Darth Vader

Palpatine was able to clone anyone in the Empire, including himself, with the help of the aliens who created the stormtroopers (I forget what they were called). He did not need Luke's body as a vessel for himself.

 

Though Darth Tenebrous along with Darth Plagueis wanted to end the rule of two by convincing the Midi-chlorians to create life (Anakin) so as to have his much greater Force powered body to use as a vessel.

 

Was this part of the now-non-canonical EU?

 

Nonsense. If that were the case, then it would also short out Palpatine's nervous system, which is itself merely an organic electrical system.

Lucas even made the "metal hands" excuse less plausible in ROTS, when he showed the damage that incoming Force lightning did to Palpatine, even though he was fine when he was just shooting it AT somebody. Yes, Vader's electrical systems overloaded when Palpatine shot lightning at him, but Palpatine's own body also took tremendous damage when Mace reflected his lightning back at him.

No reason why Vader couldn't have channeled lightning outward with no damage to his systems just as Palpatine channeled it outward with no damage to his own organic systems.

IMHO, it was just cheap and gimmicky to let anyone other than Palpatine use that lightning, and it ended up diminishing the dramatic effect when he finally let loose with it.

 

How Vader must have loathed Palpatine, deep down, though the latter called him "my friend."

 

I thought he was just a fallen jedi who made he wrong choices using his time as the emperor's apprentice to exact revenge on him of for his betrayal his son Luke brought him back had he not Vader would not have fulfilled his status as the chosen one.

 

I think by the time it sank in that Vader/Anakin Skywalker had committed all those atrocities in Ep. III - ostensibly because he of free will turned to the Dark Side in order to gain information from Palpatine on how to save Padme - for no reason at all, with Padme dying anyway, Vader had to have turned his anger and loathing first on himself, and then, on further reflection, on Sheev. Sheev was surely practicing mind control on the emotionally labile young man - the way Anakin stammers and spews without offering any rational argument supports this. Anakin had to know that Sheev was lying to him when he told Anakin that the latter had killed Padme in his own anger. When that sank in, as well as the sad, shattered predicament the post-Mustafar Vader found himself in, he must have cursed himself for being so gullible and for destroying what little was good in his life. Surely his only thought was how to shield his loathing of Sheev from Sheev's probing psychic tendrils. Vader's mission in life became to destroy the master he was making a show of serving.

I kinda always thought JK Rowling thought through Vader's story and stole it for the character of Snape (and to a lesser extent for elements of Potter and Voldemort). Make of that what you will.

Vader couldn't use Force Lightning because it would fry his circuits, as it did at the end of ROTJ. Too bad he couldn't find a way to rebuild his machinery to conduct the lightning - a Force lightning rod, as it were.

 

Yeah, except this doesn't really hold up when you consider the fact that we were shown a clear difference between the effects of incoming and outgoing Force lightning.

Although Palpatine (sorry, but I refuse to call him "Sheev") could zap lightning from his hands without batting an eye, when Mace Windu reflected Palpatine's own lightning back at him in ROTS it fried the hell out of him and disfigured his face.

Similarly, when Palpatine was shooting lightning into Vader in ROTJ, it did indeed fry his circuits, just as it had been frying Luke's own organic "circuits" a moment before.

Nothing about that, however, indicates that outgoing lightning would have damaged the electronics in Vader's suit, anymore than outgoing lightning ever electrocuted Palpatine when he was using it.

Vader didn't use it, simply because as of the time that ROTJ was made, the lightning was something so bad-ass that only the Emperor himself could do it. Unfortunately, by the time the PT came around the lightning had been reduced to a leveled video game ability that ANY Sith could do once he'd advanced far enough. And they had to come up with some kind of excuse, then, as to why Vader never used it. I sure wish they'd come up with a better retcon explanation than the "Vader's suit" thing, though.

 

OK, DEKKA, it's really because George Lucas made up that part of the story as he went along. Force Lightning was originally Sheev's ultimate weapon, a surprise terror to remind us of his glorious wickedness and hidden reserves of power. Unfortunately they thought it would be cool to have Dooku use it as well, which I think was a mistake, especially given that the 80ish Christopher Lee was actually a very good sword fighter.

 

I couldn't agree more. Although Lee did have a stunt double for a lot of his swordfighting scenes, he was still an excellent duelist even in his 80s. Dooku could have been just as formidable an opponent without the lightning. And it would have kept the lightning as that special, insanely evil thing that only Palpatine could do.

Hell, they could even have done a little call-back to Lee's Dracula days and given him a variation on the Jedi mind trick that was more of a "look into my eyes" sort of hypnosis that would cloud an opponent's mind long enough for Dooku to take them out.

(Of course, I've always felt like they blew it by not keeping Darth Maul around as the unbeatable nemesis that Anakin finally turned to the dark side in order to finally defeat. But that's another topic altogether.)

 

I liked him in A New Hope the best, he was a henchman, nothing more nothing less.
He was compensabe, always in the first row, Tantive IV, duel with Obi Wan, trench run, he could have died many times in EpIV.
He did the dirty work for Tarkin and his role was not clearly defined in EpIV.
As a child, I saw him as a special black stormtropper who was really dangerous and in command of the white stormtroppers.
Only Obi Wan knows his backstory and it seems that both have unfinished business between them.
I like the idea of him being Lukes father, but sometimes I think they shoe-honred.
Maybe it would have worked better if he had stayed as this evil henchman and not this tragic figure he becomes later in EpVI.

 

Before the prequels,I had assumed that only ancient beings completely engulfed in the darkside could use it,like the Emperor. After the prequels,I figured it's just because he'd short out.