Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Darth Vader
Darth Sidious did WHAT to Darth Vader's armour?!
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00:00 Make sure your suit is fully pressurised and bolted in, because you're probably about
00:04 to discover there's so much more to this legendary Dark Lord of the Sith than a few
00:08 force chokes and a game-changing one-liner.
00:10 I'm Gareth from What Culture Star Wars and here are 10 Things You Didn't Know About
00:15 Darth Vader.
00:16 10.
00:17 That Helmet Nearly Never Was While the ensemble as a whole makes for one
00:21 of the most formidable suits of armour ever to be committed to the big screen, it's
00:25 the indomitable Sith's helmet in particular that struck fear into the hearts of all those
00:29 who witnessed him quite literally choke the life out of some rebel scum.
00:33 However, having Vader sport this protective face mask at all times wasn't actually the
00:37 original plan at all.
00:39 George Lucas initially conceived that Vader's face would be entirely covered by a less intimidating
00:44 scarf instead, opting to only don the now much-adored helmet when stepping into his
00:48 space suit to move between shuttles.
00:50 Or, you know, he might die.
00:52 Yet as Vader's reliance on the suit and helmet likely grew in the writing stage, and
00:56 the team behind the flicks realised how much stronger his overall look would be if permanently
01:00 encased in the eye-catching black headpiece, the scarf concept was understandably dropped
01:05 by the time the 1977 Star Wars blasted onto our screens.
01:09 9.
01:10 The Ins and Outs of That Suit Far from simply being a cool way to present
01:13 the galaxy's most feared presence, Darth Vader's stylish suit came with it some rather
01:17 interesting details.
01:19 Despite the suit producing a neurotoxin that helped slightly ease the everlasting pain
01:23 that comes from being very much wired into a machine for the remainder of his days, Darth
01:27 Sidious actually designed the outfit with the idea of keeping the fallen Jedi as uncomfortable
01:32 as possible.
01:33 He's a bit of a dick.
01:34 But it also meant that he would constantly be in a state of anger and frustration and
01:38 therefore closer to the dark side as a result.
01:41 That still doesn't make him any less of a dick.
01:44 Another handy element Sidious had installed into his apprentice's life support system
01:47 was the suit's vulnerability to force lightning, an ability the Emperor was particularly fond
01:52 of naturally.
01:53 On top of Vader largely steering clear of using this Sith ability himself, due to it
01:57 once short-circuiting his armour and very nearly killing him in the process - during
02:01 the Darth Vader comic series - Sidious had been known to threaten his impulsive associate
02:06 with electrocution with the all-important knowledge of his little-known weakness.
02:09 And this very literal chink in his armour would inevitably lead to his eventual demise
02:14 in Return of the Jedi, of course.
02:16 8.
02:17 David Prowse and George Lucas did not see eye to eye
02:20 While Hayden Christensen is set to step back into the iconic suit for the upcoming Disney
02:24 fuss return of the burned-up badass, it was the late David Prowse who first set foot onto
02:29 a Star Wars set as the now-immortalised Force of Darkness.
02:32 However, upon hearing the British bodybuilder deliver some of Vader's eventually hugely
02:36 quotable lines, Lucas soon decided that he needed to swap out Prowse's voice for the
02:41 deep tones of James Earl Jones.
02:44 With Prowse not being aware of this call until way too late in the day, the Brit was said
02:48 to have been rather pissed at Lucas from there on out, refusing to learn his lines for the
02:52 subsequent sequels and even uttering gibberish to his scene partners at times in an act of
02:56 sheer defiance.
02:57 Prowse and Lucas' feud would continue in the wake of the original trilogy, too, as
03:02 the former was eventually banned from all Lucasfilm events on the back of claiming he
03:06 wasn't paid residuals for his work on Return of the Jedi, and Lucas claiming his physical
03:10 Vader had burnt too many bridges.
03:12 7.
03:13 Orson Welles nearly voiced him
03:15 Regardless of David Prowse's understandable frustrations at being vocally passed up on
03:19 in favour of the distinct sound of the legendary James Earl Jones, it's hard to imagine a
03:23 world where the rumbling thespian didn't provide the audible foundations for one of
03:27 the most recognisable figures in cinema history.
