Darth Vader
Darth Vader is one of the most well-known cinematic villains. His distinctive breathing and black costume have made him a symbol of fear and evil. In the Star Wars universe, Vader is a Sith lord and the leader of the Galactic Empire. Vader has lead the empire through many campaigns in which thousands of innocent people were utterly murdered. With no remorse, Vader continued to do the will of his master, Emperor Palpatine. With the guidance of the dark side of the force, Vader’s mission is to seek out enemies of the empire and terminate them. Yet Vader’s history wasn’t always so dark. He was once a young Jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker. He was deceived in believing that Palpatine would save Anakin’s wife from dieing. When the inevitable came true, it was too late. Anakin had turned to the dark side and was made into dark-suited figure.
There has been some debate over many Star Wars fans as to whether or not Anakin ever truly became evil. Sure, he killed thousands, but he was deceived. So in one respect, it was not his fault. Anakin felt he was doing the right thing. Think about it, if you had just lost the only person you loved, wouldn’t you think differently about life? Now I’m sure most of you wouldn’t go out and start killing people. But when someone has barely any self-esteem, any person’s advice can be taken as the right advice. Any thoughts on Vader/Anakin?
A friend of mine, (who is much more of a Star Wars fan than I am), and I, frequently discussed this topic. My feeling on the matter is that, in a very real sense Anakin suffered what was essentially a 20 year psychotic break; divorced, by necessity, from the tragedy in which he played a part, and seeing nothing left for him but the quest for power, he retreated entirely into the Vader persona, until witnessing the possible death of his own son triggered the full re-emergence of his original personality.
The thing is, Sidious did a incompetent job of converting Anakin; it was nothing more than petty manipulation, and did nothing to reach Anakin in a way that would have made him a true Sith. From a symbolic standpoint I have always looked at Anakin/Vader’s maiming, and subsequent imprisonment in the Vader cyber-armor as a kind of metaphor for the unfinished nature of his conversion. Sidious embraced his own darkness, and gave the impression of someone completely at home in it. Whereas Anakin/Vader’s conversion was never complete; the divided physical nature of his character speaks of a deeply riven personality.
So much of this comes back to Lucas’ inability to portay evil as anything other than the consequence of momentary lapses into hubris, and megalomania. He could have looked at real cases of men who were won to evil causes and seen that the process is sometimes much more gradual, and insidious. But, he was so interested in fitting everything into the simple “good guy, bad guy” paradigm of popular films that he just ignored the possibility of a deeper journey for Anakin.
The Expanded Universe books have done a little better job of fleshing out Vader and his motives. But, so much of what needed to be seen in the movies could not be shown, because it would have contradicted the rather simple formula of the Star Wars popular appeal. Some of the ideas floating around before the last movie was released could have had some potential for greater explanatoru power.
(To be continued…)
Excuse the typo in last post; I meant explanatory power.
At any rate there were some changes that could have been made to the development of Anakin’s character that could have served the description of his corruption better. Some of what I relate here was nothing more than rumors, (dating from just before Revenge of the Sith’s release), and some were ideas that were considered by Lucas but discarded.
In the later category, there was, apparently some consideration of making Anakin and older and more scarred, (literally), character at the time of his fall. Some sketches in one of the Art of Star Wars books showed an Anakin already heavily, physically scarred during the time of the end of the Clone Wars. The impression I got from this was that they were considering making Anakin an existentially “older” character; one deeply marked by the experience of war. This kind of change might have made his fall more plausible, as war is one of those experiences that exacts a heavy toll on a person’s ethics. (Lucas, typically, decided against it because he felt that the audience would not be able to relate to a character who was this physically unattractive).
In reference to the rumors…Shorlty before the release of Episode III. there was a persistent rumor that there was going to be a “lover’s triangle”, dynamic with Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan. Though this would have pushed the boundaries of Star Wars propriety it could have been intersting; even if Lucas did not want to make it a fact of their interactions, he could have, perhaps, had Anakin laboring under the delusion that this was going on…