A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

In Star Wars could the “Chosen One” apply to all Skywalkers? No. The “Chosen One” that the old Jedi prophecy from  The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones,  and  Revenge of the Sith  refers to was, is, and always will be Anakin Skywalker. The messianic figure who we met as a young slave on Tatooine, saw grow up into a conflicted Jedi Knight, then turned to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith was the realization of the Jedi Prophecy: " A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored. " That’s per the creator of the  Star Wars  Saga, writer-director George Lucas. In many interviews and - most importantly - the behind-the-scenes materials (featurettes, audio commentary tracks, making-of documentaries) in the DVDs and Blu-rays, Lucas does not veer away from this through-line:  Anakin, even after becoming Darth Vader, was still officially the Chosen One and not Lu...

Owen Lars, Luke Skywalker, and Beru Lars. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. In the original Star Wars films (before Return of the Jedi ) were there any clues given that Darth Vader was Luke's father? In  Star Wars  (aka  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope ) there were no clues that Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, was the father of either Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia Organa. All of the available evidence (story treatments, film outlines, internal memos, and various drafts of the screenplay) points to Vader being a separate and distinct individual from “Luke’s father.” Now, it’s possible, however unlikely, that  in his mind  George Lucas decided that Vader and Luke’s father were one and the same during principal photography, thus explaining why Uncle Owen is so reluctant to talk about the subject of his supposedly dead father and his connection to the mysterious “Obi-Wan Kenobi” in the dinner table scene in Act One of  Star Wars....

In the classic Hildenbrandt Bros. Star Wars poster, Luke's lightsaber is yellow. © 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  In Quora, Sam Lee asks: I f Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber was green, how did it turn blue in Star Wars: The Force Awakens? My reply: It seems, my friend, that you need a little refresher course in  Star Wars  History 101. Recall, please, that Luke Skywalker used two lightsabers as a young Jedi-to-be in the Original  Star Wars  Trilogy ( Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back,  and  Return of the Jedi. The first lightsaber Luke possessed was originally his father Anakin’s; it was retrieved from the ashy ground of Mustafar by Obi-Wan Kenobi after his fateful first duel with the newly minted “Darth Vader,” the Sith identity Skywalker  pere  adopted when he was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. Obi-Wan kept his former Padawan’s “laser sword” hidden away for 19 years during his exile on Tatooine, waiting till Fate - or th...

The November 1977 issue of Star Wars Poster Monthly revealed - vaguely - how Vader became a cyborg. © 1977 Paradise Press and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation On Quora, someone asks: Prior to  Star Wars: Episode III  was there ever a canonical explanation for the appearance of Darth Vader? My reply: As early as late 1977, George Lucas allowed Lucasfilm, through the official  Star Wars Poster Monthly  magazine, to reveal tantalizing bits of the Dark Lord of the Sith’s backstory. In an article titled  Darth Vader Lives,  (Issue #2. November 1977) author John May based his work on some of the information that had been already published about Vader in publicity materials (movie lobby cards, collectors’ movie programs, and the photo inserts in the  Star Wars  novelization), plus a Rolling Stone magazine interview with George Lucas. Readers were told that Vader had trained as a Jedi Knight under Obi-Wan Kenobi’s tutelage but had turn...

 'During Vader's confrontation with Admiral Motti, why doesn't the Dark Lord choke Governor Tarkin when he intervenes?' Because, as powerful and menacing as Darth Vader is, he can’t Force-choke anyone who is equal in stature, or even above Vader’s standing in Imperial hierarchy, even if he is tempted to. It’s just not something one does in a chain of command, and especially not in the ruling circles of the Galactic Empire. Understand. In  Star Wars,  aka  Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope,  Vader is not the big bad villain representing the Empire. That role belongs to Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Territories, author of the Tarkin Doctrine, and commander of the Empire’s new Death Star battle station. He is also a confidante and friend to Sheev Palpatine, aka His Imperial Highness, Emperor Palpatine. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  In  Episode IV; A New Hope,  in which the “I find your lack of fai...

© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation In the Star Wars series, how many people knew (in-universe) that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker prior to the revelation in The Empire Strikes Back? In-universe, you say? Well, it goes without saying that Emperor Palpatine knew, since it was he - as Darth Sidious - who dubbed Anakin as “Darth Vader” some 19 years before the events of Star Wars -Episode IV: A New Hope. As for the rest of the Imperial hierarchy, it’s possible that Vizier Mas Amedda might have known since he was Sheev Palpatine’s trusted confidante and next in line to rule the Empire. However, I can’t be 100% sure, since - from the Sith perspective, the smaller the number of people in the know that both the Emperor and his chief enforcers were Sith Lords, the lesser the chances that the galaxy at large would find out. Wilhuff Tarkin may have known, or at least suspected, that the Jedi general he had met during the Clone Wars was now “Lord Vader.” In at least two...

