Star Wars: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Darth Vader
Darth Sidious did WHAT to Darth Vader's armour?!
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Make sure your suit is fully pressurised and bolted in,
00:03because you're probably about to discover there's so much more to this legendary Dark Lord of the Sith
00:08than a few force chokes and a game-changing one-liner.
00:11I'm Gareth from WhatCulture Star Wars and here are 10 things you didn't know about Darth Vader.
00:16Probably.
00:16Number 10, that helmet nearly never was.
00:19While the ensemble as a whole makes for one of the most formidable suits of armour
00:23ever to be committed to the big screen,
00:25it's the indomitable Sith's helmet in particular that struck fear into the hearts
00:29of all those who witnessed him quite literally choke the life out of some rebel scum.
00:33However, having Vader sport this protective face mask at all times
00:37wasn't actually the original plan at all.
00:39George Lucas initially conceived that Vader's face would be entirely covered
00:42by a less intimidating scarf instead,
00:45opting to only don the now much-adored helmet
00:48when stepping into his space suit to move between shuttles.
00:51Or, you know, he might die.
00:52Yet as Vader's reliance on the suit and helmet likely grew in the writing stage,
00:56and the team behind the flicks realized how much stronger his overall look would be
01:00if permanently encased in the eye-catching black headpiece,
01:03the scarf concept was understandably dropped
01:05by the time the 1977 Star Wars blasted onto our screens.
01:09Number nine, the ins and outs of that suit.
01:11Far from simply being a cool way to present the galaxy's most feared presence,
01:15Darth Vader's stylish suit came with it some rather interesting details.
01:19Despite the suit producing a neurotoxin that helped slightly ease the everlasting pain
01:23that comes from being very much wired into a machine for the remainder of his days,
01:27Darth Sidious actually designed the outfit
01:29with the idea of keeping the fallen Jedi as uncomfortable as possible.
01:33He's a bit of a dick.
01:34But it also meant that he would constantly be in a state of anger and frustration
01:38and therefore closer to the dark side as a result.
01:41That still doesn't make him any less of a dick.
01:43Another handy element Sidious had installed into his apprentice's life support system
01:48was the suit's vulnerability to force lightning,
01:50an ability the Emperor was particularly fond of naturally.
01:53On top of Vader largely steering clear of using this Sith ability himself,
01:57due to it once short-circuiting his armor and very nearly killing him in the process
02:01during the Darth Vader comic series,
02:03Sidious had been known to threaten his impulsive associate with electrocution
02:07with the all-important knowledge of his little-known weakness.
02:10And this very literal chink in his armor
02:12would inevitably lead to his eventual demise in Return of the Jedi, of course.
02:16Number eight, David Prowse and George Lucas did not see eye to eye.
02:20While Hayden Christensen is set to step back into the iconic suit
02:23for the upcoming Disney-fuss return of the burned-up badass,
02:27it was the late David Prowse who first set foot onto a Star Wars set
02:30as the now-immortalized Force of Darkness.
02:32However, upon hearing the British bodybuilder
02:35deliver some of Vader's eventually hugely quotable lines,
02:38Lucas soon decided that he needed to swap out Prowse's voice
02:41for the deep tones of James Earl Jones.
02:44With Prowse not being aware of this call until way too late in the day,
02:47the Brit was said to have been rather pissed at Lucas from there on out,
02:50refusing to learn his lines for the subsequent sequels,
02:53and even uttering gibberish to his scene partners at times in an act of sheer defiance.
02:58Prowse and Lucas' feud would continue in the wake of the original trilogy, too,
03:01as the former was eventually banned from all Lucasfilm events
03:05on the back of claiming he wasn't paid residuals for his work on Return of the Jedi,
03:09and Lucas claiming his physical Vader had burnt too many bridges.
03:12Number seven, Orson Welles nearly voiced him.
03:15Regardless of David Prowse's understandable frustrations at being vocally passed up on
03:19in favour of the distinct sound of the legendary James Earl Jones,
03:22it's hard to imagine a world where the rumbling thespian didn't provide the audible foundations
03:27for one of the most recognisable figures in cinema history.
