G&G-Fan

You make a good point, I did use the words wrong. I interpreted “cold” in the sense of opposite of angry or emotional (because I looked up synonyms of the word and it came up with things like “dispassionate” and “unemotional”). And regarding the word calculating, I was considering clarifying about how Vader and Anakin are both very good military strategists, but I thought I had gone on long enough. I’ll edit my post to remove the misuse of the words.

I also am aware that Vader was absolutely winning against Luke the whole time, but he was still holding back (which means that he had full control the whole time). If he actually was fighting at full strength the whole time he would’ve killed him. But he was absolutely winning nontheless. That’s something I love about the scene and the duel.

EDIT (2024): Going back to this thread years later, I made some really dumb arguments that stem from a lack of understanding of nuance of certain terms, even if I made the occasional decent point. I was also rather patronizing in the way that I argued many of my points.

Darth Vader in the OT is a mostly very cold character with a calm, collected demeanor. He uses his boiling rage as a blunt weapon, wielding it in a calculating manner, as he does in his duels with Luke. He’s clearly mad when he, for example, kills one of his officers, or barrages Luke with powerful lightsaber strikes, but never loses control. It’s directed rage, not blind, unhinged rage.

While I did understand that he’s a tactful character who uses his rage in a balanced way, I never meant to imply he has unhinged temper tantrums, but I exaggerated the degree to which Vader is an emotional character.

I misinterpreted some’s arguments as saying he has no emotion at all, which is just not true, but I went too far in my rebuttal, as well as projecting emotions in some scenes where there weren’t any. For example, Vader is clearly didn’t lose his cool when he chokes Motti. He is completely calm.

Just wanted to clarify how my views have changed.

Kinda similar to my Yoda thread in the Beyond the OT forum, I’d like to share my viewpoint on something I kinda see OT purists maintain: this idea that Vader in the original trilogy is calm, and that his portrayal in new Star Wars media (Revenge of the Sith, the new Vader comics, Rogue One, etc.) as a very emotional man, full of rage and hatred, gets the character wrong. I think this is dead wrong, and I’m going to prove it, by using (mostly) strictly the OT itself too.

In short, Vader has always been portrayed as very emotional, mainly angry, all the way back to A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. Let’s take a look at Vader’s actions in A New Hope.

In his literal first speaking scene, he angrily interrogates a rebel soldier while choking him and then furiously yells at the storm troopers to search the ship in a very harsh, not calm or collected at all manner.

Then in his second speaking scene, he once again yells, this time at Princess Leia, pointing at her and telling her that she’s a liar and a traitor.

This is his establishing scene in the OT and he is not calm, he is angry and yelling. I seriously don’t understand how OT purists came up with this idea that Vader being angry is out of character, when in legit his first two speaking scenes in all of Star Wars, he is enraged and emotional.

But it doesn’t stop there.

In his very next scene, he gets angry at an Imperial officer to the point where he’s about to choke him to death because he’s talking smack about him and the Force.

We see him literally kill a guy over a mistake in the second scene he’s in, because he’s angry at him. You can hear the way he says “last time Admiral”, he’s clearly irritated.

Rational, calm people don’t murder someone over a mistake. This is him giving into his rage, his hate. He’s sick of him messing up so he gets angry and kills him. That isn’t being cold. Cold means unemotional, like a dead corpse. Anger is an emotion. Dead corpses don’t get angry.

And this isn’t a one time occurrence. He does it again, too. And while it’s implied Ozzel was a fool who made many mistakes, Needa made ONE.

He also gets a little irritated with Lando constantly questioning him, and the way he watches Han get tortured up close seems to give me the vibes that he relishes in it, which could be because he knows he had a part in destroying the Death Star, and for all of the trouble he’s been giving him throughout the film.