The evil Lord Darth Vader, the Sith identity assumed by Anakin Skywalker after his fall to the Dark Side. © 1980 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) How did Anakin Skywalker come up with the name Darth Vader? Actually, Anakin didn’t come up with his Sith persona’s  nom de guerre;  it was chosen for him by his new Master, Sheev Palpatine, Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic and soon-to-be Emperor of the First Galactic Empire. This bit of business occurs in Act III of  Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith  after Palpatine, the recently-revealed Sith Lord, has killed three of the Jedi Order’s most experienced Masters in a one-sided clash of lightsabers in his Senate Office suite and manipulated a conflicted Anakin into helping him kill a fourth, senior Jedi Master Mace Windu. MACE raises his sword to kill the CHANCELLOR. ANAKIN: (continuing) He must live . . . PALPATINE: Please don't, please don't . . . ANAKIN: I need him . . . PALPATINE: Please ...

In A New Hope, why does Obi-Wan call Lord Vader 'Darth' as if it's a first name and not a title? Lord Darth Vader enters the captured Rebel Blockade Runner after its capture by an Imperial Star Destroyer above the desert planet Tatooine. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  You have to understand that in 1977 when  Star Wars  was originally released,  Darth Vader  was the character’s given name. It wasn’t a “Sith” alias; it was just a name, on par with “Luke Skywalker” or “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Now, in George Lucas’s original screenplay and the novelization, Vader is said to be a Dark Lord of the Sith, but 42 years ago, audiences and readers were not told what the Sith were or even how many of them existed in the  Star Wars  universe during the Empire’s reign. The most information that was given to us - and that was in Alan Dean Foster’s novelization - was that “fear always followed in the wake of a Dark Lord’s passing.” No details about Darth B...

When I first watched  Star Wars  at the age of 14, I thought Darth Vader was the main villain of the movie for maybe the first 30 minutes. In this scene, as well as all the others set aboard the  Tantive IV,  the guy in the black armor seemed to be in charge of the Imperial army. He gave orders, the scary-looking stormtroopers and the various officers deferred to him and called him “Lord Vader.” And younger  Star Wars  viewers thought  he  ran the entire Galactic Empire. Then I saw  this  scene and realized that Vader, while clearly a powerful Imperial leader, was assigned to  assist , not lord it over, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Regions and commander of the Death Star. Vader  could  give orders to field grade Imperial officers. And, even though the film never made this clear, he had an Imperial-class Star Destroyer (the  Devastator ) and its entire complement at his dis...

Cover art by Two Dots. (C) 2018 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  On July 24, Penguin Random House’s science fiction imprint Del Rey Books published Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances, the second canonical novel by Timothy Zahn that features the Hugo Award-winning author’s most famous character, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Set between Seasons Three and Four of Star Wars Rebels, Thrawn: Alliances is a sequel to 2017’s Star Wars: Thrawn, Zahn’s origins-of story that is partially based on details from the original Expanded Universe/Legends version of how an exiled Chiss military genius joined Emperor Palpatine’s New Order but was tweaked to consider the character’s canonical introduction as a Grand Admiral before the Battle of Yavin. As the book’s title and cover art by the Paris-based studio Two Dots suggest, Thrawn: Alliances is a story that is many a Star Wars reader’s dream-come-true: the joining of forces between Emperor Palpatine’s most powerful servants, Grand Admiral ...

Cover Art by: Drew Struzan. (C) 1996 Penguin Random House Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Steve Perry's Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire , first published in 1996, is the centerpiece of a Lucasfilm multi-media marketing campaign that could be summed up with the tag line "Everything but the movie."   Not only was Perry assigned to write the novel, but Kenner (now Hasbro) rolled out a line of action figures, Dark Horse Comics published a multi-issue series, Nintendo released a console-based game for its Nintendo 64 system, and Joel McNeeley ( The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ) composed an original score. In short, all that was missing was a feature film. And what a film (animated, of course) Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire would have been!   Although the novel is part of the Expanded Universe/Legends series that started with Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, it's the first of the 1990s-era novels to explore the six-month or so time span betw...