ANH Vader is the "Dark Side monster." ESB Vader is a desperate father trying to pull a hopeless plan to rule with his son under the nose of his omniscient master.
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WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm and/or sophisticated satire. Any psychological damage sustained is purely your fault.
^ I wouldn't go that far. Certainly Vader is more sympathetic and three dimensional than in ANH, but Lucas's own commentary in TESB indicates that Vader is thoroughly and utterly evil, selfish, and despicable. What you suggest implies a lack of malice. If anything, I'd say that added element makes Vader even more brutal. The dark side monster to which I refer is still there in TESB: he's a clever, calculating hunter, willing to murder, torture, and lie to get what he wants. When he is confronted with the fact that Luke is his son, he isn't overwhelmed with love or compassion, but sees Luke as little more than a tool to overthrow Palpatine.
Vader in ESB is a man who has realized that Palpatine sees the value of his son, and intends to replace him (Vader), with a newer model. When the two speak, Vader says "He will join us or die."
Now, think about this. A mere brutal monster would simply kill the younger rival for his position, saying he had remained true to his word and nothing could be done, keeping his role in relative safety with the last of the Jedi dead.
Does Vader do that? No, he executes a plan that involves turning his son, offering the chance to rule together. Remember, Vader fells to the Dark Side not out of rage, but out of desperate compassion for his wife. Listen to him when he speaks to Luke in Cloud City.
Vader does not want to kill his son, who is his only relation that he knows to be alive at this point. He wants the companionship that he had lost with the death of Padme.
Vader has only just revealed their connection to Luke a moment before. Luke reacted in anguish - not exactly the best indicator that the kid's happy with this news. And yet Vader insists on reaffirming their connection. This is not for the purpose of convincing Luke; it is Vader practically begging someone he wants to care for to simply be with him instead of against him.
After Luke escapes on the Falcon, Vader orders his troops to set their weapons to stun as they capture the ship, again not even thinking of how easy it would be to explain Luke's accidental death during recapture - an out that he clearly gave himself when speaking with the Emperor, were he personally willing to take it.
He reaches out to Luke again through the Force, once again calling him "Son," and only quietly asks that he join him. And once the Falcon has escaped for good? Vader can't even react with his typical rage. He lets Piett live, and slowly walks off the bridge in a manner the official script terms "contemplative."
Vader in ESB is a trapped father first, a villain second. Nearly everything he does concerning Luke points to that fact.
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WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm and/or sophisticated satire. Any psychological damage sustained is purely your fault.
This is a pretty good chat and I'll address it in greater length later, but for now, I would like to point out that George Lucas's own commentary seems to oppose what you're espousing. In fact, so do Vader's own words:
"There is no escape. Don't make me destroy you. You do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover you power. Join me and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy."
Vader is willing to cause his son intense physical harm -- he beat the hell out of him, remember? -- and yes, he's willing to kill him if need be. George's commentary in TESB, specifically during the beginning of their duel in the carbonite chamber, indicates that Vader sees Luke only as a tool to eliminate Palpatine.
That changes in ROTJ, of course, but we're not quite there.
Vader was desperate to turn Luke, not to kill him, to make him a tool to kill the Emperor as Lacan said. As Palpatine said 'Vader never plots alone.' He knows he's never going to actually become more powerful than Palps, so he needs to break the rule of 2 to off him. And even then he chickens out time and again. IMO by the end of RotJ he's flat out given up.
Yeah, Vader rather makes a point of not killing Luke. He beats the crap out of him during the duel on Bespin, but honestly, if he wanted to kill Luke, he would have been able to do so without even trying. He was fighting someone who barely had any training in the Force and next to no lightsaber training. The amount of threat that Luke held to Vader was about equal to the room of younglings in ROTS.
And instead all he does is throw stuff at him to slow him down and then disarm him. Literally, but even so. Vader was making a point to not make lethal attacks against Luke, because he did not want him dead.
So one quote from Lucas negating it, one quote from Lucas confirming it. Chalk one up to the old man's senility, and the evidence in the movie itself still points to the logical conclusion I presented.
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WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm and/or sophisticated satire. Any psychological damage sustained is purely your fault.
While George has certainly been known to contradict himself, I don't think the quote you offered contradicts what he said earlier in the commentary. No one is disputing the contention that Vader was a three dimensional villain who became conflicted about his son and no one is saying that he wanted to kill Luke. What has been offered is what George has told us: Vader, for all his conflict, was still a bad guy and still evil. As of TESB, he saw his son as a tool with which to use against his Master, and little more. Moreover, Vader was willing to do whatever was necessary, be it murder, torture, and deceit, to put Luke into a position of vulnerability.
That Vader is present in TFU2. We uses similar tactics with Luke that he did with Starkiller. He's presented as an almost unstoppable foe and a truly brilliant adversary, unlike the otherwise defanged Vader throughout the EU and in some segments of the movies.
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Yeah. It's just not really a good game, even if you ignore all the insults & butchering made towards the movies/original trilogy. Worst title of 2010 by far.
This has to be the most disappointing game I've ever played.
All things considered, was the first one perfect? Nah. It had it's flaws, but despite that, it was an incredibly fun, entertaining and overall enjoyable game even though it was quick. Once you beat the game, you thought to yourself, "This series has some pretty good potential to be great."
Ok...to sum it up. This game is even shorter...and all the levels are basically "big metal rooms connected by big metal hallways, connected to another big metal room, with a big metal hallway that goes left, than right...etc Very linear.
To make matters worse, they repeat one level twice, give you another level where all you do is walk around looking at fog for 20 minutes, then give the most rushed ending to a game I've ever seen. It feels like they got halfway into production then said "let's just wrap it up here and push the game out in time for the 2010 holidays."
I could care less if they make a 3rd now. You can save yourself 50 dollars by renting the game and guess what, in the time period you have the game by renting it, you'll be able to beat the darn thing and know that you won't have to regret taking the game back because there's zero replay value.
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I like George.
Last edited by Sith Master X on Jan 2nd, 2011 at 07:27 AM
Are you friggin kidding me? This is the BEST star wars game to date, better than that BORING knights of the old republic seeing it has so little action. In TFU 2 i get to blast so many enemies with awesome powers and there's a heck lot of action going on.
Anyone who thinks TFU2 is not a good game is a geek in real life. Seriously. Best. Game. Ever.
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Dec 13th, 2010 08:24 PM