He isn’t calm or collected during the duel with Luke, at least not the entire thing. In the last part of the duel he legit loses his shit and swings at him mercilessly. He appeared collected before because he goal isn’t to kill Luke. He’s purposefully collecting himself because he knows if he goes overboard he’s going to kill his son in a millisecond, and even then he was still dominating the fight and wearing him down. But Luke pisses him off, and the second he losses it, Luke losses his hand.

In the original version of ESB, he’s clearly angry over having lost Luke when he barks “Bring my Shuttle”.

Additionally, other characters refer to him as consumed by hate and rage: Yoda.

Yoda: “Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side of the Force are they… once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will! As it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.”

Luke: “Vader.”

I don’t know about you, but what I got from Yoda here is that Vader was consumed by ANGER, FEAR, and AGGRESSION.

Also another thing: Obi-Wan refers to Vader as “twisted and evil” in Return of the Jedi, and yet some people think that Anakin in Revenge of the Sith should be completely sane and calm and that when he becomes an enraged, unhinged crazy person in the climax, like what Obi-Wan and Yoda said in ESB, they got his character wrong.

Another thing is that Vader has to be emotional in order to be a Sith Lord and be a dark side user, at least one as effective as him. The dark side feeds on the emotions brought up by Yoda earlier. If he doesn’t have any of those emotions, he’s not going to be a good Sith or dark side user.

Obi-Wan says in ESB: “Don’t give into to hate. That leads to the dark side,” and they constantly talk about how that was how Vader fell. The Emperor and Vader constantly try to convince Luke to give into his emotions. And this is technically using a prequel quote as evidence, but Anakin literally says in Revenge of the Sith: “The Sith RELY on their PASSION for their strength.” What’s one of the synonyms for “cold” on Google? “Dispassionate”. Sounds like the opposite of a Sith to me. And he doesn’t just say they use passion, he says they RELY on it.

And you can’t say “vAdEr wAsN’t a sItH lOrD iN tHe oT, ThAt wAs A rEtCoN bY tHe PrEQuEls” because there are multiple sources that Vader was and has always been a Sith from the very beginning of Star Wars’ conception, even from the very first drafts of ANH.

The original draft of ANH that mentions “the lords of the Sith” and that Vader is a Sith Lord sent by the Emperor. Also, “most ferocious” is used to describe Vader. Doesn’t sound calm to me. So explain to me, then, how it’s out of character for Vader to viciously slaughter Jedi and Rebel soldiers like a badass (like in Rogue One), when it’s his implied backstory both in previous drafts and in the final version of ANH (“…helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights”)? What version of Vader do you want, one that just commands his underlings to do all of the work for him? You just think it’s out of character for him because it isn’t directly shown in the OT and therefore it’s weird to you to see Vader doing that kind of stuff. But I love it, because now the threat of Vader isn’t just talk, we get to see his ruthlessness.

Then you also got the lost cut of A New Hope in which Vader is directly called “a Sith Lord” in the dialogue.

And while we’re at it, I should also mention that the OT also establishes Vader as a person who cares about his family above all else. Watch this scene. Listen to the way Vader’s talking. He’s not talking to him like an angry Sith Lord. He’s talking to him like a father. He’s talking to him like an emotional man who doesn’t want his family to leave him again.

The crawl to ESB says Vader is “obsessed” with finding Luke. Obsessed is a pretty strong word if you ask me. That requires a lot of PASSION, which is the opposite of cold. The Emperor and Vader’s first conversation in ROTJ is about how he’s still obsessed with his son. The entire bridge scene with Luke and Vader later in that film is also more proof that his son means a lot to him. He opens up to him, something you really can’t say about any Imperial officer, Sidious, or even Obi-Wan. He tries to mask it and pretend he doesn’t care (“If that is your destiny”) but that’s just a façade. He actually considers turning to the light (“It is too late for me, son”).

Also some lines from that scene also prove Vader has anger issues and is a very emotional man.

Vader: “That name no longer has any meaning for me!” (not really the line itself, but how he delivers it; it’s clearly something that set him off)

Luke: “I feel the conflict within you let go of your hate!”

