What if Vader lied?

The talk about the new Star Wars film reminded me of seeing The Empire Strikes Back just one day after its initial release. Seeing it so soon means the big reveal “I am your father” came as a total surprise. One of the big discussions with my friends was whether Vader was telling the truth or not. I thought this would be a major plot point in the next film, instead Vader’s fatherhood was presented as fact and the story moved on.

But what if Vader had lied. What if Anakin Skywalker was simply a hot shot pilot who made the mistake of going toe to toe with Vader and lost his life because of it? Would Return of the Jedi been that different? The Emperor and Vader would still want Luke because of his strength with the Force. The conflict between the two big bad guys could still happen due to each seeing Luke as the key to their own supremacy. Leia could still have latent abilities that would bring her to the attention of Vader and cause Luke to almost go Dark Side to protect his friend/sister. The climax of ROTJ could have been a three way battle between Luke, the Emperor and Vader with Vader taking out the Emperor and Luke sparing a severely injured Vader in spite of having advantage over him. Luke's compassion restores his basic goodness after a brush with the Dark Side, Vader dies from his injuries and the Ewoks host a big party. Of course this would cause the prequel story to be significantly different but that may not be a bad thing. If nothing else Vader could have remained the mysterious figure he was in the first film.

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  • "Luuuukke. I am your ... well, I was friends with your dad, but then we had a falling out, and, um, it gets complicated. So, Luuuukkke. I am a friend of the family. Call me Uncle Daaaaarth ... "

    I had two problems with ROTJ, and neither involved Luke's parentage. One was ANOTHER Death Star (are there no other plots in a galaxy far, far away?) and the Ewoks. I wondered at the time why they didn't have the climactic fight on the planet of the wookies. Only later did I find out that the original plan was to have an army of wookies, but that Lucas changed it to Ewoks for toy-sales purposes. 

    I didn't see the parentage thing coming, either, so I liked it. What destroyed Vader's aura of awesomeness for me was Hayden Christensen, aka Darth Whiny.

  • I remember when Yoda said, "There is another... Skywalker."

    the friend I was seeing it with speculated, "Leia?"

    I said, "No, that would be stupid."

    I can remember when Darth Vader was his name. Obi Kenobi said, "Only a master of evil, Darth," not "Only a master of evil, Anakin."

    The original trilogy was pretty slap-dash, but that was part of its charm.

  • As I recall, when Vader told Luke, my initial thought was, "he's lying to distract him".

    If Vader had lied, it may have made for some interesting tensiono between Han, Luke and Leia in ROTJ. What if the two of them had to fight one another for her?

  • James Earl Jones thought he was lying when he first read the line.

  • Whew! When I saw this thread yesterday, I thought at first that it was some kind of reference to something that had happened in The Last Jedi.

    I saw it today, looking out for anything to do with something Darth Vader had told someone at some point.

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