PT The time frame of Vaders operation and recovery

One of the things that intrigued me about the transformation in to Vader the costume was the speed of it all.

It seems as though hes injured, brought back to Coruscant (I love that scene btw as they land in the rain and then theres the solemn procession carrying Anakin), operated on, put in the suit and then woken up. All within hours of the fight with Obi-Wan.

It looks like he's still wearing his burnt Jedi clothes as they operate on him and then put him in the suit. The fact they seem to leave the burnt clothes on really bugged me.

In the ESB we see Luke recovering in a bacta tank after the Wanpa attack, yet a gravely injured Anakin seems to have nothing done.

So is it supposed to be dicpicted over a matter of hours? If so how was he able to wake up so quickly? How was he healed?

 

From what I've read, it took a week or two for them to put him in the suit. I can buy that it would have been an hour or so from Palpatine finding him on Mustafar to the operation. They can't dawdle when they've got a burnt amputee victim to save.

As to why they left the burnt clothes on him? We see a droid lifting a piece of it off of him and he screamed. They probably figured it wasn't worth taking the whole outfit off and decided to operate around that.

 

yeah clothes melt to the skin and sometimes can't be removed.

 

Absolutely right AndyLGR, may I add
As it turns out, there's actually no good reason for Darth Vader to wear the suit at all. He is a burn victim and a multiple amputee. Why does he need help breathing? He doesn't. He needs skin grafts and the high tec artificial limbs and that's it.

NO NEED for the suit. His lungs were fine when he was groaning on the table. Hell, the put him in the suit while his skin/flesh was still smoking!!! I think that hospitals in the nether regions of planet Earth could even treat burns better.

 

I think he was supposed to have suffered irreversible lung damage from breathing in all that hot air near the lava flow for so long.

 

To show the true length of time that led to Anakin being placed in the Vader armor would take another half hour running time, let alone another movie. Lucas did it in a series of montages. It seemed quite obvious to me.

 

It's also worth remembering how early Vader's lung problem was established - "Virtually a walking iron lung" was used to describe the suit, way back in 1977 (Star Wars Poster Monthly)

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http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post2-02.jpg​

 

I always figured it took a few months from the moment Palpatine found him on Mustafar until that final shot of him on the bridge of the Star Destroyer. The intercutting between that and Padme was for dramatic purpose, not in real time, which I think confused a lot of people.

 

But in truth, there's nothing in the movies confirming that Vader needs help to breath (I know it WAS the intention, but...). He might be using the mask just to hide his scarred and deformed face, to be able to look imposing to others.

 

Screaming on the table with burnt lungs is SW's analogical counterpart to sounds in space

 

It's been many years since I read it, but I seem to recall Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader making mention of the lung damage as well as numerous other injuries he sustained on Mustafar.

True, you would think the scream would have been absent in such an instance. If anything, showing Vader gasping and unable to speak would have explained the breathing issue better than anything.

 

vader had a mask over his face when he was in the capsule...



and when he's on the table he was in a hyperbaric environment.



in esb he can breath without his mask when in his pressure chamber. more here...

Darth Vader's meditation chamber - Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki

 

Vaders lungs were damaged according to "legends" contiunutiy sourse(the pre Disney EU). I know he is controversial here but Saxton, the guy who is famous for the writing some technical cross section books that caused alot of ship size controversy also did a analysis of vaders injuries and what really caused his death in ROTJ using images from the film including the shots where you see his skeleton glow from the lightning.

 

Yup. There were also hints in the novelizations of the movies.

 

I always thought that was a nice touch in ROTJ. They could have gotten away with just showing a regular skeleton, but by adding the metal bits and screws and all it really shows that the injuries he sustained were considerable.

 

you know i never noticed this. did they add this? i guess it's clearer on the blu-ray?

 

Yeah, it is pretty clear that at some point between his surgery at the end of rots(ir maybe even during) and ROTJ he had a major spinal injury. It is even possible that the spinal surgery(there is definitely replaced vertebrae in that shot) may have even been done during the surgery in ROTS probably to connect his nervous system to some to the life support stuff.

 

The sequences were originally separate, with the birth happening first and then his rebirth. But Lucas opted to intercut the scenes.

 

I'm not sure, but there probably would have been a more apparent gap between things. Thus it wouldn't seem as if Palpatine somehow knew that she was dead, when he shouldn't have in the final film.

 

Add to the list: the fact that Sidious just happened to have the Vader suit lying around to be used someday.

Something which technically should have affected Obi-Wan as well.

 

Could probably be rationalised with "they're using just a little of The Force to protect themselves from the heat - when Anakin lost his limbs, and rolled so close to the lava, his protections collapsed".

Mind you - it's a common trope in fiction:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConvectionSchmonvection