How is this (slamming his lightsaber furiously) calm?
https://youtu.be/GueBXRYVhe0Pointless “slamming” (i.e., intentionally missing) is obviously part of Vader toying with Luke. When Luke cuts Vader’s arm, his sword style changes dramatically and Luke is elegantly disarmed in a couple of seconds.
I’d say this scene is a great example of how Vader uses his aggression properly. It’s brutal, violent, ‘aggressive’, but also disciplined enough to not be wild or chaotic. And as far as PT retcons go, it’s shows how much he’s grown since ROTS. But it’s still Vader channeling his anger, especially once Luke gets a hit and he realizes he’s been taking the fight a little too casually. It’s not out of control angry, but it is aggressive.
I don’t think G&G is arguing that OT Vader is exactly like AAnakin in the PT, but just that he isn’t just this calm and measured cold and calculating ‘machine’ that so many remembers him being. He snaps at people, he growls when things don’t go as planned, yet overall he tries to present himself as calm and measured, which he succeeds at most of the time. But as G&G says, even Yoda points out that anger is what Vader derives his power from (and this is one of the central theme sof the whole trilogy, even back when they were made), and many times in the OT (especially ANH & ESB) it’s really obvious. The rest of the time it’s more subtle and you have to ‘read between the lines’ as it were and try to think about his motivations. Yes, there’s a lot of ways to show anger in films, but not everything has to be right in your face and Vader’s mask does make it very complicated. Yet there are times when his body language is aggressive, and James Earl Jones’ voice does convey anger and frustration on more than one occasion. There’s many more ways to show anger than to have a character go all apeshit like Kylo does in the ST and smash everything around him.
I don’t think anyone here is trying to argue that Vader isn’t tactical and intelligent, but he is a Sith and he does use his anger as a weapon. Also, keep in mind that this also applies to Palpatine and yet he seems quite calm overall. However, there are moments were his cheerful expressions fade and he shows genuine anger, especially when he’s using Force-lightning on Luke. Which makes perfect sense as it’s very much a destructive Sith power. You could also argue that his maniacal cackling shows his arrogance, pride, and sadism, which is all very Dark Side emotions. An argument could be made that Vader has similar moments of sadistic joy, hence his own dark sense of humour.