We’ve heard this one before, but from the friend-of-a-Redditor-who-talked-to-a-guy hotline, here’s a report that Darth Vader – or at least his suit – will be back for Episode VII. And that there will be children of Han and Leia involved. Alrighty then.
It’s not an entirely awful idea, and would open up some interesting possibilities. (Like the whole issue of Luke, Leia, their parentage and the public knowledge/perception of it, which the EU left almost completely unexplored.) I can certainly see ‘who’s in the suit’ as J.J.’s Star Wars answer to Star Trek Into Darkness’ ‘who is Benedict Cumberbatch playing.’ I’m sure it would sell a hell of a lot of toys, too. But possibilities aside, I’m not going to stop being cynical now.
I guess I would prefer something new and different? But as you say, interesting possibilities. And iconic character is iconic.
I can also see it going sour very easily… And/or prompting lots of Scooby Doo jokes.
OLD MAN VELORUM!??
“I wanted the senate back! And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids and your ewok.”
cough. Sorry. I’m done now.
Wait, sorry, ALMOST done:
Clearly it’s going to be Mara in the suit, I mean it totally fits.
Ok NOW I’m done.
It’s totally Mara because she’s who Palpatine regenerated into after Vader threw him into the Death Star’s core.
Totally.
I’m not a ‘Reddit’ user myself though from this it would seem that they don’t just read pirated Sherlock fan-fic but ‘Back Issue’ magazine too. Or rather, ‘Back Issue’ magazine no. 55 in which Tom Veitch -writer of the ‘Dark Empire’ comic series- is quoted saying, “One of our ideas was to bring back Darth Vader! We thought that the Empire would keep him alive by putting someone else inside the costume […] George said, ‘you can’t do that, but you can bring back the Emperor” (from Tom Powers’ ‘Star Wars at Dark Horse article in that issue).
In a perfect world, they would create a new bad guy that would end up being as good as Darth Vader was in A New Hope. I would rather have a new bad guy.
That said, it would make sense for someone to assume Darth Vader’s identity. The person who did that could preserve the Empire. But I have to assume that wouldn’t be the premise as this takes place so many years later.
Besides everyone knows it is Darth Plagueis in the armor now. Who else, right?
Darth Caedus, duh.
Luke wears a variant of Vader’s costume, but painted white. That would be cool.
Luke burned Vader’s armor at the end of ROTJ! It’s gone. Crisped. Owen Larsed. And I doubt Vader had a wardrobe full of spare suits. I don’t see how anybody could wear THE armor in the sequels. If there’s Vader armor in the new movie, it would have to be a replica. (then again, presumably they do have costume shops in the GFFA so that wouldn’t be too hard :) )
You have people here on Earth making screen-accurate Vader and stormtrooper armor in their garages and such. Not too much of a stretch that it would happen in the GFFA.
Hell, they probably have some really kickass 3D printers that could turn it out in a few minutes.
@Dom Owen Larsed
I just about fell out of my chair reading that.
New villain for new movies, please.
It could be interesting, if well done.
i’m pretty sure it’s just the suit itself, walking around with no one inside…. so imbued with the dark side that it has become an evil golem. Think “The Glove of Darth Vader” but only more so.
I’m sure Darth Vader has a lot of armor around the galaxy. Heck General Grievous had like ten masks in his lair.
Darth Vader starts as a character we all love to hate. He’s just a jerk. Then he morphs into Luke’s father and we’re like “whoa!” Then he saves Luke and is the real hero. Then we see his backstory and we understand why he made the choices he did and we see him become the monster.
Putting someone we don’t care about in the suit we don’t care about would just be weird at this point. I’ve never been able to accept other people wearing Batman’s suit so this just feels weird.
Whoever would be in the suit, if this rumor pans out, would have to be someone we care about. Well, these are new characters we don’t know or care about yet. So the candidates for the person in the suit are not that large because they have to be able to use the force or they would be a slowmo General Grievous.
A couple of decades back, George Lucas said that the sequels “deals with moral and philosophical problems. The sequel is about Jedi knighthood, justice, confrontation, and passing on what you have learned”. A new Vader might represent such a moral and philosophical problem. They could even do the Dark Empire thing and bring in a younger clone of Palpatine who then runs for a seat in the new galactic senate. Big moral issue: Is a clone guilty of the deeds of the original? Is a man in a Vader suit automatically a bad guy? Ah, the (somewhat B-movie-esque) implications… :-)
If there’s a short list of things from the EU that should NEVER EVER DEAR GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT crossover, I deeply hope DE is on it.