I said this a while back but I think the saga simply does not deliver when it comes addressing the disparity between the noble father/friend described in Star Wars '77 and Vader’s claim/revelation in Empire. The ‘certain point of view’ is lame, and the prequels fail to build a narrative that makes genuine sense of it all.
I maintain that Anakin should have been a true slave (not a suburban ‘yippee, hanging out and racing go-carts’ ordinary kid) with an underlying desire for some kind of revenge for his plight. This would account for him being a great guy and a ‘good friend’ etc but he would still have had a chip on his shoulder that would logically manifest as something the Jedi could never condone. I also think the Jedi (and by extension Obi Wan) should have cheated him of his vengeance in some way, which would account for his resenting the Jedi and making an ideological shift, especially with the presence of Palpatine urging him on.
I also think Obi Wan’s ‘certain point of view’ in RoTJ should have instead been “I made a promise to your mother that I would never reveal the truth”. This would be fleshed out in the prequels as something of a sacred vow, which would make Obi Wan less of a liar and also account for why Obi Wan and Yoda didn’t tell Luke the truth before he left for Bespin.
I think that makes him too sad boi-ish to me, too “oh it’s not his fault he had such a hard life, look how much he suffered”. Nah, to me. I prefer that while Anakin had a tragic circumstances in aspects, he wasn’t an endless tragedy character and his frustration with the Jedi was more self involved and not grand scale. Nor do I think that really says that much about how Vader turned away from the dark side. Luke doesn’t change Vader’s mind by convincing him that fascism is an unsustainable structure of government, there’s no ideological debate there really in the merits of imperial rule.
I also think giving Obi’s reason to never reveal it as a promise is trying too hard to shade away the ambiguity of his choice. “No, look, he had to lie, he made a promise, he’s still a completely great guy with no specific flaws!” Stuff like this is one of the reasons I’m not into what they did in the Kenobi show with that where Anakin just goes, “You didn’t kill Anakin, I did,” and Obi just kinda shrugs and goes along with it with a “whatever you say”. I seems to me to make it look like somehow Yoda’s line in ROTS, “The boy you trained gone he is, consumed by Darth Vader,” wasn’t overt enough in seeding an idea for Obi’s view on Anakin.
I also feel like there was an idea than Ben tried to turn him back to the light, and they fought a furious battle over a pit of lava. We get the pit of Lava. Obi-Wan doesn’t really try to convince Anakin. Other than my allegiance is to the republic to democracy. At that point of ROTS it’s obvious Anakin has turned into Darth Vader and is lost. He believes the JEDI are evil.
In that conversation where Anakin says that the Jedi are evil, Obi is still trying to convince him. He’s still trying to hold back. But when Anakin jumps and Obi cuts his arm and legs off, I think by that point Obi has basically stopped trying.
I’ve been following everyone’s discussion with great interest.
Of course, the Jedi hunt that Obi-Wan describes in the OT, with Vader hunting down and destroying the Jedi, must have happened. But in ROTJ, Obi-Wan also explicitly says that Anakin was a “good man.”
To me, that is where the real question lies: how did a fundamentally good man, someone who had once been Obi-Wan’s close friend, become a person capable of doing something so completely opposed to what he once stood for, the extermination of the Jedi? That tragic process is what I wanted the Prequels to focus on. His fall should have been something that could conceivably have happened to Luke as well, or even something that, in a less extreme form, could happen in our own lives.
Which isn’t contradicted by the prequels. Anakin, as Obi knew him was a man who rescued him, risked his life for him, wanted to assist their own soldiers and put his life on the line for the republic.
And the Vader we see in ROTJ does not seem content with what he has become. Deep down, he knows that he took the wrong path. But he believes it is already too late. In his mind, he crossed the point of no return long ago.
That was the impression I had of Vader back when the Prequels did not yet exist. So I decided to try putting that interpretation into an actual story and see if I could make it work.
But doesn’t Vader have total self loathing and regret by the end of the PT? I think he does when he’s yelling out no about having killed his wife he thinks.
Was Anakin on the knifes edge, a risktaker and rulebreaker. A Man of zeal. Who wanted to fight in the wars. A great Starpilot and cunning warrior. We get none of that in the prequel.
How is that not in the movies?
Somehow or another he agrees with The Emperor politically we don’t get that either, or the slow poisoning of his mind and desire for power. No, it’s choose the dark side to save Padme.
Somehow? I think he explains his view of things to Padme in the people should be made to agree and in ROTS in the less deliberating and more action.
Why does he early become a confidante and strong right arm for Palpatine. Even before he is Vader. He stops Windu from ending Sidious. He takes a seat on the council and is not granted the rank of Master.
Why? I think he has an attachment to Palpatine and what he promises.