Grand Moff Tarkin

Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He was introduced in the original 1977 Star Wars film as the main antagonist, and the commander of the Death Star, a gigantic spherical space station built by the Galactic Empire, equipped with an immensely powerful superlaser capable of obliterating entire planets. Tarkin is portrayed by Peter Cushing in Star Wars. Tarkin also appears in the films Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One, and in the animated series The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Bad Batch. He is featured in the 2014 novel Tarkin, which details his backstory and his rise to power within the Empire. In 2006, the entertainment website IGN called Tarkin "one of the most formidable villains" in Star Wars history.

Tarkin's character was originally conceived as a holy man from the planet Aquila, but was changed to an antagonist. As the Emperor would not appear until later in the original trilogy, Lucas used Tarkin's final version as the "main villain" of the first film, a personification of the Empire. According to a book created to help promote the original film to prospective theaters, he aspires to become the Emperor.

Cushing later joked that he did not know what a "Grand Moff" actually was, and that it sounded like "something which infests a clothes closet". He characterized Tarkin as a "deeply cross and unpleasant gentleman".

In the 2005 prequel film Revenge of the Sith, Wayne Pygram was able to achieve the likeness of a young version of Tarkin through the use of prosthetic makeup. For his performance as Tarkin in the animated series The Clone Wars, the voice actor Stephen Stanton researched Cushing's performances and then tried to imitate what Cushing might have sounded like in his mid-thirties and soften his voice to portray a level of humanity.

In the 2016 film Rogue One, archival footage and a digital scan of Peter Cushing's life mask made for the 1984 film Top Secret! were used to create a 3D CGI mask which was augmented and mapped to actor Guy Henry's face. Henry had studied Cushing's mannerisms many years previously for the lead role in British TV show Young Sherlock, but insisted on a screen test as he was not comfortable that his vocal imitation was accurate, stating he sounded more "Peter O'Toole than Peter Cushing". The ILM team searched through hours of footage to find suitable material of Cushing to build from. The footage from A New Hope was lit very differently to the lighting used in Rogue One and had to be digitally changed. The more they manipulated the lighting to match the other actors in the scenes the less like Cushing the character model looked, which meant creating a balancing act between "a digital figure" and "one who looked precisely like Cushing". The owners of Cushing's estate were heavily involved with the creation and had input right down to small and subtle adjustments. The result, which has been called "one of the most complex and costly CGI re-creations ever", received a mixed response, with questions being raised about the morality of using a dead actor's likeness.

Introduced in the first film in the original Star Wars trilogy, Governor Tarkin is a Grand Moff of the Galactic Empire and commander of the Death Star. After Emperor Palpatine dissolves the Imperial Senate, Tarkin and Darth Vader (portrayed by David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones) are charged with pursuing and destroying the Rebel Alliance. He threatens Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) with the destruction of her home planet, Alderaan, if Leia does not reveal the location of the Rebel main base of operations. When Leia names the planet Dantooine as the base's location, he destroys Alderaan regardless, hoping to make an example out of the planet's support of the Rebellion. Upon learning that Leia's coerced information was false, Tarkin orders Leia's execution.

He allows the Rebels to escape the Death Star with Leia after placing a tracking beacon on the Millennium Falcon in order to find the Rebel base. He orders the Death Star to destroy the Rebel base on Yavin 4. In the film's climax, Tarkin refuses to believe that the Death Star is in danger from the Rebel starfighter attack; as a result, he refuses to evacuate. He is subsequently killed by Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who succeeds in destroying the Death Star by firing torpedoes into the exhaust port. Tarkin is last seen deep in thought seconds before the Death Star explodes.

At the end of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, the final film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, a younger version of Tarkin, played by Wayne Pygram, makes a cameo appearance overseeing the original Death Star's construction, standing beside Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) and Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid).