A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a legendary Sith Lord was born from the ashes
of the defeated, disgraced young Anakin Skywalker.
Star Wars villain Darth Vader is arguably the most famous bad guy in film history.
But how well do you really know the one-time Jedi who became the Dark Side's most powerful
asset?
Here's the untold story of Darth Vader.
It took five men to play Vader
The name most commonly associated with Darth Vader is James Earl Jones, who provided the
menacing villain with his trademark baritone voice.
But that's not Jones inside the suit.
Instead, the more physically imposing David Prowse wore the armor most of the time, with
fencer Bob Anderson standing in for the lightsaber duels.
And that iconic moment when he takes his helmet off in Return of the Jedi?
That's the pasty face of veteran stage actor Sebastian Shaw.
Oh, and one more guy also contributed to the performance: sound artist Ben Burtt, who created
Vader's trademark panting with a microphone and a SCUBA tank regulator.
The voice was a secret
His voicework may be iconic now, but back in the day the participation of James Earl
Jones was such a closely guarded secret even the cast didn't know he was playing Darth
Vader.
So it came as a really big surprise to David Prowse, the guy inside the suit, when he learned
his voice wasn't going to be used after all.
He was ticked off, but George Lucas had a pretty good reason for making the switch,
as Prowse's voicework was so pedestrian, Carrie Fisher called him "Darth Farmer."
“I’m tearing this ship apart piece by piece until you find those tapes.
Find the passengers in this vessel.
I want them alive!”
And Jones kept the secret for a long time.
Not only was he not credited on A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back, but he straight-up
denied that it was his voice in the movies, telling anyone who asked that he thought it
was the work of Bond villain and 7-Up spokesman Geoffrey Holder.
“Whatever ‘it’ is that makes 7-Up so refreshingly different, the other soft drinks
never had it, hahaha.
Never will.”
Orson Welles almost played Vader
While James Earl Jones eventually fessed up to providing the voice of Darth Vader, there
was a point in time where someone else was considered for the role instead: Orson Welles.
“Ahhhh the French champagne.”
In 2015, George Lucas revealed that he auditioned two people for the role, but once the tapes
were in, the decision pretty much made itself, saying,
"I knew the voice had to be very, very special.
And I had to make a choice—a choice that was a tough choice, but an easy choice, really—between
Orson Welles and James Earl Jones . . . [Jones] won ."
Good thing, too, considering Welles died in 1985, while Jones has been able to come back
to voice Darth Vader again and again for years.
“I have one thing to say to people like you…”
“...I like Star Wars too!”
Vader's helmet was an afterthought
It's hard to believe, but the iconic black helmet Darth Vader wears throughout the series
wasn't even in the original script, which simply called for a little respirator instead.
It was artist Ralph McQuarrie who originally devised the helmet, which he intended to be
part of a space suit.
But the painting was so striking that costume designer John Mollo ran with it, incorporating
elements of traditional samurai armor and Nazi helmets from World War II.
He has his own castle
If you've seen Rogue One, you might have been surprised when the film suddenly took an unexpected
detour into Mordor.
But that wasn't Barad-dûr, it was actually Bast Castle, Darth Vader's secret getaway—sort
of like an evil Fortress of Solitude.
Bast Castle has actually appeared before in video games, and concept art has been floating
around since the late '70s, with Ralph McQuarrie's designs originally slated to appear in Empire
Strikes Back.
There was one minor change in Rogue One, though: the location of Bast Castle has seemingly
been moved from the acid rain planet of Vjun to the lava-drenched doomscape of Mustafar,
where Anakin Skywalker had his legs lopped off by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
We're guessing real estate prices were reasonable.
Darth Vader's true identity was an off-script secret
At this point, there's probably not a single human being on Earth who doesn't know Darth
Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad.
“Wooow!
What an ending!
Who’da thought Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father?”
“Oh thank you Mr. Blow The Picture For Me!”
But when The Empire Strikes Back came out, Vader's famous revelation was shocking - and
one of the best-kept secrets in the history of cinema.
“No...I am your father.”
Knowing that the real line was going to be overdubbed in post-production anyway by James
Earl Jones, George Lucas wrote a fake line into the script to make sure there were no
spoilers.
When David Prowse read his line in the climactic scene, what he actually said was "Obi-Wan
killed your father."
“When I first saw the dialogue that said, ‘Luke, I am your father,’ I said to myself,
‘He’s lying.’”
The only person in the scene who actually knew the truth was Mark Hamill, who played
Luke Skywalker, and even he was only told minutes beforehand so he could react with
the appropriate level of anguish.
“No...no...that’s not true.
That’s impossible!”
The name is a clue.
Or is it?
According to Lucas, the name Darth Vader has a secret meaning: "'Darth' is a variation
of dark.
And 'Vader' is a variation of father.
So it's basically Dark Father."
That seems like it might be a clue to the big secret that Vader would actually turn
out to be Luke's dad.
But skeptics have pointed out that the whole "Vader is Anakin" thing wasn't added to the
storyline until well into the writing process for The Empire Strikes Back, years after Vader
was first named.
So is Lucas full of it?
Or did the name just turn out to be a happy coincidence?
You be the judge.
Vader may have been swiped from Jack Kirby
Luke isn't the only member of the Skywalker family whose parentage may hold a shocking
secret.
In a case of art imitating life, it turns out that Darth Vader's real father might not
be George Lucas at all, but rather legendary comic book creator Jack Kirby.
According to the book Tales to Astonish, during a fateful dinner meeting in the early 1970s,
Kirby told Lucas about a massive space opera he was planning called The New Gods, which
features a helmeted villain named Darkseid facing off against a champion of light named
Orion, who turns out to be Darkseid's own son and who struggles to overcome his family's
legacy of evil.
Sound familiar?
According to Ahmet Zappa, Kirby was none too pleased with Stars Wars, feeling that Lucas
had mined not just The New Gods for inspiration, but all of Kirby's work.
"He told my dad stuff like, 'Darth Vader was Doctor Doom and the Force is the Source' and
that George Lucas ripped him off."
Well, you know what they say: if you're going to steal, steal from the best.
Vader had an apprentice
It may come as a surprise to learn that Darth Vader himself had an apprentice, given that
the Sith supposedly follow a really stupid rule limiting them to only two members at
a time.
Not to mention the fact there has been no mention of Vader having an apprentice in any
of the live-action films.
But there's a simple explanation: she was his apprentice before he became a bad guy.
And also, she's from the cartoons.
Fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels know, of course, that we're talking
about Ahsoka Tano.
Nobody knows exactly what Ahsoka's final fate is, but considering she was thrown out of
the Jedi order before the Purge, it's possible she may still be alive even in present continuity.
Could we see her pop up in Episode VIII?
Considering the Clone Wars character Saw Gerrera played a major role in Rogue One, we wouldn't
bet against it.
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