I have walked by this house many times, and it always has the images of Darth Vader and Elvis Presley together in the window. I don’t think there could be two more dissimilar movie stars. Out of all the movie stars, these are the two you pick to watch over your home? The residents must believe that Elvis will save them from the evil of Darth Vader. He would tell him “Don’t Be Cruel” and to stay away from “Suspicious Minds.” Elvis would ask Darth Vader not to get “All Shook Up” and “Love Me Tender.” I hope it all works out for them. In the meantime, let’s explore the dark side…
According to Wikipedia, Darth Vader is a fictional character in the “Star Wars” franchise. Born Anakin Skywalker, the character is a primary antagonist in the original trilogy and a primary protagonist in the prequel trilogy. “Star Wars” creator George Lucas has collectively referred to the first six episodic films of the franchise as "the tragedy of Darth Vader."
Originally a slave on Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker is a Jedi prophesied to bring balance to the Force. He is lured to the dark side of the Force by Palpatine and becomes a Sith lord. After a lightsaber battle with his former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, in which he is severely injured, Vader is transformed into a cyborg. He then serves the Galactic Empire as its chief enforcer until he ultimately redeems himself by saving his son, Luke Skywalker, and killing Palpatine, sacrificing his own life in the process. He is also the secret husband of Padmé Amidala, father of Princess Leia and grandfather of Kylo Ren.
The character has been portrayed by numerous actors: David Prowse physically portrayed Vader while James Earl Jones voiced him in the original trilogy, and Sebastian Shaw portrayed the unmasked Anakin in “Return of the Jedi,” as well as the character's spirit in the original release of that film. Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen played the character in the prequel trilogy in the first and next two films, respectively, with Christensen also replacing Shaw as Anakin's spirit with the 2004 re-release of “Return of the Jedi.” His cinematic appearances span the first six “star Wars” films, as well as “Rogue One.”. He is referenced in both “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi,” and makes vocal cameos as both Vader and Anakin in “The Rise of Skywalker.” He also appears in television series — most substantially “The Clone Wars” — and numerous iterations of the “Star Wars Expanded Universe,” including video games, novels and comic books.
Darth Vader has become one of the most iconic villains in popular culture and has been listed among the greatest villains and fictional characters ever. The American Film Institute listed him as the third greatest movie villain in cinema history on “100 Years… 100 Hereos and Villains,” behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates. His role as a tragic hero in the saga was also met with positive reviews.
Name
Various combinations of names for the character were built upon the phrase "Dark Water." Then Lucas "added lots of last names, Vaders and Wilsons and Smiths, and [he] just came up with the combination of Darth and Vader." After the release of “The Empire Strikes Back (1980),” Lucas said the name Vader was based upon the German/Dutch-language homophone “vater” or “vader,” meaning “father,” making the name representative of a "Dark Father." Other words which may have inspired the name are "death" and "invader," as well as the name of a high school upperclassman of Lucas's, Gary Vader.
As no other character with the title "Darth" was introduced until the release of “The Phantom Menace” (1999), some viewers interpreted it as the character's first name, in part because Obi-Wan Kenobi addresses him as "Darth" in the original film. The moniker is bestowed upon Anakin in “revenge of the Sith” (2005) upon his turn to the dark side of the Force.
Director Ken Annakin's films “Swiss Family Robinson” and “Battle of the Bulge” influenced the original trilogy, leading some to believe that Anakin was named after him. Lucas's publicist denied this following Annakin's death in 2009. Anakin and Luke's original surname "Starkiller" remained in the script until a few months into filming “Star Wars,” when it was dropped due to what Lucas called "unpleasant connotations" with Charles Manson and replaced with "Skywalker."
Concept and writing
In the first draft of “Star Wars,” tall, grim general "Darth Vader" was already close in line with his final depiction, and the protagonist Annikin Starkiller had a role similar to that of his son Luke's as the 16-year-old son of a respected warrior. Originally, Lucas conceived of the Sith as a group that served the Emperor in the same way that the Schutzstaffel served Adolph Hitler. In developing the backstory for “The Empire Strikes Back,” Lucas condensed this into one character in the form of Darth Vader.
After the success of the original “Star Wars” (1977), Lucas hired science-fiction author Leigh Brackett to write the sequel with him. They held story conferences and by late November 1977, Lucas had produced a handwritten treatment. In the first draft that Brackett would write from this, Luke's father appears as a ghost to instruct Luke. Lucas was disappointed with the script, but Brackett died of cancer before he could discuss it with her. With no writer available, Lucas wrote the next draft himself. In this draft, dated April 1, 1978, he made use of a new plot twist: Vader claiming to be Luke's father. According to Lucas, he found this draft enjoyable to write, as opposed to the year-long struggles writing the first film. Lucas has said that he knew Vader was Luke's father while writing the first film, though the relationship is not evidenced before said draft of “The Empire Strikes Back.”