And eventually, he does. His son is what turns him back to the light. He turns against the Emperor and everything he stood for for more then two decades because he loves his son, and family means so much to him.

So when he asked the Emperor if his wife was safe and alright and then got mad when he was told he murdered her, that wasn’t “out of character” either.

I’d say with all of this in mind, Revenge of the Sith, Rogue One (I mean, you literally have him choke a guy and then say a dark joke, just like he did with Needa), and the new Vader comics got Vader pretty spot on. He was always a Sith that gave into and was consumed by his fear, hatred, passion, and anger and became twisted and evil, unleashing his fury upon his enemies. He was always a (for a lack of a better word) clingy person, attached to his family to the point where they’re like an obsession to him. There is nothing to suggest he’s this calm person who joined the Sith because he actually thought they were morally correct. Vader has always been an emotional man, never a completely logical one. Besides, he has every reason to be angry considering how messed up, painful, and tragic his life is.

If you want to see what a calm, collected villain looks like, that would be Count Dooku.

Now this isn’t to say that Vader can never be cold. He was pretty cold to Lando and Han Solo in ESB. But that’s because he had no reason to get angry at Lando or Han. To him, Lando’s just some a dude who owns a mining colony that he’s never met before in his life, and Han to him is just some pilot, a tool to use to get to his son. But Vader does get angry in the OT. All the time. Even in those situations, it did seem that he kinda got a little irritated with Lando constantly questioning him, and the way he watches Han get tortured up close seems to give me the vibes that he relishes in it, which could be because he knows he had a part in destroying the Death Star, and for all of the trouble he’s been giving him.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I apologize if I ever sounded aggressive when explaining my viewpoint.

I’m a little late but I’m actually really looking forward to your prequel trilogy. Very interested in seeing what you’re planning on doing with this and Revenge of the Sith.

Oh I know, but I still think that would make for an interesting scene.

Probably superimposed text.

An alternative path I have just considered taking for the first half of ROTJ, is instead of taking place a year after ESB, it initially takes place very soon after, like maybe a month. Because if you think about it, why does it take them a year to rescue Han Solo?

So the Han’s rescue portion of the film would take place immediately after ESB, and then Luke returns to Dagobah, after which there’s a time gap of a year (or maybe it could be expanded to like 2 or 3 years to give Luke more time to train with Yoda and the second Death Star more time to be built). Vader’s arrival on the Death Star would be moved to after Han’s rescue and so on (because IMO it wouldn’t make sense for Vader to arrive on the Death Star and for it to take over a year for the Emperor to show up, nor would it make any sense for Vader and the Emperor to just hang out on the Death Star for over a year). The opening scene could be something like Vader visiting Padme’s grave, like in the latest comic series (since he is on an investigation to find who raised Luke), thus setting up his conflict with the light side. Not sure it’s feasible with what I have but I think that would be interesting.

The only problem I see with this approach is there has never been a time gap in the middle of a Star Wars movie, so I wonder if doing something like this would feel out of place or un-Star Warsy.

How is the first one a bad edit? That honestly sounds pretty poetic. Not really worth the effort but it isn’t bad by any means.

The second one though I understand.

Awesome!

And yes I agree. It’s like trying to preserve the twist that they’re on Earth in the new Planet of the Apes trilogy. It may have been shocking back then, but it’s just not going to do it anymore in this day and age.

What’s wrong with the mono mix?

I get what you’re saying but I don’t see how said footage would be able to be used in any other context then the context of The Mandalorian.

How does the Force being used as a superpower in this instance boil down the entirety of the Force to being a superpower? That would be like saying Yoda using the Force to lift up Luke’s X-Wing in ESB boils it down to superpowers because he uses it as an example of what the Force is capable of if he believes in himself. It’s showing one way it can be used.

It’s not the “wrong place” for such an opinion, Rodney. You are free to have and share any opinion you want here. I mean, I everyone would hate for this to be a gatekeeping, hivemind forum where everybody must conform, right?

