In Return of the Jedi, Luke drags Vader’s corpse back to Endor, then lobs it onto a funeral pyre. As you will recall, Vader’s corpse was still wearing his really cool Darth suit.
My question: wouldn’t Vader’s suit be non-flammable? I mean, with the technology evident in the Star Wars universe, wouldn’t something like that be simple?
And yet, a simple blaster shot could drop a Stormtrooper, so maybe not so simple.
Did the Ewoks have to run Vader’s suit through some chipper afterward?
As a kid, I did not understand cremation as a funerary practice.
When Luke was burning Vader, I thought to myself “What the hell? They just reconciled. Luke brought out the good in his father. Now he’s going to torch his father’s body!?!?!?”
My brother also did not understand cremation as a funerary practice. Together, we reasoned that Luke was only burning the Darth Vader suit- the bad part of his father. His father’s body, we reasoned, must have gotten a proper respectful burial.
I would expect the armour to be fire resistant. To things like flash burns and oh say the banks of a lava river. Not to be able to spend hours in a pyre.
The process of burning Vader’s suit releases special chemicals which transform his physical appearance from Sebastian Shaw to Hayden Christensen. It takes a long time, though – about twenty years, give or take.
Since the armor isn’t capable of stopping blaster bolts, it’s probably not fireproof, either. I think it’s just waterproof; you never see a Stormtrooper drown, after all. That must be why the trash monster let Luke go. Heck, the stuff doesn’t even stop blunt force trauma–Ewoks were beating them down with sticks.
What’s left of the suit is radioactive bits scattered about the wasteland that is Endor. Nothing lives on that polluted, lifeless rock.
And the people rejoiced.
You’re venturing into science fiction logic in regards to a fantasy film. The scene is there for purely emotional reasons. Its like pointing out that blowing up the second Death Star would have rained massive debris down onto Endor killing everyone. It is outside the scope if the film’s reality.
I don’t think Vader has an anus/rectum, thanks to the trip to lava land.
So, it defaults to Vader fisting Chewie. I think the hairballs at the end would probably make even the coldest Sith Lord gag, no doubt culminating is a little vomit porn, though the mask will bring certain difficulties to it.
Actually, the armor is capable of stopping blaster bolts- remember the scene in episode 5 when Vader pulls a “talk to the hand” when Han shoots him? You don’t give the Emperor’s right hand the same crappy armor you give the run-of-the-mill cannon fodder.