Star Wars: The Tragic Tale of Darth Vader

I apologize now if I start bashing heavily bashing George Lucas in these posts. That is not my intent, but he has done and said things about the Star Wars movies (and let's not forget Indiana Jones and the License to Print Money) that don't always make sense. One of which concerns Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader; Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy established him as a tragic character, one who fell from grace to become one of the most ruthless and deadly beings in the galaxy, only to redeem himself by fatally injuring himself to kill his master, Emperor Palpatine. But there was no trace of his inner conflict in either A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. In those movies, he was portrayed as pure evil because the inner conflict hadn't yet been established (the revelation that he was Luke Skywalker's father was a late addition to Empire).

The entire story of the six Star Wars movies was redefined as the story of the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. Never mind that the focus was clearly on the Rebels in the original movies or that George Lucas said for years that he wanted to make 9 movies (although he vehemently denies that now). The prequels were about telling his rise and fall, in order to explain why Darth Vader was who he was when we met him in the original trilogy. In theory, I really like the story because tragic characters intrigue me, and if Lucas had planned this from the beginning, I think it would have been an incredible story. But as it is, we were introduced to Vader as an absolute, a being of pure, unrepentant evil. And that's what audiences attached to. We liked watching a villain who was merciless and completely dedicated to the cause of evil. Don't get me wrong, I usually prefer villains (and heroes) who are very complex and neither purely good nor purely evil, but every now and then, an absolute is pretty fun (just look at the Joker). In A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, there was not a single spark of goodness in Vader. When made his big paternity revelation to Luke, we could see it as the necessary step Luke needed to take to become an absolute to defeat Vader (because we thought we were watching Luke's story; and on the other hand, Vader could have been lying because he was EVIL).

But after Lucas decided to make Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker the same person, he decided that Vader should be redeemed through his son. He decided to introduce the Emperor in Return of the Jedi (instead of the proposed 9th film) as the new absolute evil, instead of the powerless bureaucrat he originally envisioned Palpatine to be. All of the sudden, Vader became but a pawn. There was also a scene where he showed some hesitation after Luke accused him of having good deep down inside. I still enjoy Return of the Jedi, but Vader went from being all evil to all good because his son told him so.

Interestingly enough, the opposite complaint is leveled against Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogies; people accuse him of going from all good to all evil without any reason. I think this is slightly exagerated, but this criticsim does have its merit. It was clear from Attack of the Clones that Anakin had some anger issues when he slaughtered the sandpeople who abducted and killed his mother. Granted, revenge is a basic human desire, but Jedi are trained to suppress a lot of basic human emotions and desires (more on that in the next post). In The Phantom Menace, we are TOLD that Anakin has a lot of fear and anger, but with the exception of one scene, all of that manifests as sadness (and he was a pretty happy kid for a slave).

When I talk about these "what-would-have-beens", I cannot substantiate most of them, but I have heard them from many sources for many years, so I am basing a lot of my conclusions on them. In Revenge of the Sith, Anakin was pushed over the edge when he saw Mace Windu try to kill Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (who had recently revealed himself to Anakin as Darth Sidious and promised him a way to save his wife). Strangely, even though he knew Palpatine was a Sith and that he had manipulated the events of the prequels, Anakin took Palpatine's side in the "Jedi Rebellion" and the formation of the Empire. I've recently read about how, originally, Revenge of the Sith was going to focus less on Anakin fearing Padme's death and more on Palpatine convincing him that the Jedi were trying to take over the Republic (see above for my position on my sources). In the final cut, there were cursory references to making people think the Jedi were trying to take over, then after Palpatine told everyone about the supposed Rebellion, everyone, including Anakin, believed him. But even when Anakin aided Palpatine in killing Windu, Anakin was still conflicted. It wasn't until Palpatine promised to save Padme's life that Anakin decided to join Palpatine and believe absolutely everything he said.

As I said, in theory, the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker is a great story. He came from nothing, could have had everything, but decided to take everything instead. He became one of the most feared men in the galaxy, but was redeemed by his son when his master tried to kill his son. But the story was reshaped numerous times, and we ended up with a somewhat strange path to the dark side.

Up next: The way of a Jedi...