ST The Legacy of Darth Vader / Skywalker family secret?

(With permission of the Mod Order of Sith)​

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What will the legacy of Darth Vader be in the ST? Will the galaxy distrust the Skywalkers and the Jedi because of his actions? Will people believe that Vader switched sides at the end, joining the Rebellion? Or will this seem like Jedi propaganda spread by his power hungry children? How will his children and grandchildren be affected, if at all, by his atrocities? Could Vader have left an apprentice or unnatural experiments behind? Could he have made powerful enemies that now seek their revenge against our heroes?

And what of the redeemed Anakin Skywalker who resides like a contented spook in the netherworld? Should his force ghost grace the screen for any reason? Should he help our heroes? Will he still be considered the Chosen One, or will the ST alter this? Might Anakin be resurrected? Might Darth Vader?



(Now please stop discussing Vader/Anakin in the maligned hero thread! How sad for the sad maligned hero thread!)

 

Peanut Butter Toast.

 

^ Holy resurrections, Batman! Brian Griffen is coming back in like 2 episodes = LAME

Speaking of resurrections, I personally hope we do NOT see Vader or Palpatine resurrected, although I could go for Force/Sith ghosts. I could see an Anakin Force ghost communing with Luke; that would be cool actually. I also could see Palpatine as a Sith Spectre (a whole new meaning to Phantom Menace ) , equally as cool. I just want there to be new bad guys to fight in the corporeal world; beit Sith, minus the rule of two, or dark Jedi, or Mandalorians, or really pissed off Trandoshans.

As for Vader's legacy, this is an interesting question. The whole thread hinges on the idea that the galaxy at large knows that Vader was really Anakin Skywalker. I doubt it. I doubt anyone knows his true identity outside Yoda and Obi-wan, and Palpatine. So then this begs the question -- Do his kids issue a full disclosure to everyone in the Rebel Alliance/New Republic??? Is this one of the "moral choices" that GL talks about, which the ST largely hinges upon?

My guess is that the standard story propogated is the Obi-wan fuzzy version of "Anakin was betrayed and killed by Darth Vader."

However, I think a much larger issue that has been mentioned several times by some of the astute users of the forum is that the Jedi may actually be very mistrusted and perhaps NOT as welcomed back as would seem obvious. Perhaps Luke rebuilds the NJO in secret on Tython or Yavin or Tatooine? Perhaps only when this new threat to the fledgling Republic emerges is the Chancellor (or whatnot) forced to find an ally -- perhaps in her old, wizard brother who happens to have a small cult of fanatics following him around, learning his mysterious ways . . .

 

How's this for a new idea regarding the legacy of Vader? (At least, I think it's a new one)

Let's suppose that Sidious will be in EPVII, either as a Sith Spirit, a resurrection or via essence transfer. Maybe one of the new protagonist Force using kids is ultra ambitious. Now here's where the legacy part comes into play....
In this scenario maybe Sidious could tempt the ultra ambitious kid to side with him citing the power he was able to provide to the long dead Vader? Obviously, Sidious would put his own slant on it in much the same way he tempted Anakin.
So basically, it's the legacy that actually turns one of the new heroes... and from here, enter Anakin Force ghost to try to dissuade the kid from the Darkside.

Actually, it doesn't even have to be Sidious, it could be any Sith that explains the power Vader attained over the GFFA.
And I think it would work best storywise on an overly ambitious descendant of Vader.

 

I think Vader's "presence" will loom over the ST greatly.

I would personally like to see how his grandchildren (if more than one) react to what he did. I think it will influence their actions despite the teachings from Luke.

 

I actually do not wish to see Vader as a prominent figure throughout the ST. Yes, I'd like to see Luke and Leia interact with Anakin as a Force Ghost and maybe the villain/Sith/Dark Jedi mention Vader now and again, but I'd rather see him in a minor part.

