The Anakin/Vader secret (spoilers)

Who knows. The only reference I can think of with Anakin being known as Vader is from the novel Shadows of the Empire, where that Xizor guy's inner monologue mentions Vader once being Anakin. At the end of the day, I guess it's all a result of everything that came from ANH - and just one of those things that's never made a whole lot of sense.

Yeah, but at the end of the day, he can't change that Luke goes to Tatooine and Leia goes to Alderaan with Bail. That stuff's been set in stone since '77. She doesn't know who Vader really is until Endor. As far up to that point, she thinks her daddy is Bail. Same with Luke, he obviously doesn't know of a Jedi called Anakin until Ben tells him so.

I understand what you're saying, but it's all backstory that's been established, which can't really be changed without a really drastic overhaul of the OT. Which would have fans descending upon the ranch like the mob from FRANKENSTEIN.

From what I can tell from the spoilers so far, Obi-Wan is sure that he killed Anakin at the end of E3, and therefore has no reason to report otherwise to other members of the rebellion. Perhaps later he realizes that this new "Vader" character is actually Anakin, perhaps he shares this with Yoda. But I can't imagine him sharing it with anyone else. From anyone else's perspective, Anakin was a Jedi who betrayed the order and was killed by Kenobi. I would think that he would want to keep the fact that his student is now leading the Empire a secret. But why the Emperor would also want to share in the silence is hard to figure out, but reasons could be thought up.

Of course that scenario doesn't work if before the end of the movie Obi-Wan realizes who Vader is and blabs it to everyone. Or if Anakin takes the name of Vader (and tells everyone he meets what his new name is) before he is deformed and given the armor.

Also, the Rebellion knows where Obi-Wan is. Not much of a secret. The Princess (I have to call her that in regards to Ep IV) drops a note to Obi Wan cause it they're above Tatooine, not because it's specifically for him.

They were over Tatooine to pick Kenobi up, so the note WAS for him. At least, once they got caught out there. If they hadn't been caught, that ship would have landed on Tatooine and picked Obi-Wan up.

Anyway, aside from Yoda and Ben, I don't think anyone really does know Anakin turned into "Vader." Those two are the only two that saw the name change from Palpatine. They don't refer to him as Vader around anyone else, and I don't think they tell Bail. Especially since Anakin is thought dead, what's the point? "My old apprentice has a new name. Vader. Or he did. Until I killed him and watched him burn." Looking at ANH, it seems that Ben himself doesn't realize Vader exists until he gets to the Death Star and senses him.

Except Vader doesn't, even when he's torturing her.

I can see Palpatine simply saying all the Jedi are dead. There's no reason to hold up Vader as Anakin for any purpose that I can see. He doesn't need to pull any more of that "Swaying the public against the Jedi" shit because he's already turned them all. He's got his empire, and he's got a shitload of dead jedi. There's no need to further hammer the point home to the people of the Empire. They're already with him. Further riling up the public against a people exterminated via genocide seems like overkill.

These are all questions that probably should have popped up after Empire.

If Bail is the only other to know Vader's identity besides Obi and Yoda, I can see him being the kind of person to keep his mouth shut about it. If Bail is a friend of Kenobi, telling the rest of the Rebellion that Obi's former apprentice is now running the Empire might create some animosity towards Obi.

Bail could well be the only one that knows where Obi goes to hide. He may tell his daughter later, and perhaps Captain Antilles, since he's the captain of Tantive IV. But those two could keep it to themselves and give other reasons for heading to Tantooine to the crew so that word doesn't get out.

But why should he make it easier to swallow? They've already swallowed it. They cheer about it. They swallow it down happily before the climax of Revenge of the Sith even starts in full.

Why not just introduce Vader from out of nowhere? Why should Palpatine explain it to anyone? He didn't explain Maul, he just had Maul show up, in one of the more effective reveals in TPM. Who's going to ask? The people he sic's Vader on aren't going to stand up and demand to know if he's a Jedi or not.

