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SPECULATION What's the fascination for Vader ?

Discussion in 'General Movie Discussion' started by Bandini, Sep 9, 2016.

  1. Bandini

    Bandini Jedi Commander

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    Is there a more despicable human being in the galaxy ?

    Many people always find excuse for that fraud, how do you explain that ?

    Killing children, unarmed people, his own crew, tortured his daughter, cut an arm of his son, killed Kenobi surrounded by troopers ?
     
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  2. FN-3263827

    FN-3263827 First Order CPS
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    nobody's taken up this challenge?

    as a resident defender of the worst of the Skywalker boys, i'll give it a shot, though my own personal perception is likely very skewed and not the norm.

    first off, i acknowledge that the PT is canon and know we have to accept it, but it has no place in my formation of an opinion about Darth Vader as a character. i strongly feel like it's a story that didn't need to be told and it's definitely problematic in how it portrays Anakin as kinda unhinged and unlikable from the start. @PrincessLeiaCB3 and others have suggested that The Clone Wars does a lot to reclaim Anakin from the whiny petulant mess that the movies made him out to be, but I'm barely at the start of season one, so that's not informing my opinion either.

    i was six when i saw ANH (or just plain ol' Star Wars as we knew it back in the day), and immediately found Darth Vader potently relatable. he was powerful and magical, but handicapped by his reliance on life-supporting machinery and an organizational structure that did not seem to like to acknowledge or appreciate his might. he is also a very lonely figure; Tarkin's line about him being the last of his kind always struck a chord with me. because he wasn't even appreciated for his rarity.

    to compound this, we find out from, equally lonely Obi-Wan Kenobi that Vader was seduced by the Dark side, that the two had once been friends, widening the gap between two people of extremely rare talent, now separated irreparably by Vader's fall.

    we weren't given a lot of information about how this happened, we only had Obi-Wan's sadness to suggest the tragedy of it, and so we were free to imagine Vader's enslavement by the Empire as a consequence of his misguided lust for power. and i did perceive it as enslavement from the moment Leia suggests that Tarkin is holding Vader's leash.

    from ANH, i already began wishing (but never expecting) his redemption (or at least a reconciliation with Obi-Wan somehow). i was very traumatized by the relationship between Ben Hur and Mesala and didn't want Star Wars to end that way. I secretly, fervently hoped for Luke to stand in Obi-Wan's place to bring Vader back to the good side. but i never expected there was any hope of it happening.

    ESB solidified the idea that Vader was enslaved by introducing us to the Emperor. i had thought Tarkin was bad, but now there was this shadowy creature to whom Vader (Vader of all people!) kneeled. and remember, we had no idea that Palpatine was FS at the time, so it galled me especially, again, that this powerful, sad creature would bow to these military and political monsters. and then to find out he was Luke's father? another crushing blow. as a child, i thought the gap between Vader and his own salvation was now insurmountable.

    so ROTJ was immense for me. i openly wept when he died because it had all worked out in the end. i was happy at his redemption, saddened by his death, sorry that he and Luke didn't have more time together, that he did not reconcile with Leia, but then happy again at the end that he and Obi-Wan were together in the Force.

    Darth Vader is despicable--there's no denying or excusing that.

    but i come from a culture that believes in mercy, believes in redemption, and believes in compassion.

    as a child it didn't matter to me that we didn't get to SEE how sorry Vader was for the things he'd done. when Luke says "there's good in you" and Vader says "you were right", that's sufficient for me. this is a children's story, after all, and it needn't be more complex than that simple acknowledgement. the fact of his goodness implies his sorrow, his regret, and his sincere desire for change.

    so...maybe not the answer/response you were looking for, but at least one perspective on why Vader is so fascinating; at least for me personally.
     
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  3. tm0910196

    tm0910196 Guest

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    Very thorough. Very well said.

    In addition to all this excellent insight, I would add, quite simply, that Vader's onscreen presence is just incredibly compelling. He's behind a mask and we don't know what exactly he looks like (prequels aside), so that draws you in by making you wonder about him while you watch him. He has (in the mask, anyway) a deep and commanding voice that typifies the "terrifying bad guy," but he got said voice (it seems) before such a thing was overly cliche. He's powerful and knows it, yet unlike prequel Anakin, he's incredibly reserved, walking deliberately and, at the same time, without any concern, into rooms of intimidated underlings - but not needing to rub his power in their face (unless they start mouthing off against the Force!). And in spite of all this, he still has a Master he answers to, and we know he's a slave to the Dark Side, so yes, as above, it gives us a reason to "humanize" him despite his hardened and non-emotive exterior.
     
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  4. FN-3263827

    FN-3263827 First Order CPS
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    ooo very well said yourself! ~ i got distracted by all the emotional stuff and skipped over all this physical presence reality ~ all of which is very very powerful.
    i especially agree about the sense of control. despite his circumstances (both his personal power and his enslavement) he is a master of his own mind and body and that's very compelling.
     