The new plot element of Luke's parentage had drastic effects on the series. Author Michael Kaminski argues in “The Secret History of Star Wars” that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under a storyline where Vader was a separate character from Luke's father. After writing the second and third drafts in which the plot point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin had been Obi-Wan Kenobi's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by Palpatine. Anakin battled Obi-Wan on the site of a volcano and was badly wounded but was then reborn as Vader. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan hid Luke on Tatooine while the Galactic Republic became the tyrannical Galactic Empire, and Vader systematically hunted down and killed the Jedi. This change in character would provide a springboard to the "tragedy of Darth Vader" storyline that underlies the prequel trilogy.
After deciding to create the prequel trilogy, Lucas indicated that the story arc would be a tragic one depicting Anakin's fall to the dark side. He also saw that the prequels could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a "saga." For the first prequel, “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” (1999), Lucas made Anakin nine years old to make the character's separation from his mother poignant. Movie trailers focused on Anakin and a one-sheet poster showing him casting Vader's shadow informed otherwise unknowing audiences of the character's eventual fate. The movie ultimately achieved a primary goal of introducing audiences to Anakin, as well as introducing the concept that he is the Chosen One of an ancient Jedi prophecy, destined to bring balance to the Force. Lucas states in an interview recorded around the time of the third prequel, “Revenge of the Sith” (2005), that "Anakin is the Chosen One. Even when Anakin turns into Darth Vader, he is still the Chosen One."
Michael Kaminski offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the dark side prompted Lucas to make fundamental story changes, first revising the opening sequence of “Revenge of the Sith” to have Palpatine kidnapped and his apprentice Count Dooku, killed by Anakin in cold blood as the first act in the latter's turn towards the dark side. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas rewrote Anakin's turn to the dark side; Anakin's fall from grace would now be motivated by a desire to save his wife, Padmé Amidala, rather than the previous version in which that reason was one of several, including that he genuinely believed that the Jedi were plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental rewrite was accomplished both through editing the principal footage and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004.
During production of the animated “The Clone Wars” television series, Ahsoka Tano was developed to illustrate how Anakin develops from the brash, undisciplined Padawan apprentice in “Attack of the Clones” (2002) to the more reserved Jedi Knight in “Revenge of the Sith.” “Clone Wars” supervising director and “Rebels” co-creator Dave Filoni said that giving Anakin responsibility for a Padawan was meant to place the character in a role that forced him to become more cautious and responsible. It would also give him insight into his relationship with Obi-Wan and depict how their relationship matured. Ahsoka and Anakin's relationship was seen as an essential story arc spanning both the animated film and “Clone Wars” television series. Filoni began thinking about the final confrontation between Ahsoka and Vader ever since he created the former; different iterations had different endings, including one in which Vader kills Ahsoka just as she slashes open his helmet to reveal Vader's scarred face.
Ahsoka's presence in “Rebels” was necessary to allow Darth Vader to encounter the show's lead characters without the latter being "destroyed," as Ahsoka can "stand toe-to-toe" with Vader.
Design
The original design of Darth Vader's costume did not originally include a helmet. The idea that Vader should wear a breathing apparatus was first proposed by concept artist Ralph McQuarrie during preproduction discussions for “Star Wars” with George Lucas in 1975. McQuarrie stated that Lucas's artistic direction was to portray a malevolent figure in a cape with samurai armor. "For Darth Vader, George just said he would like to have a very tall, dark fluttering figure that had a spooky feeling like it came in on the wind." McQuarrie noted that the script indicated that Vader would travel between spaceships and needed to survive in the vacuum of space, and he proposed that Vader should wear some sort of space suit. Lucas agreed, and McQuarrie combined a full-face breathing mask with a samurai helmt, thus creating one of the most iconic designs of space fantasy cinema. McQuarrie's 1975 production painting of Darth Vader engaged in a lightsaber duel with Deak Starkiller (a character prototype for Luke Skywalker) depicts Vader wearing black armor, a flowing cape and an elongated, skull-like mask and helmet. Its similarity to the final design of Vader's costume demonstrates that McQuarrie's earliest conception of Vader was so successful that very little needed to be changed for production.
Working from McQuarrie's designs, the costume designer John Mollo devised a costume that could be worn by an actor on-screen using a combination of clerical robes, a motorcycle suit, a German military helmet and a military gas mask. The prop sculptor Brian Muir created the helmet and armor used in the film.
The sound of the respirator function of Vader's mask was created by Ben Burtt using modified recordings of scuba breathing apparatus used by divers. The sound effect is trademarked in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under Trademark #77419252 and is officially described in the documentation as "the sound of rhythmic mechanical human breathing created by breathing through a scuba tank regulator."
Commentators have often pointed to the influence of Akira Kurosawa's films such as “The Hidden Fortress” (1958) on George Lucas, and Vader's samurai-inspired costume design is held up as a significant example of the Japanese influences on “Star Wars.”
