Darth Vader lives!

And what to make of the virgin birth? Darth/Anakin is once again revealed to be a father — first Luke, then Leia, now C3PO — but he himself has no father. If this is a Christ metaphor then George Lucas needs to re-read his New Testament. If it’s all midi-chlorians, as Qui-Gon suggests, then Darth/Anakin should be the most powerful Jedi of all and bow to no one. The reduction of the Force to the midi-chlorian level is sacrilegious anyway. The Force is magic and binds us all together. Midi-chlorians is science, something to put on a glass slide under a microscope. I never would have bought a T-shirt that read “May the Midi-Chlorians Be With You.”

End of  angst-filled Anakin
George Lucas was an old man now and his powers were weak. Who knew that a room full of Jedi Knights could be so dull? And what’s with their training program? They take a super-intelligent kid, mature beyond his years, and after a decade’s worth of extensive one-on-one training he becomes, in “Attack of the Clones,” a stupid sulky teenager. Hell, I could’ve done that.

So after all this time, and all these permutations, does Darth Vader still appeal? I would argue that he does. I would argue it’s in the scene in “Clones” where he goes after the Tuscan Raiders who kidnapped his mother. When he silently drops into their camp we don’t — as we usually do watching such scenes — worry that the protagonist will be discovered and captured. Just the opposite. We think, “Those Tuscan Raiders took the wroooong Jedi Knight’s mom.” And that’s the appeal. It’s the appeal of Dirty Harry and the Corleone family and the Incredible Hulk. I have more power than you can possibly imagine and I will use it without mercy. We who sit in the audience are messed with all the time — in ways grand and petty — and we identify (sometimes secretly) with the characters on the screen who never get messed with. The other Jedi Knights have the problem of mercy, but Darth points his finger and people die.

The “Star Wars” saga, which originally felt like Luke’s, belongs to Darth Vader now. It’s his story: the rise and fall and semi-redemption of a bad-ass. Here’s the problem for George Lucas. Turning Anakin into Darth Vader, in “The Revenge of the Sith,” is supposed to be a tragedy, yet for most of us it’ll be a thrill, and a relief. No more precocious kid, or sulky teenager, or pasty white British guy. Just the mask and the breath and the voice. “Star Wars” is a morality play in which good triumphs over evil, but in another way George Lucas has shown us all the power of the dark side.

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