PT Vader of the Prequels

Could the prequels have benefited from a single Sith Lord instead of a new apprentice every episode? Essentially combining Darth Maul and Count Dooku into one villain that answers to Sidious. Perhaps this new apprentice can be the point-of-contact to the Trade Federation, instead of Sidious in TPM. The audience would only see Senator/Chancellor Palpatine.

In AOTC, the apprentice can be the face and leader of the CIS and even openly espouse their Sith Lord identity to the galaxy at large. Giving contrast to merely having a different belief in and about the Force and being persecuted by the Jedi. Perhaps garnering a certain level of sympathy.

What I am asking is could there have been a “Vader of the Prequels? I believe that a villain could have been crafted that was complex, but there would be no approaching the iconic level of OT Vader. Thoughts?

 

Nah.

 

I think not having the Rule of Two and having both Dooku and Maul in all three prequels would work better than combining the characters. Maul could have Ventress’s role. I don’t think the public should know about the Sith. If anything, there’s a case to be made that the Jedi should have existed in secret in the prequels based on what we see in the Original Trilogy.

 

Ah, the eternal "the PT should have had a constant villain like Vader in the OT" suggestion

On one hand, I agree. It could have worked very well, in some ways, better than what we did get. But on the other hand, I'm glad that isn't how it went, and what we got also has its benefits over the alternative

We DO have a consistent villain the form of Palpatine, even though most of his villainy is back stage, just like in the OT. But for the villains in the Vader position, there are two reasons I enjoy that more than if it had just been, say, Maul, or Dooku, or some combination of them, the whole time

Others have probably said a million times, but Maul, Dooku, and Grievous all act as foreshadowing certain aspects of Darth Vader. A brutal and deadly warrior, an intimidating and powerful figure, and also a cyborg cripple. But the bigger thing to me is that by there being multiple "center stage villains" throughout the PT, it shows how disposable they are to Palpatine. Losing Maul might have been a momentary setback and a harsh loss, but once he realized Anakin was a thing, it didn't really matter. Aside from getting the Clone Wars started and being his servant, Palpatine didn't give a **** about Dooku. He never cared about Grievous either. They only existed to get things going the way he wanted

And it's just consistent in Palpatine's character. When he learns of Luke's existence, Vader suddenly isn't so useful to him anymore. He's just another disposable minion on the path to a better one

Pretty damn cool that, despite his short screentime in TROS, he keeps that trend going too

 

Why?

 

Sidious is the Vader of the prequels in the sense that he’s the main antagonist.

Maul and Dooku played their parts as secondary villains. The OT and PT are two distinct entities that join together, and don’t need all of the same character dynamics.

 

First, Vader isn’t even the main antagonist in ANH, that would be Tarkin.

Anyway, I like the different villains. They’re all chess pieces that are played and sacrificed when needed. That’s part of the theme and the story, and towards the end the same thing almost happens to Vader himself. Would the story be better if it weren’t the story? Well, no.

 

Nah, openly mentioning the Sith-identity doesn't help one bit. First of all, why would people give him sympathy for that? At that point no one is seeing the Jedi as bad guys. It would only lead to people going "if the Jedi consider him to be evil, then he really must be!". Not to mention the association with the Seperatists, which would further indicate that he is just out there to destroy the Republic, and link the Sith themselves to the Seperatists in the eyes of the public.

Palpatine was the villain of the PT. There wasn't really much of a reason to have anyone but some pawns to do his bidding while he pretends to be a nice guy. By pushing up another villain, you automatically downplay Palpatine in all this.

 

No as that makes the point of Anakin being the prize that Sidious' eyes are on by the end of TPM when Maul fails. Although he doesn't ending up truly getting what he wanted with a weaker Vader in the "iron lung" he's still plenty powerful and now no longer a real threat to Sidious that "Darth Anakin" would eventually have been.

 

Sigh.

 

Nah, I like the way we got it. I like how we got various villains in the PT, even though we didnt get to deal with them as intimately as we dealt with Vader. It helped to tie the two trilogies into a cohesive whole by making Palpatine the central villain of the entire series. It gave you a good balance of apprentices. You get Maul who lasts an entire movie but doesnt survive for the next one, you get Dooku who survives for the next movie but then gets killed early in the next one, then you get Grievous who only lasts half a movie. Then you get Vader for an entire trilogy. As Seagoat said it foreshadows the fall of Anakin so that it is not so jarring when he becomes a half cyborg Sith Lord. Also, it was probably not a good idea to try to equal or upstage Vader with a surrogate version in the PT. Even if you could achieve that you wouldnt want to. I see this obsession with a surrogate PT Vader as just another symptom of the problem of trying to view the PT as a second trilogy and not the first trilogy.

 

Sure, there definitely could've been and none of us would even consider the idea of rotating Sith if that was the choice made by Lucas. But I also think that's why he chose not to. He wanted a story difference that made sense to the prelude to Vader.

But, in general, I don't see how the apprentice claiming Lorship of the Sith and informing the public would add to the story (would you care to share why you do?). I don't think Lucas was trying to trying to fool the audience about who the big-bad was, especially since he used the same actor from ROTJ (which I didn't know until recently). I didn't know Palpatine was Sidious until ROTS dropped an anvil on me (and suddenly "we will watch your career with great interest!" made way more sense to me than the tongue-n-cheek reference I thought it was), but that's probably because I wasn't paying attention not because Lucas was trying to mystify me.

Narratively, the galaxy barely seems to know who the Sith are. Their whole gig is not being noticed, so exposing themselves early on only to be forgotten years later doesn't make sense (to me) from a story perspective like the Jedi being rewritten as the bogeyman in the Galactic Empire. Also, I don't think Palpatine or his apprentices were interested in having the galaxy rally around the Sith so much as they were interested in subjugating the galaxy through the power of deceit and misinformation.