Right?

ray_afraid said:

I disagree.

On what basis? Dooku is inferior to Yoda in terms of Force power, so he switches to something on a lower level because he’s better at that (because Force powers require more training and skill). That’s what’s shown in the movie.

Or it’s because of what I explained above? Because Dooku knew he had no chance against Yoda in terms of the Force so he changed the fight but was too arrogant to admit it, a very Sith trait and a general trait of Dooku’s character (always portraying himself as super confident)? Or do you just want to ignore that to fit your narrative?

How is completely erasing him from the frame easier then recoloring him? I don’t see that to be honest.

It isn’t antithetical at all. Yoda is better at the Force then at lightsaber combat, Dooku is just too arrogant to admit that. Yoda is literally just dodging everything Dooku tries to attack him with. Yoda was dominating the fight. So he tries to change the fight to something he thinks he’ll have a better chance at beating him with, but he’s wrong there too.

It’s not saying lightsaber combat is better then the Force.

For Revenge of the Sith, I’m waiting for Octorox’s extended edition with better upscaled deleted scenes. Part of the reason it’s been taking awhile is because I’ve had some debates and back-and-forths about changing certain things, and because it’s my second favorite Star Wars movie I put myself under a lot of pressure to make it perfect. I’ve even started to consider whether I even actually want to include the deleted scenes for pacing reasons. I might even make two versions.

I’ve heard the Obi-Wan show is going to have a scene taking place during Operation Knightfall which will show a Jedi defending younglings from the newly knighted Vader. It sounds really awesome and like it’d be perfect for Revenge of the Sith’s Order 66 sequence. Not going to wait all the way till then to release my edit, but more likely then not there will be a future version of my edit that includes it.

I know I’m going to be doing V2’s for my Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones edits. There are errors I want to fix and some different things I want to do. Plus there’s an issue in which the highest it will let you select for Phantom Menace is 720p when it should be 1080p. So V2 for that one will be first.

For the original trilogy, I’m waiting on Adywan. His edits are just so fantastic that I want to use his as the bases for mine. Empire Strikes Back is going to be first of the original trilogy to be released because my edits are minor and Adywan’s version is going to be out the soonest. I was going to use bryantmh’s 1080p upscale but since Adywan is doing his own upscale I’m just going to wait for that.

I’ve considered using telecine’s awesome edit for A New Hope in which he redid all of the lasers and lightsabers, added Vader’s chest lights, and used the AOTC Death Star plans from the original ANH:R as the base until ANH:R HD is released, though another part of me is thinking that it may just be worth it to wait for Revisited, because it’s just going to be soooooo good from what I’ve seen. Same case for Return of the Jedi (as telecine has made an edit of it too with improved lasers and lightsabers) though more likely so as it’s probably going to take way longer for Adywan to finish ROTJ:R then ANH:R HD. We’ll see how long the wait is for Adywan’s stuff.

If we get a scene with suited Vader vs. Jedi from the Kenobi show it would be perfect for an idea I have for an alternate ANH opening (the other version would just start with Vader slaughtering the Rebels from Rogue One). Either that or I could see if I can use footage from Star Wars Theory’s upcoming part 2 of his fan-film (with Mace Windu either completely omitted or his lightsaber blade recolored). Basically the idea is that it would begin with Vader dueling multiple Jedi that have teamed up to distract him from the Battle of Scarif. He shows off his strength by defeating them and then shows up to the Battle of Scarif where we see him slaughter Rebels before the Yoda scene with Qui-Gon and then the beginning of the actual movie. My reasoning for this is because I felt like it would smoothen the transition between ROTS and ANH, be perfect visual exposition for Vader’s character, starting off the movie with Vader makes sense from a saga “Tragedy of Darth Vader” point of view, it shows off Vader’s power which makes him much more terrifying throughout the entire trilogy (imagine how much more terrifying it would’ve been seeing Luke attempt to face Vader for the first time in ESB if we had previously seen Vader wipe out multiple Jedi on his own), and showing the bigger universe and how these events impact the grand scheme of things. But that won’t be until the far future when it’s feasible to assemble. Depending on what happens with both of those projects the version that just begins with the Rogue One scene and then the Dagobah scene will likely be released first.

