Empire magazine ranked the 20 most popular villains in film history, and as a result, the Joker character in Batman: The Dark Knight was only ranked 2nd.
At the top of the list is Darth Vader, the "Dark Lord" of the Star Wars series.
The clown's performance is vivid, but in terms of character shaping, Darth Vader is more in-depth and three-dimensional. It is not too much to say that Darth Vader is the soul of the entire Star Wars, he ran through the earliest "Star Wars Six", even in the new trilogy of "Star Wars 7", the villain Kylo Ren is still designed according to the template of "Dark Lord".
It can even be said that without Darth Vader, there would be no "Star Wars" today.
After the success of Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars founder George Lucas began to deliberately delve into the ultimate villain. In the beginning, Darth Vader was just a super-powerful, mysterious, and dark devil who supported the intelligence of the Imperial Army. In The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas added him the status of a father because of "I am your father!" This classic line, he has a human side, the entire Star Wars series from the original soap opera, began to become more and more connotative, Star Wars culture will not become "young age".
Because Darth Vader has a family relationship, he is no longer a pure villain, so when he took off his mask in "Return of the Jedi", countless Star Wars fans wept over it.
Thinking of the Lord of Distant Thoughts, just like Zhou Gongjin, who was full of vigor, had good looks and talent, and was the chosen one in a hundred, what made him degenerate to the end of "Return of the Jedi", that pale and powerless, pitiful look?
George Lucas did the "Star Wars Prequel Trilogy", explaining how the Proud Son of Heaven was corrupted by darkness and fell.
At a time when the dark ones had not yet risen and the Galactic Republic was still functioning in an orderly manner, Darth Vader was a child named Anakin Skywalker. Jedi Kirgan King discovered that he was different, so he brought him into the Jedi Order, and gradually grew up under the training of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and everything seemed to go well, but in fact Lucas buried a lot of foreshadowing in it.
Although Anakin is kind, selfless, helpful, and gifted, he is also impulsive and aggressive. This is a trait that many protagonists have, except that Anakin is more easily swayed by emotions, and even his master Obi-Wan can't stop his head.
Compared to Obi-Wan, the Great Demon King Palpatine was more aware of Anakin's shortcomings. So Anakin was always faced with two options:
One is to listen to Palpatine, accept your emotions, and have desire to become more powerful.
The second is to listen to the Jedi creed, control their emotions, and have no distractions in their hearts is the most powerful force.
Qui-Gon King believed that Anakin was the chosen one in ancient prophecy to "balance the Force," and he didn't look away.
As we all know, the Force is the most important element in Star Wars. In addition to being a cool "superpower", the Force also represents the light and darkness of human nature, and is also the core of Star Wars.
Anakin's entanglement with the light and darkness of the Force is actually a struggle for good and evil in human nature.
Having a talent for the Force doesn't mean being able to control your emotions all the time. Happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are all common human feelings, and the Jedi Creed is somewhat similar to the Buddhist family, which is to suppress the nature of these people and remove desires. The so-called good people are difficult, how many people can really "go against the sky"?
Anakin is free by nature, he is more like a hero who acts righteously and does his own thing, rather than a monk who has no desires and no desires, he is easy to get angry, and at the same time he has love. The Jedi warrior did not know how to teach according to his aptitude, so he imposed a bunch of rules on him, and unfortunately he was in the rebellious period of youth, and the more disciplined he was, the more unhappy he was.
Obviously, Palpatine's theory of indulging his emotions can make people more comfortable, and people need to vent, and the "chosen one" is no exception. Reasonably, Anakin is trapped by emotions and is therefore easily drawn to the dark side of the Force.
However, once the emotions are not controlled, people are easy to do the wrong thing, and how many vicious events in today's society are actually just temporary emotions that are out of control and impulsive. Explained by the Force, these out-of-control people, like Anakin, are attracted to the dark side of the Force.
Indulge yourself arbitrarily, completely uninhibited, and the result is depravity.
What Palpatine did not expect was that the impulses, anger, hatred, and other emotions that drove Anakin to fall were rooted in love, love for his mother, love for his wife, and friendship with his master. This root is always there, and it has become the root cause of the final "Return of the Jedi".
The Jedi Order's discipline of people's feelings and stipulating that members are not allowed to marry is equivalent to depriving people of the right to love, and it is difficult for people with a little emotion to accept, and Anakin is a person who values feelings.
Love is sometimes selfless, sometimes selfish.
Selflessness can make people sacrifice for love, and selfishness can make people hate because of love. The Jedi want people to "sacrifice" but not let people love, and Palpatine wants to be hated and ignores love.
Anakin, who truly possesses love, can sacrifice or hate, perhaps the "Force Balance" as prophesied.
Perhaps the ancients have long discovered the "flaws" of the Jedi Creed, and the reason why the Force has never been able to achieve "balance" is not that the Jedi Knights are not "quiet" enough, but that they cannot love. If they blindly want to eliminate the Sith and eliminate all kinds of "bad emotions" of man, why are they not destroying humanity like the Sith?
Man cannot indulge in lust, and excessiveness becomes a demon; but he cannot lose the most basic emotions, and loss becomes a machine. This is probably the so-called balance of the Force.
Because of Anakin's appearance, the original order of the world was broken. Originally, the Jedi Order could regain their humanity under his guidance and break the system like the ascetics. Not wanting to break the old system requires a comeback at a greater cost, the Jedi is unable to guide Anakin correctly, Anakin is swallowed up by a series of hatreds, and his psychological trauma is actually more serious than the wounds of the final battle in Revenge of the Sith.
Infinite pain is attached to his body, and he becomes the classic villain in film history, Darth Vader.
It should be emphasized that the root cause of these pains is not the ugly side of human nature, but the most basic emotional side of human beings.
On the surface, darth Vader is loved only because it is cool, but people who really understand Star Wars should be able to understand that the fundamental reason for worshipping Darth Vader is that this character has always had true love.
He has not only love, but also affection, and at the end of the story, it is not the little "goodwill" he has left to save him, but the sleeping love in his heart that is activated by his own son and saves him.
Darth Vader is not a true demon, he is just a tragic figure lost in love.
Fear is the path to darkness. Fear leads to anger.
Anger provokes hatred. Hatred causes suffering.
- Star Wars