In this day and age of extreme “with us or against us” attitudes, I truly appreciate and respect playing the agree to disagree card, so I’m not trying to be antagonizing or keep an argument going just for the sake of arguing.

I just genuinely don’t get this argument against R1’s depiction of Vader. You say he waved his arms around too much, but he was routinely using hand gestures when he used the force in the OT. He didn’t always use hand gestures, and I agree that that was very intimidating indeed. But to say he’s too animated in R1 ignores many of his scenes in the OT. I mean, what about him dancing around like, you know, a fencer when he’s dueling Obi-wan. Or his aggressive pummeling of Luke as he drives Luke backwards onto the catwalk in Cloud City? Vader is imposing and powerful and intimidating, absolutely. But he’s also a man of action who routinely ventures out to the front lines leading his men by example rather than sitting back and directing from on high.

He leads the fighter attack on the rebels in the Death Star trench, he actively storms Echo Base with his snow troopers, he travels to Endor to “deal with them myself” (even if that resulted in just taking Luke back to the Emperor), etc.

I have no problem believing that he would join his troops in storming the Rebel command ship at Scariff and, given the severity and time critical-ness of the situation, split up in an effort to intercept the plans at all costs. When he found the hallway full of rebels, he did what he routinely does in the OT and goes into action.