There is great video on how the Jedi teachings of no emotion and complete detachement are awful for anyone who would attempt them and directly lead to his turn to the dark side.
It is okay, Darth Vader is the lead protagonist in the Star Wars universe. Without him, the Emperor would never have been defeated.
He is the one that goes through the hero’s arc.
Luke Skywalker was a complete failure in every way possible. The only thing he succeeded at was being so worthless that Vader finally had to act and save both his son and the universe.
Because Obi Wan was a brother to Anakin when he needed a father. That’s what makes Qui Gons death so much more devestating, as it sealed the ultimate downfall of the Jedi and the Republic as a whole
In fact, while it would have been more difficult to make it a neat and tidy film, it would have been great to have a bit of development time and a flash forward for at least a few months (though a year or two would’ve been better) to show Qui-gon with his two apprentices, to the consternation of the Council, and having things going great for the three of them, bonding like a sort of family as it were.
Then Qui-gon is killed, Obi-wan is driven by his attachment to both Qui-gon and Anakin to step into the mentor role before he’s ready, to preserve what’s left of this attachment dynamic, and things go downhill from there.
I liked the prequel because of the mirror between Luke and Anakin. Luke had friends, a caring loving family, was born into royalty but grew up in the slums, his teachings were to be his most self and he had agency in how he wanted his destiny to turn out, not being pressed into a box of expectations and limitations. The list goes on but I always loved the idea George Lucas had, felt like he just needed to solidify his ideas a bit more
The issue was making them about Vader at all. He was just some lackey who was the protagonist’s dad, that doesn’t mean you need three movies of back story on how he got there.
If you want to do that, then you need to make them far more emotionally invested films because they are just a cavalcade of inept decisions.
In the OT the actors would regularly be like “I don’t think this line sounds good let’s with this instead”
But in the PT everyone just went along with everything due to lack of experience and not wanting to be hard to work with/think they’re better than the director
That’s just about the opposite of the relative experience of the actors involved in both trilogies.
The original trilogy was filled with almost completely inexperienced actors. The prequels were mostly cast with experienced performers, excepting the child actors of course.
The real difference is that Lucas didn’t actually direct most of the original trilogy in the first place.
I think Mark Hamill has mentioned before that there were times when Harrison Ford pushed back against Lucas that Han Solo would never say the lines he was given, and got them changed as a result.
The Jedi are so needlessly neglectful towards Anakin in their attempt to try to teach him to be emotionally detached, and then they wonder why he became loyal to the only guy who would actually listen to him (even if it was just to use him).
Because the jedi aren’t the good guys. I’ve said it for years they’re designed as the righteous side of the same coin of the Sith. Always rambling about balance and such then willingly submitting as the lapdog police force of the bloated and corrupt Republic, only taking action when their masters need a war. It’s thousands of years of moral objectivity gone wrong through the eyes of dogma fanatics who’ve lost their way.
Even Luke’s revival (fuck off Disney) is bound to fail.
That is why Anikin was too old to be trained as a Jedi. Not because he was too old to learn how to fight, but because he was too old to be brainwashed to be a warrior monk. He had ties to the outside world. If they had started his training at birth, he would have no worldly ties to hold him back.
And before anyone calls me out on it, I have not consumed any Star Wars media other than the first 6 movies. I am well aware that I am pulling lore out of my butt.
The jedi are so colossally ignorant it’s sometimes funny. They, in the height of their power during the new republic, sought to fulfill a prophecy that would bring balance to the force. My dudes, the scale is so heavily tipped in your favor what the fuck do you think is going to happen?
Actually the council decided not to, but qui-gon, the grayest motherfucker there, decided to do it anyway. Maybe there was some intent there?
Quigon trusted the force. There were 2 paths, and he hoped for the one that didn’t come to pass. And then he trusted that Obiwan would be able to stand in for him if he needed to.
The most damning thing he ever said was ‘you were my brother Anakin. I loved you.’ Because a brother was not what Anakin needed.
But, you know what, I blame the whole thing on Yoda. One kind word from Yoda. One reassurance from this being who had lived so long in the world he literally had no right to not have god like wisdom, and it all would have been averted. So many possible off ramps and they failed anakin at every turn. It’s the most tragic story ever.
Wasn’t this like the sort-of theme of the third trilogy? The Jedi tried to eschew attachments to prevent strong emotions like anger, jealousy, fear, and hatred. But Luke realizes that the Jedi were wrong. Being connected to other people is what the Force is all about.
At least, I think that’s what they were going for when the franchise sat on its own collective balls.
Hey TLJ was good. RoS…yeah I definitely try to forget that exists. Palpatine flying around on the weird tentacle arm thing made me audibly groan and roll my eyes so hard they nearly fell out.
