Hayden Blackman on Lucas, Vader vs Anakin

As far as I'm aware, the Emperor regarding post-Mustafar Vader as a disappointment compared to pre-Mustafar Vader and, more importantly, the Vader pre-Mustafar Vader could've become was the prevailing consensus until the Disney buyout.

Any "insights" offered from this interview are a mere regurgitation of what's already been said elsewhere, including page 33 of The Art and Making of The Force Unleashed:

The Emperor does indeed have quotes and musings that indicate a favorable opinion of Vader, including the last chapter of Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization to the reborn Emperor's assessment of Vader in The Essential Guide to the Force.

But that's because different authors have different takes on the character. Lucas, on the other hand, has been crooning his ballad about Vader for the better part of 16 years at least

Not precisely. Lucas thinks that and Blackman cedes that while Lucas and the Emperor might have a point, Blackman says he thinks Vader is "the most badass villain ever created" and specifically wrote The Lost Command as a way to rekindle his awe of Vader and, in part, to prove the Emperor (and by extension, Lucas) wrong.

Blackman regards Vader as the most badass villain ever whereas Lucas... doesn't. Whether you want to regard this is an outright contradiction between the two or a cynical effort by Blackman to pay lipservice to Lucas's edicts while disregarding their substance is your call and there's basis for either interpretation, but I'm just saying: it's clearly not consensus.

DarthAnt66 wrote:

As far as I'm aware, the Emperor regarding post-Mustafar Vader as a disappointment compared to pre-Mustafar Vader and, more importantly, the Vader pre-Mustafar Vader could've become was the prevailing consensus until the Disney buyout.

Any "insights" offered from this interview are a mere regurgitation of what's already been said elsewhere, including page 33 of The Art and Making of The Force Unleashed:

Even if Lucas' take that Palpatine believed Vader to be "broken" was mainstream, it still wouldn't be irrelevant to post an additional source restating that. Lucas' word can institute sweeping retcons across the continuity, so it's always beneficial to have additional sources backing up that that's what he believes. That being said, most members have never seen Lucas say that. The argument that Palpatine believes Vader to be "broken" has always been entirely rooted around C-Canon statements. The AaMoTFU quote you posted has been lost in time, never posted on SI, and forgotten by most members. Ergo, this quote I posted is "the first" to shed light on the subject.

Then you should be able to see the utility in sharing Lucas' opinion, since his take on this specific subject (i.e. Palpatine's opinion) has not been commonly known prior.

The red text is exactly the point I'm making. The fact Vader's badass doesn't preclude Lucas' take, and Lucas' take is what I want members to take away from this quote.

tl;dr: you jumped the gun and assumed everyone already had your opinion on the subject, which was wrong, then assumed even if everyone had your opinion the quote's irrelevant, which was wrong

SithSauce wrote:How did this anti-Vader brigade start?

Spoiler:

WalkingInCircles wrote:

SithSauce wrote:How did this anti-Vader brigade start?

They're clearly not aware that Vader is beyond planetary level.

Spoiler:

I'm certainly not one who thinks Vader is superior to Revan, but how does all these  G-Canon quotes about Vader prove he is inferior to Revan? It seems like he just doesn't like Vader in general. He already has a huge following that agrees with him, yet he continually finds and posts all these quotes about Vader, as if he wants his reputation destroyed completely

WalkingInCircles wrote:"We've actually never seen real Jedi at work, we've only seen crippled half-droid half-men and young boys that have learned from these old people. So to see a Jedi in his prime fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I want it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing"
- George Lucas, Star Wars Episode I: Fights Featurette, 1999.

WalkingInCircles wrote:Just to point out that Lucas also all but admitted that his previous quote was almost completely due to the restrictive nature of the Vader costume.

Vorpal Blade wrote:

WalkingInCircles wrote:Just to point out that Lucas also all but admitted that his previous quote was almost completely due to the restrictive nature of the Vader costume.

Not arguing with you here, but can you substantiate this? Interested to see.

Vorpal Blade wrote:@Azronger

Yeah, I've been re-evaluating these sorts of quotes from Lucas recently. I don't think these can necessarily be blanket applied; plus Lucas doesn't seem to be consistent on these issues except arguably in generalities (Vader was crippled in terms of potential and movement by his suit for example). As you said, Qui-Gon is 60 years old by TPM,  and Kenobi is a Jedi Padawan. I think we're conflating Lucas' use of the word "prime" with "our" own definition within the context of the debating community. I think that, in this context, Lucas is referring to "prime" as in the apex of a Jedi's access to training and experience. They were trained from the youngest age, as opposed to the example of Luke starting it late in the OT. So then we have Luke being trained a lot later than usual for what a Jedi should be, combined with limited training/experience. Luke was taught a couple of lessons by Ben, and then a little by Yoda, and with this he was supposed to fight a Sith Lord and save the galaxy, essentially. Contrast this with the new PT, where the Jedi are an actual organisation. They're in their "prime" as far as Lucas is concerned. The fighting is "faster" because these guys have been keeping active, have trained a hell of a lot more than Luke, and have a bunch more experience.

So this is how Lucas views it within the confines of his own universe, so then the question is where we draw the line when analysing his interpretations and how these apply to the "Films+EU" continuity.