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  5. SkywalkerGirl

    SkywalkerGirl Force Sensitive

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    Darth Vader to me was and still is everything that was good with the Republic and everything wrong with the Empire. The complexity of the character himself is fascinating. He was a slave haunted by death; (like all of us we can relate on the human level) he fell into a trap with a promise of saving the love of his life could be saved, but it also more. He was a Jedi General in the Clone Wars others have mentioned. So even though he is a Sith, murderer and imposing figure he also was and still is the most important character in Star Wars.

    Why. His children and grandson.

    While he may have not realized it(due to retcon) etc. he is the father to the man who with his sister and brother in law saved the Galaxy. He himself saved his son then killed his Master thanks to that love. He loved his children in the end, choosing them over his master. We know Luke was very impactful in this endeavor; but for everything that was bad about him, he was manipulated and betrayed. He was used. The Chosen One was a puppet who was being played.

    Darth Vader has had roughly 37 minutes of film time and he still is the most important character. Because of him his grandson now has killed his father and tried finding his Uncle before his mother. In one way or another Lord Vader will always be the most important character because he is the Skywalker patriarc.
     
    #5 SkywalkerGirl, Sep 10, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2017
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  6. PrincessLeiaCB3

    PrincessLeiaCB3 The Princess that was Promised
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    Well, first of all, thanks @FN-3263827 for the shout-out! Yeah, I guess I will mention TCW in this post...

    I'll go back to 2005. I got no idea about SW other than general knowledge you possess (the main characters and such) and a brief exposition to Episode I due to one of my cousins playing the podracing game on N64 and another one playing the movie on repeat when it came on VHS (OMG, ages ago!). Anyway, from this famous poster I put two and two together and knew that the enigmatic villain in black was the same sweet boy on the podracer:

    star_wars_episode_one_the_phantom_menace_ver1.jpg

    At that point in time I was not that invested on Star Wars, so when I ended up going to the movie theater to see ROTS with some friends (yeah, without watching Episode II first) I got the main points and thought it was good. I recall the following day telling my boss - a big SW fan - that I have liked the movie. So far I didn't know all the backlash the prequels had received and were to receive yet, but I remember one thing he told me then: good or bad, the prequels along the original trilogy make you realize the main character of the whole saga is Anakin Skywalker.

    Either a fan or not, the personality of Darth Vader, that menacing figure wearing a black cloak with a mechanical breathing noise and such a powerful voice actually makes quite a statement.

    Maybe the prequels were supposed to work in paper but they didn't. And personally, I didn't feel any emotional involvement with any of the characters of the PT as much as I have with the ones from the OT, including Anakin. I felt like the development of his character was in some way off, and the foundations on his turn to the Dark Side sort of weak. However, I started watching The Clone Wars and so far (after 2 seasons) the character of Anakin Skywalker has grown on me. I can see now his fall to become Darth Vader is way more poignant, since seeing him as this powerful Jedi General fighting along his troopers and his padawan, clever, resourceful and roguish and then become half machine - half man, lord of the Sith but yet a slave of his fear and pain and surrendered to the will of his Master.

    Obi-Wan was wrong since he thought the one he trained was lost forever. I reckon it was sort of poetic justice to have his love for Padme making him fall and his love for his son making him go back to the light. (And here I just ask: WHAT ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER???? Lol. That's a story for another day!).

    And even if we think about it, he has been - at least mentioned or as a mask - in all the episodes so far. And his importance is such that the one of the fundamental plots of the ST is that his shadow has made his grandson to join the Dark side as a way of idolizing him.
     
    #6 PrincessLeiaCB3, Sep 11, 2016
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2016
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  7. Admiral Petty

    Admiral Petty Force Sensitive

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    I don't find excuses for him myself, he was an absolutely horrendous person when he joined the Sith. What is poignant about him though is the fact that even a person as despicable as him can still have some good buried underneath. Also of note is the fact that the love of a son redeemed a father, a father who was seemingly too far gone to be helped. Also, despite how evil he was, his final act was to rid the galaxy of an even greater evil. Had the Emperor not perished, The Empire would have remained standing, loss of another Death Star or not. Vader killing Palpatine was the single most crucial act of the Galactic Civil War, the killing blow to the Empire.

    Say what you will about Vader, but Palpatine was a far more evil and monstrous being. I guarantee that killing the Emperor saved far more people from gruesome fates than Vader ever personally meted out, that's gotta count for something.
     
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  8. AstromechRecords

    AstromechRecords Jedi General

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    I think just in general, it has a lot to do with the old school film fans as well as the menace and quality of who is character is and can be.
     
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  9. Grand Master Galen Marek

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    I believe the fascination is how a gifted being who accomplished so much in his early life time to fall from that status & become a symbol of evil for the remainder of his life.
     
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  10. eeprom

    eeprom Prince of Bebers

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    Even beyond the complexity of his psychological treatments, Darth Vader is the quintessential villain. Something akin to Carpenter’s “Shape”. He’s dark, looming, ruthless, remorseless, and unrelenting. His tentative grip on humanity, being mostly machine, is reflected in his callous disregard for the humane.

    Darth Vader, as a concept, is the contemporary boogieman. He’s a cultural icon that transcends franchise and genre. What’s not to be fascinated by?
     
