Anakin should have become Darth Vader before the last 10 minutes of Episode III — Page 2

G&G-Fan said:

Vader was never a character that believed he was doing the right thing. He was a power-hungry monster. In ROTJ it’s clear he knows what he’s doing is wrong.
The most ideal version would be accepting that he’s become a monster but pretends he doesn’t care.

That’s kind of where I am with Vader. It should be depressing that he accepts his fate and keeps going back to the well of the dark side despite the pain it gives him. “It is too late for me, son,” should be the key line.

Giving this “addiction” interpretation more space in the PT would be welcome, as well as in spin-off materials. You can’t really insert it into ANH and ESB for pacing reasons (even though one can read it into Vader’s actions in ESB, finding a partner in addiction). Also, it makes Obi-Wan’s attitude towards Vader in ROTJ seem even more dismissive, which makes Luke’s triumph resonate even more.

I wouldn’t say this interpretation was intended at all (correct me if I’m wrong), but it fits.

Gandalf the Cyan said:

In my ideal prequels, Ep1 would’ve had Anakin as a heroic protagonist. Ep2 would plant the seeds of darkness in him, becoming an antihero, and by Ep3 would be about him turning to the dark side, with the definitive turn at the climax. He may only become evil at the very end of the trilogy, but it’s a much more gradual progression that doesn’t feel forced.

Agreed 100%. The OT was very character driven. Every scene followed the POV of a main character. It almost never cut to a location unless a main POV character was there. In contrast, the Prequels would often suddenly cut to the Senate, or Palpatine’s office, or random battles with no main characters (in ROTS at least). It was more like a historical documentary than a character-driven story (with the notable exception of Phantom Menace). Consider the Order 66 montage, for example - something that feels very un-Star Warsy and doesn’t mesh well with the film language of the OT.

I think the Prequels should have been mostly character driven, to mirror the OT. Stuff like how the Clone Wars began, or Palpatine’s rise to power, etc. should just be part of the backdrop - a given historical background against which the story unfolds. The main action should exclusively follow POV characters like Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme, just like the OT followed Luke, Leia and Han. A better way to depict Order 66, for example, would be something like Clone Wars Season 7, where we follow a single character’s POV experience through the massacre.

What Darth Vader was during the final few minutes of Rogue One is definitely how the classic looking Darth Vader should’ve been in the final 10 or so minutes of Revenge of the Sith.

Jim Smith said:

What Darth Vader was during the final few minutes of Rogue One is definitely how the classic looking Darth Vader should’ve been in the final 10 or so minutes of Revenge of the Sith.

I’ll do you one better. The entirety of Revenge of the Sith should have heavily featured the Rogue One hallway-scene Darth Vader. The Prequel Trilogy should have went something like…

Prequel 1: Anakin is already a young adult (great pilot) who meets and by the end of the movie goes off with Obi-Wan to fight in the Clone Wars (also already knows (or meets) and gets together with the future mother of his children before running off to war).

Prequel 2: Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting in the Clone Wars, conflicts arise, Anakin is seduced by the Darkside, fights Obi-Wan, becomes Darth Vader.

Prequel 3: Darth Vader purging Jedi.

What would that movie look like, though? Who would the non-Vader characters be and what would they be doing other than getting killed?

Vladius said:

What would that movie look like, though? Who would the non-Vader characters be and what would they be doing other than getting killed?

You would still have Palpatine, Obi-Wan, Yoda, etc. plus whatever new characters get introduced. This is just a high-level overall plot summary. There’s plenty of other subplots that could exist simultaneously, but yes, quite a few people will likely get killed (that is just the nature of a story that is supposed to tell of the tragic rise of Darth Vader and a tyrannical galactic Empire). Characters that have been introduced in the first couple of films (and that we are now invested in) meeting their ends at the hands of a fallen Anakin Skywalker is the whole point. This is supposed to be a tragedy after all.

The “Darth Vader hunts down and terminates Jedi” movie sounds cool in concept, but would probably be hard to write in a compelling way. You’d need to establish the characters of Vader’s victims - and you can’t even use Obi-Wan as one of them. And as the third movie in a Trilogy, there’s just not really enough material that ties back into the pre-Vader story lines (stuff from Episode 1 and 2, like the Clone Wars, etc.) that also overlaps with a post-Vader Episode 3 murder-fest story-line. I think a story about Vader hunting down Jedi survivors would potentially be easier to implement as a series instead of a single movie, as it would necessarily require establishing new characters who are Vader’s victims before killing them off.

In my opinion, despite how cool it sounds on paper, watching Vader kill lots of Jedi actually wouldn’t be as interesting as it sounds. The real gold that could have been mined from the Prequels was the relationship/friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan and Anakin’s heart-wrenching betrayal of his mentor and best friend. But bizarrely, that was barely explored in Lucas’ Prequels.

Channel72 said:

The “Darth Vader hunts down and terminates Jedi” movie sounds cool in concept, but would probably be hard to write in a compelling way. You’d need to establish the characters of Vader’s victims - and you can’t even use Obi-Wan as one of them. And as the third movie in a Trilogy, there’s just not really enough material that ties back into the pre-Vader story lines (stuff from Episode 1 and 2, like the Clone Wars, etc.) that also overlaps with a post-Vader Episode 3 murder-fest story-line. I think a story about Vader hunting down Jedi survivors would potentially be easier to implement as a series instead of a single movie, as it would necessarily require establishing new characters who are Vader’s victims before killing them off.
The real gold that could have been mined from the Prequels was the relationship/friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan and Anakin’s heart-wrenching betrayal of his mentor and best friend. But bizarrely, that was barely explored in Lucas’ Prequels.

Are you really saying that there isn’t enough time in two whole movies to establish new characters worthy of being hunted down by Vader in a third movie? Because I’m pretty sure two movies is more than enough time (seeing as the vast majority of movies have to set up and payoff characters/plotlines within a single film and aren’t part of some bloated trilogy). And you say “there’s just not really enough material that ties back into the pre-Vader story lines (stuff from Episode 1 and 2, like the Clone Wars, etc.).” I think you’re missing the point. We wouldn’t be filling those first two movies with existing material from the current prequels/clone wars cartoons. We would be making two entirely different films and filling them with brand new stories/subplots/characters (with some old regulars, of course) which would set up the events of the third and final film (which wouldn’t be made up ENTIRELY of Vader’s rampages; i.e., the film wouldn’t be just one long hallway scene, but would be the culmination of all the various subplots and arcs set up in the previous two movies (which would now include all of the Anakin/Obi-Wan friendship/betrayal dynamics you mention that are indeed underexplored in Lucas’ prequels) with an admittedly heavy dose of hunting down the remaining Jedi and other threats to the Empire).

Idea: what if Luke/Leia’s mother was a Jedi? And she got hunted down by Vader, who he saw as betraying him, and was killed, but Obi-Wan saved Luke and Leia?