Assembling Vader

Revenge of the Sith

I was a youngling when I first watched Revenge of the Sith. Back from a long awaited shopping trip, my parents walked through the door with a DVD I’d been desperate to watch. The next day we gathered round the TV, popped the disk into the tray – yep that’s how DVD’s worked kids – and witnessed what we then expected to be the final chapter of the Star Wars saga.

I’d finally have the answer to the how, what and why questions that had circled my mind regarding Darth Vader. How Anakin Skywalker became trapped in his intimidating suit of armour.

I’ll admit that my eyes were covered when a charred Anakin hauled himself up the bank on Mustafar after he’d come off second best to Obi-Wan – Mum had decided that little Kyran wasn’t ready for Star Wars at its most graphic.

What I next witnessed was Anakin being reborn as Darth Vader – the Darth Vader who strode onto the corridors of Tantive IV when the saga began. Palpatine may have given him the name earlier in the movie but THIS was the precise moment that the saga’s most notorious villain was born. And over time, this scene has gained weight thanks to the emotional beats and narrative intricacies involved.

When Vader’s mask is being lowered onto his head, we suddenly see Anakin Skywalker again. The look of fear as his eyes widen. He’s about to be trapped. This wasn’t what he signed up for. The devil is in the detail.

His assembly scene is intercut with Padme giving birth to the twins who will eventually lead a Rebellion to defeat the Empire. In my own head canon, I toss aside the theory that Padme “died of a broken heart.” The scenes are cut together for a reason and are as intertwined narratively as they are visually.

Consider this; Palpatine influenced the midichlorians to keep Vader alive, harnessing Padme’s strength to save his new apprentice from death. How else would he have known that Padme had died when Vader asks him if she “is safe and alright?” The medical droids on Polis Massa couldn’t explain why they were losing Padme because the dealings of dark lords of the sith are hardly day one of robot medical school.

It’s a theory that has taken a problem moment of the prequels in the eyes of many and made it a point of force mythos intrigue. And with Palpatine somehow returning in The Rise of Skywalker, perhaps there will be new evidence to support the theory.