Ever seen a karate instructor working with a white belt that was the same age as them or even older? The student is still considered a "pupil." And even if you wanted to say that the title pupil should only be reserved for younger students in this sense, it could be Obi-Wan's way of subtly demeaning his treachorous apprentice in his own mind.
But since the whole thing is revealed to be a lie by the end of ESB, Obi-Wan's revelations to Luke in ANH about Vader aren't holy scripture. What we see in the original ghost scene of ROTJ does seem to indicate they were roughly the same age.
So no matter how you want to approach the OOT when ignoring the PT, there's only evidence for Vader being old.
And if you want to go by just the original Star Wars (1977), without the retcons of the following films, we don't know enough to conclude either way.
"Fuck you. All the star wars movies were excellent. none of them sucked. Also, revenge of the sith is the best."
- DarthZorgon (YouTube)
"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights."
That's how the quote goes, I think.
How could he be a Jedi while hunting down and killing other Jedi? I would think that his actions against the order would make him something else entirely.
I think it means he was young when he first became a Jedi (not necessarily making Obi-Wan substantially older).
There's nothing to indicate how old Vader was when he fell, how long he had been a Jedi, or how long his quest lasted. Anakin could have been in hiding for years and years before conceiving Luke. It's not like it all happened on the day Luke was born (pretty much the impression we get from the retcons we have now).
"Fuck you. All the star wars movies were excellent. none of them sucked. Also, revenge of the sith is the best."
- DarthZorgon (YouTube)
That is because Lucas thought having Darth Vader's birth and the birth of the twins at the same time on the screen was epic and poetic, and a neat idea.
Anyway they are not true backstories but reverse sequels. How else does Padme die in childbirth, and Leia is Luke's sister and Vader Lukes father. The first case upsetting continuity with Return of the Jedi and the second 2 bringing the retcons of empire and jedi into the timeline before 1977 star wars. In star wars 77 Vader was not the father nor Leia the sister.
Kenobi had 2 apprentices Vader and Luke's father entirely seperate characters. Vader and Anakin would have trained at the same time, Vader Kills his fellow knight and joins a rival school with the powers he learned from Obi Wan. Obi Wan's teachings at first strenghten the sith and not the jedi.
Obi Wan being a liar in a new hope is a retcon when in star wars as originally written he was telling the truth.
Most likely Vader and Skywalker at some point would have that volcano duel where Lukes father is killed and vader crippled and forced to wear a machine man suit.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
Well I think that's common knowledge by now.
"Fuck you. All the star wars movies were excellent. none of them sucked. Also, revenge of the sith is the best."
- DarthZorgon (YouTube)
Thanks to the secret history of star wars a lot more people are realizing Lucas made things up as he went, and did not have a 9 movie outline and the whole story already planned out in the early seventies.
This is a lucas created myth and large piece of misinformation to explain away all the prequels inconsistencies.
Its not all that hard when he has direct control over all that is said about him in official Lucas publications, even when out of print Lucas publications contradict him like bantha tracks or once upon a galaxy.
Plus you have 2 sites to keep people in the dark tfn and starwars.com.
“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.
I'm in the process of making a video for YouTube explaining that the more control Lucas has over a film, the more mediocre or plain unwatchable it is. He's a great idea machine... sometimes. But he's not remarkably talented as say a director or writer.
"Fuck you. All the star wars movies were excellent. none of them sucked. Also, revenge of the sith is the best."
- DarthZorgon (YouTube)
Plus you have 2 sites to keep people in the dark tfn and starwars.com.
If anyone is still in the dark at TFN, it's people willingly being in the dark. There are enough bashers running rampant over there right now that it's no longer the TFN most people on here remember it as.
"Fuck you. All the star wars movies were excellent. none of them sucked. Also, revenge of the sith is the best."
- DarthZorgon (YouTube)
Anakin couldn't have been 40 (or 30) during the PT. He had to be "closer" (C-3PO: "Closer?") to Luke's age so the Father/Son dynamic could play out.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
He had to be "closer" to Luke's age so the Father/Son dynamic could play out
Whaaaaa?
"Fuck you. All the star wars movies were excellent. none of them sucked. Also, revenge of the sith is the best."
- DarthZorgon (YouTube)
You know... mythology.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
xhonzi said:You know... mythology.
I agree. Sometimes I think emotional and thematic continuity is far more important than literal continuity. I think overall, Lucas failed on both accounts excepting possibly for the last 5 or so minutes of ROTS , birth of vader on, which I love.
xhonzi said:Anakin couldn't have been 40 (or 30) during the PT. He had to be "closer" (C-3PO: "Closer?") to Luke's age so the Father/Son dynamic could play out.
Not true. See the Annotated screenplays. When they made ROTJ Anakin was intended to be in his 60s at the time of ROTJ (though the actor they cast was actually 77). If Anakin was in his 60s in ROTJ he would have been in his 30s or 40s when his children were born. So as you can see, Anakin WASN'T closer to Luke's age.
Once Anakin went dark, it's unlikely that Luke and Leia's mother would have stayed with him for long (he could have concealed his darkness from her for a bit, maybe, but I doubt that would last long). That means the conception of the twins would have been before he went dark or not too long after. So the twins' birth would have been not too long after he went dark (a few years at most). That he was dark once the twins were born is implied by a line Kenobi says to Luke in ROTJ. So Anakin went dark probably about 21 years before ANH or maybe a few years before that.
It should be remembered that anything Kenobi says about Vader and Anakin in ANH was written before the two characters were merged and thus may not be true of the backstory Lucas had at the time of ROTJ. For example, Kenobi describes Vader as being young when he betrayed the Jedi, helped kill them and killed Anakin. But at the time of making ROTJ Lucas clearly envisioned Anakin as being 30s or 40s when he turned. Even back when Lucas made ANH it is likely that he viewed Luke's father as not being so young, even though he clearly envisioned Vader as being young then. When the two characters were merged, Vader/Anakin was given the older age of the original Luke's father character (the Secret History of Star Wars goes into this stuff).
Perhaps (around the time of ROTJ) Lucas rationalized Kenobi's reference to Vader being young as another "point of view" thing. In the Annotated Screenplays we're told that Kenobi was envisioned as being about ten years older than Anakin (though if that's ANH Kenobi being ten years older than ROTJ Vader, that would really put Kenobi at 13 or 14 years older than Anakin, because there's a 3 or 4 year time difference between ROTJ and ANH). A Kenobi who was 10-14 years older than Anakin might view a 30s/40s Anakin as being "young", possibly, if you stretch it. Maybe Lucas did stretch it. Or maybe he just ignored the whole Vader being young discrepancy like he later ignored Leia's memories of her mother and other things .