 

I think that if ANY force ghosts are going to be present, it would be hard to not have the most iconic character of the series not appear. It would be Anakin and not Vader I am sure. I don't think Luke would teach about him in a negative light; Luke would look at him as his redeemed father. I think Luke will, however, include him in his teachings as far as what can happen when you let the dark side in, and what the risks are in Jedi training.

It will be interesting to see where they go with Leia and her father, since the OT never had a scene where she acknowledged or discussed her feelings about him.

 

I hope the offspring in the ST has visions of Vader and the mask to show that falling to the Dark Side is possible. I just hope that that is not the main story of the ST. Been done already.
Not sure if it will be in the ST or not but I do expect to see a Cult of Vader in a spinoff tv show bridging the OT and ST eventually.

 

I've always wondered what the perceived reception of Vader switching sides at the very end would be. Especially when the only living witness to the account happens to be his son -- I could see where Han and even Leia might have a hard time accepting Luke's account.

There certainly could be a line for those seeking revenge on the Skywalkers

I would be perfectly fine with Anakin being resurrected, it seems to fit with the "Chosen One" Prophesy, a calling and purpose he has over the other Jedi. I would however, like to see him make up for the deaths he has committed, though I'm not exactly sure how he would accomplish this -- maybe an afterlife for all those that he killed.

I would also be OK with Palpatine, Plagueis or a few others regaining a physical existence in an un-natural way, but only temporary.

This is my feeling as well. The new Jedi order may not have progressed as fast as we have assumed.

Great Topic!

 

I don't think many people in the universe knew that Vader was Anakin. I'm sure most people just thought Anakin died in the Clone Wars. I'm not so sure Vader will have as much of a legacy as Palpatine. Vader was a bad dude but Palpatine was the master. The Skywalker kids also don't need to know every detail about their grandfather.

 

Excellent thread. I have a bit to say about Anakin's return as helpful spirit. If he does return, I do hope he still retains much of his old personality. Vader turned good, but he didn't suddenly lose his personality. So if he appears, he should be obviously different than Obi-Wan and Yoda.

Cynical. Pragmatic. A foil to the overly idealistic Luke. But still inherently a good guy who wants to make amends.

That is something I want to see.

If he is a bland good guy, a flat person, then a huge opportunity would be lost, a great character slaughtered.

Vader was the one wrecking havoc everywhere, burning down planets and so on while Palpatine was sitting in his palace. Of course such a guy will be remembered.

 

One of the things that should be taken into account is how many people in the galaxy at that time actually know who Darth Vader really was.

Is it common knowledge that the biggest villain in the galaxy is the father of Luke and Leia, prominent figures in the Rebellion and (I'm guessing) the New Republic? In the eyes of the "common people" of the GFFA, Vader was the bad guy. We have our behind the scenes view that shows us who the real Master of Evil is, but as far as regular folks are concerned Palpatine may still be presenting himself as a benevolent leader, bringing peace to the galaxy, a victim of Jedi betrayal and so on.

I have no real interest in seeing Hayden Christensen again, thank you very much, and no real interest in seeing Vader in ST but I am open to possibilites of it being handled in a good manner.
What I find much more interesting is the way his legacy would be handled and how it will impact his offspring, who might have some serious problems if people decide to pursue the fairly obvious route of "you're the kids of the biggest genocidal maniac in recent galactic history, why should we trust you?"

 

Agreed.

And the ST will be better off for it.

 

Darth Vader lives always in the universe.

 

I just worked on a post for about a half hour that I was really excited about, but my computer randomly decided to highlight and delete the entire thing in the span of a fraction of a second. Needless to say, I'm a bit too frustrated to try again right now, but hopefully I'll be able to come back and convey my ideas about this soon.

 

Anakin's ghost at some point in the ST is a must for me. It is literally the ONLY "must have or it will fail in my eyes" on my list.

Perhaps a scene where the new hero or heroine starts meddling with some arcane dark side powers, then Anakin can appear and warn them about the temptation of the dark side. If we REALLY must have another "Vader" appearance, I suppose his ghost could briefly take on the burned, limbless appearance, then flash the armor/helmet for a second and give an audio sample of the breath.

