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One thing about Star Wars I am truly of two minds about is how powerful Darth Vader is.
In A New Hope & increasing in every film that he appears in (perhaps excepting RotJ) Vader is both an unstoppable force & and immovable object. He wades through the battlefield, driven not by the primal anger of Maul or Palpatine& #39;s bitter hate, but quiet, totalitarian authority.
His powers are ancient & unknowable & don& #39;t necessarily make sense to the greater world of Star Wars. He is a horror monster, an inevitability & Luke only survives him because Vader wants a greater victory.
He an unassailable threat. Even in starfighter combat, where his physical and mystical power is less central, his sheer skill makes him Star Wars& #39; Red Baron. He murders Luke& #39;s childhood friend and practically toys with Red Squadron, only taken out by a sleazy surprise attack.
This is a man who, if you shoot him, he will catch the bullet.
To every member of the main cast of ANH and ESB, Darth Vader is beyond what they could ever hope to defeat....
Except one...
To every member of the main cast of ANH and ESB, Darth Vader is beyond what they could ever hope to defeat....
Except one...
In his duel with Obi-Wan, Vader is brought somewhat down to Earth. Though he still seems to have the edge, he is younger and Obi-Wan still ends the battle on his terms.
And this raises the question that sticks with me. Before 1987, is Darth Vader an exceptional Jedi?
Vader& #39;s implacable man status is iconic and potent and it makes sense to hold onto it, even when we& #39;re not dealing with mundane smugglers and untrained apprentices, so it& #39;s natural that he should become something of a legend.
But...
But...
There& #39;s something hypnotic to me about the thought that this isn& #39;t something about Darth Vader, this is what a Jedi is.
Obi-Wan is humble and aged, but Vader almost says as much himself. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."
Yoda agrees. “Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is."
It is not the power of a Jedi to do these things, but the power of the Force &, though Vader may be well trained we have no particular proof of this.
Especially as the years have gone by, I have grown more favorable towards the prequels. They remain poor movies, but the ideas they introduced are often smarter (or at least more bold) than their predecessors & they succeed in creating a world of imagination the way SW should.
Once you accept the story of the prequels it makes good sense for Vader to be something awe inspiring, the galaxy& #39;s most purely powerful force user, even limited by his injuries. But there& #39;s something special about the world and the subcontinuity of Star Wars as just the OT.
Vader is arresting on screen and I don& #39;t think anyone would argue that he wasn& #39;t a huge part of Star Wars& #39; success. But I truly must resort to doublethink to consider the idea that one of these interpretations is richer than the other.
Scaling Vader up to maintain and expand his aura, even in the context of the Jedi, is emotionally true in the ways Star Wars should be & allows for some incredible things that I would mourn if the story had limited itself and done without.
But there& #39;s also something to the thought that both Vader AND the Jedi are somehow more majestic if he is not necessarily something special, but merely a living fossil, encased in laminate durasteel - not a chosen one, but merely the last one left.
This thread brought to you by Jedi: Fallen Order offhandedly calling Vader the most powerful Sith in the galaxy in a menu.
