (probably supported by a Force-guided guess). But he had no similar credible evidence to link Leia back to himself.
Of course that does raise the question “why the hell did Obi Wan hide Luke with Vader’s step-parents?” And the answer is “I have no idea.” Seems like a pretty dumb thing to do.
When I first saw Star Wars (and Empire), I assumed that Owen and Beru (and Luke) were in hiding on Tatooine–that perhaps they fled to the ass end of the galaxy to hide from the Empire (and to hide Luke from Vader). Giving Luke over to Owen and Beru’s care makes more sense if Owen and Beru themselves go into hiding. It makes a lot less sense if they are still living at the same address that they were living at when Anakin first met them. Might as well hide Luke in a Stormtrooper bunk on the Death Star.
The C3P0 thing is dumb not because it doesn’t make logical sense, but because it seems like a pointless (and contrived) coincidence. The hiding Luke with Owen and Beru thing seems dumb because it seems like a really stupid thing to do, which is out of character for Obi Wan.
And these bizarre coincidences are what I like least (yes, even less than Jar Jar Binks) about the new movies. Lucas seems obliged to slip them in EVERYWHERE, and most of them are contrived and silly. For some reason he feels that it’s necessary to explain things for which the audience needs no explanation, so we end up in a situation in which there are no incidental characters in Episodes 4-6–everyone has some sort of secret past personal tie to Luke and company. And that’s really, really dumb.
Good one. Also, Lucas, from the start, made it clear that people pay little attention to Droids in this universe. This includes barkeeps and smugglers who hate hearing about the “odds”.
A better (simpler) theory is that, after he got blown and spun from the trench, he endeavored to find out who that pilot “whom the Force was strong with” (paraphrased) actually was. Who made that “yahoo kid … that was one in a million” shot was. And he recognized his own name after hearing the scuttlebutt.
It’s also possible that, when he felt Luke using the Force in the trench, Vader made some sort of psychic connection. He feels Luke’s power, something seems familiar, then all of a sudden he’s like “Holy shit! That’s my SON!”
Which explains why he’s suddenly so keen to find him at the start of the next movie. And why he never makes the Leia connection until the very end: Leia never uses the Force.
