Saga Anakin should not have been redeemed

devilinthedetails · Aug 22, 2019

christophero30 said: ↑

It always seemed to be that when Vader is looking back and forth between Luke and Palpatine he is finally realizing/remembering that Palpatine is evil and he has been tricked all these years.
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Yeah, that's what I always thought even before the Prequels came out and we got to see how Palpatine manipulated Anakin to the Dark Side. I just felt like in that moment Vader is seeing the evil and manipulation Palpatine represents, realizing that he has been tricked in the same way Palpatine tried to trick Luke, seeing himself to some degree in his son, and feeling love for his son. Vader to me is choosing love for his son over the manipulation and evil Palpatine represents. At least that was always my interpretation, and the Prequels strengthened that impression for me.

AEHoward33 · Aug 24, 2019

I thought Anakin was both redeemed and punished for his past actions.

Dark Ferus · Aug 24, 2019

Agree with @AEHoward33 .

From both a narrative and a judicial standpoint, Vader's fate was sealed as soon as he revealed that he was Luke's father on Cloud City. There was no way that the bad guys would win in ROTJ, which by all accounts Lucas intended to conclude the OT's storyline in 1980, having scrapped the idea of Luke facing the Emperor in IX after deciding on Vader being Luke's father. Also, the chances of Luke outright killing Vader were reduced with the TESB reveal, but it was still a looming possibility if Vader had remained evil throughout, perhaps the only possibility.
The other option, naturally, was redeeming him. While this meant that Luke wouldn't kill Vader himself, it also meant that Vader had to die some other way. It would have been too challenging a task to have Anakin live and be accepted back on the good side (this was done in an early draft circa 1980-1981, but abandoned). Leia's reaction to Luke returning to Endor with his dad would be just the tip of the iceberg. At the same time, Lucas never wanted a dark conclusion to the trilogy, and so he couldn't possibly have had Vader imprisoned despite turning good.
Where did that leave him?
So yes, Vader did have his cake, but he didn't eat it. He did have something to show for his redemption, and received the best possible ending to his story due to the circumstances.

BlackRanger · Aug 24, 2019

Worth noting that Gary Kurtz said the plan for future SW films around 1980 was that Vader would die in the third film, but the Emperor would survive into the Sequel Trilogy. That might imply a psychic resurrection or cloning of some sort, or (more likely in my view) it might simply mean what it says at face value: the Emperor wouldn't be killed until the ST.

If Vader remained evil, rather than finding redemption through killing the Emperor, one narrative solution might be for Luke to find a way to put Vader in a fatal situation and simply let it play out.

As Batman Begins put it: "I won't kill you. But I don't have to save you."

Or, in Asimovian terms, Luke wouldn't injure Vader, but through inaction would allow Vader to come to harm. (And the Laws of Robotics would tie in to the man/machine theme, with Luke having become a cyborg in ESB thanks to his mechanical hand.)

Vorax · Aug 25, 2019

Well not exactly, from what Kurtz said was that the Emperor would not appear until Episode 9 :

Gary Kurtz, the producer of ANH and ESB, spoke at the Sci-Fi Expo in Plano, TX this weekend along with his daughters Tiffany and Melissa (as children they played Jawas in ANH). He shared with the crowd about meeting Lucas, leaving the Star Wars films and the original plans for the entire saga.

Back in the early 70s, Kurtz was looking to use the new Technoscope technology in an upcoming film. Francis Ford Coppola hooked him up with George Lucas who had recently filmed TXH-1138 with Technoscope. Kurtz became interested in Lucas' planned American Graffiti and the partnership was born.

When the time came to produce ROTJ, Kurtz was unhappy with the story direction Lucas was taking. He felt that it was too much of a rehash of the first films with no real challenges. At the same time, Jim Henson was inviting him to produce his experimental film, Dark Crystal, which he chose instead.

Kurtz gave TPM a mixed review as he was clouded by plans made for Episode 1 back in the early 70s. As someone involved with Star Wars from the initial concepts, Kurtz revealed the original intentions for the nine films as they were laid out BEFORE 1980. Very interesting.

EPISODE 1: Was to focus on the origins of the Jedi Knights and how they are initiated and trained

EPISODE 2: Introduction and development of Obi-Wan Kenobi

EPISODE 3: Introduction and life of Vader

EPISODE 4: There were seven different drafts of the film. At one point, they pursued buying the rights to Hidden Fortress because of the strong similarities. At one point, Luke was a female, Han was Luke's brother, Luke's father was the one in prison (interesting point for some debates) and the film featured 40 wookies

EPISODE 5: Once written, the screenplay of Empire is almost exactly what is seen on screen. The only cut scenes were those involving wampas in the rebel base (cut because of time and unsolved technical glitches) and about two minutes of Luke/Yoda Jedi training with no real dialog.

EPISODE 6: Leia was to be elected "Queen of her people" leaving her isolated. Han was to die. Luke confronted Vader and went on with his life alone. Leia was not to be Luke's sister.

EPISODE 7: Third trilogy was to focus on Luke's life as a Jedi, with very few details planned out.

EPISODE 8: Luke's sister (not Leia) appears from another part of the galaxy.

EPISODE 9: First appearance of the Emperor.

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http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/gary_kurtz_reveals_original_plans_for_episodes_19_80270.asp

IGNFF: Now, also the story has arisen that George had always intended prequels, but had never intended sequels to that initial three films.

KURTZ: After this idea of more films came up, he did several interviews where he said he had story material to do nine films: three prequels and three sequels. That was the accepted story, basically, and there was quite a bit of material both before and after the Star Wars lump. So there was no decision to do either one... it was kind of a red herring in a way, because there was no immediate thought to make any other films right away. In a sense, through a business point of view, it probably would have been better to do so, like they did with Star Trek, rather than wait all this time, because the audience interest dissipated somewhat. I mean, it didn't seem to affect the box office on Phantom Menace too much, but ...

IGNFF: It didn't exactly leave a good taste in people's mouths, either.

KURTZ: Well, regardless of the value of the film as a film, artistically, there is a kind of energy around some things where if it had come out say three, four years later after Jedi, and then another one three or four years later after that, that kind of cycle would have probably been better for the audience and for the merchandising than what happened. But that's hindsight. At that time, he always said that he had enough material for three earlier films and three later films, to make a total of nine, and there were outlined materials certainly for a later three that culminated with this big clash with the Emperor in Episode IX. So, we'll never see any of those, based on what he's said now.
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https://m.ign.com/articles/2002/11/11/an-interview-with-gary-kurtz?page=4

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Saga Anakin should not have been redeemed

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AEHoward33 Jedi Master

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