Fear Something, Something, Something, the Dark Side

One of the silliest thought exercises I like to do from time to time is try and fix the Star Wars prequels. This morning, I came up with two changes that I think are actually pretty good. While they don’t address the many issues of those films, they do fix what I think is the prequels’ biggest sin — that they fail to convincingly explain why Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. My changes stem from Yoda’s prophecy in the Episode I.

Fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering.

While nominally the victors, the war with the Sith clearly left the Jedi terrified of another Sith-like uprising. This fear became the justification for many heinous acts committed by the Jedi, up to and including kidnapping force sensitive babies so as to ensure they can be controlled from birth. This is evident in the criticism that 9-year-old Anakin is too old.

It also led the Jedi to becoming a secretive paramilitary organization whose only goals became being on the look out for Sith activity and guarding against threats to the Republic, and I suspect they only agreed to the latter to help with the former (not to mention the posh digs.)¹

Considering the above, I think it’s a good bet that the Jedi were well aware of what was happening to Anakin’s mother and didn’t intervene because a) it would be a distraction from their mission, and b) they were afraid an improperly indoctrinated Anakin would lose his shit, go Sith, and start murdering Jedi. Regardless of what the council actually knew, it would be very easy for Anakin to believe that they probably did, and Palpatine would be right there suggesting as much.

This is my first change. Instead of slaughtering Tuskens on screen, the better character moment for Anakin at this phase is to believe the Jedi could have prevented his mother’s suffering and subsequent death. Planting this idea in Anakin’s goes right into my second change. Instead of turning to the dark side out of a fear that Padme dies giving birth, he does so out of rage and hatred because Palpatine has him convinced Obi-Wan, by orders of the Jedi Council, murdered Padme along with his unborn child.

These two changes not only are a better explanation for Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side, it also explains why the discovery of Luke shakes his beliefs and ultimately leads him back to the light. Luke’s very existence is proof that Obi-Wan did not murder his child and probably didn’t murder Padme either. After Luke, Vader goes immediately from loyal Jedi-murdering servant to “hey son, let’s team up and go kill that asshole emperor.” When Luke rejects him, Vader responds by going from a hate-fueled, red lightsaber wielding badass to a shell of Sith who mostly just mopes around by the time Return of the Jedi roles around.

Yoda’s prophecy about fear leading to bad things makes more sense after these two changes. Did 9-year-old little hotshot look fearful to you when he blew up that Trade Federation ship? It makes way more sense that the “fear” Yoda senses is coming from the Jedi council itself and that the same fear that led them to justify baby-napping will lead them to ostracize a 9-year-old, knowingly let his mother die, and give him all the anger, hate, and suffering to turn into Darth Vader.