PT Why does Vader continue to the dark side after Padme dies?

I'd have to say that is what ROTS answers quite readily.

After losing Padme this is all he has left and this is all gone over throughout the movie after he becomes Vader and particularly on Mustafar. This whole motivation is seeded throughout the movies starting in AOTC.

The power to make things the way he wants them to be is what he is all about. By the end of ROTS there is nothing for him except the Empire.

When he learns about Luke he reverts to what he wanted to do then but now with Luke instead of Padme. Now that is all done from his selfish I am doing good others are evil POV.

Besides that at the very basic he has pledged himself to the Sith and Sidious. He wanted to overthrow his master as the way of the Sith but isn't powerful enough to do so and can't think of it until Luke comes along.

 

I also agree that there is big misunderstanding about Anakin's political philosophy in AOTC. He is not dictatorship supporter. He wants consensus (people sit back and discuss) but he wants a quick result (if they don't they should be made to). Anakin doesn't dream to become a 'king' or a leader and that one of the fascinating things about his character, he wants to be the protector ( I mean before the ending of Episode 3); he wants peace ad prosperity. Let's say that he has more practical, soldier's like attitude to this (I mean that the soldiers want victory, i.e. result and effectiveness) no matter how. Yes, in an ideal world he should be more careful because the dilemma liberty and uncertainty against security and oppression repeats itself over and over again trough the course of human history, but still, he is not politician. He is an ex-slave and now member of a military-like structured Order, who was raised in a place where the effective decisions matter and not the democratic ones. Neither they matter in the Jedi Order. The Jedi have liberty to take their own decisions , but in the end they must obey to the Jedi Council.
Moreover, the other Jedi have no so high opinion about the senators and the politics in general. Remember how Obi Wan lectured Anakin in Padme's apartment earlier in the movie. While I should admit that I have the same cynical attitude towards politics as Obi Wan, I really appreciate Anakin optimism to believe that not all senators are corrupt (in general).

About the main topic: the posters above explained, but I would suggest a different approach just to prove the said above. Let’s see the things from Anakin, or more precisely said, Vader’s perspective: all he cared about in his earlier life is gone, even his unborn child (or at least he thinks so) his best friend injured him to death and let him be burned alive, he thinks that he killed his wife and all his friends and allied betrayed him. Then Palpatine came, saved his life, gave him the suit and offered him to be the one of the most important man in the new Empire. In the moment when Vader had nothing, he even lost his lightsaber. Ok , it is the way how he saw the thngs but I don’t think that in that moment he had so many choices. Of course, this anger that fueled him after knowing what happened to Padme (or what Palpatine wanted him to know) enslaved him completely to the Dark side.. well, not exactly completely, as we know Luke sensed that his father is not truly dead and come to rescue him.

 

I think he just gave up basically and padme dyeing became anakin dying thus darth vader was born.

 

I disagree. During that scene in AOTC, is Anakin talking about putting himself into the role of dictator? No he isn't. But, he is clearly talking about a dictatorship. He may not be talking about himself, but, he is talking about someone.

That picnic scene is meant to show how Palpatine is clearly influencing Anakin. There is another scene early on in AOTC where Obi Wan is lecturing Anakin about politics, and we see Anakin stick up for Palpatine while Obi Wan criticizes Palpatine. We also see scenes where Palpatine is stroking Anakin's ego, and Anakin admits that Palpatine's guidance is playing a part in what is going on. So it's not a coincidence that Anakin talks about a political system where one person rules over and tells everyone else what to do and what is best for them, when he is so obviously being influenced by a guy that has ambitions of being Emperor. Anakin may not want that power as of that moment, but, what that scene setsup is that he is OK with that system, and that he agrees with it.

Palpatine is more than likely sugar coating the particulars, he's not going to come out and say to Anakin that he wants to be Emperor. However, during those times of Palpatine's "guidance" it should be clear that Palpatine is taking advantage of a young impressionable mind that trusts him. Let's not forget, Padme comes out and says it sounds like a dictatorship, to which Anakin replies... "if it works". It should be clear that Anakin realizes what he is saying...

