Posted on 05/26/2005 10:22:56 PM PDT by abishai
A Defense of the Darth Vader
A republic is in shambles, and its leaders and protectors are at odds with each other. The Jedi Knights are about to arrest and, yes, assassinate the Chancellor. What’s the right thing to do? You have sworn to protect the laws, sworn to serve and protect its executors, yet you have also sworn yourself to the brotherhood order of the Jedi.
The Jedi mistrust you and you mistrust them. They have denied you your rightful place in leadership. They have ordered you to commit treason against the republic, and against its leader. They have asked you to betray and spy on a trusted confidant from your childhood. They are giddy with themselves over the chancellor stepping down after the war, and even admit that they will have to “restore order” themselves if he does not. Who do these people think they are!? One of Jedi leaders, Mace Windu, is a prideful, jealous, spiteful, implacable jerk who sits on his duff all day and is very quick to order people around. He can trust no one but himself , struts around with his pink light saber, and publicly says that he can’t trust you, who have just rescued the chancellor and your best friend, saving the republic. Another is a little green thing that still can’t speak right basic after hearing it for 800 years, even when EVERY OTHER basic speaking alien in the whole galaxy can. He tells you to just “get over” your loved ones dying. And they call him the most powerful JedI!!
You and your wife have sworn to uphold the republic, and serve its leader, Palpatine. The Jedi are about to arrest the chancellor, and when you show up that punk windbag Mace is about to kill the senator. CLEARLY Mace is wrong!! Mace is making himself an enemy of the republic and clearly advancing the JedI plot to take over. Your very fears have been confirmed. The brotherhood of knights have gone sour. The Jedi have left you. You have not left the Jedi. You will do right, even if and while they do wrong. And you must protect the chancellor whom they have made their object of usurpation.
I can see how Darth Vader knows he is doing right. He has not changed. Everything else has. The JedI tried a coup and failed. The Jedi were wrong. And they lost. Light side, dark side, tomayto, tomahto. The Jedi have been lying about the dark side, anyway. Its just a different aspect of the Force. You have learned and mastered the power of the light side, now its time to move on and master the dark side. Its just two sides of a righteous saber, for you to master and control. They both can be yours, and through it you can bring peace, security, justice, and brotherhood to the entire galaxy. Happy ending. And all this does not even scratch the surface about saving your wife from death.
And that jerk Mace had it coming to begin with. The Jedi deserved to lose.
Damon Knight used to warn of making subsidiary characters look stupid so the hero or villain will look that much smarter. It's far more dramatic to make all the opponents smart and skillful, that way the drama is more powerful.
Now, every movie has all the villains act like boobs, and in this case, Lucas is making the Jedi look weak. That makes their fall all the less meaningful than if they were competent, smart and powerful, and were simply betrayed. We should always understand why a movie villain does what he does, but in this case, we are inadvertently made to see that he is doing the RIGHT thing. Palpatine's only fault is that he's The Bad Guy, which is funny seeing how Lucas is supposedly so adamant against "absolutes". The Sith were wiped out by the Jedi, and now they're fighting back--precisely what the Jedi under Luke do in the original movies. The Sith's evil seems to consist of wanting order.
I hope Lucas thinks about that the next time he sues someone for copyright infrindgement, or calls the cops when he sees some psycho fan on his property--he's spent six movies telling us how bad it is to have a strong central government. In the "good" days of Episode I, Lucas's "good" guys allowed SLAVERY to exist!
He lost me with the Ewoks.
The original plan for Jedi had no Ewoks but Wookies, guerilla fighters but without the cutesyness. Lucas shoehorned that idea into Sith in another of his attempts at "mirroring" elements in both trilogies.
Imagine Jedi with that single change and it becomes so much better. Not to mention all the other ideas abandoned for Jedi.
Macain is Vader??
How was Annakin denied a title he rightly deserved? He wasn't exactly an experienced Jedi.
That said, the Jedi sucked.
I couldn't figure out how they weren't able to sense their own betrayals -- wouldn't their Jedi-senses start tingling if a soldier behind them was about to shoot them in the back?
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