Lord Haseo said:
Given that Vader was there he said that knowing if Luke struck out in anger Vader would be there to protect him…which is exactly what happened. He only said those things so that Luke can cross the line of striking down an unarmed person out of spite.
Yeah, but wouldn’t it make more sense to taunt someone without saying admitting exactly what you want them to do? I mean, Luke’s not a child.
And Vader being right there only adds to the obviousness of what Luke should NOT do. It would have made more sense if he tried to convince Luke that the Empire was right in it’s actions, and that the dark side of the Force was the only way to maintain order among the chaos that is the universe. I know I’m asking a lot of what is essentially a kids fantasy film, but the script, dialogue, and acting was so well done in The Empire Strikes Back, and the story seemed to be more mature than A New Hope, that I would have expected (in hindsight of course) that ROTJ would continue that upward direction.
He didn’t have to be anything more than the ultimate form of evil. Also he didn’t need to be a testicle monster with laser beams shooting out of his eyes
But he didn’t come across as the ultimate form of evil. He the ultimate cliche of Saturday Morning Cartoon villainy. He’s Mr. Burns. And you don’t need to design a testicle monster with laser beam eyes to be visually interesting.
For the same reasons anyone has wanted to dominate the galaxy…to shape the way the Galaxy operates as you see fit, to dominate the destinies of all those within your grasp. To acquire a near infinite repository of knowledge, wealth and anything else you desire.
It seems like Anakin and the Emperor have different reasons. Anakin wants power so he could stop people, like his mother, from being killed. He grew up in an unfair world where people could be bought and sold as slaves. He feared that his wife would die like his mother, so he wanted more power fro the Force to prevent it from happening.
Vader, pre-prequel trilogy, seemed to just want order, and later, he wanted to rule with his reunited son.
The Emperor in the prequels though, just seems to want “unlimited powaaaaaaa.” We don’t know anything else about him. In the OT we know even less. And again, that works for a lot of fictional characters, but the build up to his formal introduction in the third Star Wars film seems pretty anti-climactic and boring.