Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
Darth Vader began life as Anakin Skywalker. He and his mother Shmi were slaves owned by the junk dealer Watto on Tatooine. The Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn orchestrated Anakin's liberation, hoping to train him as a Jedi. The Jedi Council at first denied Anakin entry, but eventually allowed him to become an apprentice of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Anakin was assigned to protect Senator Padmé Amidala. He fell in love with her, despite a Jedi Code prohibition against romantic relationships. At the same time, Anakin began having visions of his mother dying. He travelled to Tatooine, and found that she had been kidnapped by Tusken Raiders. She died in his arms, which led Anakin to slaughter every Tusken in sight. After fighting in several battles related to the Clone Wars, Anakin married Padmé in a secret ceremony.
As the Clone Wars continued, Anakin became a hero. He also grew vastly in power, and Jedi Master Yoda assigned him an apprentice, Ahsoka Tano. When Anakin discovered that Padmé was pregnant, he had visions of her dying in childbirth. Palpatine told him a legend about people with the power to prevent death, and Anakin was eager to learn this ability. Palpatine revealed himself to be Darth Sidious, a Sith Lord, and pledged to train Anakin in the dark side of the Force.
Anakin fought and wounded his former ally Mace Windu to save Palpatine, who declared himself Emperor. As Darth Vader, Anakin led the Empire’s eradication of the Jedi Order. He told Padmé of his plan to overthrow Palpatine and rule the galaxy with her, but the idea sickened her. When Vader found Obi-Wan hiding on his ship on the planet Mustafar, he believed his wife had betrayed him, and he strangled her into unconsciousness. He then dueled with Obi-Wan, who dismembered him and left him burning to death near a lava flow. Palpatine rescued Vader and had him encased in mechanical black armor that kept him alive. Palpatine lied to him, telling him that his strangulation had killed Padmé, which left Vader heartbroken. Unknown to Vader, Padmé died elsewhere after giving birth to twins, Luke and Leia. The infants were adopted for their safety, and grew up with no knowledge of each other or of Vader being their father.
The emergence of the Empire gave rise to a Rebellion. As Palpatine's enforcer, Vader hunted the Rebels throughout the galaxy, eventually learning that his son Luke was among them. After battling his son in Cloud City, Vader revealed that he was Luke's father. The two met again when Luke—now a Jedi Knight himself—surrendered to Imperial troops on Endor, hoping to bring his father back from the dark side. Vader brought his son to Palpatine, who invited Luke to join the dark side. Luke refused, and Palpatine began torturing him with Force lightning. Vader saved Luke from Palpatine, then killed the Emperor. Mortally wounded, Vader shared a final moment of reconciliation with his son. As Luke and his friends celebrated the end of the Empire, Anakin returned as a Force spirit to watch over them.
Creation
Originally, Lucas imagined the Sith as a group that served the Emperor in the same way that the paramilitary Schutzstaffel served Adolf Hitler. While developing the backstory for The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas condensed the group into one character in the form of Vader. As part of the development for A New Hope, Lucas hired the artist Ralph McQuarrie to create conceptual images for characters. For Vader, Lucas asked McQuarrie to depict a "very tall, dark fluttering figure that had a spooky feeling like it came in on the wind." Because the script described Vader traveling between spaceships, McQuarrie suggested that he should wear a space suit. Lucas agreed, and McQuarrie created Vader's iconic mask by combining a full-face breathing mask with a samurai helmet. McQuarrie's 1975 production painting of Vader engaged in a lightsaber duel with Deak Starkiller (who later became Luke Skywalker) depicts the former wearing black armor, a flowing cape and a skull-like mask and helmet. This initial design was similar to Vader's final appearance.
Working from McQuarrie's concepts, the costume designer John Mollo devised an outfit that included clerical robes, a motorcycle suit, a German military helmet and a military gas mask. The prop sculptor Brian Muir created the helmet and armor. The sound of Vader's breathing was created by the sound designer Ben Burtt using modified recordings of a scuba breathing apparatus. The sound effect is trademarked at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Lucas has provided differing accounts of how the name "Darth Vader" originated. In a 2005 interview with Rolling Stone, he claimed it was a modified version of "Dark Father." On another occasion, he said it was inspired by the phrase "Dark Water". It is also possible that "Darth Vader" originated from the name of Gary Vader, a boy who went to high school with Lucas.