School has been kicking my ass and a lot of my focus has been on my dinosaur documentary project so that’s what’s been going on. I haven’t even worked on my Godzilla edits at all since I last posted those color corrected pictures on that thread. But thankfully Christmas break is coming up so I’ll have more time (let’s just hope work doesn’t decide to kick my ass instead).

I’m glad to see you’re interested in my version of the saga, that always encourages me.

Definitely an improvement

He said them? I’m so intrigued now.

SparkySywer said:
In the actual context of the scene that’s from, Yoda and Obi-Wan are talking about how Anakin fell to the dark side because he was unprepared and the Emperor manipulated him, and now Luke’s leaving Dagobah, with his training unfinished, to go face Vader. Especially since the Emperor wants Luke and his abilities.

I really don’t think it’s about the crazy Marvel superpowers the Emperor has, because, well, for one, Force Lightning isn’t in ESB, and for two, Luke never fights the Emperor in the entire trilogy.

HAHAHAHAHAHA (this isn’t even hyperbole I actually laughed so hard upon seeing this)

This proves you didn’t actually watch the movies. Yoda says to not underestimate the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. Not Empire Strikes Back. Force lightning is in Return of the Jedi.

I would think people on a forum called ORIGINALTRILOGY.COM would actually know jack and shit about the original trilogy.

SparkySywer said:

Watch the movies, because you clearly haven’t. I literally just provided examples for you completely ignored them. And another purist dude here literally AGREED WITH ME.

Also regarding Bede’s comments, what he suggested is another valid way to incorporate Yoda in the prequels, so I can’t really say you’re wrong, but I like what they actually did. I also don’t find the duels in AOTC and ROTS fake, I think they’re great, especially the ones in ROTS. Shadiversity (a guy who actually knows sword fighting) even did a video analyzing the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan duel move-by-move and he thinks it’s fantastic and one of the best choregraphed duels in films (he also analyzed the Last Jedi duel and found it to be absolutely horrible). But again, whether something looks fake to you is rather subjective so I can’t really say you’re wrong.

I’ve watched the whole saga multiple times and I’ve never heard of “Death Vader”. Must be in the alternate universe versions of the movies you watched, because clearly we haven’t been watching the same ones.

Also how is the Tragedy of Darth Vader story not coherent? He becomes a Jedi, becomes an evil Sith midway through the third movie, is evil for the next two movies and the greater part of the sixth one, and then redeems himself at the end of said sixth one. “Not being coherent” would be if Vader was a good guy in ESB.

I can understand why it was omitted for scene transitioning reasons (with the arrangement you had there didn’t really seem like any good place to put it), but I always felt it was a shame that Anakin’s counseling with Yoda wasn’t in LOE. I think it’s a very well-written scene and it further shows why Anakin went to the Sith: the Jedi didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear.

It’s your edit of course, you can do what you want, but since you brought it up I guess I thought my thoughts might be appropriate.

This is actually really good timing for redoing this, as Hal has just announced he’s using better upscales for the deleted scenes for new versions of his edits. You used Hal’s edits previously, didn’t you?

Imagine thinking that Yoda just not ever involving himself into anything is more interesting. That would definitely make him quite hypocritical when he says “Do, or do not, there is no try”. He doesn’t say, “You’re better off just watching everything bad happen from a distance and not do anything about it.” Him knowing Anakin more personally is way more impactful and makes for a better narrative. It makes it so Yoda is more right to be cautious about training Luke. He shouldn’t just sit out as the entire galaxy goes to shit and the Sith take over. Like wow, what a great hero.

