Grand Moff Tarkin

• 1. Introduction

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  Grand Moff Tarkin wears a rank that baffled even the actor who first gave it a face. Peter Cushing joked that he had no idea what a "Grand Moff" actually was, and that the phrase sounded like "something which infests a clothes closet". The silly-sounding title came to stand for cold, calculating command in the Star Wars franchise. Tarkin has since turned up in films, animated series, novels and comics. He has been played by one actor, imitated by several others, and finally rebuilt out of pixels. How did a character sketched with a very different purpose end up with such a long afterlife? And what happens to a performance when a franchise decides to bring it back without the performer?

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• 2. From Holy Man to Villain

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  Before he was an Imperial officer, Tarkin was meant to be a holy man from a planet called Aquila. That first concept did not survive. The character was rewritten as an antagonist, and the reason was practical. The Emperor would not appear until later in the original trilogy, so Lucas needed someone else to carry the villainy of the first film.

  Tarkin's final version became that main villain, a living stand-in for the entire Empire. A book produced to sell the film to prospective theaters went a step further and said he aspires to become Emperor himself.

  Cushing described the man he played as a "deeply cross and unpleasant gentleman". By 2006, the entertainment website IGN had named Tarkin "one of the most formidable villains" in Star Wars history.

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• 3. Commander of the Death Star

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  In the 1977 film Star Wars, Tarkin commands the Death Star, a giant station built by the Galactic Empire and armed with a superlaser that can obliterate whole planets. Emperor Palpatine has dissolved the Imperial Senate. Tarkin and Darth Vader, played by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones, are given the job of crushing the Rebel Alliance.

  Princess Leia Organa, played by Carrie Fisher, faces his cruelest bargain. Tarkin threatens to destroy her home planet, Alderaan, unless she reveals where the Rebels are based. She names Dantooine. He destroys Alderaan anyway, hoping to make an example of a world that backed the Rebellion. Once he learns that her answer was coerced and false, he orders her execution.

  A tracking beacon placed on the Millennium Falcon explains why the Rebels are allowed to flee with Leia. Tarkin hopes it will lead him to their hidden base. He then orders the station to destroy the base on Yavin 4. When Rebel starfighters attack, he refuses to believe the station is in danger and will not evacuate. Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, fires torpedoes into the exhaust port. Tarkin is last seen deep in thought, seconds before the Death Star explodes.

  Later films would return to the days leading up to that explosion.

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• 4. Taking Command

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  The final scene of Revenge of the Sith, released in 2005, shows a younger Tarkin watching the original Death Star take shape. Wayne Pygram plays him. He stands beside Darth Vader, played by Hayden Christensen, and Emperor Palpatine, played by Ian McDiarmid.

  In Rogue One, which takes place immediately before A New Hope, Tarkin meets Orson Krennic, played by Ben Mendelsohn. Krennic is Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Imperial Military, and Tarkin openly doubts how he is running the Death Star project. Then the station destroys the Holy City on the planet Jedha, its first attack on the Rebellion. Impressed, Tarkin congratulates Krennic, then announces that he will take command of the station himself. He points to security breaches that happened on Krennic's watch, much to Krennic's chagrin.

  News arrives of a Rebel attack on Scarif, the planet where the Death Star plans are kept. Tarkin orders a jump to hyperspace and arrives in the middle of a raging battle. He has the Death Star fire on the Scarif base. The blast kills Krennic, Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, and Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna, along with any other survivors of the ground fight.

  Stories set earlier still show Tarkin serving a different government.

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• 5. Republic Captain

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  The animated series The Clone Wars ran from 2010 to 2013, and it shows a younger Tarkin, voiced by Stephen Stanton, in the Galactic Republic Navy. He starts as a captain and later becomes an Admiral.