Cultural impact
Darth Vader's iconic status has made the character a symbol for evil in popular culture. For example, a three-part series of episodes of the YouTube series “Epic Rap Battles of History” has Darth Vader facing off against Adolph Hitler. Psychiatrists have considered Vader to be a useful example for explaining borderline personality disorder to medical students. Anakin's origin story in “The Phantom Menace” has been compared to signifiers of African American racial identity, and his dissatisfaction with his life has been compared to Siddartha's before he became Gautama Buddha. A Mexican church advised Christians against seeing “The Phantom Menace” because it portrays Anakin as a Christ figure. The slime-mold beetle Agathidium vaderi is named after Vader, and several buildings across the globe are regularly compared to him. A grotesque of Darth Vader looms over the east face of the Washington National Cathedral's northwest tower. During the 2007-08 National Hockey League season, Ottawa Senators goaltender Martin Gerber performed so well in an all-black mask that fans endearingly termed him "Darth Gerber". In 2015, a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Odessa, Ukraine, was converted into one of Darth Vader due to a law on decommunication.
Many films and television series have paid homage to Darth Vader. The 1982 compilation movie “Cosmic Princess,” compiled from parts of “Space: 1999” episodes, contains several “Star Wars” references including a character named "Vader." Marty McFly in “Back to the Future” (1985), dressed in a radiation suit, calls himself "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan" to convince the past version of his father to ask his mother to a dance. Rick Moranis plays "Dark Helmet" in the “Star Wars” parody “Spaceballs” (1987). In “Chasing Amy” (1997), Hooper X speaks at a comic convention about Darth Vader being a metaphor for how poorly the science fiction genre treats black people; he is especially offended that Vader, the "blackest brother in the galaxy," reveals himself to be a "feeble, crusty old white man" at the end of “Return of the Jedi.” The character was also parodied in the Nickelodeon cartoon “Rocko’s Modern Life” in the episode "Teed Off." On another Nickelodeon cartoon, “Jimmy Neutron,” Darth Vader's infamous line, "I am your father" was interpolated in the mini-episode "New Dog, Old Tricks." The line was also alluded to in “Toy Story 2,” which also introduces Emperor Zurg (a parody of Vader) to the Disney media franchise. The character of Dark Mayhem in “The Thundermans” is also a parody of Vader, especially in his original depiction, while his later appearances changed the character to a comical supervillain usually working with incompetent henchmen. The Warner Bros. animated show based on the Looney Tunes “Loonatics Unleashed” has a Sylvester the Cat-type character named Sylth Vester, a parody and play on the character and name of Darth Vader, respectively.
The “Final Fantasy IV” the character Golbez — who spends most of the game as the main antagonist — was stated by Takashi Tokita to be based on Vader, with his following a similar character arc. In 2010, IGN ranked Darth Vader 25th in the "Top 100 Videogame Villains."
Many commentators and comedians have also evoked his visage to satirize politicians and other public figures, and several American political figures have been unflatteringly compared to the character. In response to Ronald Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed "Star Wars" by his political opponents), German news magazine Der Spiegel portrayed the president wearing Vader's helmet on its cover in 1984. In 2005, Al Gore referred to Tele-Communications Inc.’s John C. Malone as the "Darth Vader of cable," and political strategist Lee Atwater was known by his political enemies as "the Darth Vader of the Republican Party.” Native American artist Bunky Echohawk portrayed General Custer as Vader in his painting “Darth Custer.”
In 2006, US Vice President Dick Cheney referenced Darth Vader in an interview with CNN’s John King. While discussing the George W. Bush administration's dogma on gathering intelligence, Cheney said, "It means we need to be able to go after and capture or kill those people who are trying to kill Americans. That's not a pleasant business. It's a very serious business. And I suppose, sometimes, people look at my demeanor and say, 'Well, he's the Darth Vader of the administration.” Following this interview, many pop culture celebrities referred to Cheney in this manner during and after his vice presidency. On January 25, 2007, Jon Stewart put on a Darth Vader helmet to address Dick Cheney as a "kindred spirit" on “The Daily Show.” Cheney's wife Lynne presented Stewart with a Darth Vader action figure on her appearance on the show on October 10, 2007. Both Stewart and Stephen Colbert have occasionally referred to Cheney as "Darth Cheney." In the satirical cartoon show “Lil’ Bush,” Dick Cheney's father is portrayed as being Darth Vader. At her presidential campaign event on September 19, 2007, Hillary Clinton also referred to Cheney as Darth Vader. At the 2008 Washington Radio and Television Corrspondents’ Association Dinner, Cheney joked that his wife Lynne told him that the Vader comparison "humanizes" him. George Lucas told The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, however, that Cheney is more akin to Emperor Palpatine, and that a better stand-in for Vader would be George W. Bush. An issue of Newsweek referenced this quote, and compared Bush and Cheney to Vader and Palpatine, respectively, in a satirical article comparing politicians to various “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” characters.
In Ukraine, the Internet Party of Ukraine regularly lets people named Darth Vader take part in elections.
In 2019, an original Vader helmet from “The Empire Strikes Back” was sold for $900,000 in an online auction.