How Will Darth Vader Show Up In Star Wars: Rogue One?

Rumors are flying around that Darth Vader will show up to torment the Rebels in Rogue One. If that’s true, how will he do it?

According to Birth.Movies.Death. Darth Vader will be making an appearance in Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One, though he will apparently not be the primary villain of the piece.

If he’s not the main bad guy, what will he be doing?

Well, according to BMD, he’ll be showing up via viewscreens of holo projections. Apparently whether he shows up in person is still up to speculation.

What will happen if Vader does show up in person?

Well, there are a few possibilities. The first is that Vader will essentially be playing the guy Ben Mendelsohn’s Imperial Officer is answering to, which means he has a lot of pressure to bring these Rebels in or he’s going to be choked to death by Darth Vader.

The second option is that while Vader isn’t the primary Imperial force against our heroes, he will represent the might of the Empire as he’s constantly closing in on our heroes in a general sense. Mendelsohn might have a specific task force to take out this Rebel cell, but the presence of Vader is always looming.

The third option may play into the second, which is that Vader will show up in the third act to lay the smackdown on our heroes. After all, he’s actively pursuing Princess Leia for receiving transmissions containing the Death Star plans from a Rebel source at the beginning of A New Hope. Therefore, it stands to reason that Vader will finally catch up with our heroes in act three and in an attempt to wipe them out. However, they manage to get a transmission out with their stolen plans… which leads Darth Vader to Princess Leia’s ship in the first frame of A New Hope.

Didn’t Gareth Edwards say there were no Jedi in the movie?

Eh, semantics. Vader is technically a Sith anyway, but Edwards was talking about Jedi heroes. All our protagonists will be normal people in an extraordinary situation… and being hunted by a Dark Lord of the Sith with a vast Imperial fleet at his disposal seems very extraordinary to us.

If you can guess, how many minutes will we see Vader on screen?

Around 15 minutes at most probably, but keep in mind Anthony Hopkins was in Silence of the Lambs for a total of 16 minutes and won an Oscar for a role that has since become an iconic fixture of horror cinema. It isn’t how much Vader is used, but how the character is used that counts. You can do a lot with 15 minutes if you’re smart. Sometimes that’s all you need. Lucasfilm is hiring very talented people, so we probably shouldn’t be worried.