[Xombie]

I've alreadyregistered in these foruims my complete disgust with Lucas's decision in RotJ to have Vader morally redeemed at the end of the movie. But I would like to note one additional thing. If Lucas was going to do this, the least he could do was to mine it for all its dramatic potential.
Luke decides that saving his father's soul is going to be his number one objective. What is overlooked here is that Vader murdered Leia's father. And mother. And presumedly her entire extended family.

Now listen closely, George Lucas. You probably haven't heard this word before. But this is called...DRAMA. If you are going to have a story where the hero chooses to redeem his sociopathic mass murderer of a father, there has to be a voice in opposition and that voice, by the logic of your story construct, is Leia: the woman Luke loves and the woman who has every reason to hate his father. Where is the scene where Leia declares to Luke he mustn't do this thing, that if he does she will hate him forever? Now, at least, his decision wil have consequence.

And what's more, this solves the triangle without having to resort to the brother-sister crap. Luke chooses Vader over Leia, and Leia, seeing in the end Vader's happy ghost, knows that she and Luke can never be.

[Paladin]

Lucas doesn't care. In ROTJ, Vader was redeemed in only a few seconds when the Emperor was zapping Luke with his lighting bolts. That's when Luke begged for help and Vader suddenly had a change of heart and decided to become good and help Luke out.

That was all... there was not a single bit of drama in that, with an exception of Luke having that conversation with Vader on Endor.

Which reminds me -- I think I need to start a thread about a new topic.

[littlejerryseinfeld]

i like your idea, xombie.

damn, we really need to do a total re-write of jedi.

who's in?

[J m HofMarN]

I think the lack of drama might well be due to the fact that vader was covered from head to toe in black plastic at the time. However we can easily assume that he is torn between his son and his desire to dominate the galaxy and live. To me this does indeed redeem vader. By killing the emperor he saves the entire galaxy and sacrifices himself to do it. He knows that lightening+respirator=death and he goes through with this anyways. I'd say that's pretty redeeming, not to mention the last scene he has with Luke where he's dying.

[Helena]

It hardly makes up for everything he'd done, but under the circumstances it was the biggest sacrifice he could make. I have to say that I like Vader's last scene with Luke - it's poignant, without being overly sentimental. If that had been the last time we saw Vader/Anakin, I'd have been quite happy with that.

[Just your average movie goer]

Me too. It works well and is one of the best good scenes in the movie... well, one of the only good scenes but you know what I mean.

The problem is we then see him minutes later, living it up in the afterlife. It just takes the weight away from the scene.

And on a slight tangent... seeing Yoda and Obi Wan again takes the weight out of their own demises. Death really doesn't seem to mean much in Star Wars films, does it? Your good old Jedi friend can be killed right before your eyes... but don't be disheartened. You can still sit down together and talk the whole night away just as you easily as you could when he was alive.

Look at the guy in my avatar on the otherhand. He dies at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and it's a very sad and poignant scene. You know why? Because Boromir is not coming back. He will not see the end of the war and the reunion of the fellowship. He is gone forever.

So in this case, the death of this character is a very heavy moment. In Return of the Jedi, the deaths of three major characters are played down and undermined by a silly gratutious happy ending that shows them all enjoying the party.

[Lord Aquaman]

I think Frodo actually forgot to acknowledge Boromir at the end when he was doing a voice over to cover the break up of the Fellowship after Aragorn was crowned King of Gondor.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the expanded unvierse novels/comic books of Star Wars said that a Jedi's ghost could only come back a few times before burning itself out.

Perhaps there should have been some kind of alternate confrontation between Luke and the ghost of Anakin Skywalker where the ghost mentions going to a sort of Jedi Hell to suffer all eternity and never see Luke again the way Obi-Wan seems able to?

[Mad Rabbit]

I have to agree that the "ghosts of jedis past" at the end of jedi took the emotional wallop out of the death of Vader. I'm not to sure if I totally agree with the Jedi hell thing though Lord Aquaman, even though I like my films to explain things to me, sometimes I like to draw my own conclusions. (Not that Jedi did that with the Disneyesque ending.)

