Darn. Posted before I was ready
“… but still within the framework of a democratic system.”
However, the provincial governors gradually grow in power and influence, cutting out the Senate more and more, until they finally prod his Imperial Majesty to remove the legislature permanently and rule by fiat. In theory this makes the Emperor an absolute ruler, but under the thumb of his own bueracrats.
Been a while since I read the novelization, but IIRC, Paplatine used assorted corrupt thingies to get himself elected Chancellor, then used fear, intimidation, and terror to get himself crowned Emperor. After that, he became increasingly isolated from his subjects and basically let corrupt bureaucrats run the show. I don’t think it was so much that he was a puppet as it was now he was Supreme Ruler of the Galaxy, he just didn’t want to be bothered with the paperwork anymore.
I dunno, look at Vader’s prominence on every movie poster.
The prequels are about Palpatine and the fall of the Republic, the original trilogy is about Luke and the fall of the Empire, but the saga as a whole has only one consistent theme, and that is Anakin’s story.
It’s been a looong time since I read the novelization, but I don’t remember any discussion of the Emperor at all. He gets that one oblique mention about dissolving the Senate, and other than that nothing.
Everything about the original Star Wars is vague, and Darth Vader is no exception. In the book he’s introduced as “the Dark Lord of the Sith” but at no point is it explained what the Sith is; I assumed it was a place. It’s never clear whether he’s Tarkin’s equal or a subordinate. No explanation is given for the travelling iron lung he lives. He’s not a minor character, but we learn nothing about him aside from his being Kenobi’s traitorous pupil and his deep love of popping out to make somebody’s life hell every few minutes. He’s definitely not the focus of the finished movie. It’s possible he was the central character in a too-long early script, but if so that was cut and saved for the sequels.
This site has the complete prelude to the novelization of the first movie:
http://michaelthompson.org/mal/whills.html
In particular:
Also, in Episode III
the Jedi are blamed for an uprising against the government – and, actually, the entire Confederate problem, given Dooku’s prominence as a Jedi. Emperor Palpatine would be foolish to then reveal himself as a Force wielder. But, having a pet “Jedi” (whether the average citizen knows the difference between a Jedi, a dark Jedi and a Sith is unclear) who is, basically, the Emperor’s pet attack dog, makes him a lot scarier.
Except, of course, he does take steps against him, in Episode V. The Sith are inherently always attempting to undermine each other. Both Vader and Palpatine struggle to convince Luke to side with them and eliminate the other.
And wouldn’t the ultimate tragedy be that the Chosen One was in fact a dickhead? 
IMO, the Chosen One is Luke not his dad. Luke brought balance to the Force in Ep. 6. Qui Gonn was wrong.
No, no… he was the original Chosen One, but once he became evil, those midichlorians of his fled into his sperm count. They sensed something was wrong with that dude and actually had a hard time finding the other sperm… the man was a dickhead! 
But really, we don’t know what that balance is and I’ll guess we’ll never know anything about it other than it sounds cool.
Now, we’re discussing if Vader’s a badass on Episode IV, right? That’s part of the discussion, I gather. What was intended and what was actually there I think it’s difficult to debate since we’re lucky we got such a fun ride out of that mess of a film. Star Wars was very much like Jaws, only that Star Wars was doing in the tech department what nobody else had done 10 times as much. It must’ve been really stressful for Lucas. I was watching it today (the horribly changed, heavily “contrasted” DVD version) and, as Luke and the gang are being crushed by the garbage disposal, several Stormtroopers come in to where 3PO and R2 are hiding, only that the door doesn’t open fully and one of them hits his head on the edge. I had never noticed that. It’s funny with these films and their special effects, you keep noticing cool stuff and real embarrassments at the same time.
And Lucas had Jango Fett do the same thing in AOTC. Sort of a pararell thing. Only difference is, when the stormtrooper did it, it was a genuine goof and thus much funnier.
