SPECULATION Why was the Tantive IV over Tatooine?

Yes that would be a good scene, Bail says: So this is were a jedi chooses to exile himself? Obi Wan: I chose here for a reason.

 

Tantive IV was over Tatooine because Princess Leia had been sent there by her father to pick up Obi-Wan Kenobi to take him to Alderaan to help plan the Death Star attack. Unfortunately, it didn't happen because Leia's ship was intercepted by the Empire which sought the captured Death Star plans which Leia had in her possesion.

In desperation, Leia knew she was going to be captured and detained and interrogated, so she hid the plans inside R2-D2 and ordered him to locate Kenobi himself, hoping that Kenobi would somehow try to rendezvous with her father.

 

If she goes to the Rebel base while being chased, then she may be followed by Vader and the Death Star. That would mean that Yavin........gets destroyed. So she had to go with the plan of picking up Obi-Wan and then going to Alderaan.

 

True. Remember what Vader said when they thought the Millennium Falcon had jumped to hyperspace from the Anoat system in TESB?

Admiral Piett: Lord Vader, our ships have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. If the Millennium Falcon went into light-speed, it'll be on the other side of the galaxy by now.
Darth Vader: Alert all commands. Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory.

Maybe they did the same with the Tantive IV.
I was reading "Lost Stars" to check if they offered more details about it, but they just cover when the Devastator engages the Tantive IV with its tractor beam.

He would trust her with his life. Aww.

 

Imagine how pissed he was when he saw the trajectory was bypassing Tatooine? Oh man....

 

Because.

 

In the original plan was to find Kenobi to take it to Alderaan, but after being intercepted they decided to go without him, until they were attacked.

 

I thought Leia was on her way to recruit Obi-Wan for help.

 

Bail also knew Leia's brother was on Tatooine.

 

Well also because he knew Anakin would ever come back to Tattooine
.

 

To pick up Obi-Wan Kenobi, there's not much I can add here as it's clear from the final film.

However, the ANH novelization adds what looks like a cover story. In the novelization Vader states that Leia's ship was in a terrible shape and in desperate need of repairs (adding credibility to his fake story that the ship suffered an accident in space).

So I think that repairs of the ship would have been Leia's actual cover story (while in fact it was just an excuse to give her time to find and contact Kenobi, had Vader not interfered).

Perhaps that's what Lucas had in mind, in TPM we also saw a Princess that had to land her ship on Tatooine - to make repairs...

 

Leia was going to pick up Obi-wan on her fathers orders.

The real question is why was the ship hiding inside of Radise's during the battle?

 

inside what ?

 

IMHO, the really "real" question remains whether that was really Leia's ship docked to Admiral Raddus' Profundity.

Thankfully (IMHO) the actual onscreen visuals keep the issue (deliberately?) somewhat ambiguous.

While I don't have a screenshot, yet, to present what is undoubtedly Leia's ship, this artist's painting captures the essence of one of the last Rogue One shots:



We just see Leia's (correctly: Antilles') ship and what appears to be Scarif in the background, but no other activity.

I would have expected to see Imperial ships (e.g. remaining TIE fighters) pursuing the Tantive IV, but none are visible. So the original Lucas premise (i.e. Leia passed through a restricted system and received the Death Star plans via transmission) appears to have remained somewhat intact, but, of course, YMMV.

 

Didn't Leia's recorded message to Obi-Wan made that clear?