I think that George should try to make up for the lack of emotion at the end of Jedi by retooling the ending one final time, only this time when we see the ghosts of Yoda, Anakin and Obi-Wan they replace it with a montage, (complete with clouds around the screen) showing Anakin and Obi-Wan back in the good old days fighting back to back with lightsabers drawn, laughing together, training together, crying together, back in the good old days when Anakin was still a good kid, all the while Barbara Streisand sings "Memories". When they fade back from the dreamlike flashback we see Darth Vader burning on the funeral pyre.

Oh God, I'm getting choked up here.... SOB! someone hand me a tissue, I'm crying like a little girl... SNIFF!

[SimeSublime]

It hardly makes up for everything he'd done, but under the circumstances it was the biggest sacrifice he could make. I have to say that I like Vader's last scene with Luke - it's poignant, without being overly sentimental. If that had been the last time we saw Vader/Anakin, I'd have been quite happy with that.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Redemption isn't about making up for what he's done, but a change of heart and the will to follow up. By acting as he did, he rejected everything he'd worked for since his fall, so that Luke would have the oppertunity to set things right.

[civilian_number_two]

Here's what I was thinking during that scene in ROTK when Frodo was watching all of his friends enter the Houses of Healing to cheer him up. I was thinking, Frodo figures he's dead. He sees Gandalf, he's sure of it. And he sees Sam, and Sam's like "You dick, you told me to fuck off." And when Boromir fails to show up, he's like "What the fuck! Everyone dies EXCEPT Boromir! How's that fair? Son of a bitch!"

Sorry to go off topic. Yes, ROTJ is silly.

[Just your average movie goer]

Ah, my mortal enemy is at it again. You know I was going to kill your character off in my latest movie outing, Civilian. I thought you'd be pleased to know that it was the love of your life who intervened on your behalf. So you better give her a big "Thank you" note later.

[Just your average movie goer]

Ah, my mortal enemy is at it again. You know I was going to kill your character off in my latest movie outing, Civilian. I thought you'd be pleased to know that it was the love of your life who intervened on your behalf. So you better give her a big "Thank you" note later.


Still... that's a very cool theory you put forth there.

[Helena]

Yes, I agree about death not really meaning much. As that 'Reasons to hate RotJ' list pointed out, in ESB we just saw a few glimpses of Obi-Wan or heard his voice occasionally, but in RotJ he's happily walking around and chatting to Luke - he might as well not be dead at all. Rather detracts from the emotional impact of his death in ANH, doesn't it?

[barend]

yeah, growing up i always thought leaia took that news rather lightly...

i always imagined that right after that conversation she walked away and went: "wait a minute... if lukes my brother... and vader's his father... that would.. but i... holy... i think i'm going to spew!!!"

[Mad Rabbit]

You know I never even thought about it before until Helena said this...

Yes, I agree about death not really meaning much. As that 'Reasons to hate RotJ' list pointed out, in ESB we just saw a few glimpses of Obi-Wan or heard his voice occasionally, but in RotJ he's happily walking around and chatting to Luke - he might as well not be dead at all. Rather detracts from the emotional impact of his death in ANH, doesn't it?

I remember watching the scene in ESB where Luke sees Ben on Hoth. Now I always chalked it up to Luke being in a state of near death and his seeing Ben was really just his powers of the force manifesting itself in some way to keep him going. It kind of added to the drama. However seeing Luke talk to Ben on Dagooba, (sp?) I remember not really being that emotionaly involved, that scene relied more on shock value (i.e. Leia is your sister) and still really didn't deliver on the drama.

Now that I'm thinking about it, seeing as how Leia was the other, it almost sounds as if Luke was meant to fail and Leia would have to be the one to take Vader down, I'm not sure if this would have been better or not. Comments anyone?