PT Did the scene of Anakin killing younglings affect your perception of him?

And all of a sudden, the gates of heaven opened and Vader was not longer the evil as he once was

I disagree completely with this outlook. Vader was implied to already have done terrible things, with the inclusion of the death of Aldderan. Vader DID NOTHING to stop Tarkin and he knew all about their Death Star. He held the princess in place, mocked her while he stood and watched.

The child killing goes to show in the days of what evil he had done. It's true that the brutality is quite on the striking side, but that's Vader in a nutshell. People don't want him killing kids yet they crave scenes of him killing adults. I don't get it(I do*) but my point is; Vader's act was direct and viseral(that's the whole point). He made a decision to dive into a deed he knew he should not commit and now he suffers the consequences of those decisions.

Pain, guilt, and the wonderful luxuriant suit that pierces his body with the utmost dread.

 

First watching at 15 it didn't seem that different from the hunting down Jedi and years of brutality we always knew about, more recently it does seem too over the line, both for how quickly into his Dark Side it was and in itself (it is very different with children, let alone those that trust you, compared to with Rebel soldiers or especially Jedi who were strong warriors) and, especially for how quick it is, certainly makes it harder to forgive Vader or even view him as that tragic a character (a tragic, corrupted character should believe he's doing right or at least is justified and as part of that have limits).

 

It was Lucas's BIGGEST MISTAKE in ROTS.... it literally ruined any chance of Anakin ever being seen in a positive light again. A slaughter of innocent children is too much. How many mass child killers can we look at in ANY positive light after we know what they've done? I mean it was one step away from raping and murdering them afterward, no? How much more evil could he go?

What should have happened is Anakin steps into the chamber, see's all the younglings are being attacked by troopers. They call out to him for help but he turns around and walks away, as they're slaughtered by Troopers. That would have gotten the point across without having him be directly responsible for the slaughter. You would still buy the line where Padme thinks there is still "good in him" but now it is preposterous that anyone at the end of ROTS would think he is anything but pure evil. It was a mistake in hindsight and really ruins the end of ROTJ when Luke smiles at the ghost of Anakin. Now all you see in that is this evil child murderer.

 

I don't really remember what my initial reaction was to this scene. I remember being so engrossed in the whole process of his turn, I think I may have even let a tear slip loose. I was in my mid 20's when the film came out and I just really wanted to know why Anakin turned to the dark side. It was something I had wondered since I was a kid growing up watching the OT.

I understand George's desire for that "hard right turn" but feel the scene should have been more along the lines of what was shown to Obi Wan in the archived footage- Anakin duelling with Cin Drallig and force choking the older Padawan. I really didn't need to see two instances where he kills children. For me, the slaughter of adult Jedi in the Temple would have been a hard right turn enough. I had enough imagination to fill in the blanks between ROTS and ANH with his atrocities throughout the galaxy.

 

I love that killing kids is too much, but his killing grown adults means that he gets a free pass in the redemption department.

 

Seems a pretty natural reaction to me. The Jedi and those kids were like his family. The Nazi Joseph Goebbels is one the greatest monsters this world ever saw, but people were still shocked that he and his wife poisoned their own five children.

 

Killing adults who are a present danger to you, though still morally dubious particularly if they are unarmed, should be viewed differently from killing children to preempt the possibility of them ever growing up to pose a threat to you or someone else. And so should the complexion of redemption in that context.

It's nice strawman for some to cling to. But nobody is giving out a free pass for slaughtering anyone.

 

Add to this, that just minutes before he was still rationally struggling with the fact he was not being the Jedi he should be, and actually turned in Palpatine to the Jedi council. So, he didn't kill those kids out of some deep conviction or something like that. He was just raking in the dark side points in the hope it would get him something from a guy who obviously can't be trusted:

 

^ And it's more or less the same people who are disturbed by the child massacre's dramatic/emotional plausibility who are ambivalent also about some of the Jedi's willingness to become generals, executioners etc. So the idea that there's a double standard being exercised by people with regard to Anakin killing grown ups is rather perverse.

 

That's the thing really. Up till that point the story enforces the idea, that Anakin doesn't really want to be bad, he just wants the power to save his wife, which to a certain point we can all empathize with, but then he suddenly goes all ape **** on these kids who have done him no harm, and up till a few minutes before he would have done anything for to protect. There's no natural progression there. You would at least expect him to be hesitant, or let some of the soldiers do the dirty work. There just wasn't enough movie time left to really show that progression, and it ended up being rushed. Anakin thus seemed very gullible, lacking any moral fibre, and as such it diminished the character of Anakin/Darth Vader IMO.

