OT-Vader fan film-Disney lays claim on it

Star Wars is trying to turn Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and agent of evil, into an antihero. There are few movie villains widely known and feared as Darth Vader. From first walking through the blasted door of the blockade runner in 1977's Star Wars to hacking down Rebels in a fight to get to the same ship in 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, that imposing face mask, rasping breath and booming James Earl Jones voice have painted a powerful, calculating figure, one that strikes fear regardless of which galaxy you live in. Even though he was eventually redeemed by his son in Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy detailed his tragic fall, few would debate that he is an out-and-out villainous character.

One group who would, it seems, is Lucasfilm themselves. In a press release for upcoming comic run Star Wars: Vader — Dark Visions, the StarWars.com site describes the titular character as "the mysterious antihero known as Darth Vader." Now, granted, this is in the context of a story that aims to present the character from distant perspectives of those not knowing his true nature let alone his past (the description also states he "can be someone’s greatest fear and even…someone’s greatest hope"). However, that goal still leaves one big thing clear: Star Wars wants you to think of Darth Vader as an antihero.

Related: Darth Vader's Original Backstory (Before He Was Retconned To Be Luke's Father)

This is as wrong as it is bizarre, and while it could end up being an isolated incident feels like part of a bigger shift - for the character, for Star Wars, and for our culture's relationship with villainy in general.

This Page: Darth Vader Is A Tragic Villain - But Still A Villain
Page 2: Why Darth Vader's Called An Anti-Hero (& Why It's Bad)
Page 3: Darth Vader's Anti-Hero Confusion Highlights A Bigger Villain Problem
DARTH VADER IS A TRAGIC VILLAIN - BUT STILL A VILLAIN
Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith
The key factor in this discussion is that, indeed, Darth Vader hasn't been viewed as an out-and-out villain on film since 1980. In The Empire Strikes Back, he famously revealed he was Luke Skywalker's father, suggesting a more tragic backstory (which had been there in Obi-Wan's description in Star Wars anyway), and then three years later in Return of the Jedi, he sacrificed himself to save his son and the galaxy. He was a redeemed villain, even getting a Force ghost that put him alongside his former mentors, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda.

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But it was the prequels that really changed the Star Wars story. What had once been a sprawling space opera powered by family was reframed more directly as "The Tragedy of Darth Vader". Episodes I-III detailed Anakin Skywalker's gradual corruption and fall, seeing an idealistic but hard-done-by child trapped in a suffocating situation grow into a powerful and feared young man; he suffers the death of his mother and, when a similar fate threatens his secret wife, vows to avert it. There's a lot more going on in the Star Wars prequels than just that, but the sum effect was that Anakin Skywalker became a tragic figure and Darth Vader someone corrupted and misled who eventually returned to the light. By 2005, for only two movies out of six was he not on the light side of the Force or at the very least conflicted.

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However, this wasn't about reframing the character as anything but a villain; it was exploring how such a dark figure could exist and be returned. Darth Vader wasn't made any less menacing in the original trilogy by the prequels (give or take some personal opinions on Revenge of the Sith's "Nooooo"). Indeed, George Lucas' controversial change to Return of the Jedi that replaced Sebastian Shaw's older Anakin with Hayden Christensen's Clone Wars-era version served to highlight the character delineation.

Related: Star Wars Prequel Rotten Tomatoes Scores Have Changed (A Lot) Over Time

No, while Darth Vader isn't totally the same villain he was in 1977, he was still very much a villain after the prequels. And across his Rogue One cameo and misread legacy in the sequel trilogy, that's held true in the Disney era too. So why has this rebrand happened now?

WHY WOULD STAR WARS CALL DARTH VADER AN ANTI-HERO?
Considering his forty-year history, it's very surprising for Star Wars to suddenly start calling Darth Vader an anti-hero. But it's worth noting the big shift since Lucas put his final stamp on the character: Disney. The Mouse House bought Lucasfilm in 2012 and since then has begun to reshape the brand in its image. Sure, the primary content hasn't reflected this too much - The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are, for better or ill, very much products of their directors, while most behind-the-scenes issues have been rooted in Lucasfilm rather than their owner - but the wider picture most certainly has. There's a young, less-gendered target audience to the likes of Star Wars Resistance, Forces of Destiny and Galaxy of Adventures that's much closer to Disney's normal line. You can see this perhaps best in the Disney-est of Disney-isms, the theme parks, where Star Wars characters slide right in alongside Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Princesses et al.

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In that light, Darth Vader is now a Disney Villain with a capital "V". That's a brand, one comparable to Princesses, and thus one that doesn't mean what a glance at the Evil Queen or Scar would have you believe. The focus is on their qualities, not actions. Recently, we've seen these villains become increasingly complex to the point of being anti-heroes: Elsa was originally Frozen's villain before the story made her too sympathetic; Maleficent reframed Sleeping Beauty's dragon-witch as misunderstood; and Wreck-It Ralph 2's final showdown was a physical manifestation of the hero's arc. In fact, it's noteworthy that the current Disney animated resurgence is incredibly light on villains compared to the 1990s renaissance; the last time there was an all-out villain as the story's primary obstacle was 2014's Big Hero 6, before that Tangled in 2010 (hat-tip to Lindsay Ellis for her thorough breakdown on the subject). The reasoning is obviously; sand off the evil edges and you have marketable figures.

