I would consider murdering women and children as a lot more than a hint. The whole point of the Jedi philosophy is that strong emotion, even an emotion like love, can lead you to the dark side. In this case Anakin’s love of his mother started him on the path to the dark side.
Much simpler actually.
It’s that a guy can be called “Annie” just so many times before he snaps.
Anakin’s fall also involved his differing opinions on morals and ethics with the Jedi Council.
The Council wouldn’t free his mom, or help Naboo, etc etc, when they had the power to do so. Anakin probably believed that the force powers are there to be used. (What good is it to have all those powers and let people suffer?)
He never understood nor accepted the Jedi Code of ethics entirely, and eventually I think he came to conclude that the Jedi of his era lost their way. His last attempt at “nicety” was to try and convince Windu to take Palpatine alive for a trial, and Windu indicates that he doesn’t trust the justice system enough for that.
He should have also been thrown out of the Jedi due to his affair with Padme - basically, he should have gone to Yoda/WIndu with a “I had a dream about…” - and be told there was nothing could be done - and since you are clearly attached you will ‘never’ be a jedi - good bye - then Palpatine’s offer and Annakin’s intense hatred for all thing Jedi would have made more sense. (you killed my mom, you killed my wife, you killed my kids when you coulda done somethng).
Just lurking, but wanted to acknowledge one of the best posts I’ve seen on this subject:
This perfectly captured my own thoughts on the series. Well done!
-XT
They killin’ everyone out here!
“My name is Annakin, you killed my mother, prepare to die.”
Thanks guys.
Jedi do not understand and accept what it is to be human because they aspire to so much more. Palpatine understands what motivates people. He turned Dooku (Yoda’s former padawan) because he played on Dooku’s desire to get rid of corruption in the Republic. It is never possible to eradicate corruption in government completely, but Dooku thought he knew better.
Palpatine (and Dooku too) never really try to turn Obi-Wan because he wasn’t very vulnerable. Dooku has heard that Obi-Wan is very talented from Dooku’s former padawan, Qui-Gon, but speaking to him for a minute reveals that Obi-Wan is not ambitious.
Watch the Clone Wars cartoons and see that again and again Anakin is doing whatever is necessary to get the job done. It’s war. And because it is war, the other Jedi let him get away with that. Well, war corrodes humanity and compassion.
This was one of the last interesting moments in the prequels, I think - and a glimmer of what they could have been. I mean, there’s a fine argument to be made that Annakin is right at this moment. Killing a man you’ve taken into custody, with no trial - that’s appalling stuff, and it shows real moral integrity for Annakin to balk at it. If the Jedi had been portrayed more consistently (and effectively) as a morally ambiguous force, that could have done a lot more to make Annakin’s “descent” interesting.
Anakin balked at it because he still wanted secret knowledge and power from Palpatine, not because he wanted to take him in and for justice, although that was probably in the background. Contrast this with Anakin’s killing of Dooku, who had no hands and could not harm him, and Palpatine says to kill him. After, he suggests to Anakin that it is “natural” to want revenge for cutting off his hand: revenge that Anakin already had twice over by cutting off both of Dooku’s hands.
and upon killing Mace, Palpatine tells Anakin that he really has no idea how to do that either. That was a real wtf moment for me, and pretty well captured in the Plinkett review.
My personal feeling is that I would have liked to see more of Darth Vader in the prequels. Lucas should have left out episode I, made episodes 2 and 3 episodes 1 and 2 instead, and had a different episode 3. One in which we have a full blown Darth Vader in the black suit, with the red light saber, and with James Earl Jones as the voice for the entire movie, not just 30 seconds at the end. That would have made the hole prequel trilogy better.
maybe hint was the wrong word. i meant to say that lucas didn’t make him evil enough (relative to who he became), and the sand-people slaughter scene was one reason why. for starters, it was a crime of passion. they brutally raped his mother to death. as far as reasons-to-kill, that seems like a rather good one. probably more indicative of the lack of evil was that he was super-contrite about it afterwards. he didn’t try to defend his actions at all. in fact, it seemed like padme was trying to talk him down by justifying it more than he was (weird). a TRULY evil man wouldn’t even have mentioned it. a PRETTY evil man would have tried to justify it. a MILDLY evil man would have tried to say “what’s done is done. i’m not proud of it but there’s nothing to be done about it now.” a NOT REALLY EVIL AT ALL man would have broken down sobbing and really let it eat at his conscience over his crime of passion.
just saying… if you’re going to tell the story of the creation of one of the most evil characters in the history of cinema, really try to make us think “oh damn. that’s fucked up”. i mean, Voldemort is a more convincingly evil person, even as tom riddle. why couldn’t vader be a sociopathic, power hungry manipulator as well? instead he’s a confused kid with a horrible upbringing who made a few morally gray yet justifiable decisions and all of a sudden he’s the downfall of the entire jedi order? how has the order lasted for thousands of millenia if all it takes is ONE bad apple out of millions?
agreed. phantom menace told us nothing more than that anakin was special, miticlorians, and palpatine’s convoluted plan. it could have easily been condensed to 15 mins of expository dialogue, scrolling text, flashbacks, etc. on top of that, characters like darth maul, the entire gungan race, and the pod racing team were entirely redundant and wouldn’t be missed.
it’s also more plausible that anakin and padme would fall in love with each other without prior encounters, especially one where he was 8 and she 14. talk about being trapped in the ultimate friend zone.