 

^ Maybe if the crumbling relationship between the Jedi and Palpatine, or trust between the clones and their generals had been better developed by that point, making it necessary for Anakin to be present in order for whomever was present in the temple to admit such a large force of troops. But Anakin stayed out of it. Sort of like a Judas. Showing how Anakin is prepared to turn his back to such iniquities if it ensures that he does not suffer any longer, rather than prepared to plunge himself head and hands first into a hell, expecting to come out the other side with the power to sort everything out. Anakin expressed rage but also guilt and after the Tusken massacre. What was he expecting to feel after murdering his infant Jedi brothers and sisters? Less guilty?

But Lucas had to demonstrate that Anakin wanted to kill younglings because doing bad things makes him powerful and that was a good thing in the long run, he thought. Which is even less plausible, except for someone with an existing personality disorder. Wishing that you're wife does not die the way you've foreseen, just like you foresaw your mother's death, is not a personality disorder though.

 

The problem is, that Lucas didn't really provide any credible reasons for Anakin to hate the Jedi, let alone those kids. He's just doing what he's told, based on a hunch, which makes it even more implausible. Had the Jedi Council expelled him from the order, because of his secret marriage to Padme, well that would have provided some real drama, and reasons for anger and conflict. Now he just seemed petulant, because they wouldn't make him a master, boohoo. Add to this that he trusts a guy, who he knows, plunged the entire galaxy into war, and chaos for the last couple of years, having been Dooku's master and all.

 

Look up what happens to child killers in prison. 9/10 are killed by other inmates before they ever serve their sentence. Something about the inherent human need to protect an innocent child versus an adult who can protect themselves stirs some primal emotions.

 

The point is that if he is to become a Sith, he must do what the Sith will do. And do so without showing mercy, or without hesitation. He must let go of his Jedi training, which says to kill in self-defense of others and do what must be done. We've seen that when he lets go of himself with the Tusken Raiders, he was capable of taking out an entire village of them. So he has the capacity to do so and he must be willing to do so again.This was his Sith trial as much as Luke's Jedi trial was about not killing out of revenge.

"There's always this good in you. And the good part is saying 'what am I doing?'. Then the bad part kicks in and says 'I'm doing this for Padme, I'm doing this for the galaxy and so we can have a better life'. But the good part is always saying 'WHAT AM I DOING?!"

--George Lucas to Hayden Christensen, Hyperspace webdoc.

"This is the first time he actually has a chance to think about what it is that’s happened by himself and the tear here shows that he knows what he’s done, but he’s now committed himself a path that he may not agree with, but he is going to go along anyway.

It’s the one moment that says he’s self aware. He rationalizing all his behavior. He’s doing terrible things. But in the end he really knows the truth. He knows that he’s evil now and there’s nothing he can do about it and that’s the moment where the pathos of him being stuck in that suit is real because if he had to do it over he probably wouldn’t do it, but he can't stop it now."

--George Lucas, ROTS DVD Commentary.

He doesn't really hate the Jedi. That's why Lucas saved the hate for the Separatist Council and clinched it with the yellow eyes revelation. He does it because he considers himself to be a desperate man. He has been given hope by Palpatine, whereas the Jedi Council offered him none. That's the tragedy of it all.

"...some of the people had a hard time with the reason that Anakin goes bad. Somebody asked whether somebody could kill Anakin's best friend, so that he really gets angry. They wanted a real betrayal, such as, "You tried to kill me so now I'm going to try and kill you." They didn't seem to understand the fact that Anakin is simply greedy. There is no revenge. The revenge of the Sith is Palpatine. It doesn't have much to do with Darth Vader; he's a pawn in the whole scheme....

So I had to ask myself, what was I trying to say and didn't I say it? Did it just get missed or it is it not there? I had to look at it very hard. I had to ask myself, is this how the audience is going to react? Fortunately, Steven confirmed that most of everything was working. So I may lose a certain demographic - maybe, maybe not. But I had to make a decision, and I decided that I'm not going to alter the film to make it more commercial or marketable. I have to be true to my vision, which is 30 years old, but I have to be true to it."

--George Lucas, The Making of ROTS, page 188.

The Darth Vader story is an extension of his original plan to have a Jedi who became a Sith and becomes a Jedi again, because of ideological reasons. Prince Valorum was the template for Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader as we've known him since 1977. The only change is that he gave Vader a more tragic slant by showing that he was simply doing this for what seems like a reasonable reason, but it is more complicated than that.