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In this light, the contextual humanity of Darth Vader suddenly becomes a much bigger focus than all the choking and attempted filicide. It's the route to making him a proper Disney Villain, a character who's bad but not totally reprehensible; a likeable bad guy. He's easier to market for a family-focused company and can be less affronting to younger children. This is natural for any franchise with big family and fan appeal, but there's a proactive sense to the Disney canon and Darth Vader that isn't there for others.

Related: Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker's 'Father' Finally Revealed

That may not be the singular motive, and even if this is more on the Lucasfilm side of control, it still represents a shift in the characters' perception that lines up more with modern expectations that Darth Vader simply shouldn't be molded to.

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WHY MAKING DARTH VADER AN ANTI-HERO IS A TERRIBLE IDEA
Star Wars Anakin Skywalker Darth Vader
To see a later version of this villain transformation, you need only look 30 years later in the timeline at Kylo Ren, Darth Vader's grandson and the inheritor of his dark side power in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Played by the unconventionally good-looking Adam Driver and having a constant, brooding conflict, he's got as many fans who earnestly adore him as there are people who appreciate him as what he is - the movies' villain. Reylo is one of the most popular fan movements and questions of redemption dominate speculation for Star Wars 9. Ben Solo is a complex, tortured character who is meant to highlight the more realistic side of a Vader-like character, but does the off-screen compassion affect the reading too much?

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Of course, Star Wars doesn't have to be binary. All the talk of light and dark sides misses that moral complication is at the core of its story. One of the most under-appreciated aspects of the original trilogy is that Yoda and Obi-Wan were categorically wrong; they wanted Luke to go kill his father as they believed Anakin was beyond redemption. This aspect is only played up more in the prequels, which talked of unachievable balance and had the good dogmatic and the evil razor-sharp. Gray Jedi don't need to exist, as future-thinking theories often posit, because that's inherent. The problem thus isn't that Darth Vader can only be idealistic Ani or killing his own men in frustration and that anything in-between is sacrilege; it's that to reframe his position in the narrative undoes his character.

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Darth Vader being an anti-hero puts the onus on his heroism. It makes him someone waylaid who must ultimately come good. And he just isn't. He was so bad that the greatest Jedi in galaxy disregarded a long-held prophecy and deemed him irredeemable. Indeed, in the end Vader could only be redeemed at the cost of his life; the effect of the Emperor's electricity on his suit may circumstantial, but from a narrative and thematic standpoint, sacrifice was the core purpose. If he's an anti-hero, then he was always capable of overthrowing the Emperor, something which further hurts Luke's arc in refusing to leave his father behind.

Related: Star Wars Confirms Vader ALWAYS Knew Luke Would Defeat Him

Essentially, making Darth Vader an anti-hero needlessly negates his bad actions. To say that the internal conflict is so great makes the multiple atrocities shown and implied in Star Wars canon meaningless, and misses that he's the public face of a super-weapon-building, slave-abusing, dictatorship built explicitly around Nazi imagery. He can be understandable and sympathetic and ultimately conflicted without losing that overriding sense of villainy.

THE DARTH VADER ANTI-HERO CONFUSION HIGHLIGHTS A BIGGER VILLAIN PROBLEM
We've talked about Darth Vader and Disney, but even if this is just the mistake of one Lucasfilm copywriter, it's really endemic of a bigger cultural shift. The anti-hero is the new hero, and the villain the new anti-hero. Han Solo, once the lovable rogue (i.e. anti-hero) is the lead, not just of his own movie, but of every other tentpole; Tony Stark, Deadpool, Arthur Curry et al are anti-heroes compared to the squeaky clean Luke Skywalkers of old. They're complex, often self-serving, and toe a line of decency, all elevated by usually following a conventional hero's journey.

But at the same time, we're raising up our villains; it's typical to gravitate towards villains we "love to hate", but it's almost stretched to be "love and hate". Thanks to the Golden Age of TV and shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, we've had our perceptions of anti-heroes and villains skewed. In many cases, we have a protagonist who by default we view as the hero of a tale, and over dozens of hours understand every step of their descent to the point that when they become a villain we're acceptant of that choice (this is why Breaking Bad season 4 ended on a twist that Walt had gone darker than the show had previously hinted, poisoning a child as part of his scheme to kill Gus Fring). This reliability enables creators, but it also blurs the lines of what we're willing to accept.

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Take a look at Marvel Studios, the biggest franchise in town. The MCU was once criticized for its one-dimensional villains who were little more than mirrors to their well-developed heroes; a punching bag who could somehow represent their greatest flaws. This has changed in recent years, with them applying the same level of depth to the antagonists as they do the titular characters, but that detail's had a strange effect. In 2018, audiences responded to both Black Panther's Killmonger and Avengers: Infinity War's Thanos as strongly as they did their films' heroes - both were described as "right" to varying degrees despite genocidal goals due to their motives - while Ant-Man & the Wasp lacked a true antagonist, with everybody bar secondary player Sonny Burch ultimately found to be doing the right thing.

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Related: Thanos Is The MCU's Best Villain, Hands Down

This is in so many ways a good thing for our culture. It allows for more nuanced stories that better reflect the complicated, messy world we live in. But when having a personal justification becomes the same as a righteous goal, we lose sight of what is actually "good" and what quantifiably isn't. Morality skews, and that means things become less interesting, more confused, and lack any proper statement. Darth Vader the character surely views himself as an anti-hero, but if we the audience do also, what do we beleive?

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Harvey Dent famously said in The Dark Knight that "you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain", an apt summary of his story and the movie's core theme, but a greater summation of how we as a society viewed good and evil. Just over ten years later, Dent's words should be reversed: you either die a villain or get enough backstory to become the hero.