03:30However, that unthinkable alternate reality
03:32wasn't actually as far away as you'd imagine, as it goes.
03:35Upon deciding that he needed to swap out Prowse's less-than-intimidating Bristol accent
03:39for his incoming series,
03:41Lucas originally felt that movie titan Orson Welles' voice
03:44would be the perfect fit for the fearsome focal point of the series.
03:48Yet it would soon become apparent to the mind behind the galaxy far, far away
03:51that the War of the Worlds in Citizen Kane's star was a little too well-known for his liking.
03:56Earl Jones' consistently mesmerising voice work as the embodiment of darkness
04:00in the Skywalker saga and other spin-offs
04:02more than justified Lucas' choice to not commit to an Orson Sith lord in the end mind.
04:07Number six, he wasn't always Luke's father.
04:10While it still ranks as undoubtedly one of the biggest
04:12and most effectively executed twists the movie industry has ever seen,
04:16the revelation of Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's daddy
04:19wasn't actually set in stone from the off.
04:21Despite Lucas' claims that he had the entire Skywalker saga planned out
04:25from the minute he began crafting the first of his galaxy-shifting flicks,
04:29Lee Brackett's early draft of the script for The Empire Strikes Back
04:32showed no signs of this jaw-dropping reveal at all.
04:35How suspicious.
04:37In fact, along with Vader not being revealed to be Luke's father,
04:40the next generation of Skywalker lad did not lose a hand.
04:43Luke is revealed to have a twin who may not have actually been Leia,
04:46and actually meets his father Anakin in forced ghost form whilst training on Dagobah,
04:50and Han Solo doesn't actually get captured.
04:52It's also worth noting that the all-important reveal itself
04:55was kept under lock and key whilst filming the fateful sequence too.
04:58With the cast and crew on set actually hearing
05:01you don't know the truth, Obi-Wan killed your father.
05:04On the day, and only Irving Kirshner, Mark Hamill and Lucas knowing ahead of time
05:08what would eventually be dubbed in for the finished film.
05:11Boba Fett revealed that Vader had a son.
05:14He may not have ultimately been unveiled as the unexpected sibling
05:17of the menacing masked icon with a penchant for forced choking,
05:20despite rumours of George Lucas at one point mulling over making that reality canon.
05:24But recent Disney Plus TV sensation Boba Fett did still have a significant role to play
05:29in that previously noted jaw-dropping episode 5 reveal.
05:32Despite it initially seeming as though Emperor Palpatine himself was the first
05:36to note to Lord Vader that Luke was the son of Anakin Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back,
05:41the 2015 comic book Star Wars 6 Skywalker Strikes Part 6
05:45would shed further light on the actual moment the mighty Sith learned of his son's existence.
05:50On the back of Fett trying and failing to claim a bounty on Luke,
05:53on the back of the Rebel pilot successfully destroying the Death Star in A New Hope,
05:57the Beskar-sporting bounty hunter is only able to deliver a family name
06:01to the Emperor's right-hand man, Skywalker.
06:04In this moment, Vader is transported back to the memory of Padme
06:07confessing her pregnancy to an unturned Anakin Skywalker,
06:10soon realising that his beloved must have given birth
06:13moments before she eventually perished in Revenge of the Sith.
06:16Oh, how tragic.
06:18Hayden Christensen had to bulk up for his Vader return
06:21You can bet Hayden Christensen fully assumed his time in the Vader saddle had well and truly passed.
06:26Yet almost 20 years on from his fateful NOOOOO!
06:30The underappreciated prequel Vader is set to be reintroduced on the
06:33Disney Plus stage opposite old friend Ewan McGregor.
06:36But this wasn't simply a case of taking the unanticipated call
06:40and waltzing onto set the next day ready to throw down with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
06:43In order to prepare for his highly anticipated Skywalker-Vader comeback,
06:47Christensen recently told Total Film that he had to undergo some intense physical preparation
06:52and put on a decent amount of weight and size to fill up the suit.