Yes, Star Wars has always been a bit of a bullshit story that doesn't really work when you dismantle it, but the story was never the most important part of Star Wars, anyway. Which is why the trilogy of movies most chained to story is the one that is taking a lot of heat.

Hell, I'm not too convinced it's really the prequels that have caused the most damage to Star Wars reputation. it was the 20 years of constant deconstruction and analysis that people heaped upon it, whether to sell books on mythology or filmmaking, that really did it in. The movies simply don't stand up to that much scrutiny. The irony is that they're probably THE MOST scrutinized movies in recent history.

Here's my take on the Force that I just recently wrote in the E3 Spoilers thread:



To expand on this, the reason that Vader and Leia have no "sense" of each other is because they have no personal connection. They have been separated since before Leia was even born. He was not even aware at the time that his children survived the death of Padme. Only after Vader penetrates Luke's feelings during their final duel on DS II does he realize there was a daughter in the mix of things.

I rewatched that passage. I haven't thrown on Ep.IV in a while. They want the old man, I guess. That said, Ben's not really hiding.

Tarkin and his underlings... not so impressed by the force. Even though they're under Palpatine. I guess he doesn't do Party tricks for them. Strange. Most of those dudes would have grown up under the Jedi order.

My brain is melting. Look, Lucas doesn't care about continuity, all he wants is our money, and the PT is batting 0/2, and will probably get struck out with the third film. I must learn to stop caring.

Vader didn't know Leia was his daughter because she was not force sensitive. I'm guessing Anakin believes his pregnant wife dies taking his children with her. I'm also guessing he's turned after 'killing her'. Since his family died so many years ago, he would have no reason whatsoever to believe Leia is his own. This is obvious since he didn't know until ROTJ.

From his speech in ROTJ, Obi-Wan does know. So does Yoda. "Told you did he." From all evidence he knew he had a kid but just didn't care. Until now.

Also Darth Vader throws his force powers around, and has been named Darth Vader pre-suit. Not rocket science.

This makes sense. Could you imagine every single being with force powers sensing others that they have never met, it would drive people to insanity.

Knowing only those you have met before makes perfect sense.

Gotta admit, I AM curious as to why you and Devin come stormtrooping in here as often as you have, lately Not saying that you shouldn't, or that you shouldn't WANT to, and discussion has DEFINITELY come up a notch in just the last two or three days that you guys HAVE been fishing around this particular ghetto of movie discussion--it just seems that the answers you're looking for aren't ones that can be answered by messageboard posters, and that you won't like those answers anyway. I mean, you guys shut down discussion regarding Star Wars on your own boards , right?

At this point, I'm assuming that for you, Star Wars is more like a scab you can't stop picking at.

No he doesn't. That's not how I remember the novelization and the graphic novel. He sees smoke at the Temple, but he doesn't see anything specific because Stormtroopers stop him before he can get in, and run him off. He doesn't know what happened specifically--and Yoda and Obi-Wan don't find out Anakin was behind it until Bail drops them off on Coruscant, and they don't tell him on the Tantive after Obi Wan fights Anakin.

this seems to be where most of your questions are coming from, the idea that Bail knows. He doesn't. By the end of Revenge of the Sith, the only people who know Anakin became Vader are either dead by Vader's hand, or are Yoda and Obi-Wan. Neither does Anakin know he had a kid--and as shown in the novelization, even if he had an inkling, he thought it'd be a girl. Anakin discovers he had a kid somewhere between ANH and ESB.

I already said this in Response #11 but here it is again:

Bail probably does know, why would be say anything? Who's to say he doesn't we don't meet him in the OT so maybe it's one of the many reasons why Alderaan goes BOOM.

Since Bail inherets Anakins daughter, he would obviously grow to love her and want to protect her. Spilling his guts about her biological fathers identity would serve no purpose other than to freak her shit out.

Possibly too, Bail feared for his and his daughter's life thus explains his silence.

