Vader's Lair
At this point in the general Star Wars timeline, Darth Vader reigns supreme as an avatar of evil—and the fact that the Dark Lord was still stalking around the galaxy provided not only the opportunity to make use of him in Rogue One's narrative, but also to explore previously unseen aspects of his character and his place in the Empire. When developing initial designs for The Empire Strikes Back, celebrated Star Wars artist Ralph McQuarrie had imagined a nightmare castle for Darth Vader—a domicile, asylum, and audience chamber to match the character's own visual menace. Though Empire's story development took a different turn and eventually moved away from depicting the Sith lord's lair, McQuarrie's vision of a lava hellscape would find its way on screen a quarter century later as Mustafar in Revenge of the Sith.
"The castle on Mustafar is this insanely uninviting place—a really evil place, deeply uncomfortable. But this is where Vader stays, because it's the only place he feels comfortable," said Christian Alzmann. "The idea is that he would have a mas-sive cylindrical machine in the center of his room—and in the center of that machine is a one-person bacta tank that looks out through a window onto the lava fields of Mustafar. It's both a meditation and a healing chamber." Serenity for one such as Vader, however, provided the art-ists opportunities for indulging their wildest fantasies of the macabre. Twisted and evil, the former Skywalker's notions of relaxation conjured images of horror for those tasked with imag-ining his dark haven.
"You realize that he's this crippled, broken, tragic figure—and that what he's looking at through his window is the location where his duel with Obi-Wan took place. The fact that he'd chosen to build his living mauso-leum here is a nod to the conflict in him—that he would go back to this place to reflect on what happened to the man he once was. At the same time, it's also terrifying, and when he emerges with all of his armor, he's Darth Vader."