03:30 However, that unthinkable alternate reality wasn't actually as far away as you'd imagine
03:34 as it goes.
03:35 Upon deciding that he needed to swap out Prowse's less-than-intimidating Bristol accent for his
03:40 incoming series, Lucas originally felt that movie titan Orson Welles' voice would be
03:44 the perfect fit for the fearsome focal point of the series.
03:47 Yet it would soon become apparent to the mind behind the galaxy far, far away that the War
03:52 of the Worlds in Citizen Kane's star was a little too well-known for his liking.
03:56 Earl Jones' consistently mesmerising voice work as the embodiment of darkness in the
04:00 Skywalker saga and other spin-offs more than justified Lucas' choice to not commit to
04:05 an Orson Sith Lord in the end mind.
04:07 6.
04:08 He wasn't always Luke's father
04:10 While it still ranks as undoubtedly one of the biggest and most effectively executed
04:14 twists the movie industry has ever seen, the revelation of Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's
04:19 daddy wasn't actually set in stone from the off.
04:21 Despite Lucas' claims that he had the entire Skywalker saga planned out from the minute
04:25 he began crafting the first of his galaxy-shifting flicks, Lee Brackett's early draft of the
04:30 script for The Empire Strikes Back showed no signs of this jaw-dropping reveal at all.
04:37 In fact, along with Vader not being revealed to be Luke's father, the next generation
04:40 of Skywalker lad did not lose a hand.
04:43 Luke is revealed to have a twin who may not have actually been Leia, and actually meets
04:46 his father Anakin in forced ghost form whilst training on Dagobah, and Han Solo doesn't
04:51 actually get captured.
04:52 It's also worth noting that the all-important reveal itself was kept under lock and key
04:56 whilst filming the fateful sequence too.
04:58 With the cast and crew on set actually hearing "You don't know the truth, Obi-Wan killed
05:03 your father" on the day and only Irving Kirshner, Mark Hamill and Lucas knowing ahead
05:07 of time what would eventually be dubbed in for the finished film.
05:11 5.
05:12 Boba Fett Revealed That Vader Had A Son
05:14 He may not have ultimately been unveiled as the unexpected sibling of the menacing masked
05:18 icon with a penchant for forced choking, despite rumours of George Lucas at one point mulling
05:22 over making that reality canon, but recent Disney+ TV sensation Boba Fett did still have
05:28 a significant role to play in that previously noted jaw-dropping Episode 5 reveal.
05:33 Despite it initially seeming as though Emperor Palpatine himself was the first to note to
05:36 Lord Vader that Luke was the son of Anakin Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back, the
05:41 2015 comic book Star Wars 6 Skywalker Strikes Part 6 would shed further light on the actual
05:46 moment the mighty Sith learned of his son's existence.
05:50 On the back of Fett trying and failing to claim a bounty on Luke, on the back of the
05:53 Rebel pilot successfully destroying the Death Star in A New Hope, the Beskar-sporting bounty
05:58 hunter is only able to deliver a family name to the Emperor's right-hand man, Skywalker.
06:04 In this moment, Vader is transported back to the memory of Padme confessing her pregnancy
06:08 to an unturned Anakin Skywalker.
06:10 Then realising that his beloved must have given birth moments before she eventually
06:14 perished in Revenge of the Sith.
06:16 Oh, how tragic.
06:17 4.
06:18 Hayden Christensen had to bulk up for his Vader return
06:21 You can bet Hayden Christensen fully assumed his time in the Vader saddle had well and
06:25 truly passed.
06:26 Yet almost 20 years on from his fateful "Noooooo!", the underappreciated prequel Vader is set to
06:32 be reintroduced on the Disney+ stage, opposite old friend Ewan McGregor.
06:36 But this wasn't simply a case of taking the unanticipated call and waltzing onto set
06:40 the next day ready to throw down with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
06:43 In order to prepare for his highly anticipated Skywalker-Vader comeback, Christensen recently
06:48 told Total Film that he had to undergo some intense physical preparation and put on a
06:52 decent amount of weight and size to fill up the suit.