It's the logical progression of the character, that as he slowly starts to dip more and more into the Dark Side, his ambitions start to change as well. He might not want to be the ruler of the galaxy at that moment, but, the scene sets up that the character believes in that type of political system, so when we get into ROTS, we see that he has now gone from just believing int he system to being part of and the head of that system.

 

Maybe a little late but I tend to disagree. Anakin is not someone who is fixed in power at all at this moment. He thinks that the system doesn‘t work (as paradoxically think the Separatists but also Obi Wan who is loyal) and it doesn‘t work because it lost its main purpose (he means the Senate here): people sit down and discuss (!) what is best for the people and do it. As Padme agreed, this is what Senate do or more precisely should do but it doesn‘t work so smoothly (I would say sometimes or many times it doesn‘t work at all). So this is the main idea of Anakin. And when Padme explains the difficulties to do it in practice, Anakin tells “then they should be made to“. It is the way how the dictatorship is born? Yes, these are the first steps, I don‘t argue about that, it would be ridiculous, still, what happens later in the movie? Indeed the Senate gives emergency powers to Palapatine to made the people agree faster for what they should be. Are these powers given by people/beings who are dictatorship fans? (I‘m not talking about who proposed that but who approved it.) Of course not, most of them have completely different motives to vote “yes“. So my points is that the legally established dictatorships (yes, the Empire is that type) don‘t came with the help of dictatorship‘s fans but with the help of normal people who think that sometimes is worth to sacrifice the freedom for security, efficience or both. Few people as Padme realize that the goal almost never justifies the means and that the dictatorship often comes ‘in thunderous applause“.
So my point is that Anakin is that kind of man in AOTC: first, he is not interested in power at all and second he, as every politically unexperienced young man thinks that is easy to make happen what is written on paper (we‘ll sit down and discuss the things with pure intentions and everything would be fine). And the big tragedy is that naive young man after 3 years is transformed in something completely different.

 

Here's an excerpt of Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, he summed it up perfectly why Anakin stays with Palpatine:

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:

The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.

The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.

You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never 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.

Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?

And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.

You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.

Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.

Padme? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.

"Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?"

I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.

This burns hotter than the lava had.

"No . . . no, it is not possible!

You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.
Never.

But you remember . . .

You remember all of it.
From: CorporateMastermind | Posted: 3/23/2005 12:53:11 PM | Message Detail
You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—

And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all you. Is you.

Only you.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself. . .

It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith—

Because now your self is all you will ever have.

And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.

In the end, you do not even want to.

In the end, the shadow is all you have left.

Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself—

And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker forever...

 

Why do people continue to ignore what all these movies have told us? The power of the dark side consumes its user, forever dominating their destiny. Once that happens, all choices that led up to it don't matter — the Dark Side has a permanant hold on whoever succumbs to it. Vader overcoming this hold was a miracle. Hence the resignment of Obi-Wan and Yoda and why they expected Luke to kill him.

 

Which makes you wonder why Vader blocked Luke's strike toward Palpatine in the throne room in ROTJ.

 

From the ROTJ novel:


Vader was impressed by Luke's speed. Pleased, even. It was a pity, almost, he couldn't let the boy kill the Emperor yet. Luke wasn't ready for that, emotionally. There was still a chance Luke would return to his friends if he destroyed the Emperor now. He needed more tutelage, first — training by both Vader and Palpatine — before he'd be ready to assume his place at Vader's right hand, ruling the galaxy.
So Vader had to shepherd the boy through periods like this, stop him from doing damage in the wrong places — or in the right places prematurely.

 

With Padmé dead and the Jedi betrayed, he felt that he had no reason to be Anakin ever again. He'd burned too many bridges to go back, so he pretty much thought "Eh, what the heck. I might as well try to become the most powerful Sith Lord ever, crush that lyin' old coot and take over the Empire.".

 

He has nothing left, but hate.

 

Poor decision. Apparently Vader / Anakin didn't remember how Sidious betrayed Dooku in much the same way he would do the same to Vader moments later. Let Luke kill Sidious in that moment of vulnerability and then deal with the rest later.

 

Perhaps Vader just wanted to save his son from the corruption of the dark side, and Vader's own pitiful fate.

 

The answer to the question seems to be in the question itself. Padme Died.