Another thought of mine was to have the spirits of Yoda and Ben pass into the Force, but Anakin's ghost cannot due to his actions as Vader during life, so perhaps his descendants have to atone for his crimes in his stead. I kind of had this fantasy scene in my head where at the end of IX, during the obligatory big party, Anakin's ghost could be there and hear a voice calling his name (Padme's, whether by sound archive or just getting Portman in to say the one word) then smile happily as he fades into the Force.

Don't know if that last one would hold up consistently though. Part of me is also somewhat hoping for a scene with Qui-Gon's ghost. I just love his character and Liam Neeson's portrayal so much. Shame he was limited to only one movie and a brief mention in the saga.

 

That's happened to me more than one time. It's tough to get over.

 

I think if Vader had left behind any secret apprentices or unnatural experiments, Ghost Annie would've long ago told Luke and/or Leia about them. "Oh, BTW, there's this half-trained angry guy on Jebada VII...I was kinda training him as a back-up in case I had to destroy you, so I'd have someone by my side to overthrow the Emperor. You can totally take him in a fight, he's pretty raw and lacking any sort of finesse, but you better go get him pretty quick. I had told him if he didn't hear from me in a month, he should start carving his own empire out of the local systems. So, you better get on that. Chop chop...heh...pun intended."

Seeing Anakin's ghost wouldn't be terrible, as it'd be Abrams directing Hayden, not Lucas...especially if it's something like Seagoat suggested, using the "ghost" aspect in a typical ghostly way as a warning to someone against the dark side. Seeing him shift into a burned/dismembered Vader & then with the mask & outfit, that could be pretty cool/terrifying if handled properly!

 

Ditto

 

If they took some stuff from the EU, than some important New Republic members knew about Vader being the father of Luke and Leia. I believe Luke told the Jedi he trained who is father was as a lesson on what the Dark Side can do to you.

 

Ok so I've shared my feelings about how Anakin's ghost should actually be used many times, and I might do that again in here at some point, but since this thread is about his legacy, I figured I'd share my thoughts on something more directly related to that.

The OT, and the end of ROTJ in particular, showed us that the Empire was clearly unpopular throughout the galaxy, as people celebrated on virtually all of the major planets seen throughout the saga. So life in the Empire must have been hard on everybody, or at the very least everyone was aware of the atrocities carried out under Palpatine's rule. We even see them tearing down a statue of him, which is a pretty strong statement to that effect. So I'm thinking that at some point most people probably came to realize that the Jedi were good after all, and that they had been right to attempt an assassination on Palpatine. As feared or misunderstood as the Jedi may have been, they couldn't have been as bad as the stormtroopers, who probably inspired fear in much the same way as the SS. With this in mind, I think Luke would have been venerated as a hero and the Jedi would be welcomed back into the Republic after the fall of the Empire.

Where Vader fits in is, if Luke is trusted implicitly by the populace, then they would probably have accepted his word if he told them the whole truth... that the Jedi Anakin Skywalker had been corrupted by Palpatine, who was really a Sith Lord, but that in end he had turned back to the good side to save his son and destroyed Palpatine himself, thus freeing the galaxy of tyranny. This being more of a fairy tale world rather than the real world, I think most people would have then followed Luke's lead and forgiven Vader for his evil deeds and viewed as a tragic hero. Luke could have even learned of the Prophecy, so now the galaxy sees Vader as the Chosen One, who destroyed the evil Sith and brought peace to the galaxy. He would be held up as practically if not literally a religious figure. His visage, mask and all, would be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy as a symbol of hope, goodness, and triumph over evil, rather than the evil with which it was once so closely associated.