It’s not the EU that “rehabilitated” them, he just learned between the movies. It’s established in Revenge of the Sith that he became Qui-Gon’s apprentice, it doesn’t take much to realize that the change in his character between the prequels and the originals was because his perspective changed during his exile. There’s not even any EU stuff that covers what Yoda did between ROTS and ESB. Guess who also had character development between films? Luke, between ESB and ROTJ. He grew from rash and impatient to collected and wise. But I guess that wasn’t actually in the movies.

He didn’t say “Don’t underestimate the Emperor’s ability to manipulate people”, he said “The powers of the Emperor.” It’s a clear foreshadowing to his force lightning anyway, as the moment Luke lets his guard down and underestimates the Emperor, he gets attacked by force lightning. Force lightning is the payoff to all the talk of the Emperor being someone you don’t underestimate. And Yoda knew this, because force lightning was how he lost.

First, Palpatine shows more powers to Yoda then lightsaber dueling. He uses telekinesis and force lightning too. In fact the first thing he does is force lightning. Second, the force in the prequels is the same as in the original movies. They didn’t introduce anything new. Force lightning, telekinesis (Vader throws objects at Luke in ESB, force choking is technically telekinesis, Yoda lifting up an entire X-Wing), force speed and super high jumping (Luke did it in ESB AND ROTJ when he jumped up to avoid Vader, and Vader also did a big jump in ESB), seeing into the future, fast lightsaber dueling (sometimes Vader and Luke’s duels can actually be pretty fast in their most intense parts; the only reason they weren’t faster is because Luke is a novice force user and Vader isn’t trying to kill him, it makes a ton of sense that Jedi masters that trained for decades would be incredibly fast and powerful), it’s all there. The force giving people “superpowers” is not something the prequels introduced. They’ve been there from the beginning. The prequels just showed far more experienced and powerful force users more often using their powers (often because the circumstances were more right in the prequels to show off their full power; Vader was incredibly powerful but had to hold back the vast majority of the time). They’re just the original powers dialed up because they feature more powerful, experienced people who are more skilled with those powers more often in circumstances where they should use their full powers. Stop pretending the original trilogy didn’t have any force superpowers. Don’t pretend Yoda didn’t lift an X-Wing, Luke didn’t jump super quick high up in the air to escape the Carbonite freezing, Vader didn’t choke a guy that was in a different location then him and threw things at Luke, and that parts in his fight with Vader in ROTJ actually go really quick. Third, the prequels are nothing like Dragonball Z. They have just as much in common with them as the originals.

Also the force in the prequels isn’t just superpowers and fights. The Jedi fight as a last resort. Do you not remember everything Qui-Gon said about the will of the Force and how the Force will guide them? Literally the first discussion in the entire prequels is Qui-Gon telling Obi-Wan about needing to be “in the moment.” Qui-Gon was overall very elegant and faithful. I guess you also conveniently forgot about Anakin and Yoda’s talk about how he should “rejoice for those who transform into the force.” All the times they say “May the force be with you”? “Balance to the force”? The force is still very much a spiritual thing. And no, midichlorians do not remove that. They’re the bridge that connects living beings to the force, NOT the force itself.

But that Death Star hologram is inconsistent with the actual design. The AOTC one is more accurate.

DZ-330 said:

As long as Obi beats him good again and before vanishing for a second time tells him, “You still have much to learn, Darth.”

Hahahaha no

It shouldn’t be easy for Vader but it shouldn’t be easy for Obi-Wan. Both should be very powerful, with Vader having an edge in power but Obi-Wan has the edge in terms of wits.

NFBisms said:

You wouldn’t get Christensen back just to be in the suit, so I imagine there will be some flashbacks. But I’ll throw my hat in for some Anakin-desert-hallucinations or something Tyler Durden-y. Obi-Wan “seeing” Anakin as he goes on his adventures.

Well they said he would be playing Darth Vader so I interpreted that as actually playing him in the suit. I can imagine they’re probably going to do both what you said and that.

I stand corrected on Vader facing Obi-Wan.

I can’t wait to see that and the Jedi Purge scene!