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Post #890515

Author
Alderaan
Parent topic
The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS **
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/890515/action/topic#890515
Date created
27-Dec-2015, 11:57 PM

hydrospanner said:
Well Darth Vader wasn’t quite as intimidating when he took his mask off either…

There are only two scenes in the OT when Vader took off his mask.

  1. The Empire Strikes Back
    The scene shows that Vader is a real person, not all machine. The framing of the scene is brilliant, because it shows a divide between man and machine. And yet there is a man under there, inside that machine, and it’s all specifically designed to complement the climax of the film, when Vader reveals that he is Luke’s father.

Even then, only a very, very slight and momentary glimpse of the back of Vader’s head is revealed.

And even after that, he still kills a man in the same scene. The audience only gets to see his humanity one second, just so they can feel the climax more at the end of the film, then he goes right back to killing people. That is brilliant filmmaking.

And then even still after that, at the superficial characterization level, the audience can see that Vader’s head is scarred and deformed. There is an element of physical pain and dark side. Not someone who looks physically unharmed and like he just walked off the set of a shampoo commercial.

  1. Return of the Jedi
    Luke takes Vader’s mask off right before he dies. But he’s no longer a villain at that point.

hydrospanner said:
I don’t see why it is such awful storytelling?

Because the hero should defeat the villain by virtue of their own abilities, not because they happened to catch the villain on a bad day or at a moment of weakness. The hero’s true strength and/or character can never be realized in that way.

hydrospanner said:
When did he say he didn’t want to be a bad guy anymore? He did say he was torn I believe. I am understanding it as the help he was seeking was for Han to let him kill him to get help rid the feeling of the call to the light he spoke of earlier.

I don’t know how I can state it more clear. It was pretty evident to me that Kylo was breaking down and having an identity crisis, just about sobbing to his father. Unless you are arguing that he was faking in order to kill Han, I think it’s objective fact that Kylo was caught in a moment of emotional weakness.

hydrospanner said:
I think this is nitpicking and you could ask the same questions of consistency of force use in the OT. Why didn’t Vader just force choke Luke from his fighter during the trench run?

Vader force choked one person in the original Star Wars, and imperial who was sitting next to him.

It’s quite a different thing in my opinion to wonder why he didn’t force choke someone he couldn’t even see on another spaceship. The ability to do that was never established (thankfully).

hydrospanner said:

hydrospanner said:
Why didn’t Vader just grab Luke with the force when he took the dive at Bespin and pull him back up just like when he just used the force to toss all those heavy metal objects at Luke a few minutes ago?

The only things that were moved with the force up to that point in the film were inanimate objects. In 30 years I have never considered why Vader didn’t suspend Luke’s fall in mid-air, for that reason. A force user throwing people through the air or stopping them in their place (as we saw in TFA) was never shown.

hydrospanner said:
Why didn’t the Emperor who sensed everything sense Vader about to turn and pick him up before he tossed him down the shaft and zap him before he was able to?

The Emperor didn’t sense everything. He didn’t sense Luke on Endor. He told Vader he didn’t sense Luke’s presence and asked Vader if his thoughts were clear on the matter. The Emperor was not infallible.

And let’s not forget, in the previous film, Yoda said the future was difficult to foresee, even for someone of his (and presumably The Emperor’s) power.