Was Vader Known to be Human in ANH?

The Empire was prejudice against non humans. I can't imagine they thought he was anything other than human and machine, with such a high position in the Empire.

 

I think he was always meant to be human (look at the large number of humans throughout A New Hope).

The OP is asking from an out-of-universe perspective.

 

Well, you can clearly see through his helmet to his eye(s) at a couple points in the movie, which suggests he has some level of "organic" bodily composition.

 

Not only that, but he's said to be "more machine now than man". Sure, you could argue that man could refer to aliens as well in-universe, but nothing about Vader screams alien. Wouldn't Luke have looked different if Anakin had been non-human?

The various scripts for Star Wars also state that Vader was once human.

 

Luke's appearance is relevant because Vader was human in McQuarrie's concept drawings as well. If Vader was, for example a Bith, then I highly doubt that Lucas would have chosen him to be Luke's father.

"The various scripts for Star Wars also state that Vader was once human." When I'm saying Star Wars, I mean A New Hope. The 1977 theatrical release of A New Hope was simply titled Star Wars.

 

I can only see that during the Millennium Falcon/Obi Wan feeling presence moment.

 

I think Lucas always thought that Vader was going to be human because of his relationship with Luke and Leia. The whole surprise factor was that Vader was really Luke's father and not that there was a weird creature under the mask. It's kind of funny now that I think of it but even as a kid when I first saw Vader I never thought that there would be an alien under there and I always thought of him as a human. Apart from that, let's look at the aliens we saw in ANH.

When we look at the known alien species that Lucas created, there would be none that would have fit under the Vader helmet except for Trinto Duaba. The other one that could fit was Dannik Jerriko but it was really after ANH that it was established that he was an Anzati as I'm pretty sure that he was considered just another plain creepy looking human like Dr Evazan and even if he her already considered an alien at the point when the movie was made there would still be no point to putting a human looking alien under Vader's helmet as that would have been pretty dumb. Finally the other aliens we saw outside the cantina were the Tusken Raiders and Wioslea.



It's pretty obvious that Wioslea can't fit under Vader's melon and the Tusken's were never said to be aliens by the time of ANH so they could easily have been thought of as a tribe of desert dwelling humans.

 

Vader was identified as a former Jedi, when Obi-Wan admitted to being his former mentor. As for being human before he became Anakin Skywalker, I don't know.

 

That's true... He was called "young" ("a young Jedi named Darth Vader" - which implies aging), and you could see his eyes. So at least he wasn't a robot, if nothing else.

 

All the other Rebels and Imperials in ANH are human, so most likely yes.

 

Vader did enjoy killing humans in TNH eg:

 

Porkins was apparently meant to be a Gamorrean, but the actor found dressing up as pig-man offensive, so he was kept as a human, lol .

 

I get a kick out of this