Although "Darth" is a title, and not a first name, this is not made clear in the first Star Wars film from 1977 (which was titled Star Wars, then later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope). In that film, Obi-Wan Kenobi addresses Vader as "Darth", and in the credits he is referred to as Lord Darth Vader, which seems to imply that his title is "Lord", his first name is "Darth", and his last name is "Vader". The prequel trilogy, however, makes it clear that "Darth" is a title for Sith Lords, such as Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, and Darth Tyranus. When Anakin turns to the dark side of the Force in Revenge of the Sith, he is given the title "Darth" and the name "Vader".
Although the films Swiss Family Robinson (1960) and Battle of the Bulge (1965) influenced the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas's publicist has denied that Anakin Skywalker was named after the director of those films, Ken Annakin. The original surname of Anakin and Luke was "Starkiller", and it remained in the script until a few months into filming A New Hope. It was dropped due to what Lucas called "unpleasant connotations" with Charles Manson, who became a "star killer" in 1969 when he murdered the well-known actress Sharon Tate. Lucas replaced the problematic name "Starkiller" with "Skywalker".
In France, Darth Vader's name was changed to Dark Vador starting with A New Hope. He was called Dart Fener In Italian-language versions of the films until 2015, when his name was reverted to the English version. In Iceland, his name is Svarthöfði, which means "black-head".
Character development
After the success of A New Hope, Lucas began working on a sequel, which was eventually titled The Empire Strikes Back. By November 1977, he had produced a handwritten treatment. He wrote, "When we kill off in the , we'll reveal ... e wants to be human—he's still fighting in his own way the dark side of the Force." Lucas considered introducing a new lair for Vader to replace the Death Star, such as an Imperial city, a cave, a tower surrounded by lava, or "a little castle on a rock in the middle of the ocean".
After writing the second and third drafts of Empire, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin had been Obi-Wan's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was drawn to the dark side by Palpatine. Anakin battled Obi-Wan on a volcano and was badly wounded, and then was reborn as Vader. Obi-Wan hid Luke on Tatooine while the Galactic Republic became the tyrannical Galactic Empire, and Vader systematically hunted down and killed the Jedi. When filming The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas kept secret the plot twist that Vader is Luke's father, to avoid the revelation being leaked to the public.
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, in what he has termed "the tragedy of Darth Vader". For the first prequel, The Phantom Menace, Lucas made Anakin nine years old to make the character's separation from his mother more poignant. The film introduced the concept that he is the Chosen One of an ancient Jedi prophecy, destined to bring balance to the Force. Lucas stated in an interview recorded around the time of the third prequel, Revenge of the Sith, that "Anakin is the Chosen One. Even when Anakin turns into Darth Vader, he is still the Chosen One." Christensen spoke about Vader's role in the six-film saga: "He believes that he's the Chosen One. He's not doing wrong things knowing that it's having a negative impact. So there's that sort of naivety to him now that wasn't there before, and it makes him more human in a lot of ways."
A wax sculpture of Anakin Skywalker at the Madame Tussauds museum in London
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 re-wrote Anakin's transition to the dark side; his fall would now be motivated by a desire to save his wife, Padmé, 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 re-write was accomplished both through editing the principal footage, and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004.
During production of the animated series The Clone Wars, the character Ahsoka Tano was developed to illustrate how Anakin develops from the brash, undisciplined apprentice in Attack of the Clones to the more reserved Jedi Knight in Revenge of the Sith. Dave Filoni, the supervising director of The Clone Wars, said that giving Anakin an apprentice forced him to become more cautious and responsible.
David Prowse, a 6-foot-6-inch (1.98 m) bodybuilder and actor, portrayed Vader in the original trilogy. Prowse was originally offered the role of Chewbacca, but turned it down, as he wanted to play the villain. Bob Anderson, a former Olympic fencer, portrayed Vader during lightsaber fight scenes in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Lucas chose to have a different actor provide Vader's voice, because he felt Prowse's West Country English accent was inappropriate for the character. The director originally considered Orson Welles for Vader's voice, but selected James Earl Jones instead after deciding that Welles's voice would be too recognizable to audiences. Jones initially felt his role was too small to warrant recognition, and he chose to be uncredited in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. He was finally credited in Return of the Jedi in 1983.
