10 MASSIVE Star Wars Moments You Didn't Even See!
8. How Vader Was Rescued After The Destruction Of The First Death Star
Remember the dramatic climax of Episode IV - A New Hope?
How could you forget?
Luke Skywalker using the Force to successfully blow up the Death Star. Han Solo proving he did have a heart by arriving late on to help his pal. Oh, and that latter moment also resulted in the farmboy-turned-Jedi's pops being hilariously knocked into a spin as he rolled out of the film altogether.
That was the last we saw of Darth Vader in this epic first Star Wars movie. But with the Sith Lord ultimately popping back up in Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back on Hoth like none of that embarrassing TIE fighter chaos had even happened, it begs the question: how was Vader able to escape his rotating fate?
Well, though it wasn't ever shown on-screen, it turns out that after being knocked into space by one of his escorts, the former Anakin Skywalker eventually sent out a distress signal to the Devastator star destroyer. And following on from that, as covered in Claudio Gray's Lost Stars novel, a pair of Imperial pilots, Ciena Ree and Berisse Sai, picked up Vader.
As simple as the act itself may be, it's still a pretty important detail that explains precisely how the cyborg was able to reunite with the Empire after such a humiliating defeat.