06:55 And for those wondering whether the incoming lightsaber showdowns will match Christensen
06:59 and McGregor's exhilarating exploits of the prequels, the Anakin actor spotted practising
07:03 behind the scenes in a recent Vanity Fair article would also note, "We're more in
07:07 line with the prequels than we are with how the fights are in the original trilogy.
07:11 These characters have aged, but not that much yet."
07:14 This is where the fun begins indeed, eh?
07:16 3.
07:17 His minimal A New Hope screen time
07:19 From his most recent incoming appearance on our small screens, to his first ever steps
07:23 into this galaxy far, far away now, and to a detail that often goes overlooked when revisiting
07:28 the original trilogy that made fans the world over fall in love with George Lucas' baby
07:33 in the first place.
07:34 Despite being one of, if not the most memorable part of Lucas' first leap into hyperspace
07:38 - that was A New Hope in 1977 - the force-sensitive cyborg is only actually present in the feature
07:44 for a grand total of 12 measly minutes of the eventual 121 minute runtime.
07:50 In fact, there's a strong argument to be made that Vader isn't even the central antagonist
07:54 of his debut flick at all, with Grand Moff Tarkin taking control of the Death Star throughout,
07:59 ultimately blasting Alderaan to smithereens, and even backing orders at the unsettling
08:03 Sith Lord that are promptly obeyed before our very eyes.
08:06 Tarkin says jump, Vader says how high.
08:09 But in one of the finest examples of maximising your minutes in a movie you'll likely ever
08:13 witness, Vader more than made his mark, eh?
08:16 2.
08:17 His Ahsoka story didn't end in the Clone Wars
08:19 While largely ignored in the live-action sphere until the most recent Disney+ adventures,
08:24 the Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels animated TV shows in particular delved into perhaps
08:28 one of the most compelling and complex Padawan-Master relationships this galaxy has ever known.
08:33 With Jedi-in-training Ahsoka Tano largely taking residence under Anakin Skywalker's
08:37 learning tree over the course of said Clone Wars show, her eventual loss of faith in the
08:41 Jedi would also act as a not-so-subtle dose of foreshadowing for her master's eventual
08:46 decision to turn his back on the Order too.
08:48 But far from simply never coming into contact again in the days following on from Skywalker's
08:52 descent into the Dark Side, the aforementioned Rebels series would depict yet another exchange
08:57 between the two, and a more violent one at that.
09:01 Leaving Vader with a battered mask before their battlefield disintegrated around them,
09:05 it remains to be seen whether this highly emotional animated history will be revisited
09:09 or alluded to further in the coming Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka series.
09:13 1.
09:14 He's a monumental merchandise mover, baby
09:16 If it hadn't already been made painfully obvious over the course of the prior nine
09:19 entries, Darth Vader sits head and shoulders above the rest of a seriously stacked roster
09:24 of notable names as Star Wars' most popular entity ever.
09:28 And that's not simply one dude's opinion either.
09:30 The proof is undoubtedly found in the sheer amount of dollar that has most definitely
09:34 been dragged in by the legendary villain.
09:36 With Vader's visage being slapped on just about everything Star Wars associated that
09:40 can be purchased by a galaxy-far-far-away-obsessed consumer, it's safe to assume that a decent
09:45 chunk of the $27 billion of profit Lucasfilm had made on merch as of 2015 was largely down
09:51 to his eye-catching mask being front and centre.
09:54 If you needed any more proof of just how popular the red-bladed baddie still unquestionably
09:58 is though, the Dark Lord of the Sith's iconic helmet used on the set of the original trilogy
10:03 was sold for a whopping $1 million a few years back.
10:06 And he once again found himself casting a sizeable shadow over the rest of the field
10:10 on the cover of the most recent Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga video game too.
10:15 The dollar is still strong with this one.
10:17 And that's our list of the many other things folks didn't know about Darth Vader.
10:21 Let us know all about them in the comments section right down below and do not forget
10:24 to like, share and click on that subscribe button while you're at it.
10:27 Also, if you like this kind of thing then head on over to WhatCulture.com and find some
10:30 more incredible articles just like the one this video you're watching right now is based
10:34 on.
10:35 I have been Gareth from WhatCulture Star Wars, thank you as always for clicking on this video
10:38 today.
10:39 May the force be with you and I'm sure I'll see you very, very soon.
10:42 Or not.