Re: New Casting and Story Rumors re: EPISODE VII
Reverend said:
I wouldn't say the shift was an act of sheer will, as in they *forcibly* shifted the balance of the force.
Well, they did... but as I said that book is now no longer canon. Sad face.
Mate, that book was never canon in the first place.
Besides, that's a really boring way interpret the Sith's rise to power. It's akin to saying the evil wizard Palpatine cast a spell that made everyone in the kingdom "evil". I mean sure Star Wars has always been quasi-fantasy, but it's never been quite *that* far into fairy tail land.
Even in the OT, the emperor' evil was always portrayed as seductive, not some crazy form of super-mind control. He didn't cast a spell on Anakin to turn him into Vader, he subtly nudged him here and there, whispered in his ear, fed his ego and sewed doubt in his mind, but he never made him doing anything truly against his will. In a way that relationship is a microcosm for the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire.
Now don't get me wrong, the execution of this story in the films could have been better, but the basic point stands regardless.
Indeed, in a very literal way, Vader in the living embodiment of the Empire, even more so than the Emperor himself. Something that was once good and pure, (Anakin = the Republic) scared and mutilated into something monstrous. "More machine than man" also fits in nicely with the stark uniformity of the Imperial military. The monochrome colours. The legions of faceless soldiers with numbers instead of name. All very mechanised and impersonal (shades of the society from 'THX-1138'.) Yet, dispute all that, thee was always something deep down that the Emperor could never fully eliminate (the good in Anakin = the Rebellion) and it eventually turned on him and overcame him , though at great cost.
Where this allegorical interpretation gets interesting is in the implication that with the death of the Empire (Vader) the Old Republic (Anakin) dies with it and it's up to a new generation to build a new world. So perhaps this implies that the ST won't have a "New Republic"; not a recreation of a system that ultimately failed but something entirely new and different. An decentralised Alliance of free worlds perhaps?