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  11. Pobody's Nerfect

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    Anakin Skywalker's story is tragic and redemptive. Those types of stories have appealed to us since Homer, Beowolf, and Gilgamesh.

    His is the story of how far a man will go down the forbidden path to save the woman and child he loves. I can relate to that - I've got no problem going to prison to protect my wife or my kids. But in Vader's case, once he got to prison he learned they were already dead, and the violent rage he embraced to protect them had actually killed them.

    He was the slave boy who enslaved the Galaxy, the Montigue who fell in love with a Capulet, the boy who wouldn't be accepted as a padawan because he missed his mother and was afraid to lose her. His sense of honor allows him to blow up a defenseless planet full of innocents, but against another Force user he'll only use a lightsaber.

    He was, simply, a man faced with impossible choices. Listen to your feelings but your love is forbidden, betray your friends or your pregnant wife will die, sacrifice your son to your Master or watch your son die at your Master's hands.

    Add the black samurai armor and the James Earl Jones voice-over and you've got a great villain.
     
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  12. Talon Karrde

    Talon Karrde Rebel Official

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    I think if you understand the fascination young baby boomers had with a vampire from Maine then you can understand the fascination with Darth Vader.
    [​IMG]

    Also, while this is Star Trek, there's an important principle here that also applies to Both Vader and Collins:
     
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  13. Pobody's Nerfect

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    First, Vader is just about the greatest onscreen villain ever. His size, his helmet, his black armor, his voice - it all combined to make a badass.

    Second, the Force. Vader says blast like "The power to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force." And right then and there you realize that despite the armor and size advantages this guy has, he's tapping into something else - something so powerful that the Death Star is insignificant in comparison.

    Third, he's smart. Tarkin is retarded. Dooku is better, but still a sucker. Maul is awesome but thinks every problem can be solved with a lightsaber. Vader is smart. He doesn't need time to come up with plans, he just instantly knows what to do.

    Fourth, he's ruthless. "Send out a distress signal and inform the Senate that all aboard were killed," and "Asteroids do not concern me" let you know how willing he is to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.

    Fifth, his story is a tragic contradiction. He was a slave his entire life, yet he enslaved the Galaxy. The only free breath he ever took is when Luke removed his helmet. His efforts to keep his wife from dying lead to her death. He took countless lives in his quest to learn how to save just one life. He never reached his potential, always restrained by either his Jedi masters or the Emperor, yet he still had more power than those he served. He lived in circumstances where love was forbidden yet killing was encouraged, but he was born with the heart of a lover.

    Lastly, any action movie sucks if the villain sucks. If there's no real obstacle for the hero to overcome, then a grade school kid could do it. That's why I hated the nerfing of stormtroopers. If teddy bears with pointy sticks can take down an entire legion of the Empire's finest, then there's no tension. With Vader there's ALWAYS tension. When he's around, someone's gonna lose. Doesn't it make the odds against Luke, a farm boy from Tattooine, seem really great? Doesn't that make Luke's fights with Vader that much more glorious? Luke is a great hero because he faced a great villain.
     
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  14. SKB

    SKB Force Sensitive

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    I hate all the stupid "fun" commercials that exploit Darth Vader to promote their junk. It damages the character of Darth Vader by making him act ridiculously.
    An example:



    STOP IT!
    ;)
     
    #14 SKB, Dec 21, 2016
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  15. CTrent29

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    Frankly, I consider Palpatine to be one of the best villains ever . . . and a better villain than Anakin/Vader. The latter was a top notch villain, but more importantly to me, he was one of the most fascinating fictional characters I have come across.
     
  16. Starchaser

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    I have no idea, I didn't really care about him until RO. Not because he's evil, but because he lacked complexity. I mean he was fun to watch, but that was pretty much it. But in that last scene in RO we can see a little bit of Anakin behind that mask. His movements resemble so well those of Hayden C. On top of that, we get to see real rage. I know Vader was supposed to be cold and controlled, but I never saw controlled POWER. All I saw was a lack of emotion, which to me seemed ridiculous given that the dark side is powered by emotion. Now we get to watch him using rage in a controlled manner, like someone is his position should. And it's not just rage, we also see contempt and some of Anakin's (and Kylo Ren's) cockiness. He walks in there knowing that he has no real opponents and he enjoys it. In other words, he acts HUMAN. And that humanity only makes his redemption more believable. RO delivers what the OT didn't, proof that Anakin was still "alive" despite everything Vader did. Long story short, I really like Vader now :) Oh and that dumb pun...that sounds like something Anakin would say, I love it lol I don't like Anakin as a character, but he adds to Vader's complexity, and that's what makes his character believable. I never would have imagined that Vader could become a multidimensional character 40 years after the first movie, but here we are, and one minute of screen time was all it took.
     
  17. WallyAllen52

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    Yes,several in fact.
     
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  18. Bluemilk

    Bluemilk I AM the Senate

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    What is the question again?

    I can only answer in this way. In the movies I hate him because he is the villain.

    But as a Villain he he is one of the greatest of all time. So I also love him.

    I have this pull between dark and light, love and hate.

    Will you help me?
     
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  19. WallyAllen52

    WallyAllen52 Clone

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    He's a tragic monster,people like that.
     
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