06:55And for those wondering whether the incoming lightsaber showdowns
06:58will match Christensen and McGregor's exhilarating exploits of the prequels,
07:02the Anakin actor spotted practicing behind the scenes in a recent Vanity Fair article
07:06would also note,
07:07We're more in line with the prequels than we are with how the fights are in the original trilogy.
07:11These characters have aged, but not that much yet.
07:14This is where the fun begins indeed, eh?
07:19From his most recent incoming appearance on our small screens,
07:22to his first ever steps into this galaxy far far away now,
07:25and to a detail that often goes overlooked when revisiting the original trilogy that
07:30made fans the world over fall in love with George Lucas' baby in the first place.
07:34Despite being one of, if not the most memorable part of Lucas' first leap into hyperspace
07:39that was A New Hope in 1977,
07:41the force-sensitive cyborg is only actually present in the feature
07:44for a grand total of 12 measly minutes of the eventual 121 minute runtime.
07:50In fact, there's a strong argument to be made that Vader isn't even the central antagonist
07:54of his debut flick at all,
07:55with Grand Moff Tarkin taking control of the Death Star throughout.
07:59Ultimately blasting Alderaan to smithereens,
08:01and even barking orders at the unsettling Sith Lord that are promptly obeyed before our very eyes.
08:06Tarkin says jump, Vader says how high.
08:09But in one of the finest examples of maximising your minutes in a movie you'll likely ever witness,
08:14Vader more than made his mark, eh?
08:19While largely ignored in the live-action sphere until the most recent Disney Plus adventures,
08:24the Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels animated TV shows in particular
08:27delved into perhaps one of the most compelling and complex
08:30Padawan-Master relationships this galaxy has ever known.
08:33With Jedi-in-training Ahsoka Tano largely taking residence
08:36under Anakin Skywalker's learning tree over the course of said Clone Wars show,
08:40her eventual loss of faith in the Jedi would also act as a not-so-subtle dose of foreshadowing
08:44for her master's eventual decision to turn his back on the Order too.
08:48But far from simply never coming into contact again
08:51in the days following on from Skywalker's descent into the Dark Side,
08:54the aforementioned Rebels series would depict yet another exchange between the two,
08:59and a more violent one at that.
09:01Leaving Vader with a battered mask before their battlefield disintegrated around them,
09:05it remains to be seen whether this highly emotional animated history will be revisited
09:09or alluded to further in the coming Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka series.
09:16If it hadn't already been made painfully obvious over the course of the prior nine entries,
09:20Darth Vader sits head and shoulders above the rest of a seriously stacked roster of notable names
09:25as Star Wars' most popular entity ever.
09:28And that's not simply one dude's opinion, either.
09:30The proof is undoubtedly found in the sheer amount of dollar
09:33that has most definitely been dragged in by the legendary villain.
09:36With Vader's visage being slapped on just about everything Star Wars-associated
09:40that can be purchased by a galaxy-far-far-away-obsessed consumer,
09:44it's safe to assume that a decent chunk of the $27 billion of profit Lucasfilm had made
09:49on merch as of 2015 was largely down to his eye-catching mask being front and centre.
09:54If you needed any more proof of just how popular the red-bladed baddie still unquestionably is,
09:59though, the Dark Lord of the Sith's iconic helmet used on the set of the original trilogy
10:03was sold for a whopping $1 million a few years back.
10:06And he once again found himself casting a sizeable shadow over the rest of the field,
10:11on the cover of the most recent LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga video game, too.
10:15The dollar is still strong with this one.
10:19Folks did not know about Darth Vader.
10:21Let us know all about them in the comments section right down below,
10:23and do not forget to like, share and click on that subscribe button while you're at it.
10:27Also, if you like this kind of thing, then head on over to WhatCulture.com
10:30and find some more incredible articles just like the one this video you're watching right now is
10:34based on. I have been Gareth from WhatCulture Star Wars, thank you as always for clicking on
10:38this video today. May the force be with you, and I'm sure I'll see you very, very soon.
10:42Or not. Either way, bye-bye.