Let me begin by saying I stumbled upon this scene recently and thought of doing an entire RMD regarding torture scenes in movies. I felt like the films always show the creepy torture guy walk in or all the weird instruments and then just pan back to an exterior shot of the house or room and you hear the character screaming. However, upon further review, films like Hostel, Touristas, Saw, and any season of "24", among others, have ample on screen torture sequences. So I decided, despite surely coming off like a massive nerd, to narrow my RMD to this one stupid scene in Star Wars I (or IV, or whatever the first one ever made is called these days).
Here's the scene: Darth Vader has Princess Leia captive on his ship and he is demanding the location of the rebel base. Leia, stalwart in her role of Senator and hair-style pioneer, of course refuses, and denies knowledge of her rebel affiliation. Vader, not one to fall for tricks oft-used on the weak minded, brings in this stupid-looking floating mini-planet torture-bot. This is where I have a problem. It would appear that the only capability of this machine is to hold a syringe. I guess George Lucas, in all his infinite nerd-dom, simply felt that a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, humans simply would never want to hold a syringe. Think of the engineering and manufacturing costs involved with creating such a unique and sophisticated piece of equipment! This kind of wanton government spending is exactly why you have a galaxy wide rebellion going! Imagine how angry the conservatives on Coruscant must be! First the Empire overthrows their radical Jedi theocracy and now they're draining the limited galaxy budget to create useless military technology? What is this? Communist Russia? Has Emperor Palpetine ever heard of Thomas Jefferson and laissez-faire government? You're committing thousands of clones to useless patrol duties in the corridors of your supposedly secure base and you can't spare one to inject Leia with the torture serum? What exactly does the oversight committee in the Imperial senate actually do? Vader is supposed to be brilliant and has shown his distaste for the Imperial bureaucracy on a number of occasions, surely he can't endorse this.
More importantly, why is Vader allowing this machine to torture HIS DAUGHTER! This guy can choke people out using the force, clearly he is capable of superior and more cost-effective torture methods. Seriously, what the fuck Vader? How you gonna do your own daughter like this? Show some heart out there you bionic bitch and do it yourself.
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