 

Its also because Palpatine had vader leash and can control Vader who was defeated by obi Wan and lost some of his strength when vader lost the duel. The suit was what made Vader less powerful and harder to overthrow Palpatine. Still Vader would be seduce by the Darkside.

 

That Vader is weaker in the force after the suit, to me, is far from what we are actually presented with in the films, the text says (again, to me) that he becomes more powerful but relies on and is sustained by the Dark Side.

(I am not interested in "well, GL said that . . .," as I am pro-"death of the author" and find it much more appealing and rewarding to study the textual evidence).

 

Because George Lucas wrote the OT to have Darth Vader as a dark lord of the sith with no intention of him having the backstory that the PT provided. The PT had to end with the loose end of Luke and Leia's mother being tied up. That is all.

 

True, especially in Empire he seems pretty agile and a real master of telekinesis plus he was somehow able to diffuse a blaster bolt with his hand. He probably overall seemed a lot more powerful than in the Prequels.

 

Vader is not as strong as Palpatine. That makes him weaker than him. Look at what Palpatine can do with the Force and look what at what Vader does. Vader's movements are limited and he cannot reach his full potential. Palpatine was stronger and more agile. Vader struggles to hold up an Imperial Walker, but Palpatine is able to throw Senate pods like they're frisbees. Vader is still strong, but he's only strong like Dooku. But even then, he cannot reach his full potential. At his full potential, he should have been able to take out Ahsoka, Obi-wan and Luke as easily as Palpatine did to Kit Fisto, Saesee Tinn and Agen Kolar.



vs






vs

 

Diff strokes for diff folks. I think Palpatine (from the way the scene plays out) surprises the posse and does some sort of stunning move on them (as has been stated before on this board)--as we get that weird shouting with the subsequent extremely quick killing of 3 Jedi Masters that seem in a daze.

Comparing Vader's movements in ESB and others in the PT/ST/Rebels, I don't see "stiffness," but a canny fighter toying with Luke at first then quickly taking him out when he see's Luke can be a real threat. (I have also heard it argued that Palpatine and/or Mace look awkward, though I never really subscribed to that).

Also, to me some of the differences in aesthetics of the dueling between the Episodes can be ascribed to the changes in audience expectations and films needing to "up the ante," so to speak. And, a case can (and has) been made for the less-is-more approach of careful, sudden movements in the duels of the OT than the acrobatics of the PT and that the former actually demonstrates more mastery and power. It's like the classic example of the samurai that uses one strike vs. the long clash-clash-clash stage sword fighting of the stage (which is demonstrated in films like the first Pirates of the Caribbean film), as an extreme example.

(Just to note, I am a fan of how we get different approaches to lightsaber combat in the films and am not arguing that either the OT or PT duels are inherently "better" than each other, only trying to point out how I read the differences through the narrative and characters).

 

It was too late.

 

Let's ask Master Yoda

 

Not forever.

 

Well his mother is dead, his wife and unborn child are dead (as far as he knows), his father figure/brother cut his remaining limbs and left him to die, Ahsoka and Rex are dead (again, as far as he knows). Where would he go when he can just let all that pain, anger and self-hatred fuel him to do his master's bidding and bring order and peace to the empire?

 

"You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor," Lucas says. "If Anakin hadn't got all beat up, he could've beat the Emperor."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 204.


Meaning that the Jedi Posse were never a match for Palpatine. This has been that way since 81.

His physical movements are different. Not because of canny fighting, but limitations of his suit and having a broken neck.





Filoni even made a point of saying that his fighting in "Rebels" had to be consistent with TESB and ROTJ and not like in TCW.

Lucas was a bit specific about it. It wasn't about expectations.

"He couldn't move at all, really. We had to keep modifying the suit so people could move in it. By the time we got to the first Lightsaber battle, we realized we weren't going to be able to do much. And so I accepted it was an old man vs. a half-man, half-machine. But Jedi were supposed to be quite active. So for the next one, we got a really good stunt guy in, one of the best sword fighters in England. And Mark Hamill is a good sword fighter. For the final film, Hayden [Christensen] and Obi-Wan -- I mean Ewan -- took it very seriously; they trained for months. Those swords are carbon fiber: We went through lots of them, because they were hitting so hard, they would get bent. It's like learning to dance, only if you make a mistake, you really get hurt."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone Magazine; 2005.