Posted on 12/17/2015 8:17:16 AM PST by dangus
Today, the last day before the new Star Wars movie is seen by millions, and this theory is presumably destroyed, I would like to take the occasion and point out that there is one simple realization that will remove all of the alleged plot holes in Star Wars:
Darth Vader is the hero.
First, you have to realize that the Jedi are at best ambiguously good. The Galactic Republic is supposed to be, at least on the highest levels, a democracy, but it is more like the United Nations than the early United States: slavery flourishes, monarchies abound, and the sentience of much-abused robots pricks no-one's conscience. The prequels reveal that they were never abundant enough to be a police force, merely a conspiracy to control the Republic. Han Solo doesn't believe they exist, and a high-ranking officer in Darth Vader's own Death Star believes they are a silly superstition.
So what did Vader accomplish that he is the hero? The anaihilation of both the Jedi and the Sith, liberating thousands (millions?) of planets, some with trillions of inhabitants. He did bring balance to the force; he removed the people in whom it was unnaturally concentrated.
Let's go back to the first movie, and point out the elements which were revealed in later movies to be outrageous coincidences and implausibilities:
Darth Vader is not a Boss, merely a very scary dog on a leash. Yet, he has managed to get his daughter to be Princess of Alduraan. He captures his daughter's ship, but allows droids he has created to escape, taking a message from his daughter to the approximate location of his son. That message is a plea for help that will bring his son and his droids to his mentor.
He lures his mentor towards his Death Star, which must have been the singular military project of the entire empire, where he allows his mentor, son and daughter to get plans for how to destroy it. He must know they are present, yet he allows them to escape. His son, daughter and mentor then launch an attack. He hops on a ship as a mere pilot, destroys a ship which had a target lock on his son, and then lamely misses his own attack on the ship, and becomes just about the only person to survive the destruction of the Death Star.
So how the hell does he get entrusted to oversee the new Death Star? Why does the emperor go along with his plans to leak the Death Star plans to his son again? Why did he so pathetically weakly defend the shield generator? It all makes sense if you remember he is the most powerful Jedi. The emperor has foolishly allowed himself to get too close to the one person in the galaxy strong enough to control his own mind. And Darth Vader assassinates him.... once his son reveals to the emperor that there truly is good left in him.
Is Darth really so evil? He's supposed to torture Leia to find the location of the rebel base, but we show no signs he ever did. Alduraan professes to be a planet of peace, but is a sparsely populated (millions, not billions of inhabitants) nexus of insurrectionists, yet its rulers are monarchs, not democrats. He didn't even allow the ewoks to be molested by the gigantic construction project above their planet. He didn't kill Han Solo, but just kept him on ice, until he may prove useful to his Luke and Leia again.
Don't get me wrong; destroying Alduraan was horrible. But it may have been necessary to get Vader close enough to the emperor to control the emperor, like an informant who caps a lowlife to get close to the godfather. It's the same moral decision the US made when we bombed Hiroshima, but on a grader scale: a few million lives to liberate trillions upon trillions of lives.
Why did Obi-Wan have to die? Because Obi-Wan realized the plan, and realized that Luke would realize it before he was ready. He sacrificed his own life. Think about his last words in this context, and you'll realize that they weren't a threat, they were an imperative: "You can't win, Vader. [We both know Luke will be on to you.] Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Nice, agree or disagree this is good work.
Obi-wan and Luke are the Ambiguously Good duo?
Did Darth Vader have to wear pampers to avoid electrocution?
My weird knack is synthesizing wierdly disparate information. I’ve yet to figure out how to use it for good, besides posting political information on FR. I gave up writing real-world conspiracy theories when future events fit them far too well. Also, I avoid interpreting the bible’s prophecies, clinging to the line, “You shall not know the day nor the hour.”
No. His ceramic-plastic outfit, including gloves and boots kept the current from flowing through him. Instead, it behaved like lightning globe. Alternate theory would be that he was so heavily robotic, that all the metal parts — insulated from the flesh — acted like a Farraday cage.
This is because the Jedi were never meant to be a galactic MI6 operating out of a mega mosque -- only 20 years earlier.
I always thought it odd that Vader so quickly recognized Luke as his offspring, but not Leia (who clearly was just as powerful in the force). Maybe he did, but didn't want to reveal this to the Emperor.
Yes, and Luke and Leia weren’t supposed to be brother and sister; Darth wasn’t supposed to be their father; and so on and so on. The game is trying to fix the horrific plot holes that the later movies created.
“Is Darth really so evil? He’s supposed to torture Leia to find the location of the rebel base, but we show no signs he ever did.”
There is a radio-play version, six hours long, which spends significant time on Leia’s tortured interrogation. Trust me: there’s a reason it’s not expanded on in the PG-rated movie - the agony & terror involved would have pushed the rating well into R.
I hear he was also a Brony.
To go along, there’s a popular theory circulating that Jar-Jar was actually a high-level Sith Lord, expert in the Jedi version of “drunken fighting” and using the protagonists to advance his own goals. This well explains his incredible ability to look like a bumbling idiot yet slaughtering vast numbers of Empire troops in the process.
Alas, audiences didn’t get the Drunken Master reference, the plot plan backfired, and Lucas abandoned his plans for the big reveal & downfall of JJ in episodes 2 & 3.
Not canon. Didn’t happen. ;-) Besides, she shows no physical or psychological effect of having been through torture.
Yes, I like that one.
Let’s not forget that Jar-Jar is the true villain, the Mitch McConnell to Emperor Palpatine’s Barrack Obama.
Is that short for Jarett-Jarett?
All you really see is a needle, which tells me that they just injected her with truth serum. She does not look the least bit hurt or injured in subsequent scenes.
IIRC, the Sith were always only two: the master and the student.
How only two balance the hundreds or thousands of Jedi is yet another unanswerable question.
Fun topic, though.
I thought it was Anakin Skywalker who was the hero.
Darth Vader was a skulking sidekick to the Emperor who was a failure as a leader. Vader? Lost TWO Death Stars.
Anakin killed off the Emperor.
The whole thing is the Decline and Rise of Anakin Skywalker.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.