CT ROTJ and Vaders unmasking...

Ive watched ROTJ numerous times throughout my life and I love it as much now as I did in 1991 when I first watched the trilogy. The thing that still makes me feel a bit let down by the movie is when Vader was unmasked.
In 91 I was on the edge of my seat waiting for Luke to unveil Vader for the first time.
I must say I was let down to an extent. Seeing an old decrepit man underneath that mighty armour made me cringe. How was Vader so powerful as he is when he looks very nimble and weak?
Did anyone else feel let down or have any negative views on seeing such a powerful figure being revealed as actually weak?

 

That's exactly the intention

Before that, he's this menacing, powerful warrior who couldn't be defeated but by his own son. He's the badass who chokes his officers to death for failure because he can, and he's this intimidating tall figure whose armour makes him look scary
Then in reality, we see who he really is underneath. A scarred and practically already dead man whose voice is hardly a whisper. That's a powerful revelation, I think

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Exactly. He was the most popular/feared villain in movie history to that point. To make him just a frail man was the irony. It made him a more complex character rather than the one dimensional boogie man.

 

Yoda might have been the most powerful, but what you wrote makes Anakin the greatest Jedi, IMO. He managed to get back to his true self he's only forgotten, as Luke would say.

 

Exactly. It's the paradox of it all. That the most feared man in the galaxy, was in reality simply someone who was forced to be lowered to a meager cyborg. It was meant to show that a man who had so little of his human body left, could still display such vast humanity. All he wanted before he died was to look at his son with human eyes, not through the eyes of a machine.

 

Indeed. It gave me hope, as well. It's my favorite scene in all of Star Wars. A person redeeming herself or himself for past wrongs, however depraved and devastating, is rare in real life.

It was a good way to deconstruct the man.

 

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the dark side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005


Gavin Edwards: What was the greatest challenge with him?

George Lucas: I had to make Darth Vader scary without the audience ever seeing his face. Basically, it's just a black mask. I said, "How do I make that evil and scary?" I mean, he's big and black and he's got a cape and a samurai helmet, but that doesn't necessarily make people afraid of him. His character's got to go beyond that – that's how we get his impersonal way of dealing with things. He's done a lot of horrible things in his life that he isn't particularly proud of. Ultimately, he's just a pathetic guy who's had a very sad life. The first film, people didn't even know whether there was a person there. They thought he was a monster or some kind of a robot. In the second film, it's revealed that he's a human being, and in the third film you find out that, yes, he's a father and a regular person like the rest of us – he's just got a bit of a complexion problem.

--Rolling Stone interview, 2005.

 

That was the whole point. Within the iconic badass exterior, within the intimidating pose of ‘I'll choke you to death from halfway across the galaxy if you so much as sneeze at me’, within the terrifying presence, we have this broken shell of a man; beaten and scarred from a battle long ago. The PT showed us that he was actually one of us; one of the good guys. A hero, someone who just wanted to make the galaxy a better place but because of poor choices born from outside manipulation and inner emotional issues, he turned into this. A man mostly made of machinery, relying on machine to keep him alive.

That was the whole point. To show how even within the greatest evil, there is a frighten, broken, scared man who got that way because of some skewed up ideas in his head. Not everyone is pure, irredeemably evil. Some got that way because they were afraid of some unseen threat that only they could see.

 

I remember being disappointed as a kid as well. I didn't like it then. But I totally agree with GL's decision as an adult.

 

I'll recall here the story my Dad told me. He said that he and his companions were expecting an African American man with such certainty, despite the knowledge that Vader was Luke's father, that they were completely speechless. He never said if he particularly liked or disliked the reveal, just that he was so shocked he couldn't think about anything else the whole rest of the movie through, not that that's a lot of time anyways. It was always entertaining to hear him recount that.

 

I must admit you make a good point. As do most of the replies here.
I often wonder how long it took Vader to realise that he had been lied to and manipulated by Palpitine to turn to the dark side all this time and wether he was sorry for betraying the Jedi.
Vader says on a few occasions in the OT "you don't know the power of the dark side" and it makes me wonder what is it he wants to learn about the dark side exactly. Surely it would be to late to save Padme now as that was his plan 20 year previous...

 

Agreed. Vader was the myth, Anakin was the man. Even if he tried to bury it.

 

The reveal was great, seeing this powerful man whom everyone had feared for so long and taking the mask off and seeing he is an old man, doesn't lose impact of the character in fact you kind of feel sorry for the guy, powerful man now an old man

 

I have to post this once again. NSFW.

 

Yes... the fact that he doesn't kill any of his officers at the end of ESB when the Falcon gets away can be looked at as evidence of that. You almost feel like he's more upset about not being with his son rather than succeeding at turning him to the dark side.

 

While I didn't have the luxury of watching ROTJ in the cinemas like some of you (I was only four when the movie came out), that scene of Vader's unmasking still gets me, even today... Seeing the most powerful and feared man in all of the galaxy being revealed as a badly scarred, older-looking man that has trouble breathing and speaking is the greatest irony of them all - but it was good that Luke also forgave Anakin for all those past atrocities in the end!

"Father, I can't leave you here. I've got to save you."
"You already have, Luke."

 

Lest we forget, the first time we got a glimpse of Vader's bare skin is in ESB. Piett approaches Vader in his meditation chamber to report that the Falcon has entered the asteroid field, but comes in before his helmet is put on.

The brilliant part of this scene in my opinion is Piett's brief expression before the helmet is on and before he quickly regains his composure as Vader turns around to address him. Piett's look of visible discomfort at his first sight of Vader's scars surely reflects the audience's.

 

Yes I agree with this. Piett gave a look as if to say "What the hell?"
Which is what I was thinking to be fair. I actually prayed to Jesus that hopefully we will see him unmasked. Just because I really wanted to see what was going on under there.
I'm also glad we got to see what part of him was machine and what part was man in ROTS.

 

I can't recall my exact feeling at the time but since I do recall loving the whole aspect of Vader, Luke and the Emperor and that is a key factor in my fascination with the prequels story then I can only assume it was pretty well received by me.

 

i think it was perfect.

as an aside, a dear friend of mine bawled her eyes out the first time she saw that scene.

 

I dont think the reveal of him could've been a win-win situation either way. Some were bound to be disappointed no matter what they saw under the mask. It's an extremely touching moment to see a weakened, old man behind such a powerful image of the Vader mask.

 

It freaked me out because Luke's dad died. That kind of told me as a kid that my dad would one day die. It made me sad. Brilliant scene. No disappointment.