We shyt down the CF talk because there was no new information, and everyone seems to have locked opinions. Here's the thing. I don't want Lucas to drop the ball. I never did. But I can't lie to myself and suggest that either entry so far has been all that satisfactory or good. I let TPM slide a little because GL may have trying to get his bearings, and it seems an honest failure. But I don't think it's a good movie.

Evidence is now coming in that ROTS will follow suit. The GN is horrible. That Lucas has not patched the two trilogies together (Emperor has no clothes) leaving gaping plotholes unfilled and uncared for, and having wussed out on truly corrupting Anakin in a believable and interesting way (accidentally kills Padme? Vader, please). Two of the essential goals of having invested nine years of his life into the PT. This shit shouldn't have been hard. But it seems hubris or contempt led him astray.

And you know why this pisses me off more than most things in cinema? One, because the fanbase will apologize for inferior material regardless of quality and quite possibly make another shitty movie successful, and two, because Lucas knows this and is abusing it when he realistically has no excuses for their lacking. I love the OT. Because they're invested with something more than just toys and tie in's and BO grosses. And I will probably see ROTS (I'm fence sitting on this one; maybe if I can see it for free), but I can't think of a good reason why these films had to be this bad. Maybe the GN is misleading. I doubt it.

What are the continuity mistakes people keep mentioning? Shouldn't we see how ROTS plays out?

There's that phrase again.."in my head."

I don't see where the "Supreme Arrogance" comes in. Laziness, yes. But since it's pretty well recognized, even by you, that Lucas isn't the greatest at storytelling, why is it assumed it's arrogance, and not just ineptness? Not that ineptness is a great alternative or anything.

I don't understand why they WOULD. There might be no good reason not to tell him, but I can't think of a really good reason WHY--especially since they both think he's dead.

That's rose-colored nostalgia settling in right there. C'mon now. And I'm not so sure about the sort of fanboyish projection of soap-opera style characteristics onto Lucas. I'm sure it makes the arguments easier to cast him as this mustache-twirling cardboard villain vampirically sucking the soul out of lost, wayward fanboys with big doe eyes, but I dont' think that's any closer to reality than any of the plotholes we're hashing out in this thread.

Then again, maybe it IS arrogance. The point I'm sort of trying to drive at is that neither of us really KNOW the man, at least not enough to pass judgment on his personality like that, especially not based on our satisfaction of his storytelling.

a) There really is no place in any of these movies for such reflection. Sounds too Lifetime Movie of the week-ish.

b) If he knows, fear is the ultimate weapon. Again, he wanted to protect his family and people. If he doesn't know, then its a moot point.

Vader having a son never played like a secret to Vader or Obi Wan or Yoda. Now it's a secret to Vader. Jedis and Sith can feel the presence of force people, because Vader can feel Luke at the end of Ep. IV. By it being midochlorians (as is canon) the whole Sidious Palpatine thing becomes even more retarded. Sith are evil Jedi, so therefore he'd have a high Midi count.

Lucas didn't have a plan for the entire trilogy, or if he didn't it wasn't followed, but if you're going to tell the films that lead up to films that are set in stone, the best thing to do is know what you're building up to. Lucas didn't really bother with that. Which is offensive, to say the least. In Eps 4-6 Lucas and Co. laid out the groundwork. It's why flying R2D2 is such a fucking cheat. He's inventing things to solve current problems that betray the original text. That's just bad writing/storytelling/filmmaking.

But we see the discussion of them making plans. They don't make any plans until AFTER Padme dies. Since they don't discuss Anakin becoming Vader at ALL during those plans--it wasn't brought up. using offscreen assumptions to fill in the details you'd like to see is basically the same as using EU to flesh out the gaps between movies, or using deleted scenes as continuity explanations.

I'm more of the mind that if I didn't see it or if it wasn't referred to, it didn't happen as far as the movie is concerned. And so Bail wasn't told, didn't see, and doesn't know.

And I'll say again in basic geek universe terms -- Artoo is an astromech droid on a starship that's expected to make on-the-spot repairs. If he's in deep space and needs to get around to the other side of the ship, he's going to have to fly.

