Anakin's arm

The suit itself is an iron lung.

 

It certainly isn't. He was breathing fine without it on Mustafar. He was breathing fine on the operating table, not yet in the suit. Vader has no breathing issues after RotS.

 

Well, then either Palpatine broke his neck forcing an artificial lung or he suffers an injury between films.

 

He can't have suffered a respiratory injury between films. The suit is breathing for him in RotS. We hear it. So either he was injured in RotS (either on Mustafar or by Palpatine using the Force to crush his lungs when he wasn't looking) or the suit isn't an iron lung at all (which wouldn't really make sense).

 

Well it could be bad acting on Hayden's part.

 

When the suit is being assembled it's very possible that it is in a similar room to that of Vader's meditation chamber seen in ESB which allowed him to breath without the helmet.

 

That still doesn't explain how Vader would have been able to breathe on Mustafar without issue.

 

George was too busy worrying about the fate of Jar Jar Binks/blue screens to care apparently.

 

Force reserves.

BTW, does the novel have anything to say about this?

 

Hmmm...the RotS novel runs with the idea of the iron lung: paperback, p.448-9

You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.


This is a serious issue with continuity. The novel mentions nothing about Anakin's lungs after getting clipped on Mustafar after up until that point on page 448. I don't understand how he could no longer have any lungs and survive for a second, let alone another few hours without them. And why would Lucas fail to show the iron lung in the film, leaving it to the eu?

 

Two things.

1. Anakin could've had his lungs removed on Coruscant, replaced as described in the novelization.

2. The film is PG-13, not R. Lucas's not going to show Anakin getting his chest cut open and having his lungs removed.

 

I should note here that Dark Lord seems to contradict this passage.

However, IMO the following point needs to be made. It has always been a part of SW lore that Obi-Wan fought Vader in a "lava pit" and as a result Vader ended up in an iron lung. To make the supposed "continuity issue" of Vader's breathing disappear, the Emperor would need to be there at the exact second Vader gets burned up, so he can be put into some kind of special apparatus immediately without any time lapse. ( Maybe this is what Stover was thinking in the novel, who knows? ) However, that doesn't work.

It's like the Leia-Padme thing. Sure it doesn't make sense if you ignore several obvious possible explanations. But you have to weigh ROTS against things playing out the way they did in the early draft of ROTJ, in which Mrs.Skywalker sails off into the sunset with baby Leia and dies off-screen between trilogies. Which choice is better?

 

The Bogda Fluid could have taken care of this though, just as it does with Luke's wounds. This is a real interesting question. Because even if you suppose that the 2 inches are gone, they still could have just reattached the arm with a bionic spacer. I know that they do this later on in the novels. One of Luke's grand kids has his leg cut off by a thrown lightsaber at the thigh, and instead of replacing the whole leg, they just use a bionic spacer. Good topic.

 

That's 163 years down the line from AOTC.

 

Luke's grand kids? Am I missing something?

 

Kol and Cade Skywalker from the Star Wars Legacy comics.

[image=http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/thumb/0/0d/YoungCadeWithKol.jpg/325px-YoungCadeWithKol.jpg]

[image=http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/5/57/Cade.JPG]

 

Vader wasn't breathing fine during his last few moments on Mustafar. Listen closely, and you can hear him almost gasping for air. And obviously the Iron Lung only HELPED Vader breathe, not forced him to. Otherwise Anakin wouldn't have been able to talk at the end of Jedi

 

Here all this time I thought it was because Lucas was too busy watering down and editing-out Vader's Force-prowess on Mustafar.

The iron lung issue is murky at best. As he crawls up the slope after his immolation, he groans loudly. Methinks that if in fact his lungs were toasted, we wouldn't have heard a sound. Sidious did put some sort of mask on the boy when he brought him to Coruscant, but little can be taken from that because of what happened next. On the operating table we hear him graon again when he slaps at the med-droid.

We already know that Sidious instructed the droids to keep Vader awake during the transformation, in order to make him stronger through his suffering. With that in mind, it seems highly unlikely that Sidious could or would have been able to blatantly wreck Vader's lungs. BUT, if the sublte ways of the Sith hold true, then we shouldn't dismiss the idea that Sidious had the iron-lung installed to ensure that Vader would never surpass him. Remember, 60% of Anakin's potential is still twice that which Sidious might have found in a new Apprentice.

It is also known that Vader's apprearance was designed to inspire fear, the raspy breathing makes his presence even more ominous. All leads point to Sidious installing the iron-lung, when it wasn't really needed.

 

Well, I'm no medicial major, but are we sure his lungs were completely gone. Novelization aside, I think that he did have some lungs left, just that they were too damage to last forever.

 

I don't know, but from the looks of it, the iron-lung was a little more than what Vader actually needed. Or it was intentionally made very poorly. Either way, the result was the same.

 

I am sure that the burns from the lava and smoke gave Anakin a wicked case of COPD at the very least. Even if his lungs weren't completely destroyed (SOTE indicates they were not, as Vader attempts to heal his lungs so he can breathe on his own) they would be able to intake oxygen at such a reduced capacity that a mechanical breather would be absolutely necessary to ensure his body is capable of surviving. I also doubt that Palpatine's shuttle had a full medical bay, they probably hooked him up to the iron lung because they didn't know how much damage was actually done, and weren't about to take chances.

 

If Vader is to fight again, he would need an iron lung. Listen to how he breathes in the OT, especially when fighting in ANN and ROTJ. He's more strained there than he is in TESB.

 

Not only are there logical reasons such as his arm being permanently severed by cauterization but it is foreshadowing.