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captain_slinkyYou know the true hero of the Star Wars movies was DARTH VADER, right? This has been brewing in my head for a few years now, and it's probably a new concept to y'all so let me walk you through this. Going to go in Roman Numerical order here, but Darth comes out a Hero no matter what order you watch the films in.
EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE establishes young Anakin Skywalker with an origin story fit for the finest of Comic Book Heroes - A poor, fatherless Slave Child full of optimism and talent, he builds his own Protocol Droid AND a souped-up Pod Racer FROM SCRAP.
(That's like one of those kids who tries to immigrate to America from Cuba by floating over on a raft saying "I was tired of not having stuff, so I took your garbage and build myself an XBox and a Corvette"!)
The goodest of The Good Guys, a Jedi, says "Kid, you got SPUNK!" and takes him to his Jedi Bosses who say "Uh-uh, you can't train him! He's TOO AWESOME!", but they train him anyway. He meets an honest-to-gosh Queen, has an adventure and ultimately uses his natural skills to pilot a starship and blow up a space station, ultimately saving the day!
(Imagine a child who has only ever seen airplanes in the sky, getting n to the cockpit of a F-14 Jetfighter and saying "Oh hey I got this" and then flying it to North Korea where he proceeds to fly it straight up the butt of Kim Jong-un, because "It's pretty much just like the Corvette I built out of your garbage"!)
EPISODE I ENDS WITH ANAKIN AS THE GOOD GUY.
EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES is just a mash-up of two different 90's movies, buried in a huge pile of Star Wars Plot Hammers.
"The Rookie" (1990) Clint Eastwood plays a veteran detective who gets stuck with an arrogant rookie cop (Charlie Sheen) to chase down a German crook (Raul Julia.)
"The Bodyguard" (1992) Kevin Costner plays Bodyguard to a Pop Diva (Whitney Houston) who has been receiving death threats, and the two find that they are falling in love. "Never let her out of your sight. Never let your guard down. Never fall in love."
Anakin is a combination of Kevin Costner and Charlie Sheen in this movie.
EPISODE II ENDS WITH ANAKIN AS A DOUBLE-HERO.
EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH is the movie where it all happens. Anakin realizes that the only way to expose and eliminate The Sith is to infiltrate their ranks and bring them down from within. He knows it will be a HUGE sacrifice, but it's the only to make sure that everything he loves will remain safe! The movie ends on a huge downer for Anakin, who has been mutilated by his best friend, vilified by his allies, and his one true love is *dead*. A tragic origin indeed. Uncle Ben dies, Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down, Bruce Banner is caught in the Gamma Bomb explosion and Krypton explodes. All great heroes come from tragedy.
EPISODE 2 ENDS WITH ANAKIN AS A TRAGIC HERO.
EPISODE IV A NEW HOPE we find Anakin (who is now Darth Vader) working his way through the ranks of The Empire, climbing the ladder and playing the game, sticking to his roll like a narcotics cop who is deep undercover. And now here's a nice little fact for you - Darth Vader personally killed more employees of The Empire in this film than he did Rebels! And those Empire folks he killed, he did mostly because they were questioning his actions - What do you do when somebody could blow your cover? You eliminate them.
But here's the biggest clue in Star Wars that proves Darth is working undercover; The Death Star gets blowed up! Because think about this - Darth Vader, arguably the best fighter pilot in the entire Empire (good enough for them to have built him his own custom Tie Fighter) who has been flying and blowing stuff up since he was an INFANT back in Episode I, can't hit a ship being piloted by a farm boy who has never flown an X-Wing (or any other spacecraft) in his entire life but figures it'll be "just like shooting Womp Rats in Beggars Canyon".
(Think of a redneck teenager saying "Well sure I could fly a fighter jet - I used to shoot at cats out the window of my pickup back home!)
Darth Vader saw the opportunity to let The Death Star get blowed up AND keep his cover by letting this kid go, once again nearly sacrificing himself in the process!
EPISODE IV ENDS WITH DARTH VADER AS THE SECRET HERO.
EPISODE V THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, our most important parts here are (in order) - (1) Darth Vader emerging from his Restoration Chamber, giving us a glimpse of his humanity in the process. (2) The "Visionquest" that Yoda send Luke on where he dream-fights Darth Vader and sees that under the mask, Dartth Vader is just like him, and (3) The "Luke I am your Father" moment, where he literally reaches out to his son for help.
EPISODE V ENDS WITH DARTH VADER AS THE SYMPATHETIC, HUMAN HERO.
EPISODE VI THE RETURN OF THE JEDI is where Darth is the most heroic of all! Seeing his opportunity, he KNOWS tht he is THE ONLY ONE who can get close enough to The Emperor to kill him! This is what he's been working for this whole time, and he SUCCEEDS! Darth Vader accomplishes the impossible, freeing the Universe from the tyranny of an evil Emperor! And as his reward... as PROOF that he's been a Good Guy the whole time, we see him at the end of the movie as a Sparkly Blue Ghost right along with Obi Wan and Yoda, and they're all smiling! If he had been a BAD GUY the entire time, don't you think that a few of those other Blue Sparkle Ghosts might be frowning or shaking their heads?
