Background of Vader's suit

We're more discussing the aesthetic design than it's actual function. Dark Lord seems to support your point of view, to a point, though we later see that it's actually more along the lines of a ploy by Palpatine to Force Anakin to give himself entirely to the Dark Side. It makes life difficult for him. It saps his confidence. It is only when he regains determination and resolve, and finally gets a grip on whence his power truly flows that he is able to kick ass. The Vader at the end of Dark Lord isn't hindered anymore.

 

Everything's cool, Crazydan.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a comic or anything where Vader actually looked agile. Perhaps in the new ones they might be able to, but they always make him look like Frankenstein or something, when he should move more like Kroenen or someone else. Anyone got a pic where Vader looks like he's supposed to look?

 

I always thought that the suit was a prison for Vader. I mean, Palpatine COULD have made him agile like Grevious, but then Vader could take down Palpatine pretty quick by himself. Vader needed Luke in the OT because he was half the man he once was.

 

Quite literally (except for the "man" part)

 

Not so sure that's true. Despite what Obi-Wan says, Anakin is not more machine than man. His limbs are mechanical, and they have to interface with his very organic body. Grievous was lucky, in a way: his body had to be entirely rebuilt, and so could basically become anything the Emperor wanted him to be.

 

He wasn't too shabby in Crimson Empire flashbacks, IIRC.

 

A lot of the more recent comics have him moving pretty nicely. If you read Dark Lord, you'll see it, too. It's not so much that he's doing pirouettes like he used to, it's that he feels comfortable and natural in his new situation. He doesn't feel restricted.

 

Uh... The ROTS novelization says that Vader doesn't have lungs anymore. He can't hear anymore either but is getting auditory information from sensors relayed directly into his brain. Etc. The implication is well that he's more machine than man. I believe we can still mesh this with SOTE and that Vader is healing himself up both through the Force and with the occassional medical visit.

 

Vader does some serious fancy pants moves in the Star War Tales comics, (Yes I know they're not necessarily canon) such as versus the Dark Woman, the Fake Bounty Hunter, Boba Fett as well as the resurrected Maul; I can't think of the issues offhand though. He's also quite the dancer in the first arc of Star Wars Empire, as well as when he fights those Falleen assassins in the third paperback.

 

He's still very largely organic. Most of his body is flesh, and his mechanical parts have to accomodate his squishy body. Grievous, on the other hand, was just a head and a sack of guts. While it says in DL that the medical droids did a crappy job, it wouldn't have been possible to make Vader into a second Grievous.

 

This just occured to me, concerning the Noghri:
The party line now is that Vader's armor is patterned after the design of ancient Sith warbots, but Zahn wrote in implications that his armor is designed to resemble the Noghri.

We know that Honoghr was part of the Rakatan empire, as seen in the comic book where Aayla Secura ventures there, and in the NEC. We also know that Malak and Revan heavily researched the Rakata, and co-opted Rakatan technology, i.e. the Star Forge. Perhaps they created their warbots to look like Noghri -- we know most battledroids are patterned after living creatures -- and then Vader's armor was meant to look like those warbots.

 

...The circle is now complete...

BobaMatt, sounds like an excellent retcon fix for the two different explanations!!

danielc56

 

::takes a bow::