The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back is Darth Vader's movie top to bottom. George Lucas has spoken at length about how the prequel trilogy firmly contextualises the entire Star Wars saga as a redemptive arc for Anakin Skywalker, but a substantial amount of those threads begin here. The film moves on Vader's whims and desires. Armed with a continent sized spacecraft, the Sith lord scours the galaxy searching for his son, and other Force sensitive, Luke Skywalker. Vader's hold on the film is such that eventually his image begins to bleed out into the world. At his most powerful Vader is surrounded by tense, screaming, industrial facilities, all cast in his piteous pitch black.

Popular culture usually identifies Vader as an insoluble leader figure in the Galactic Empire so it's interesting, when actually watching the films, to see that this isn't quite the case. In the original Star Wars Vader is more of a henchman to Peter Cushing's lizardy politician. Rather than sit high in the imperial hierarchy, Vader seems to be a brutal wizard barely tolerated by his fascist contemporaries. Likewise, in Empire Vader issues orders, but subordinates wait for a nod from their actual superiors before proceeding. Vader is a phantom, drifting about observation decks, punishing those whose mistakes keep him from his child. He exists in an untouchable bubble, separated from any notions of rank or military bureaucracy. He is hated and feared by all.

The only figure Vader answers to is a projected image of the Emperor. In the 1980 mint of this sequence, Vader communes with a boggle-eyed witch that wishes to transform young Luke into a corrupted ally. This Emperor delights in his minion's aggressive immorality, smiling at Vader's impassive solution. The recent DVD remix of this scene adds Ian McDiarmid, and a few lines to clarify some duplicity on behalf of Vader, lending the sequence an element of pleading. Beats of silence warp the intent and intonation of Vader's speech, stressing a yearning paternal interest. It's just about the only addition these films have been subjected to that demonstrates any sort of dramatic impulse.