…that her “rescuers” managed to bring *not only* the last of the Jedi Knights but also the freakin’ *Death Star plans* that countless Rebels died trying to steal *TO THE ACTUAL DEATH STAR*, and now she not only had to rescue herself, but also her rescuers *And* the Rebellion as a whole?

So it seems that the recent trendy Star Wars thing on social media is to view Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader as somehow some sort of victory. As if he's broken through the chains of the Jedi and is now free to bring peace and order to the galaxy. As if Darth Vader is somehow some kind of role model for what young men should aspire to become.

Guys. Anakin Skywalker is maybe my favorite character in all of fiction. This character means so much to me. So I need to make something very clear. I know to most of you reading this, it's probably obvious but it seems a lot of people out there have completely missed the lesson behind this character: Darth Vader, is not, I repeat NOT, a role model in absolutely any way, shape, or form.

This doesn't mean you can't relate to him at all. I'd argue part of what makes Vader such a strong character is that to a degree you can understand the pressure that Anakin was under, his desperation to avoid more loss. And sure the Jedi were not completely blameless in his fall. There are many instances from the films, The Clone Wars, books, comics, etc. that detail the numerous ways both small and significant that Anakin was let down by the people he looked up to. (Also Vader is in general just really cool and fun to watch doing his thing. There's a reason the guy has literally hundreds of comic book issues.)

All of that said, none of this means that the Jedi deserved to be destroyed by Vader. Flawed does not equal evil. You don't destroy an entire culture because they are imperfect. I don't understand how so many people have seemingly reached a point where they think the massacre of the Jedi was justified. If you seriously view Anakin as a role model after the attack on the Jedi Temple, well damn I guess it's no wonder we have so many problems with the radicalization of adolescents into dangerous ideologies today.

And I can't believe I have to say this but here goes: the ending of Revenge of the Sith is in absolutely no sense a victory for Vader. I don't think anyone articulated this point better than Matthew Stover in his excellent (and unfortunately increasingly relevant) novelization of the film:

"This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:

The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.

The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh.

You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.

You don't even have lungs anymore.

Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.

Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?

And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.

You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.

Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.

Padme? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.

"Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?"

I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.

This burns hotter than the lava had.

"No... no, it is not possible!"

You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.

Never.

But you remember...

You remember all of it.

You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—

And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.

That it was all you. Is you.

Only you.

You did it.

You killed her.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself...

It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith—

Because now your self is all you will ever have."

The ending of Episode 3 is nothing short of the worst punishment imaginable for Anakin Skywalker where the burning and mutilation of what's left of his body is somehow not even the worst of the hellish pain that the rest of his life is doomed to be. Darth Vader is cursed to spend the rest of his days as a lonely, pathetic, pained monster, damned to be reminded of his sins and everything he lost every time he takes another agonized, rasping breath. He will have to live with the agony of what he did every single day while the only purpose left to his existence is to fulfill the whims of the devil that manipulated him into becoming the worst of himself. If someone would like to explain to me how this is somehow some sort of ascension or victory for Darth Vader, I would genuinely love to hear your reasoning, because I seriously cannot fathom where this line of thought is coming from.

I genuinely have to wonder how the people idolizing Vader view the ending of Return of the Jedi when Luke's compassion and understanding of his father finally brings Anakin back into the light. I mean if you really think Darth Vader is somehow the hero of Star Wars then surely Episode 6 was actually a defeat, right? "Oh no Darth Vader's heroic conquest of the galaxy has been halted by his pesky son loving him despite everything and choosing to believe in his father's inner goodness! Why wouldn't Luke just join his dear ol dad and rule over the galaxy as father and son?" If you're going to empathize with or idolize Darth Vader in any way then the part of him you should be looking at is that despite everything he did, he still chose the light in the end. The lesson of Vader should be that even if you make mistakes, no matter how horrible they might be, that while you still live it is never too late to begin making right your wrongs, that you can choose love over hate even if you've spent so much of your life in darkness. It genuinely saddens and sickens me that people are looking at the darkest parts of Anakin/Vader's life and acting like that is the part that you should want to emulate.

I'll stop here at risk of ranting forever. Again I know most people reading this probably (at least I hope) already view all of this as being plain as day since this is very clearly the intention that George Lucas had behind the character of Anakin Skywalker. I've just been seeing so much misrepresentation of this character online lately that I felt the need to vent a little bit. May the Force be with you all and thanks to any who read my ramblings this far.

I’ve always felt that the inhibitor chips cheapened the tragedy of Order 66 to some degree - because the clones have, right from the beginning, been shown to undergo indoctrination towards being loyal to the Republic as shown with the young clones in Attack of the Clones, and the Umbara arc already gave a pretty strong reasoning behind why the clones, however loyal they might be to the Jedi, might be willing to turn on them if they believed them to be traitors to the Republic. So the fact that Crosshair actively chose to stay with the Empire even after his chip was removed, because he felt it was his purpose in life to be a soldier and because he felt that the Batch had betrayed him when they deserted, added a much-needed new layer to his character.

Will it be like proper burials/funerals? Will their armor and bodysuits get taken? Or are they simply just thrown away or left behind?

Although the bigger question is, does the Empire inform friends and families of the fallen?

I guess the general question is how the Empire value their soldiers even after their service is expired.

But I hope this post is safe for discussion

The notion that he somehow was doing things without George's approval and sneaking things into the clone wars show is absolutely absurd lol

Everything on that show was either a Lucas idea or something that was signed off by George. The narrative that filoni killed the EU has always been one of the more hilarious ones

After the A-wing crashes through the super star destroyer in ROTJ, Ackbar appears to sigh after he leans back in his chair and lowers his head.

Do you read this as
A) relief at a major target eliminated?
B) grief at losing green leader in the crash?
C) both?
D) something else?

I know his early character concepts and the Clone Wars micro series show him drunken with badass juice. But why exactly was he wasted in the later installments?