Why Darth Vader was almost the greatest Villain of all time

Any writer will tell you that the greatest villains, are the ones that can come back. By that I mean, that the villain is confronted with a moral issue, and chooses to do the right thing. This adds complexity and a realism to the character.

Sure some people think it is cool to have a villain that kills for no reason, and is just explicitly evil. Of course this can work, if the villain is written correctly. But often stories fail to achieve resonence with a villain that is not seen, or has no character arc. Villains are evil for a reason!

Now what was great about Darth Vader, was he was this entity that was unlike anybody else. In Star Wars Episode IV, or the first movie whichever you like...You see Darth Vader as a ruthless person extremelly powerful person, he even strikes fear in those that are in the Empire with him.

Obi-Wan and Yoda always told us how evil he was, Obi-Wan told us that he even killed Luke's Dad! (from a certain point of view) And by watching the movies we can see that. He is ruthless, evil, heartless, "more machine, than man, twisted and evil."

But then in Empire Strikes Back, we find out that Darth Vader, may very well be Luke's Dad. This was huge, I remember sitting in the movie theater watching this movie for the first time and after the famous line, "No Luke, I, am your father," I felt like my head exploded, I did not see this coming. It was that revelation that made me love Star Wars more than anything as a kid. After this moment despite what anybody said, Luke was sure that there was good in him, which made Darth Vader a good villain. He wasn't all bad, supposedly.

And then in Return of the Jedi, as we all know, the Emporer gave Darth Vader a moral dilemma, to watch as he kills his son, the last of the Jedi, the only link he has to a family he lost when his wife died as a result of him going to the dark side? He felt the love of a father from a son, and ultimately did what he was supposed to do. Destroy the sith and bring balance to the force. At the end of the Classic Trilogy, Darth Vader was the single coolest villain, ever.

And so, from a writers point of view, I will tell you about why Darth Vader, who was the coolest villain, almost became even cooler, but because of bad writing, is not as cool as he once was.

This is how Anakin Skywalker's character should have been. Being a slave should have hardened him as a child. None of this "Yippee, I have a child like innocence that will soon be ravaged by my dark thoughts about a woman years older than me and out of my league!" On a side note, the Anakin depicted in episode 1, would never have become the Anakin in episode III. But that is beside the point.

Anyways, when Anakin was brought to be a Jedi, they should have shown how powerful he really was, none of this podracing crap. Maybe show him finding friends in danger, and then accidentally using the force to make...I don't know, 100 Tusken Raider's heads explode. But they should have really shown how powerful he was compared to all the other Jedi. They never really show that, even the lightsaber fight where he uses two light sabers was so short lived (if they kept that going, it could have rivaled any fight we had seen thus far).

Second thing George should have done, is make Anakin a really compassionate, almost self righteous Jedi, sometimes questioning the methods of the other Jedi for their brutality, or impatience. He should have been, this posterboy for the Jedi, loved by all, a great hero. Not a whiny boy who thinks he is in love with a girl he can't stand to be with.

But his vice, should be this inner anger he hides from everybody. Sometimes you can see it when he is fighting or when he doesn't agree with someone, it is there, but he is always pleasant, trying hard to keep it in check. But after the death of his Mother, he should be kind of...over protective if you will.

After having a dream that Padme will die, he will become so worried and distraught, he will make mistakes, he won't be the perfect Jedi anymore. He will fail at things, and then the Jedi Council will question his abilities because he gets so distracted from these vivid dreams of his wife dying. He will become so frustrated, and so desperate to resolve this that he will resort to learning about, darker ways of the force.

With all of these changes in his character, it will make it all the more tragic when he makes the choice to go to the dark side in hopes of saving Padme. Even after he has made that choice, he will still, not fully be willing to be the apprentice of the Emperor, he keeps questioning him, when are we going to save Padme? And the Emperor will give him ultimatums, well if you go and take care of these seperatists, then we will figure it out. But I'm too busy to figure it out with you, when the galaxy is at war...That sort of thing.

After Anakin kills Mace Windu, and the Seperatists, and tries to kill Obi-Wan when he thinks that Obi-Wan is trying to stop him from saving Padme, he is already in too deep. The emperor will have brain washed him against the Jedi (which he already had doubts about because of his self righteous views). The emperor will then tell him of the death of his wife. And that is when, Darth Vader will become the most tragic villain ever. Hearing Darth Vader yell, "Nooooooo!" at the end of episode III, will no longer be kind of funny, but heartwrenching. These changes will make it all the more believable when he kills the emperor to save his son, to kill and redeem himself to a family he thought he lost, and will add an air of mystery, and dispair to his ruthlessness shown in the first movie of the classic trilogy.


Wow, that was long, for those who have stuck with me long enough to read that, congratulations, you have succeeded in life. I don't know if people will agree with me or not, but I think that if George Lucas had written Anakin's character like what I think it should be, it would have been so much better for Darth Vader as a character, instead of burdening him with the supposed past of a whiny teenage boy. And it would have helped with continuity, everybody talked in the original trilogy about how Anakin was a great man, and a great friend and a very powerful Jedi and how they never understood why he went to the dark side. Instead of that, all I see is a whiny little kid who doesn't even rival the lowliest of Jedi.

So that is my opinion. I didn't mean to be so long winded, and hopefully this is easy enough to understand.

The gray area between High School and the rest of your life

So I graduated from High School last year. I liked school, I wasn't particularly good at it, as I'm just a person of average intelligence, and I don't like being told what to do. I just like the social element of it, I love hanging out with my social peers and making fun of them, and myself, in my head.

Remember when you were a little kid? Looking back thinking about all the stuff you did, sometimes you think, "dang that was stupid, I can't believe I did that, or said that." Well, I often see that in what I am doing at the time in the present. I often think, hmm I'm going to look back at this day and think, why in the heck did I give all that gum to my english class and land us all in detention. It was fun at the time, even though I knew it was stupid.

But I miss High School. I'm LDS, so I'm going to be going on a mission in a few months. So instead of signing up for college after I graduated, I got a full time job at a video production place and started saving for my mission. Everybody else in my graduation class signed up for college. Here's the thing, almost all of my friends signed for out of state colleges.

Do you know how boring my life has become since I graduated? My entire days consists of waking up, going to work, and hanging out on the Rifftrax forums. Well, not entirely, lately I have gotten a new obsession with a Zelda game that is 20 years old. It is by far the hardest game I have ever played.

But anyway, I can't wait until I leave on my mission and start hanging out with a bunch of guys my age, doing stuff we all set out to do. Preach the LDS gospel. We are there for a common goal, sort of like High School in trying to learn. So I'm excited to finally get out of this rut of video games and overall lethargy.