And this is where it gets interesting, because obviously the Sith will return. So what happens when people are suddenly faced with the fact that the Prophecy wasn't fulfilled after all, and that this savior that they worshiped was apparently a false messiah? I can see this being the cause of much disillusionment with the Jedi and the restored Republic who touted Anakin as the one who ended the evil that Palpatine represented once and for all. This would play right into the hands of the Sith, and create enough dissention among the people to start another war so that they can seize power once again.

 

The entire tone of the Sequel Trilogy will probably be focused around Luke and his family fixing the misdeeds of his father, so I'm going to bet that we'll at least get a lot of undertones related to Vader.

 

Luke jumps on the holonet and yells "DARTH VADER WAS MY DAD AND I SAVED THE GALAXY! DID THAT CONTRADICTION BLOW YOUR MIND, SHEEPLE?!" then signs off.

 

There are ways to handle that. You could show the test subject fleeing his cell before republic forces arrive. Or maybe Anakin thinks someone is dead who really isn't.
But I'd go with the former because it is less contrived.

 

One of the key questions about Vader's legacy is related to genre, as Mystery_Roach says. The end of ROTJ, for example, wraps things up so neatly that we can only consider it a fantasy or fairytale ending.This is not to call it unrealistic in a negative sense, but just to point out this is an acceptable way genre can function at the end of a narrative.

However, there are some reasons to think the perfect transition implied by this happy ending may not hold (or at least, does not necessarily have to hold):

Post PT, the GFFA has been made more complex. We now know that the Republic was fooled by the Sith in a pretty complex way. We could overlook this complexity through the lens of the ROTJ happy ending pretty easily if there wasn't a new trilogy about to begin. As we all point out a lot on this forum, all bets are off about what we took for granted at the end of ROTJ. This doesn't mean the happy ending will necessarily become more realistic, but that it could be, if the writers want to go that direction. Assuming they do, it's a simple matter for the ST to do some similar things as the EU, which portrayed distrust for the Jedi and Skywalkers by some in the senate and the galaxy. Even Leia was haunted by the memory of Vader, who tortured her in ANH, was complicit with a genocide against her home world, and nearly killed her true love in ESB.

So now that the Saga is continuing, I think there's a strong probability the fairy tale ending grows darker, more realistic. For example:

1) Leia will not have found peace yet with the crimes of Vader. There's no good narrative reason to have this take place offscreen before the beginning of the ST. In fact, it's a perfect organic tension to have between Luke and Leia and Han. This tension should also affect their children, and that could be one of the prime tensions in the ST.

2) Like the EU, someone with intelligence capabilities is likely to know about Vader's true identity. Knowledge is power, so this information will be used against Leia and Luke and the Jedi. It could be used as blackmail, or it could be used to make our heroes look less than perfect. If there's any political battles in the ST, this would be a good one, as the topic is dramatic rather than obscure.

3) The Skywalker families will know, or else. Luke and Leia will be in a difficult position. If they are honest with their children and the Jedi about their relation to Vader, they risk what any family with a monster in the closet risks: that the child will either be repelled and embarrassed at their family history, or they will become fascinated with it. Even worse, if you don't tell them about Vader, they will likely find out on their own, and then trust will be broken. So I don't believe that Leia and Luke would make that mistake, so I believe the next generation will know. And knowledge creates identity and behavior. The next generation and new Jedi will form their identities in relation to the legacy of Vader. That legacy, for good or ill, will help produce them. Personally, I think Luke will encourage his Jedi to love more fully than the old Order did. That will be one aspect of the Vader legacy, and it is yet to be seen whether this will be an improvement or not.

4) Vader made enemies. People and worlds who were the direct recipient of Vader's wrath will not so easily forgive or accept his redemption story. It will seem too convenient to them -- or not enough redemption -- and it won't make up for lost blood and lost land. What redemption makes up for genocide and mass murder? I imagine, for example, there will be survivors of Alderaan, like their were survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, and these people will demand some retribution for Vader's role in their peoples' slaughter. The Skywalkers will be seen as the enemy, and an enemy that seeks to humanize one of the main monsters they hate.