CT Body disappearing

Perhaps not. It appears that the OP's question, at least, has been answered.

 

Has anyone got the RoTJ Special Edition script? When I look up "Anakin's body disappearing" this comes up:

According to Steve Sansweet of Lucasfilm and the script for the Return of
the Jedi Special Edition, Anakin's body disappeared at death in the same way
as Obi-Wan's and Yoda's bodies.

 

If Lucas changed his mind about this issue, I've always taken the DVD commentary as evidence that he changed it back. He certainly passed up an opportunity there to tell the listener that the body disappeared, if that's what he still intended at that point. The ROTJ script ( the original one ) indicates that the body not disappearing was the original intent of the scene.

 

The majority of evidence points towards Anakin disappearing, so it's best to assume that it is the case.

 

ive always been intriogued if it was a body in that fire. I just thought he died in the same way Qui Gon did

 

Per Champions of the Force, Luke directly witnessed Anakin's body disappearing, so that means it must have occurred before Luke lit the funeral pyre. The most likely scenario is that Anakin disappeared while Luke was dragging his body onto the shuttle.

 

This came up in Saga a while back, and that same photo was my argument. There's a body in there.
And, as has been pointed out - why build a funeral pyre for an empty suit of armour which only ever represented Anakin/Vader's dark side, rather than just let it be destroyed with DSII?

It's also worth bringing up the fact that the funeral pyre scene was an afterthought, shot as a pickup quite some time after principal photography was done - someone asked GL what Luke did with Vader's body, so they wrote the scene. This doesn't fit with Anakin fading away. If Anakin/Vader's body was meant to have faded away, it wouldn't have been an issue - instead, Luke hauls the whole lot through a Death Star about to explode, flies it down to the Forest Moon of Endor, builds a massive funeral pyre & sets the whole thing on fire.
The effort involved clearly indicates that the body on that pyre contained the remains of Anakin Skywalker, not just the mechanical prison he was trapped in as Darth Vader.

 

Yep, explains Vader's puzzlement as a mere bunch of robes lying on the floor.

 

In The Essential Guide to The Force, the answer Luke gives was "It seemed like the right thing to do"

as well as something to do with him thinking that personally destroying it might somehow free Anakin's spirit- it's the last representation of his dark side, after all.

I'm not sure precisely where: but I remember seeing these lines:

I burn this armor, and with it the name of Darth Vader. May the name of Anakin Skywalker be a light that guides the Jedi for generations to come...

 

Which would support why Anakin doesn't fade away. Yoda and Obi-wan do because they know how to perserve themselves after their death, Anakin didn't learn until after he died so his body wouldn't have faded away. As far as I know, that was always the original intent with Qui-Gon as well until the EU got involved, he learned after his death which is why his body didn't fade away.

The script says he burned Anakins body, not just the armor.

137 EXT ENDOR FOREST - NIGHT 137

Luke sets a torch to the logs stacked under a funeral pyre where
his father's body lies, again dressed in black mask and helmet.
He stands, watching sadly, as the flames leap higher to consume
Darth Vader -- Anakin Skywalker.

 

Apparently the quote comes from the RoTJ Radio Drama.

Full quote:

"I burn his armor and with it the name of Darth Vader. May the name of Anakin Skywalker be a light that guides the Jedi for generations to come… rest well, father. The Force is with you."

 

the opening poster does raise an interesting point about something:

if Maul can survive being struck in half at the waist, why can't Kenobi?

 

My complaint isn't Kenobi should have survived, but Maul should have died. If the lightsaber had vaporizing powers upon killing blows, Maul would not have returned. And now we will see him in the EU, especially since there is also a book of his return in addition to the cartoon bringing him back. And they didn't even kill off Maul before season 5 was finished. I want to complain about an evil being still surviving.

 

And comics. Quite a few of those already. (Technically TCW's EU as well- but I'm guessing "non-TCW EU" is what was meant.)

 

Nobody cremates a suit.

 

I've always felt that the absence of a physical body was essential to the ability to become a Force Ghost, and that the fact that Qui-Gon and Anakin were cremated allowed for the possibility that they could return once they learned the secret. Obi-Wan and Yoda disappeared at the moment of their death, of course, because they learned the technique from Qui-Gon while they were still alive.

 

It's not so much cremation of Anakin, but the erasing of the Vader persona.

 

The Vader persona was already erased. It's not about the armor.

 

The precise phrasing in The Essential Guide to The Force:

p85:

After my father died on the Death Star his body vanished. I brought his armor, and his mechanical remains, to Endor and burned them. It seemed like the right thing to do. Maybe the best thing. The idea of burial just felt wrong. I could only imagine what it must have been like for him, trapped within that armor for so many years. I guess I hoped the flames would somehow liberate him.

 

I have a question, if Darth Vader's suit was cremated, then how could the Glove of Darth Vader be written? Seriously, even if the Glove was indestructible, the Republic should have possession of it, because they burned the suit.

 

The glove being spoken of is the one Luke chops from Vader's hand on the DS2, that falls down the shaft.

When the Death Star II explodes, the hypermatter reactor at its core creates a short-lived wormhole that sucks in some of the debris. Later this debris is "spat out" of hyperspace, above the planet Dac, where the Mon Calamari come from. The glove was discovered in the oceans of Dac.

 

The armor was a symbol that made Vader who he was. The dark armor, the unnatural breathing, and the helmet itself all combined to make Vader quite an effective villain. Pre-suit Vader wouldn't have made nearly as much of an impact on the Empire's citizens. In fact, given all of the hero worship surrounding Anakin during the Clone Wars, that would have diminished his effectiveness as an enforcer.

 

doesn't obi-wan disappear before he is killed? Before the saber cuts him?

 

He disappears at the moment the saber touches him.