And to me that's hypocritical to say that children's lives matter more than adult lives. All life should be precious, regardless of being able to defend themselves or not. And murder for adults should be treated the same way as children. With the same contempt or compassion towards them, that the human condition is capable of. To me, Vader is just as guilty whether he killed the children or not. Lucas already set up the idea that Vader could kill his own kids, which was the justification for hiding Luke and Leia when they were born.


Showing that Vader was capable of that in ROTS, drives home how serious hiding the Skywalker twins was.

 

I understand, but it took Luke years to reach that point. The first time he confronted Vader, Luke failed miserably, because he rushed into things. There was a progression. Not so with Anakin, he just flicks a switch and becomes evil. All it took was Palpatine telling him he should show no mercy and that was it. He became a raving lunatic. It wasn't a natural progression of his character, hence my conclusion that his developement was rushed for shock value. A more realistic approach would be for Anakin to show restraint, fail the Sith trials, end up losing his fight with Obi-Wan, and burning to a crisp, and have the hate literaly burned into his soul. Then Palpatine could blame his condition on his failure, and thus his training and progression to becoming a full fledged Sith Lord would begin.

 

Anakin took years as well. Palpatine spent ten years telling Anakin that he is the greatest of all Jedi, even Yoda. He then kills the Tusken Raiders when he finds out that he is not as powerful as he should be. Then he spends three more years becoming stronger and stronger, believing that he will be powerful enough to protect his loved ones. Then he spends the bulk of ROTS seeking a solution to his situation, a way to fulfill his promise to his mother and Padme, which dates back to AOTC.

He only becomes a raving lunatic after he's done all the killing. The hate is still burned into his soul because he failed against Obi-wan and paid for it. By having him still human when he does this, it connects to Luke who is capable of becoming like his father, without needing the burns and the cybernetic parts to go along with it. That's also why Dooku was presented as human. He doesn't look like a demon like Maul, he doesn't look like the Grim Reaper like Sidious. It's why he was a Jedi turned Sith. It exposes the humanity in falling to the dark side.

 

He kills children seemingly without remorse, at least Lucas didn't bother to show any at that point. That is rushed development, considering he was on the good side just a moment before, and clearly didn't want to hurt Mace Windu, but felt he had no choice. He exclaims "what have I done" after attacking Mace, clearly showing remorse, but than calmly walks into the Jedi temple and starts killing children. That's just a leap to far, considering his state of mind just moments earlier. As I said, there's no natural progression. One moment he's a conflicted good guy, the next he's an evil monster. The entire conflicted bad guy stage is missing.

 

Anakin's remorse is only shown after he's done with the killing.

Spoiler

The point comes back to what Yoda said, "Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did Obi-wan's apprentice."

Here, Yoda is telling us that Anakin's first actions were horrible and he felt remorse. But the more he continues to use the dark side, the less he will feel guilt and the more he will become like the other Sith. It's like the addict who first takes a drink or a drag off a cigarette. It won't make them an addict right off. But more and more they do so, the more they will start to become one. And Palpatine tells Anakin that doing what feels right, like killing the Tuskens and Dooku, is more important than delusions of morality.

 

Yes, but Anakin doesn't feel killing the Jedi is right. He was willing to turn in Palpatine moments before. He just wants to save Padme. Considering this reality, we should see more remorse than a single tear after a killing spree.

 

Not at all, he had just killed women and children in the AOTC. Only people I felt sad for was the people helping him and the Emperor in the novel Lords of the Sith, I felt so bad for the children.

 

He only shows remorse (is it remorse, or self pity?) after killing the separatists. He's fairly chipper when he goes to see Padme after killing the Younglings.

If he's so remorseful, why is he upset at Padme's ambivalence at what he's done? Doesn't make sense.

 

It makes perfect sense it's call BAD STORYTELLING and TERRIBLE WRITING. God I wish Lucss had shown the prequel scripts to some academy award winning writers who would have shown him how to make Anakins fall more believable and logical. Oh well.

 

Yes, that was Lucas' intention...but he executed it poorly.

I mean, we go from a desperate man clearly horrified at basically assisting in Mace Windu's death to a man willing to slaughter children. What kind of logical loophole did he jump through to go to that extent?

Now let's pretend I'm Anakin. I just joined the Sith and am going to the Jedi Temple to murder all the Jedi. I go into the Council Chambers where the boy asks me, "...What are we going to do?" My reaction would be, "You're right, kid. What ARE we going to do about this?" I wouldn't kill them. I would either order a Clone Trooper to get them out (on pain of his death, of course), or sneak them out myself and inform them to never EVER go back again.

 

We're talking about a guy that we all already know has personally killed hundreds if not thousands and participated in the murder of millions. And yet the fact that he once killed kids surprises or shocks you? That's like being surprised at finding out that Hitler tortured animals as a kid...