CT 'It Is Too Late For Me ... Son' - Vader had already turned?

This line gets me every single time. What genius writing from Lucas and delivery by both Prowse and Earl-Jones. For anyone who needs a quick recap of the script:
Luke: Search your feelings, Father, you can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.
Darth Vader: It is too late for me, son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now.
Luke: Then my father is truly dead.



'Too' late. Now this really sparks some conflicting feelings within me. Has Vader already turned, or is starting to turn back to the light side of the force? My feeling is that during his time on Endor he had begun to hatch the plan to bring Luke to the emperor and destroy Palpatine once and for all. The reason I believe that he waited so long into Luke's beating by the emperor was that he needed the emperor to be near the elevator shaft in order to exact a quick and precise demise.

I love this theory. It puts a whole new meaning into 'Return Of The Jedi' which I always thought was a weak title, but with this backstory makes it extremely relevant.

Cue debate.

 

I love the way Luke delivers, 'come with me' as well. Particularly when this turns out to be (in my opinion) a homage to Schmi and Padme's delivery of the same line to Anakin in AOTC and ROTS respectively. Perhaps this brings up old family emotions and the feeling of loss. He would not want this to happen again with his son and so he plots against the emperor.

Powerful, powerful stuff. Waiting for someone to disagree.

 

Couldn't agree more with this post. Vader's personal confliction arguably began at the end of TESB when Luke drops from the antenna. It seems Vader was starting to feel the weight of the choices he made and it seems Luke's choice of rather dying than joining his father probably made Vader wonder how he fell so easy. Just my two cents.

 

I have always loved that moment when Luke asks Vader to come with him...and I never made the connection to Padme's request to Anakin in ROTS until now. That's awesome and I can't believe I've never caught it. That's the type of thing that gives me chills while watching the OT--the callbacks that Lucas prepared in the PT to give those lines even more meaning than they had before.

 

Correction:

I realise I put AOTC instead of TPM, and also Anakin delivered the line to Schmi, not the other way around. But you understood what I meant, I still make the same point

 

Yes! Great catch & points here. As much as George gets lambasted sometimes, he often "nails it" too

 

I don't believe Vader had turned back at that point, or even had started turning. But I suspect that as he leaned on the rail afterwards, lost in his thoughts, he was actually wondering seriously, for the first time in decades, if turning back might just be possible.

 

I think he had his doubts about his choices and regretted them but hey, he was told that once you went Dark there was no hope for you.

He might have turned back earlier if he could have let go of his hate but since he hated himself more than any other being in existence because he made those choices that led to the destruction of the Jedi, plunging the galaxy into Darkness, killing his wife and unborn child and who knows what else.

His self-hatred is what gave him his power and kept him in a destructive cycle.

He regrets what he has done but truly believes that he can't turn back to the Light.

 

I believe by this point vader had turned back to the light mostly but not completely until he threw Sheev down the shaft.

 

Until ROTJ, the Jedi and Sith believed one could never free oneself of the dark side.

Palpatine: "By now you must know your father can never be turned from the dark side. So it will be with you."

Obi-Wan: "He became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed."

It sounds like Vader is rather conflicted at this point. Part of him really wants to be with family again. The other part believes it is impossible at this point.

When Luke severed Vader's hand, he had given into hatred. Yet Luke was able to go back to the light by rejecting the Emperor's temptation to further indulge his hatred. Because of this unprecedented event, he discovered redemption was possible, and he was willing to make the sacrifice.

 

This line definitely indicates that he is getting tired of the Dark Side - a pure Sith would have said something like, "Why would I need saving? You are the one who is lost."

But to be fair, there is a scene in ROTS where Anakin silently looks somberly over the flowing lava, and the subtext is that Anakin realizes he is on the wrong side, but he is committed now. So this is not the first time he feels remorseful about his choice. Maybe he suppressed those feelings more strongly during episodes 4 and 5, and now they are returning.

 

It's interesting to note that Anakin was not a completely evil darksider even five years after ROTS because in a Canon book he saves a twi'lek village.

I guess you could say no matter how dark he became he still had some light.

 

Indeed. There was a great deal going through his mind in that film. Much of Vader's body language and the way Jones delivered the lines was meant to convey his inner conflict. I believe it's interesting how Anakin ruminates over the wrong things in ROTS and he ruminates over the right things in ROTJ. He was an incredibly flawed and tortured human being, but that did not preclude there being any goodness within him.

 

HowManyMidichlorians

Awesome post! It is a wonderful line! I think that Darth Vader expressed a buried regret to Luke.

