Saga Darth Vader's injuries: a medical examination

Dunno if anyone's seen this before (sorry if you have!), but here's a proper in-depth medical examination of the injuries sustained by Darth Vader with quotes from actual medical experts based on the evidence seen in the movies.

This is awesome. Kind of heavy going at times but worth a read if you're into that kind of thing!

http://www.theforce.net/swtc/injuries.html

Enjoy

 

Interesting- though Saxton seems to be unaware that the "lava theory" was voiced in an actual Lucas interview as early as 1977:

 

To be fair-he hasn't updated that page in quite awhile. Since ROTS, I believe.

I've always been utterly impressed by the workmanship visible in those screenshots-I mean, nobody was going to be seeing mechanical-looking vertebrae, to say nothing of the other uh "changes" to Vader's skeleton and body, during the theatrical run. ILM certainly didn't need to put them in there, but did so anyway-good job, basically.

 

This is old, but I simply love the page. He has put in a lot of work to catalog the injuries. It remains a great read.

Looking at this, I cannot explain the spinal damage at the 2nd vertebrae. The damage he suffered in ROTS certainly did not look to involve cervical spine injuries.

 

There are (documented on the page, too) plenty of EU incidences to explain the mystery injuries.

 

Ok, Possible on Mimban. I can buy that he suffered injuries in the EU. Certainly, The Force Unleashed is an example of serious injuries.

 

Plus the Purge comics.

We don't normally do the EU thing here, but Mimban is a special case in terms of canon-ness, IMO-SoTME was Plan B for a sequel if ANH was a flop. Plus it just matches up quite well-Vader falls down a deep hole, and then has spinal injuries a few years later..

 

And he's taken other long falls.

 

I don't like Saxton as a rule (given his role in trying to stack the deck in vs arguments), but I could find little to object to on that page.

One bit of speculation...could the artificial vertebrae be the connection points between Vadar's suit and his CNS?

 

It's never been established satisfactorily just how much of SOTME was based on ideas GL came up with, and how much Alan Dean Foster came up with completely by himself. Apart from the obvious recycling of plot elements from early drafts of SW (the Kaibur crystal, bonding with the Yuzzum to fight against the Empire), Mimban's very similar to Dagobah, and there's an encounter with some sort of cave spirit that echoes a similar scene in early drafts of ESB where Luke runs into a 'guardian monster' before going into the Dark Side cave.
I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure that SOTME is the first place that Vader's cybernetic nature is emphasised specifically - IIRC it indicates that he has a mechanical arm.

It's a weird grey area, but unlike, say, 'Heir to the Empire', SOTME is an EU novel which does reflect George Lucas' ideas at a certain time. For all intents & purposes, it's much the same as one of the movie novelisations, except the movie never got made and GL actually did let someone else come up with the overall story.

 

Fascinating article. Very interesting.
Also I like that Vader can eat normal food. Don't know why, it just appeals to me.

 

Yeah, his right arm gets detached by Obi-Luke, doesn't it?

And it'd almost have to be the first source to directly reference Vader's mechanical nature..I don't think the Marvel comics did, and the movies obviously don't until TESB.

 

The Rolling Stone interview referenced Vader's "walking iron lung" nature- but I don't think it mentioned missing limbs.

 

No idea, here.

 

There's a sort of Crossections about this now. it's cool.

 

Me too, I can see him pouting around in the chamber, eating pizza and guzzling beer while watching a game , er meditating.....