I still hold out that Rey and Ben should have switched sides in that movie (at least temporarily), because it really would have let us explore some cool ideas that hadn’t been done before.
But I do agree that the “letting go of the past” thing was a really great theme to have as the core of the movie, because it shows that Luke was falling right into the same mindset that the Jedi order had and was their downfall. But this time, he didn’t let the “old ways” become his downfall.
That definitely would have been interesting and there were a lot of scenes in TLJ that hinted Rey was exploring some dark thoughts. Too risky for the mouse I guess.
I don’t think they should have switched sides but make their own thing all together, grey jedi style. Maybe not even as allies but at least something new. Kylo was clearly never as into the whole “dark side” stuff the same way Vader was and Rey had barely any association to the jedi, except for being force sensitive.
Would this have been better? Maybe, but at least it would have been DIFFERENT from just rehashing the OT. I’d rather see something I like try and fail that to not try at all.
As much as I think it would have been really cool to explore that as well. Here’s just a little friendly reminder that “let the past die” is coming from the villain of the movie
From the corner of his eye, he saw Threepio stiffen. “I hope I didn’t offend you, sir,” the droid said anxiously. “That was certainly not my intent.”
“You didn’t offend me,” Luke assured him. “As a matter of fact, you might have just delivered Ben’s last lesson to me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Luke sipped at his drink. “Governments and entire planets are important, Threepio. But when you sift everything down, they’re all just made up of people.”
There was a brief pause. “Oh,” Threepio said.
“In other words,” Luke amplified, “a Jedi can’t get so caught up in matters of galactic importance that it interferes with his concern for individual people.” He looked at Threepio and smiled. “Or for individual droids.”
“Oh. I see, sir.” Threepio cocked his head toward Luke’s cup. “Forgive me, sir… but may I ask what that is that you’re drinking?”
But Vader was never dictator, he was figurehead. It’s like one of the main plots of the movies, ie sith always have a shadow leader and a public figurehead that actually does work.
I was interested too so I tried to search it up The only relevant entry I found was on the Star wars rebels wiki, which doesn’t seem to support the claim but with how often this stuff gets retconed this could easily be out of date.
Thrawn and Vader first met during the Clone Wars on a Mission to Batuu, where they pursued the Separatists for their own reasons. Thrawn fought alongside Jedi General Anakin Skywalker, which left Skywalker impressed with Thrawn and Thrawn impressed with Skywalker. They later met again, but this time as Darth Vader. Due to Thrawn’s meeting with Skywalker in the Clone Wars, Thrawn was able to figure out that Skywalker and Vader are the same person after witnessing similarities that they share. Thrawn was one of if not the only Imperial who wasn’t afraid of Vader and was one of the few officers who actually respected Vader for his commitment and loyalty to the Empire. Vader in turn held great respect for the Grand Admiral’s intelligence and strategic influence. Although, Vader’s respect was somewhat tarnish for the Grand Admiral after his failure to capture the rebels on Atollon, Vader still respected and trusted the Grand Admiral during their second mission to Batuu to investigate a disturbance in the Force. Although Vader was fed up with Thrawn consistent trolling efforts to deduce that Darth Vader was in fact the Jedi General Anakin Skywalker he fought alongside so many years ago. When Thrawn started making the TIE Defender project, Vader was one of the officers who supported Thrawn’s project and told Thrawn to make some modifications on it, which lead to the TIE Defender Elite.
The Thrawn Trilogy is part of what is now called “Legends”, so it seems that it indeed got retconned. The original Thrawn trilogy predates Episodes 1-3, so it was retconned later.
In Heir to the Empire Thrawn makes it clear that he found Vader to be a weak, shortsighted, cruel, unthinking, and narcissistic. Just an attack dog that was too preoccupied with himself to think anything through. Thrawn also wasn’t too happy with the emperor. Apparently Palpatine es very racist and only raised humans to the top ranks, which Thrawn found shortsighted and illogical. Thrawn was an exception to the emperor’s bias because of how skill and effectiveness.
It’s been a long time so it would take me too long to find the passages and paste it here.
EDIT: Heir to the Empire was the introduction of Thrawn so even though it got retconned into “Legends”, I have decided to keep his attitude and mindset regarding Vader, Palpatine and the Sith as head cannon.
Yeah the tradition is apprentice kills master then moves to the shadows and finds an apprentice. By the time nutsack face dies he’s already hurt and basically dying although with the new movie Vader failed in literally every respect. He is without question a failed sith apprentice and failed Jedi apprentice.