  In the third season, Captain Tarkin and Jedi Master Even Piell, voiced by Blair Bess, are ambushed by Separatist forces and imprisoned in the Citadel. A rescue team frees them. Tarkin is gloomy about being deep in enemy territory, and he clashes with Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, voiced by Matt Lanter. Their opinions of each other soften when each discovers that the other knows Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, voiced by Ian Abercrombie.

  During a skirmish, Tarkin tries to execute the Citadel's warden, Osi Sobeck, voiced by James Arnold Taylor. Sobeck strikes back and nearly kills him. Ahsoka Tano, Anakin's Padawan, voiced by Ashley Eckstein, arrives just in time to save him.

  By the fifth season, Admiral Tarkin suspects Ahsoka of masterminding a terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple. After she is recaptured, he asks the Jedi Order to expel her and hand her to the Republic, so that she can get a more "impartial" judgement. The Jedi agree. A jury of senators hears the case, with Tarkin leading the prosecution and Padmé Amidala, voiced by Catherine Taber, leading the defense.

  Padmé's defense is impressive, but Tarkin plants doubt by noting that Ahsoka was seen with the Dark Jedi Asajj Ventress, voiced by Nika Futterman. Just as Palpatine is about to read the verdict, Anakin walks in with Barriss Offee, voiced by Meredith Salenger, the true mastermind of the attack.

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• 6. Years of Empire

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  On the planet Kamino, in the premiere episode "Aftermath" of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Admiral Tarkin discusses the future of the clone troopers with Prime Minister Lama Su. The series, which ran from 2021 to 2024 on Disney+, is set between The Clone Wars and Rebels, and Stanton voices Tarkin again. Tarkin asks whether the Empire should keep producing clones at all, noting that conscripted soldiers would cost less.

  He puts Clone Force 99, the genetically enhanced squad known as the Bad Batch, through a battle simulation. He admires their skills but notices their disobedience. As a test of loyalty, he sends them to Onderon to eliminate refugees led by Saw Gerrera. When they disobey, he has them arrested. He singles out Crosshair as the most loyal to the Empire, and has the Kaminoan scientist Nala Se intensify the programming of Crosshair's inhibitor chip. The change turns Crosshair against his teammates, who escape Kamino.

  Tarkin is later promoted to Governor. In the episode "Replacements", he puts Crosshair in charge of an "elite squad" of recruits and sends them to finish the mission the Bad Batch abandoned. Its success convinces him that conscripts have potential. In "Return to Kamino", after most Imperial personnel have been evacuated, he orders Vice Admiral Rampart to destroy every settlement on the planet, wiping out most of the Kaminoan race. In the finale, "The Cavalry Has Arrived", he arrives with Captain Bragg and stormtroopers to find Dr. Royce Hemlock's base already destroyed.

  Star Wars Rebels, which aired from 2014 to 2018, finds Tarkin as Governor of the Outer Rim territories, including the planet Lothal, before he finally receives his Grand Moff title. Stanton voices him once more. He visits Lothal to deal with the growing Rebel cell and scolds Minister Maketh Tua, voiced by Kath Soucie, Agent Kallus, voiced by David Oyelowo, and the Inquisitor for their repeated failures. He has the Inquisitor execute Commandant Aresko and Taskmaster Grint, both voiced by David Shaughnessy, because they could not stop the cell's leader, the Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus, voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr.

  Tarkin then sets a trap and captures Kanan as the Rebels try to broadcast a message from a communication tower. The message still goes out, and Tarkin orders the tower destroyed. Kanan is tortured by the Inquisitor and carried toward the Mustafar system aboard Tarkin's Star Destroyer. During the rescue, Rebel forces destroy the Star Destroyer and kill the Inquisitor. On Lothal, Tarkin introduces Kallus to Darth Vader, voiced by James Earl Jones.

  Tarkin takes the loss of his ship personally and summons Maketh Tua. She understands what the summons means after the deaths of Aresko and Grint, and tries to defect to the Rebellion. Vader and Kallus kill her before she can leave Lothal.