 

Clearly, he was beginning to regret some of his life decisions. I like to think that his Cloud City encounter with his son caused a bit of self-reflection, about how he’d alienated everyone who cared about him (Obi-Wan, his wife), and how he’d lost everything in his mad pursuit of power. There’s a bit of guilt there, but at this point, he believes that the die was cast long ago, and there’s no turning back. He made his choices and now he must pay the price. All his life, everyone has told him that once you turn to the dark side, it’s irreversible and you are unsalvageable.

“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.”

“Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed.”

LUKE SKYWALKER: There is still good in him.
OBI-WAN KENOBI: He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil.
LUKE SKYWALKER: I can’t do it, Ben.
OBI-WAN KENOBI: You cannot escape your destiny. You must face Darth Vader again.
LUKE SKYWALKER: I can’t kill my own father.
OBI-WAN KENOBI: Then the Emperor has already won. You were our only hope.

“By now you must know your father can never be turned from the Dark Side.”

Yoda, Obi-Wan, and the Emperor all agree on that one thing. Luke rejects that dogma and eventually inspires Anakin to reject it as well…but Anakin isn’t quite there yet when Luke initially surrenders to him.

 

Well said. Anakin/Vader clearly had a lot on his mind during ROTJ. He didn't understand how he could ever change, and his fear of and hatred for his master was part of that. Yoda and Obi-Wan felt that Vader had consumed what was left of Anakin, as though he was a different person from the Jedi they once knew. Part of that, as we can glean from the prequels, and ROTS in particular, stems from the shocking, appalling things that Vader did when he turned to the dark side. Luke's optimism was certainly a strength. In later EU novels, some consider Luke's belief that darksiders can come back to the light a naive weakness. But Anakin/Vader is an illustration that not all wrongdoers are lost and some can change.

 

Translation: I slaughtered a bunch of younglings and jedi, there's no coming back from that.

 

Vader just couldn't forgive himself for poor Captain Needa

 

I've always seen that as, “Son, if you knew every single horrific act I've committed, or have had committed in my name, you would not be standing here saying that I could turn back in a blink of an eye. Who would accept me?”

He didn't think he could be saved because he had nearly a quarter-century of atrocities under his belt. Who would accept him? Who would want him back? Would Ackbar and Mon Mothma accept him with welcoming arms if they knew he wasn't bad anymore? By his word? Not only this, but I'm certain he couldn't go anywhere without the Emperor monitoring his every move.

 

Padme in ROTS, "There is... still... good in him..."

Palpatine recruited a flawed dark side user.

One could argue that "turning" to one side or another is actually an overstatement of what was likely going on with Darth Vader, that Anakin was biding his time.

 

that is one of the best scene's in the saga, and i appreciated it more as the prequels were released. i don't think Vader had turned, at least not consciously, but you can see at the end as he stand's by himself he's pondering it. Just like in TESB as he's constantly standing by himself staring out into space. what he's saying with 'it's too late for me' is that he can't forgive himself. He knows what he did was wrong but he feels there's no way back. (and there's a lot of people like that in the real world. They get on the wrong path but can't bring themselves back) i think he felt that way ever since he cut off Maces' arm. "What have i done?!"

 

I think its questionable applying examples from the PT or the EU to the OT in situations like this when really I think there was a significant amount of reconing that went on.

Vader in ROTJ to me gives the impression not just of an evil character who uses the force and so uses the darkside but a character that's at least partly trapped into via either control from the Emperor or indeed the darkside itself. That is its not just a case of Vader wanting to break free but him having to be pushed to an extreme with the Emperor killing Luke to actually do so.

 

I think that based on the dialogue and David Prowse in the suit you can see that their is a conflict with Vader clearly. I feel he's reflecting on his past choices. I always felt that from the very first scene where Luke and Vader come face to face that that's when Vaders redemption began. The dark side and the emporer were constant for him throughout his time as Vader. Yet when he learns that Luke is alive. He has something worth fighting for. His boy.
Luke thinks his father can be redeemed after the terrible crimes and punishment he's committed, I think Vader sees that.
Vader realises that the one person he cares about most, thinks he can become a better person and be redeemed.
I just think it's up to vader to forgive himself. Which slowly but surely he does.
I also think Vader realises that the emporer is the only think that stands in his way of redemption and fears that if he betrays the emporer then his son may pay the price. Which leads to his fear of loss again.

 

This. You can hear it in his voice as he call out to luke after their confrontation on Bespin. That scene always got to me...