I mean “parallel” :smack:
I don’t knoiw. he keeps flip-flopping on that, so I half expect, even though he now says there was no intetion, to see 7,8,and 9 in about 10 years.
I guess it’s because it’s hard for me to believe much of anything lucas says anymore.
i was taken with vader from the first moment he came on screen. i think it was the cape.
of course, because i liked him, after seeing the movie hundreds of times in the theatr, i came away with the idea that he was a bit, um, gentle with leia on thier meeting on the ship. he seemed a bit reluctant with the torture devise, somewhat troubled about using the death star on alderaan, and a bit comforting, when alderaan explodes, to leia.
no doubt i was seeing him through the cape.
i didn’t have a problem with the luke/ leia sibling thing. if you are not raised as siblings, and meet as adults, you could have non sibling feelings for each other. there have been cases of siblings that were adopted out didn’t know they were siblings and have ended up married before they found out. with sealed adoptions it would be rather easy.
i would think luke and leia’s birth and placements did not have the usual or any paper trail. only through the force, or being told by sen. organa, obi-wan, or yoda, would anyone know.
r2d2 was from naboo if i remember correctly, and was padme’s. c3p0 was from tatooine and was anakin’s. r2d2 was never obi-wan’s. so him saying i don’t remember owning this droid was right.
Indeed… it seems that Palpy has built up this entire story that the Jedi are the ones who are going to be selling out the Republic to the Seperatists (that’s why Anakin has to eliminate them all), and that they are getting too powerful. And the Emperor has gotten the only Jedi who is truely committed to the Empire. It’d be a WTF for people, IMO, to find out the Emperor was a Jedi (force user, whatever) all along. They’d be scared after being told the Jedi were enemies of the Republic that the head guy is a Jedi. Having a Jedi as the Emperor’s servent is ok, however, because he’d prevent the Jedi from getting too powerful again.
It’s easy enough to rationalize, what with the end of Return of the Jedi (that film as a whole, really), but it’s much easier to doubt that Vader was anything but a flat character in Eps. IV and V. All he did was crush things and talk about how rad the dark side is.
Certainly you can say that Luke’s quest is basically Vader’s redemption, but it’s not like he started out as some noble hero. What had he to redeem other than his obvious turn and incessant brooding? He was either a dull kid or a whiny teenager in I and II. Had, say, Obi-wan turned out evil and Vader old, wise, and dead, now that might be interesting.
I think it was in one of the commentaries that he said that he really enjoyed watching Asian movies, coming in and not knowing anything about the culture or history and having to deduce and extrapolate those from what’s going on. He wanted to create that same feeling in his movies.
But I’m sure the serial flavor (get it?) was also part of it. I strongly believe that the failing of the first two movies is that they’re not in the semi-serialized format of the original three.
Very loosely. Just an outline. In the making of TPM, he talks about that, having to go back and basically start over based on a handful of notes.
And if you go through the history of his scripts, Luke is always the main character, whatever his last name (Starkiller, Skywalker, whatever). He’s always different in each iteration, though, whether he’s a gruff 40-something general, a father of four, or a naive teenager.
Well said, and that’s the big problem with making this version of Vader the central character.
I take your point, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with pointing out that the story wasn’t originally intended the way it ended up. When JRRT started writing LOTR he didn’t have the idea that it would be about the quest to destroy the One Ring. If you read the early drafts and Christopher Tolkien’s commentary upon them, you can see that JRRT didn’t really have an idea about where the story was going other than that Bilbo or some other Hobbit was going to have AN ADVENTUREtm.
I really think it is cool to read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in light of each other and see how they work with each other. I especially like how there are bits that don’t quite match up but still sort of work when you look at them as being seperate historical sources. One was written by Bilbo, primarily, and told mostly from the naive perspective of a provincial Shire inhabitant, and the other was written, primarily, by Frodo and is much more informed. Additionally, both books were revised and edited several times and have come down to us in English translation from Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings, dealing as it does with stuff of more import, was revised and edited by a scribe of Gondor and so is stylistically much different from The Hobbit.