  In the third season premiere, Tarkin meets Governor Pryce, voiced by Mary Elizabeth Glynn, and grants her request for the Seventh Fleet, commanded by Grand Admiral Thrawn, voiced by Lars Mikkelsen. In the season three finale he appears by hologram to hear about Thrawn's coming attack on Atollon.

  Towards the end of season four, Tarkin warns Thrawn to prove the worth of his TIE Defender program, a prototype for a new Imperial starfighter. Otherwise, resources will shift to Krennic's "Stardust project", which would eventually become the Death Star.

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• 7. Doctrine and Legends

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  The 2014 novel Tarkin was one of the first four canon novels released in 2014 and 2015. It follows his origins and shows how he meets Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader and aligns himself with them before the events of A New Hope. The book introduces his Star Destroyer, the Executrix, which later appears in Rogue One.

  The novel's key idea is the Tarkin Doctrine, a military system built on "the threat of force, rather than force itself". This philosophy becomes central to Imperial policy and earns him the position of first Grand Moff in the Empire. In the Galactic Empire, a Moff governs a Sector, while a Grand Moff governs an Oversector, a grouping of several Sectors.

  Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel, the prequel novel to Rogue One, gives Tarkin a rivalry with Advanced Weapons Director Orson Krennic. Glen Weldon's short story "Of MSE-6 and Men", published in the 2017 anthology From a Certain Point of View, adds a stranger twist. It reveals that Tarkin was sleeping with the stormtrooper TK-421 during A New Hope, after capturing Leia and before Luke Skywalker stole an armour set.

  The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. Most of the licensed Expanded Universe material since the 1977 film was then rebranded as Star Wars Legends, and in April 2014 it was declared non-canon.

  In Legends, Tarkin appears in several novels, including Death Star, Cloak of Deception, Rogue Planet and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader. The original Marvel Star Wars comic series features a superweapon named "The Tarkin" after the late Grand Moff. His protegee and lover, Natasi Daala, becomes a frequent antagonist in novels set after his death.

  West End Games' roleplaying material describes the Tarkin Doctrine as ruling "through the fear of force, rather than force itself". The New Jedi Order novels mention him as present on Zonama Sekot with Anakin Skywalker. In the comics series Darth Vader and the Lost Command, he tells Vader about a missing Imperial convoy, and adds that his own son was commanding it.

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• 8. Rebuilding Cushing

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  A life mask made of Peter Cushing for the 1984 film Top Secret! became the starting point for the most ambitious attempt to revive Tarkin. Earlier revivals were more modest. For Revenge of the Sith, Wayne Pygram used prosthetic makeup to achieve the likeness of a younger Tarkin.

  For The Clone Wars, Stephen Stanton took a vocal approach. He studied Cushing's performances, then tried to imitate how Cushing might have sounded in his mid-thirties. He softened the voice to give the character a degree of humanity.

  Rogue One in 2016 went much further. Archival footage and a digital scan of the Top Secret! life mask were used to build a 3D CGI mask. That mask was augmented and mapped onto the face of the actor Guy Henry. Henry had studied Cushing's mannerisms many years earlier for the lead role in the British TV show Young Sherlock. Still, he insisted on a screen test because he did not trust his vocal imitation. He feared he sounded more "Peter O'Toole than Peter Cushing".

  The effects team at ILM searched through hours of footage for suitable material. The lighting in A New Hope was very different from Rogue One's, so it had to be digitally altered. That created a dilemma. The more they adjusted the lighting to match the other actors, the less the model looked like Cushing. The team had to balance between "a digital figure" and "one who looked precisely like Cushing". The owners of Cushing's estate took part heavily, with input down to small and subtle adjustments.

  The result has been called "one of the most complex and costly CGI re-creations ever". Reaction was mixed, and critics asked whether it was right to use a dead actor's likeness at all. That question has followed the character ever since.

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