How do you look at Darth Vader now?

[Schph Gochi]

Well, now that I have had time to digest AOTC and went back to watch the original trilogy....I find myself looking at Darth Vader in a whole new light. I see Anakin Skywalker and not Darth Vader.
When Return of the Jedi was first out, I found it difficult to swallow that someone so inherantly evil as Darth Vader (I mean that's all you saw of him was dastardly deeds) could all of a sudden, at the end of ROTJ, go soft, kill his master and save his son. It just didn't add up......funny....now after AOTC it makes perfect sense.

I still couldn't make the connection after Episode One...but now...it's there...

How do all of you feel about Darth Vader now after AOTC??

[Schph Gochi]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I thought this might be an interesting question, but it looks like I put everyone to sleep!

[Xana]

No, no! Good topic! Just give some time to think about it.;D

[Bombad Jedi]

Yeah we need time to disect it ourselves lol. I have to find my OT on VHS now.

[Xana]

Okay, I 've done some thinking. I didn't watch the OT again, but I did get to go see The Magic of Myth tour last weekend and this topic WAS running through my head. One thing is that something really awful must have happened to Anakin to make him such a vicious monster. He had the Dark side working in him from the beginning and Palpatine had been watching over him and all, but something else has to happen to send him reeling. My theory is that Padme dies and he flips thinking what else is left for him-- why not turn? I see him a tragic, unhappy figure that might not have had a chance to begin with. He just had a really terrible childhood and all. Not that he didn't have a choice in the matter, but he was limited, and then life's experiences sent him over the edge. He's a tragic figure and it's really sad. and yes, I do look at Vader and see Anakin now. But I still see the awful thing he has become.

As for Luke and Leia, I see them more as Padme's children rather than just Vader's kids. And it makes me think, again, that something awful must have happened to make Padme give up her children and hide them from Anakin and the Emperor. Vader's got some power to have such powerful children, enough to hide them, and it ain't gonna be pretty what happens in Ep III! Okay, now I'm depressed.........

[Schph Gochi]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....
I think Padme has to disappear before Anakin even knows she's pregnant......otherwise Darth Vader would have tore the galaxy apart looking for the children and it should have been not too difficult to find Luke...after all...Luke kept the last name of Skywalker and was "hiding in plain sight" at the Lars homestead, where Anakin had already been. He didn't seem to be obsessed with that in NH or in most of ESB...so I am going to assume that he didn't know that he had children until he confronts Luke....hmmmm...now that I think of it... did at anytime in NH anyone mention the name Luke with the last name Skywalker that Darth could have overheard thus having Darth put two and two together??? Oh no...back to NH again....

[Xana]

I don't think Vader put it together yet in ANH that Luke was his son. Probably after the Battle of Yavin.......... but I have always wondered when it was that he realized Luke was his son. Luke does tell Leia that he is Luke Skywalker when he rescues her on the Death Star. I guess Vader could have overheard that if there was a com system on the DS. But I don't know.

If Padme dissappears before the kids are born, then wouldn't Vader tear up the Universe looking for HER? My guess is she dies after the kids are born (well, obviously, lol!) and Anakin sees her die and knows nothing about the twins. This is another one of those speculation things that only EpIII will solve.;D But fun to talk about! Now we just have to wait and see if we are right.

[Exrael_Korax]

I thought that Vader killed Padme after teh kids were born and she hid them seperatly. But i could and most likely am wrong, I wish I knew where I read this.

[Schph Gochi]

Really.....you read that somewhere? jeeeeeezzzzz
But if he killed her, it would have to be after the Luke an d Leia were born and he would have known he had children....
yikes...I am deviating from my own subject.....how you look at Darth Vader.....
maybe it is time to start a new thread....write your own ending to episode III.....
fade to Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) gazing out over the Dune sea and watching a child Luke playing outside the Lars homstead.....then....through the magic of digital .....and courtesy of ILM....Ewan McGregor's face morphs into Alec Guiness' face (cut and pasted from N.H.) and cut to the grown up Luke approaching the sandcrawler with C3PO coming out!!!!
Cut to Anakin ....all torn up and getting his "Darth Vader" gear and hopping on a Star Destroyer.....Cut to Yoda setting up his home on Dagobah meditating and envisioning a child Leia with Bail on Aalderon, she is learning the ways of diplomacy --fade to Carrie Fisher's Leia (from the back of course) entering the Tantiv IV.....
Yeah....that works for me!!!

[Xana]

Heheheheh.......... lol!

[Bombad Jedi]

Liea said she remembers her mother being sad. My guess is that Anakin starts to turn really bad now that his mother is gone. And eventually the two seperate compleatly because she can't deal with it. In the time they are seperate Padme has the twins and hides them both from Anakin. Padme and Palapitne don't seem to be great friends anymore. Maybe Anakin has been turned so much he hunts down Padme because Palpatine told him to.

[Schph Gochi]

yes.....that would work.....makes a lot of sense!!! I do see Palpatine as worming his way into Anakin's life and exerting influence.....
After all...I am going to have to assume that something happens to Dooku as the current Sith apprentice to Sidious and Anakin is groomed to take his place.....

[Shoshana Win]

I don't look at Vader and see Anakin yet, though I can see how Anakin would become Vader. Is that too confusing ;D?? Anyway, I still think of Vader and Anakin as two separate individuals, but I am sure that will change after EpIII!!!

As for Anakin, Padma, and the twins............I don't think that Anakin has any idea that Padme is pregnant. I think that he turns to the Dark Side before she knows she is pregnant. And I also think that even as Anakin becomes closer to Palpatine, Padme becomes closer to Obi-Wan. Why else would she agree to give up Luke for Obi-Wan to watch over? Unless Yoda tells her that it must be done. And she is alive for several years after the twins are born (since Leia remembers her), but I have a feeling that Anakin thinks that she is dead. Otherwise, I agree that he would hunt her down. I don't know if he would kill her, but who knows. I guess we will find out in 2005 ;D!

[Schph Gochi]

Yeah...good point about Padme and Obi-Wan....so many loose inds to tie up in Episode III....

[Nova Darklighter]

Well, if you look at it from the point of view that he had at some point had someone to have his children (and stipulate that rape was not a factor) then he had someone to care about him at some time in his life, so he wasn't always the Darth Vader we all loved to fear and love. I didn't have a hard time accepting that
Vader could make the change, or at least, that he would kill Palpatine and rescue Luke, seemed like he'd had enough of Emporer P by that point. Since he had formerly been a Jedi Knight it stands to reason that he wasn't always evil, Luke standing there with his blind faith in his father's good and his absolute pride when he states that he "is a Jedi like my father before me" would be enough to melt the hurt in Vader's stone cold heart. But I really hated to give him up as a villian, because he was the alltime best that's ever been, just think of the first shot of him coming thru the door of the Tantiv IV, YOU KNOW, even before his 1st line, this is the baddest villian of them all!!!! And I love a good villian! I really cried when he died in ROTJ, sometimes it will still get me. Remember Anger leads to the Darkside and a Sith only has 1 apprentice at a time! I'll say no more.