Hayden Christensen portrayed Vader in Revenge of the Sith, while Brock Peters provided his voice in the Star Wars radio series. Matt Sloan and Scott Lawrence have portrayed Vader in video games, and Sloan has also voiced the character in short films. Both Spencer Wilding and Daniel Naprous played Vader in Rogue One, with Jones providing the voice. Jones also voiced Vader in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. In September 2022, it was confirmed that Jones would retire from voicing Vader. Jones's voice was digitally recreated by the company Respeecher for use in the series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he later signed over the rights to his voice for future Star Wars productions.
As Anakin Skywalker
For Return of the Jedi, the casting crew sought an experienced actor for the role of Anakin Skywalker, since his death was unquestionably the emotional climax of the film. Sebastian Shaw was selected for the role. His presence on set was kept secret from all but the minimum cast and crew, and Shaw was contractually obligated not to discuss any film secrets with anyone, even his family. Lucas personally directed Shaw for his appearance in the final scene of the film, in which he plays Anakin's Force spirit. Shaw's likeness in this scene was replaced with Hayden Christensen's in the 2004 DVD release. This attempt to tie the prequel and original trilogies together was one of the most controversial changes in a Star Wars re-release. Shaw received more fan mail and autograph requests related to Return of the Jedi than he had for any other role in his career.
When The Phantom Menace was being developed, hundreds of actors were tested for the role of young Anakin before Jake Lloyd was cast. Producer Rick McCallum said that Lloyd was "smart, mischievous and love anything mechanical—just like Anakin." For Attack of the Clones, casting director Robin Gurland reviewed about 1,500 candidates for the role of young-adult Anakin. Lucas eventually selected Christensen, reportedly because he and Natalie Portman (who plays Padmé) "looked good together". Anakin was voiced by Mat Lucas in the 2003 animated micro-series Star Wars: Clone Wars. He was voiced by Matt Lanter in the animated series The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars Forces of Destiny. Lanter also voiced the character in the film version of The Clone Wars. During the second-season finale of Rebels, Lanter's voice is sometimes blended with the voice of James Earl Jones.
Some of these ideas later resurfaced. The prequel trilogy introduces an Imperial city on the planet Coruscant, while Rogue One and Obi-Wan Kenobi depict Vader's castle on the volcanic planet Mustafar. In the sequel trilogy, Luke hides on an island on the ocean planet Ahch-To.
^ Pirani, Adam (July 1987). "Sebastian Shaw: The Return of Anakin Skywalker". Starlog. Vol. 11, no. 120. pp. 56–57, 96.
Chernoff, Scott (April–May 1998). "Ian McDiarmid: An Interview with the Emperor". Star Wars Insider. No. 37. p. 33.
Johnson, Derek (September 22, 2005). "Star Wars fans, DVD, and cultural ownership: an interview with Will Brooker; Interview". Velvet Light Trap. pp. 36–44.
Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016 (July 15, 2016). Ahsoka's Untold Tales Panel. YouTube. Event occurs at 59m25s. Archived from the original on July 31, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2016.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Hayes, David C. (2015). "The Star Wars Holiday Special". In Rausch, Andrew J.; Riley, R.D. (eds.). Trash Cinema: A Celebration of Overlooked Masterpieces. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
Hidalgo, Pablo; Sansweet, Stephen (2008). The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. Vol. I (First ed.). New York: Del Rey. ISBN9780345477637.
Kaminski, Michael (2008). The Secret History of Star Wars. Legacy Books Press. ISBN978-0-9784652-3-0.
Rinzler, J.W. (2007). The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film (eBook v3.1 ed.). New York: Del Rey. ISBN978-0-345-54286-1.
Rinzler, J.W. (2008). The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film (2008 ed.). Ebury Press. ISBN978-0-09-192499-7.
Rinzler, J.W. (2010a). The Making of The Empire Strikes Back (eBook v3.1 ed.). New York: Del Rey. ISBN978-0-345-54336-3.
Rinzler, J.W. (2010b). The Sounds of Star Wars. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN978-0-85720-076-1.
Further reading
Vader: The Ultimate Guide, 2005.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: The Visual Dictionary, hardcover, 1999. Dr. David West Reynolds, ISBN0-7894-4701-0
Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary, hardcover, 2002. Dr. David West Reynolds, ISBN0-7894-8588-5
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary, hardcover, 2005. James Luceno, ISBN0-7566-1128-8
.jpg)
.jpg)
_(cropped).jpg)
Left to right: David Prowse, James Earl Jones, and Hayden Christensen