But he didn't use those powers (when they would have been useful - like on Jabba's barge) in the OT. NOT BUYING IT.

All of these continuity criticisms point to the true downfall of the completed Star Wars saga...Return of the Jedi. As soon as Lucas decided to scrap his plans for episodes 7-9 and condense the story into episiode 6 the entire thing began to fall apart. Leia wasn't originally meant to be Lukes sister or the other yoda spoke of. The "other" was Luke's sister but she was to be an entirly new character introduced in either Episode VI or the third trilogy.

By the way, I haven't read the GN but is Anakin still the one that suggests naming his daughter Leia? I remember reading a spy report that included that little tidbit of dumbfuckery and i just couldn't believe it was true.

There was no need for it at Jabbas sail barge. He pushed 3PO off into the sand and that was that. Don't see how he could have touted him around.

You apologists are nuts, why wouldn't he levitate over the barge and let the other guys pick up C3PO? Sand and robots tend to be a bad mix.

Nothing wrong with asking questions, but I think most of these are a tad unfair. You seem to be probing where it's not really needed.

Just an observation.

Apologist I am, then.

Just don't see why R2 flying is a big enough deal to get my twat in twist over.

Maybe it's because he waited until the fifth movie of a six part series to introduce the fact that a character can fly. Even if the character is a droid, you just don't do that and not expect the audience to say, WTF?

Really though let's not get into the R2 flying thing. Let's keep this one about Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Bail's plans and who knows what after all is said and done.

Not really, I just don't obsessive over shit that doesn't matter. Just leave it behind because no matter what Fatboy says, what I say or what anyone says, you will just ask another nitpicky 'why didn't he just do this?' and no matter what the answer it won't be satisfactory.

The nitpicky crap is even more nutty.

My opinion on the matter (as though you were all chomping at the bit for it):

Star Wars has never been about storyline details, has it? It's about space battles, lightsaber duels, epic, broad characters, and a story that is functional but not necessarily very sensical. We don't need everything in the plot to fall in place in Star Wars; we just need to be along for the ride. It speaks volumes about the greatness of the OT that I hadn't even thought about the plot holes you guys are mentioning before. Well, that or I'm just a retard. But it's more about the sense of wonder and excitement than anything else, isn't it? We don't need an intricate plot that stands up to scrutiny. We just need heroes we can root for, villains we can hate, and an exciting struggle between the two. If a Star Wars movie has these things, it succeeds, which is exactly why Episode II failed for most of us. I imagine George is much less concerned about the plot specifics than most of us are, or at least he was with the original trilogy. Maybe he's lost that now. I'm hoping Episode III delivers, and I don't care if all plot threads are resolved. If it can suck me into the story and make me feel like I'm watching one of those wildly imaginative space spectacles that I loved so much when I was little, all is forgiven. Well, all except Ep II.

I'm just saying, he had the playbook, and he either didn't look at it or when he got himself into a corner he invented new rules, or totally forgot about continuity. That's bad writing, especially when you are working to a pre-existing stopping point.

Let's just wait and see how the film plays out. Graphic Novels, comic book adaptions, hard-cover adaptions and heiroglific interpretations mean dick.


Let's not get in a tizzy over something that could possibly not even exist. Let's deal with facts only.

Time to wait.

R2D2 was apparently supposed to fly in ep1, so it was a deliberate pre-planned choice, rather than a last minute bodge. My guess it is was supposed to reinforce this notion that everything in the Old Republic is shiny and new, whereas everything in the OT os slightly old and broken. this is satisfying on a thematic level as it shows the fall of the old republic and the bad influence of the empire. it also neatly explains why the spcial effects are so much slicker in the PT.

however, as a piece of surface level continuity, it blows.

I think the whole Anakin/Vader thing works on that broad thematic level and falls apart under that kind of deatiled plot point scrutiny.

Also - you complain that it must be impossible to keep the twins secret, yet you complain that the jedi don't tell everyone about them.

