walking_carpet said:
I thought they specifically had him cut in half to leave no doubt about his death and to quash any hopes of seeing him again?
As soon as he got chopped I thought "they'll bring him back with robot legs." I actually thought this could be a cool way to show an early version of the tech that would create Darth Vader. I certainly didn't think he was gone for good. And wasn't it, at the time, assumed that he would be the Darth Vader of the PT?