EPISODE VI ENDS WITH DARTH ANAKIN AS A BLUE SPARKLY HERO-GHOST!
THE END!
EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE establishes young Anakin Skywalker with an origin story fit for the finest of Comic Book Heroes - A poor, fatherless Slave Child full of optimism and talent, he builds his own Protocol Droid AND a souped-up Pod Racer FROM SCRAP.
(That's like one of those kids who tries to immigrate to America from Cuba by floating over on a raft saying "I was tired of not having stuff, so I took your garbage and build myself an XBox and a Corvette"!)
The goodest of The Good Guys, a Jedi, says "Kid, you got SPUNK!" and takes him to his Jedi Bosses who say "Uh-uh, you can't train him! He's TOO AWESOME!", but they train him anyway. He meets an honest-to-gosh Queen, has an adventure and ultimately uses his natural skills to pilot a starship and blow up a space station, ultimately saving the day!
(Imagine a child who has only ever seen airplanes in the sky, getting n to the cockpit of a F-14 Jetfighter and saying "Oh hey I got this" and then flying it to North Korea where he proceeds to fly it straight up the butt of Kim Jong-un, because "It's pretty much just like the Corvette I built out of your garbage"!)
EPISODE I ENDS WITH ANAKIN AS THE GOOD GUY.
EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES is just a mash-up of two different 90's movies, buried in a huge pile of Star Wars Plot Hammers.
"The Rookie" (1990) Clint Eastwood plays a veteran detective who gets stuck with an arrogant rookie cop (Charlie Sheen) to chase down a German crook (Raul Julia.)
"The Bodyguard" (1992) Kevin Costner plays Bodyguard to a Pop Diva (Whitney Houston) who has been receiving death threats, and the two find that they are falling in love. "Never let her out of your sight. Never let your guard down. Never fall in love."
Anakin is a combination of Kevin Costner and Charlie Sheen in this movie.
EPISODE II ENDS WITH ANAKIN AS A DOUBLE-HERO.
EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH is the movie where it all happens. Anakin realizes that the only way to expose and eliminate The Sith is to infiltrate their ranks and bring them down from within. He knows it will be a HUGE sacrifice, but it's the only to make sure that everything he loves will remain safe! The movie ends on a huge downer for Anakin, who has been mutilated by his best friend, vilified by his allies, and his one true love is *dead*. A tragic origin indeed. Uncle Ben dies, Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down, Bruce Banner is caught in the Gamma Bomb explosion and Krypton explodes. All great heroes come from tragedy.
EPISODE 2 ENDS WITH ANAKIN AS A TRAGIC HERO.
EPISODE IV A NEW HOPE we find Anakin (who is now Darth Vader) working his way through the ranks of The Empire, climbing the ladder and playing the game, sticking to his roll like a narcotics cop who is deep undercover. And now here's a nice little fact for you - Darth Vader personally killed more employees of The Empire in this film than he did Rebels! And those Empire folks he killed, he did mostly because they were questioning his actions - What do you do when somebody could blow your cover? You eliminate them.
But here's the biggest clue in Star Wars that proves Darth is working undercover; The Death Star gets blowed up! Because think about this - Darth Vader, arguably the best fighter pilot in the entire Empire (good enough for them to have built him his own custom Tie Fighter) who has been flying and blowing stuff up since he was an INFANT back in Episode I, can't hit a ship being piloted by a farm boy who has never flown an X-Wing (or any other spacecraft) in his entire life but figures it'll be "just like shooting Womp Rats in Beggars Canyon".
(Think of a redneck teenager saying "Well sure I could fly a fighter jet - I used to shoot at cats out the window of my pickup back home!)
Darth Vader saw the opportunity to let The Death Star get blowed up AND keep his cover by letting this kid go, once again nearly sacrificing himself in the process!
EPISODE IV ENDS WITH DARTH VADER AS THE SECRET HERO.
EPISODE V THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, our most important parts here are (in order) - (1) Darth Vader emerging from his Restoration Chamber, giving us a glimpse of his humanity in the process. (2) The "Visionquest" that Yoda send Luke on where he dream-fights Darth Vader and sees that under the mask, Dartth Vader is just like him, and (3) The "Luke I am your Father" moment, where he literally reaches out to his son for help.
EPISODE V ENDS WITH DARTH VADER AS THE SYMPATHETIC, HUMAN HERO.
EPISODE VI THE RETURN OF THE JEDI is where Darth is the most heroic of all! Seeing his opportunity, he KNOWS tht he is THE ONLY ONE who can get close enough to The Emperor to kill him! This is what he's been working for this whole time, and he SUCCEEDS! Darth Vader accomplishes the impossible, freeing the Universe from the tyranny of an evil Emperor! And as his reward... as PROOF that he's been a Good Guy the whole time, we see him at the end of the movie as a Sparkly Blue Ghost right along with Obi Wan and Yoda, and they're all smiling! If he had been a BAD GUY the entire time, don't you think that a few of those other Blue Sparkle Ghosts might be frowning or shaking their heads?
EPISODE VI ENDS WITH DARTH ANAKIN AS A BLUE SPARKLY HERO-GHOST!
THE END!
