A Thousand Stars: Episode II, Part 41

[matril]

And so Darth Vader is born. Not a triumphant rise of awesome villainy; not amidst a glorious battle or resounding victory. Pathetic, broken, stripped of humanity and hope. When Palpatine calls him, the imagery is deliberately reminiscent of the creation scenes from the 1931 film Frankenstein, evoking an unholy creation that violates the laws of nature.

The eerie mist, the stiff, awkward motions, the chains and bolts -- they're all references to the constructed monster. Even the lightning flash we saw earlier contributes to the spooky atmosphere of that classic film.

It's more than just a wink at the audience. Frankenstein is a tale of hubris, of a mad scientist who comes to regret his experiment. (I will add that in the original novel, Viktor Frankenstein regrets it immediately and abandons his creature in a fit of horror, which leads to the question of whether the monstrosity came from generating life unnaturally or from failing to nurture and take responsibility for the life he created. It's a stronger story and you should all read it.) Palpatine glories in Vader's grief-driven wrath, but ultimately his creation will be beyond his own control, able to destroy him.

Next, images too powerful for words...

Comments

[krpalmer]

From your preview line last week, I'd wondered for a little while about "a classic film reference" jumping straight to the end of the movie and another "binary sunset"... although I suppose that might play into "putting the 'original trilogy' on a pedestal (at the risk of downplaying the other trilogy)." In some ways it's always been tempting for me to see the Emperor's smile as holding some element of "ha, fooled him!", even though I steer clear of "the Emperor is to blame for Padme's death" theories. Maybe it's somehow odd for me to consider "his creation will destroy him" given the sense Anakin had been expected to "destroy the Sith," but maybe there we have to try and make sense of why some are so allergic to the idea of Anakin as a figure of prophesy (beyond my theory "the visceral revulsion to silly comedy relief was so severe everything else in the movie had to be condemned in the end to try and justify getting so worked up.")