I don't think it's laziness or arrogance as much as it is the choices he made back in the 70's (presumably when he thought it was just one movie) painted him into a corner. there's a good chance he's done as well as he could, continuity wise, considering what his younger self left him with.

it'll drive you loopy, so leave the massively detailed continuity arguments to the fans who are willing to make the effort.

The problem is, ANH is pure fantasy, no logic required, its a fun escape from reality. Then the two sequels came and the fantasy began to slip ever so slightly, and then the prequels came and the fantasy kind of died (the force can now be read by a little electronic reader, a democratic senate and fucking trade routes are explained, etc), and now it appears like Lucas is attempting 'serious' science fiction, (character study, political intrigue and metaphors, spiritual meditation, etc) which fucks everything up as you can see in this thread, plot holes everywhere. People are arguing about Death Star construction times, palpatine's plot and the Jedi's incompetence, hiding of kids on planets, wtf the force is, etc, etc. I was thinking of making a thread about fantasy v realism in Star Wars but cant be bothered.

The databank on the official website is pathetic. Dozens of entries on technology, characters, planets, attempting to justify and defend a ludicrous universe that really shouldnt have been taken so seriously. I cant see the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek these days.

As for all the questions in the thread, I think its probably best to wait till RotS is out, and then one day, watch the entire saga in one sitting, see how it holds up, though I'm fairly sure that the transition from PT to OT will be very dodgy, the two are nothing alike in my opinion.

By the way, I've got a mini question: I read somewhere that the hairstyles in this movie would be more 70's style, kinding of linking to ANH, is this correct or not? If so, again its a bit stupid, considering the 20 year time gap, hairstyles and fashion are constantly changing, they dont usually stay in stasis and last 20 years. What was the time gap between ANH, ESB, and RotJ? I'm sure Luke and Leia's hair changed between all three films constantly.

^Lame question I know.

I've already said it twice in this thread. I'm going to put it in all-caps this time so that people can actually read it: BAIL CAN CERTAINLY KNOW THE SECRET OF ANAKIN. IT MAKES SENSE FOR HIM TO KNOW WHERE THE DAUGHTER HE IS GOING TO RAISE COMES FROM. IT ALSO MAKES SENSE FOR HIM TO KEEP THIS KNOWLEDGE A SECRET, TO PROTECT HIS NEW DAUGHTER, AND HIS FRIENDS.


IF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE REBELLION FOUND OUT THAT OBI-WAN'S FORMER APPRENTICE WENT TO THE DARK-SIDE AND HELPED TO DESTROY THE REPUBLIC AND BRING THE EMPIRE TO POWER, THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT THE MEMBERS OF THE REBELLION WOULD REJECT OBI-WAN AS AN ALLY AND SEE HIM INSTEAD AS AN UTTER FAILURE AND, PERHAPS, EVEN SEE HIM AS THE SOURCE OF THE GALAXY'S TROUBLES. IF BAIL IS A FRIEND OF OBI-WAN AND SEES THE BENEFIT OF CALLING ON HIS HELP IN THE FUTURE, HE WILL NOT REVEAL TO OTHERS OBI-WAN'S SUPREME FAILURE. THE REASON FOR THIS IS THAT HE IS A POLITICIAN AND UNDERSTANDS THAT NOT EVERYONE WILL SEE HIS POINT OF VIEW. THOUGH HE MAY FEEL THAT IT WAS ULTIMATELY NOT OBI-WAN'S FAULT, OTHERS MAY DISAGREE.

I hope this finally helps some people.

And finally:

R2-D2 is a 35 year old droid in the OT, it makes sense that his boosters may not still be working at this time.

Bail knows that Leia is Padme and Anakins daughter, but maybe everyone assumes Anakin is dead after the duel with Obi-Wan. Darth Vader shows up afterward, but no one can see his face. In the Stars Wars galaxy, he could be anything under that armor. Only the Emperor, and a select few know that inside that outfit is the charred Anakin. Everyone else who might sense Anakin in there is dead except Yoda and Obi-Wan, and they are in hiding.

I know it hinges on a lot of maybe, but it's the best I can do.