Azronger wrote:Alright, let's parse through Lucas' whole quote.



"We've actually never seen real Jedi at work, we've only seen crippled half-droid half-men and young boys that have learned from these old people. So to see a Jedi in his prime fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I want it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing"

George Lucas
Star Wars Episode I: Fights Featurette

Qui-Gon is older than anyone we see fight in the original trilogy so by default he is one of the "old people" and not a "real Jedi," so the quote doesn't establish him as Vader's superior. That leaves us with Obi-Wan, who is 25, so he can technically be argued to not be a "young boy" like the 23-year-old Luke in RotJ, but if his prime is TPM, then he is also superior to his RotS counterpart and Vader's inferiority to him isn't an issue, at least in my eyes given the high opinion I have of RotS Kenobi. However, since Maul was given a pretty damn good fight by Qui-Gon who we've established isn't a real Jedi, every iteration of Obi-Wan is trash as well since Maul beat him in his prime. This view is bolstered by Obi-Wan's performances against TCW Maul who is one those "half-droid, half-men" like Vader, given that 50% of his body is cybernetics. Therefore, every character in TPM sucks and none of them are really better than anyone in the OT going by Lucas' metrics.

As for the rest of the PT, Yoda and Palpatine are also utterly terrible as they all fall into the "old men" category, and RotS Anakin falls into the "young boys" classification as he is the same age in RotS and Luke is in RotJ. Since every PT character scales below them, the entire era must be shit alongside Vader. Which makes me wonder how it could even be considered "the prime of the Jedi" in the first place.

WalkingInCircles wrote:

I'm certainly not one who thinks Vader is superior to Revan, but how does all these  G-Canon quotes about Vader prove he is inferior to Revan? It seems like he just doesn't like Vader in general. He already has a huge following that agrees with him, yet he continually finds and posts all these quotes about Vader, as if he wants his reputation destroyed completely

Partly due to his debate with Az, I guess. Problem with using Lucas quotes is that, as far as Lucas is concerned, Revan didn't even exist as a part of his universe until The Clone Wars (and actually still doesn't), so using G-canon quotes to compare them is basically cherry-picking. 

DarthAnt66 wrote:

Azronger wrote:Alright, let's parse through Lucas' whole quote.



"We've actually never seen real Jedi at work, we've only seen crippled half-droid half-men and young boys that have learned from these old people. So to see a Jedi in his prime fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I want it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing"

George Lucas
Star Wars Episode I: Fights Featurette

Qui-Gon is older than anyone we see fight in the original trilogy so by default he is one of the "old people" and not a "real Jedi," so the quote doesn't establish him as Vader's superior. That leaves us with Obi-Wan, who is 25, so he can technically be argued to not be a "young boy" like the 23-year-old Luke in RotJ, but if his prime is TPM, then he is also superior to his RotS counterpart and Vader's inferiority to him isn't an issue, at least in my eyes given the high opinion I have of RotS Kenobi. However, since Maul was given a pretty damn good fight by Qui-Gon who we've established isn't a real Jedi, every iteration of Obi-Wan is trash as well since Maul beat him in his prime. This view is bolstered by Obi-Wan's performances against TCW Maul who is one those "half-droid, half-men" like Vader, given that 50% of his body is cybernetics. Therefore, every character in TPM sucks and none of them are really better than anyone in the OT going by Lucas' metrics.

As for the rest of the PT, Yoda and Palpatine are also utterly terrible as they all fall into the "old men" category, and RotS Anakin falls into the "young boys" classification as he is the same age in RotS and Luke is in RotJ. Since every PT character scales below them, the entire era must be shit alongside Vader. Which makes me wonder how it could even be considered "the prime of the Jedi" in the first place.

The opposite of this, actually.

Lucas says we'll see "a Jedi in his prime fighting" and that this will be reflected by a "much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing" in TPM. That's referring to Qui-Gon and TPM Obi-Wan -- they're the only two Jedi fighting. Ergo, Lucas does not classify Qui-Gon in the "old men" category nor TPM Obi-Wan in the "young boys" category, for he's contrasting those categories with Qui-Gon and TPM Obi-Wan specifically. Evidently and demonstrably, being an "old man" or "young boy" alone does not preclude one from being "a Jedi in his prime fighting." Rather, there must be qualities associated with the "old men" (i.e. ANH Darth Vader, Ben Kenobi) and "young boys" (i.e. ROTJ Luke) categories of the OT that are absent from the PT (or vice versa). As Meatpants said, that's about how TPM Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are both hyper fast (unlike the OT's "old men") and hyper skilled (unlike the OT's "young boys"), hence the overarching emphasis on super improved choreography in all facets.

As for Lucas saying we'll see "a Jedi in his prime fighting," that does not mean Qui-Gon and TPM Obi-Wan are literally in their exact prime they'll ever be. You run into this issue a lot, but a hyper-literal interpretation of the quote is not always the correct one, and in this case it's clearly not -- unless you want to argue Lucas planned to keep Obi-Wan the same level across the PT despite intending to show his progression from a Padawan to a Jedi Master? Rather, in contrast to the "old men" and "young boys" that have lost the energetic and/or skillful qualities of the PT, we'll see Jedi who actually have those qualities. 
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DarthAnt66 wrote:I thought we were trying to have a serious discussion on the quotes?