Let me first echo a thought that a lot of people have probably already had: I’m all for it. Bringing Darth Vader into the mix when it comes to Star Wars always feels like a good idea since, even though in the history of Star Wars he’s been one of the worst and most despicable villains, he’s also been one of the more complex individuals in the franchise. That’s not to mention that he’s been one of the most important for quite a while. But thinking that he’ll be coming back for the Obi-Wan Kenobi series has been nothing short of great for a lot of fans. There is the concern of having Obi-Wan and Vader meet within the series however since from the original trilogy it does feel as though the two hadn’t encountered each other in the years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Seeing Vader in the Kenobi series might be great unless this fated meeting happens earlier than fans were expecting. It should be well-documented by now that fans don’t care for an obvious retcon that disrupts one of their favorite franchises.
Of course, directors don’t always allow this to dictate what they do, which is smart in some cases and tragic in others. In the case of Darth Vader though, it sounds as though the Sith Lord might be looking at sticking around with other stories to come. This would be pretty easy to put it lightly since Vader has plenty of stories that could be told, though it’s uncertain what the plan is since there are so many stories stemming from RoTS to his death in Return of the Jedi that trying to pick and choose would be kind of tough. Vader has been responsible for killing untold numbers of Jedi and helping to destroy one world after another if they weren’t willing to bow down to the Empire. That kind of a character deserves a great deal of respect when his story is being told.
There’s also the thought that some of the things he’s done stem from the Legends canon, which is still amusing since Disney has freely picked from Legends since the purchase of Lucasfilm, no matter that the Legends canon has been ‘abandoned’. In truth, it’s been strung up in an unknown Disney vault and is being picked apart methodically so that Disney has something to utilize when ideas are in short supply. It’s a little too easy to be cynical of Disney at this time since, even though the Mouse House owns so much and controls what is seen and what is left alone, their track record hasn’t been infallible since 2015. The hope in this instance would be that Disney would look at the many different stories that Vader has been a part of and opt for a running series or an anthology of sorts to really nail down who Vader was and what he did during his long and storied career with the Empire. Given how much he did during his time at the Emperor’s side and how many lives he ruined before his sudden redemption, it feels that Vader should be able to stick around for a while.
With that being said it does feel that at some point, the legend of Darth Vader should be left to rest, or stand on its own in terms of popularity. Revisiting a story too many times can create an issue since it can happen that the story will grow stale and less interesting over a period of time. Doing the same thing over and over, extending stories to the point where they become pointless, and even refusing to take into account what might happen when introducing too many characters or settings, are mistakes that have been able to reduce the effectiveness of many stories over the years. This could easily happen to Vader unless the many aspects of his life and those he touched throughout the Empire’s reign are vast and capable of being told from many perspectives, but that also leaves the franchise open to viewpoints that will gladly steer away from the main point to push their own agendas.
The point of bringing Vader back and highlighting his life would be to see how vital he is to the Star Wars universe and how much he’s affected so many others over the years. This character has been one of the most viewed individuals since 1977 when the first movie came out, so it’s only natural that he would be given this type of attention. It would be interesting to focus on many characters within the Star Wars universe since from a monetary standpoint it could give Disney a reason to push one project after another. The hope of course is that they would so in a manner that might be respectful to the character and the story. But, we’ll take what we can get at times, right?
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