Vader wasn’t a figurehead. He was more or less the third most powerful person in the galaxy, right behind Grand Moff Tarkin, up until he died. He basically operated as the head of the Imperial military in their war with the Rebel Alliance. But he never gave rousing speeches or acted as a political figure. He was just the guy who told you what to do and if you fucked up, he would choke you to death with his creepy magic powers. Also, Palpatine was literally the Emperor of the galaxy. People knew who he was: he was the last Chancellor of the Old Republic who’d been granted greater and greater emergency powers during the Clone Wars, up until the point he could effectively stage a coup and seize total power for himself. Nobody knew who Vader was, because, publicly, all the Jedi had been killed, Anakin included.
He absolutely was, no one even knew nutsack face was the actual power behind the empire. And no the retconn doesn’t make any goddamn sense so yes I ignore it.
No he clearly wasn’t, obi wan probably still could have taken him because Vader would lose himself in anger again as always. Not to mention his untrained son bested or at the very least held his own against him so maybe 5th or 7th most powerful.
He never needed to it was says pretty specifically in universe that Vader was thought to be the empire. Sure he never played geopolitics, instead he instilled fear and let his administration do administrative shit that doesn’t mean he isn’t the defacto leader.
No, during empire literally no one knew nutsack face was the chancellor. It’s not mentioned and everyone would 100% know what the fucked up looking king of the galaxy looks like.
He staged a coup, then faded into the shadow and very obviously immediately moved into the disinformation and replacement work. They literally show it on the movies.
Everyone knew Vader, no one knew Anakin and no one would in the same way I don’t know what rey mysterio looks like but I’m still certain I know who he is and I’m 100% not willing to get thrown by my neck but dude a third my size.
All of this is your own personal headcanon. Which is fine, but let’s not pretend like it’s factually correct. And while I know wookieepedia is far from a perfect source, it at least tries to get as close to the canonical truth of the often contradictory backstories of characters in Star Wars media. On the page for Anakin Skywalker, one section starts
Believing that he lost all that he cared about by his own hand, Darth Vader embraced his role as the Emperor’s chief enforcer. Few knew who he was, and even fewer suspected that he had once been Anakin Skywalker. Some rumors circulated that Vader was a counterpart to the late Separatist warlord General Grievous, whom Palpatine had held in reserve, while others speculated that he was a technologically modified warrior trained in the now-forbidden arts of the Force. His appearance at the Imperial court and the favor he carried from the Emperor earned him the distrust of Imperial officers. They resented him for appearing out of nowhere and having authority over them because of his link to his Master. They also resented his heavy-handed treatment of them, such as when he used the Force in the presence of his Master to choke Colonel Barokki. In secret, Barokki and another Imperial officer plotted to assassinate Vader, whose position in the new Empire they did not understand.
Well, the books were never really “canonical” in the same sense as the films. But the films themselves, if that’s what you’re going on, never make any reference to Vader’s presence in the empire in a larger context. We just see that he is, generally speaking, the person in charge, aside from Tarkin in A New Hope, and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. So, if we are going purely off of that, then we have no way of knowing how various parties in the galaxy perceived Vader or understood his role in the grand scheme of things. Which is probably fine, because it’s fundamentally unimportant to the story being told. But it still makes more sense for him to just be an agent of the Emperor who operates with virtually unlimited authority and who is outside of any kind of formal military command structure.
If we’re adding the books then nutsack face was never in control or in fact that strong basically everyone around him paying lip service were stronger and more in control, they essentially yes manned a senile old man who thought himself more grand then he actually was.
This is all just blatantly, completely untrue. I’m gonna go ahead and do the thing I initially told myself I wasn’t, but you’re so off base I literally have to: do you have any source, at all, that backs up any of what you’re saying? Any specific piece of Star Wars media one could look at to verify that what you are describing is at least even close to accurate? Because I’ve literally read dozens of Star Wars novels and graphic novels, have played most Star Wars video games, and seen most of the Star Wars television series ever created, and at no point have I ever encountered anything that supports what you’re describing.
The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that… it was the Republic.
Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.
So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.
Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.
Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.
Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.
But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring themselves opposed to the New Order they began the great battle to restore the Old Republic.
From the beginning they were vastly outnumbered by the systems held in thrall by the Emperor. In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of oppressed and beaten peoples…
Introduction to the original Star Wars novelization from 1976. Of course, basically every piece of media since The Empire Strikes Back ignores the whole “isolated Emperor” bit.
Wow I never really thought about how Vadar is basically unknown outside of the inner circles of the empire.
Now I am kind of wishing for a suspense horror movie of some grunts who are being hunted by Vadar, only they don’t really know who or what he is. He’s just a myth or a dark scary rumor. Yet they know something is hunting them.
They kind of do this at the beginning of one season of Star Wars: Rebels. The protagonist brings down a TIE fighter on top of Vader and he basically just shrugs it off. They were like…“Uh, who the fuck is this guy?!”
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