Vaderisms, an unadulterated adulation of the man, the legend.

I was always fascinated with Vader. I have to really give credit to the design of his mask and armour, the mask is quite intricate but is such a recognisable shape that you can spot it even in a simple drawing.

I also have to give credit to Prowse, being the body he brought across character in Vader to accompany the famous voice.

One of things I first remember noticing about him was his "relaxed" pose of hooking his thumbs into his belt. It's detail like that, that I enjoyed.

Also I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but were there alterations to Vaders design (slightly) between the original movies? Apart from behaviour and voice changes (calmer, deeper voice, less frantic body movements) Vader seems bigger as the movies go on, was it just the placement of his cloak or am I imagining things?

Other things I liked:

Vader was a hard taskmaster to be sure, but he was also quick to recognise potential and reward it.  He seemed to bestow favour upon Piett. (Seeing as how he lived to the next film, but I think Vader had too much on his mind to bother killing him at the time) and Veers. I have no idea how Ozzel landed up on his ship, unless he had connections somewhere.

A grim sense of humour. I always enjoy the part where Vader reminds Piett of how he reached his station. "Dont fail me again...admiral." The emphasis on the word "admiral" really hits home with Piett and of course there is his conversation with Jerjerrod in the beginning of Jedi. "You will find that the emperor is not as forgiving as I."

Smacking down Bobas rifle in Empire. I saw a blog entry on this the other day, I was surprised that this scene did not receive more discussion. I always took it that Vader had no interest in turning his experiment into some kind of martyr filled scene of sorrow. I'm sure he realised the greater value of keeping the other prisoners alive, if nothing more than to help lure Luke closer to him.

And of course the interactions between him and Luke in Jedi. In particular the AT-AT docking station and my all time favourite scene in the end where Vader can't bear to see his son suffer anymore and throws the emperor to his death. There's a really quiet moment there where his breathing changes from a strangled hiss to a fulfilled sigh as Luke props him up.

I think I used to draw a lot of parallels between Vader and my old man (who got me into Star Wars in the first place.) My dad is a big guy, much bigger than me, well over 6 foot and has a temper from hell. He was in active service for a long time, as a kid I loved him and feared him. (I'm still scared of him and he's over 60 now.) He was not abusive, but we got a smack pretty quick if we were out of line. But in the end he was always there for us in many ways and made us feel really safe in this often dangerous country and is one of the reasons I'm a cop now.

Anyway: TL;DR Vader is cool, so is my dad, thanks for reading!

Thanks xhonzi.

Mielr, indeed, I have no doubt he was serious, but what I enjoyed was instead of plainly reminded Piett about the fate of Ozzel, he turned the title of Admiral from a word of prestige to a death threat. I just thought it was pretty clever and dependent upon having him having at least some wit. It comes across far more menacing than an outright reminder would. For me at least. :)

And yes, the line he gives Needa is really macabre and a reminder of his more sadistic nature, I especially like the casual hand raise he gives the troopers to remove his corpse, like it was little more than garbage.

What a great link. Thanks! Highly recommended reading, I cannot believe the amount of small changes I did not pick up, I knew there was definitely a difference at least. Even changing the position of his armour to rest above his inner robes instead of under made a big difference.

Much appreciated.

A pity that Darthblades website is gone. The article says it contained a detailed study of the costume.