Personally, I think Maul and Dooku as characters really helped LucasFilm (going forward) on how to portray the Sith at any given point of the the franchise (post-Prequels). I also think it was necessary to see Palpatine in a proactive role with regard to the Separatists. It makes clear who is the apprentice/henchman and who the master/big bad is the same way TESB did. So I'm kinda glad Lucas decided not to create a single henchman/secondary villain like Vader as a lead up to Vader.

Dooku and Maul really lent themselves to Palpatine's objectives as a reemerging power and a power rooting itself in the galaxy as an immovable obstacle. Would we have a character like Asajj Ventress (who feels like the bridging point between the two characters extremes) if it wasn't for a personality like Darth Maul existing first as a spring-point?

Yeah, the Separatists got co-opted in the worst way, and most of them didn't even realize it.

 

Darth Maul is iconic. Dooku and Grievous are less iconic. While I do like a different baddie for each film, I do feel like Darth Maul could have been built up/expanded upon in the PT so that, when Anakin defeated him, it was a bigger deal than when Dooku and/or Grievous were defeated.

As it stands now, Darth Maul is about as iconic/well known as Boba Fett. A cool villain that was discarded almost casually. He could have been so much more than that.

 

Except that Maul was already defeated in TPM. He simply doesn't fit going forward because then you'd have to spend time explaining his survival which is an irrelevance to Anakin's story. The idea of Maul being around for another 13 years post TPM as Sidious' apprentice and becoming more and more powerful entirely takes away from the Sidious and Anakin dynamic.

The problem with all the rewriting that want to make Maul the Vader of the PT miss the point that Vader is the Vader of the PT. It's just that because Lucas didn't do what was expected as in starting with an older Anakin then rush through to Vader by the end of the second movie with him hunting down Jedi third movie.

I just don't see that. It's not casual at all. It's incredibly important because Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon who was going to train Anakin, due to it Obi-Wan becomes a Jedi Knight and takes on Anakin's training while at the same time the Jedi know the Sith have returned.

It's an absolute key moment that is a paradigm shift.

 

This was a hypothetical thread, right? Obviously, aspects of TPM would have been altered if there was to be "A Vader of The Prequels." Maul could have been defeated, but not "dead" for Episodes 1 & 2. Also, Dooku as Sidious's apprentice didn't "(take) away form the Sidious and Anakin's dynamic." I'm not sure why Maul would.

Vader is not the antagonist of the PT. I am not sure what you are getting at here.

Qui-Gon Jinn's death could still occur and Obi-Wan could still be a Jedi Knight and train Anakin. Darth Maul's "death" doesn't change any of that. In retrospect, it's a bit silly that Maul isn't in the PT after Episode 1 considering he looms large over The Clone Wars and beyond...

 

Of course it didn't as Dooku was not the equivalent of what Maul or Anakin would have eventually become. As powerful as Dooku was he was at his apex already.

The idea that the PT needed a "Vader" when Vader was the Vader of the PT in terms of being built towards for his run in the OT. In terms of an antagonist it was of course Sidious but he was hidden.

To what purpose though? It doesn't add to the story of Anakin and only takes away from it. It still comes down to wanting Darth Maul to be like Vader was and transformed from bit player in one movie to the entire center of the saga starting with the next movie. That can't work because Anakin/Vader is the center. It's his story. At that point 4/6's of the story is told so jamming Maul in there to be some massive player doesn't work.

Which is where his story could be best told because it wasn't going to be in Episodes II and III. There was simply no place for him. He doesn't fit the Dooku role to Sidious as a public face of the Separatists, he gets in the way of the Anakin and Sidious relationship on multiple levels and his burning hatred for revenge on Obi-Wan gets in the way of the idea of the Sith continuing to stay in the shadows. In addition to that you'd need to address his return to life and form in some way which would take up unnecessary time that really was not going to be spared anymore than it was to fully form Count Dooku. Dooku like Maul before him or Boba and Jango Fett or Tarkin were given just enough that was necessary for the movie's needs. That they were so clear in audiences minds is part of the genius of Lucas in terms of design, casting and use in the movies.

What is there for Maul to do in AOTC? He already was defeated by Obi-Wan by himself. What was he going to do against Obi-Wan and Anakin? Never mind Yoda!

 

I am not sure what you are arguing here. Can you clarify? Are you suggesting that if Palpatine had Maul, he wouldn't need Anakin? This doesn't seem right as Anakin's power potential was way more than Maul's, no? Palpatine would still be into grooming Anakin to replace Maul, rather than Dooku.

I think one of us is misunderstanding the idea of this thread. The premise is whether or not the prequels would have benefitted from a constant villain/antagonist/evil Sith apprentice over three films ala the OT and Darth Vader.... not actually Vader himself, right?

Again, I don't think this is about Maul becoming Vader as much as it does having a singular villain. If you eliminated Dooku/Grievous and had Darth Maul in an expanded role, the PT would still be about Anakin's fall....he is the tragic protagonist.

Again, this is a hypothetical. Obviously, if you had Palpatine have the same apprentice, instead of a new warrior each movie, it would change the story a bit. Yet, I think it could have been done in a satisfying and effective way. Darth Maul was a blank slate before, and even after, TPM. He could have had any expanded role/backstory that Lucas wanted to assign him after TPM. He could have been a lost Jedi, he could have led the Separatists, he could have been more mechanical after losing to Kenobi and developed a wicked mech-cough.

Bottom Line: Darth Maul could have been the constant/villain Sith apprentice and his background/story/function could have been molded in various ways to fit the plot demands of the PT. I'm not saying it would have been better, but that it would have worked.