Because then there would have been nothing for Luke to redeem in Return of the Jedi.
Joe
Anakin was already on the dark side in the second movie. Besides slaughtering the sand people he was telling Padme how great a dictatorship would be. Given that Anakin was acting super creepy and there was no logical reason whatsoever for Padme to fall for him the only explanation is that Anakin was using his force powers to bend her to his will. So he was basically raping her with the force. By the third prequel she must have found a way to counteract it because she started talking about how bad it is to kill kids and she couldn’t follow him down that path, even though that’s what she did in the 2nd movie despite the fact he admitted it to her face…then she married him, seemingly not caring at all. Because it was against her will.
The fried egg eyes were just a bad case of pink eye.
The importance of Vader in the original movies has been greatly exaggerated over time. He was a lackey who his peers saw as a religious nut, a relic from another time. He was just muscle for the Empire. He did what he was told, which usually consisted of leading troops around and force choking people when they didn’t cooperate. He wasn’t space Hitler.
Also, the prequels make rewatching the original series pretty funny. e.g. upon seeing Obi-Wan Vader says: “At last, the circle is complete. When I left you I was but the learner; now I am the master!” Um, no. When “you left him” you were burning to death by a lava river after he cut all your limbs off. Or when Obi-Wan talks about Vader being a close friend and a good man. Wut? The exact opposite was true. Good job, Lucas.
I think Owen Lars should have been a major character - even a minor war hero. First, it gives the series a connection to ANH. But second, the series was missing a non-Jedi character of importance. Jango Fett was actually pretty cool, but as a one-shot villain, he was gone quick. I’m fine with the Jedi being movers and shakers in this era, but they shouldn’t make up nearly every major character.
But I agree that we have only the seeds of a tragic Greek fall, and it needs much more.
But he was a farmer, who seemed to have little or no respect for the military.
Lucus’ big mistakes in Phantom came in the editing room. Anakin wasn’t just a slave, he was also a victim of bullies and and harassment that went so far that he kills another child in a cut scene in the first movie. Anakin was already a murderous ball of rage in the first movie, but Lucus cut that part out and set the score to make him a kid friendly hero. One of my geekier professors once told me he changed his opinion on Phantom when someone convinced him to watch it while looking at Jake Lloyd’s perfomance not as a kid who doesn’t know how to act, but as an angry frustrated kid trying to put on a happy mask that occasionally slips.
The Jedi’s took on this ten year old killer and cut him off from his one positive human relationship and gave him great power without giving him the one good thing he wanted power for (saving his mother). He hated the Jedi, and they deserved his hatred. If they had left him alone, or saved him and his mother and let him grow up normally, he probably would have ended up like Han Solo, strong in the force, but untrained, and flawed but decent person.
Also, it was not just his power that attracted Palpatine, it was his rage. Obi-Wan was stronger than Anakin at the end of EP3, but Anakin had great potiential and equally great flaws.
As for why Vadar was such a stone cold, machine like killer rather than the bag of rage that Anakin was. That makes sense if he cut all positive human feeling out of his life and embraced and subsumed his rage. Ever day was an act of defiance and hate. He had almost 20 years to change from an angry adolescent into a emotionally numb killer.
I’m confused. Is this thread about Darth Vader or comparing the prequels to the originals? Darth Vader was not really the central character in the originals.
I agree that for Episode 4 Vader is not central, but he becomes the central villain in Episode 5.
The Emperor mentions to Vader near the beginning of the film that the son of Skywalker is a danger, and Vader convinces the Emperor to “turn” Luke instead of killing him (and this starts Vader’s quest to find and capture Luke). His searches drive a lot of the actions taken by the Luke and the rebels later on.
Yoda and Obi-Wan want a savior to overthrow the Emperor. They know that anyone facing the Emporer will also have to face Vader, and they apparently feel that Luke (and Leia, too, I guess) would be susceptible to manipulation by Vader, and needs to be “trained” (more) to resist any impulsive emotional outbursts.
The “big reveal” in Episode 5 was, of course, that Vader is Luke’s father. This would not have any kind of impact on the audience or fans if Vader was not central.
Episode 6 had two story arcs. The destruction of the new Death Star, and Luke believing in, and attempting to achieve, redemption for Vader. Fairly central there, too.