Darth Vader.  Everybody’s heard of him and were he in a room with you, you’d be quite nervous.  He’s established as one of the most classic villains of our time.  Galaxies fear him, fat-star-wars-fans want to be him, and many would say that he is one of the all time greatest terrors of sci-fi cinema.  So here’s my question:  why?  Do you realize that in his six films, Darth Vader (or Anakin Skywalker) never really won a battle?  Well, maybe one, but that’s debatable…  So why have we given this all-time famous loser been lifted above so many others as an icon of all that is awesome and terrifying?

Episode 4: A New Hope — Darth Vader, our villain, opens this groundbreaking film by storming aboard the vessel of Princess Leia, and demanding that she return the plans for the death star!  Remember?

So anyways, throughout the film we learn that Vader has one goal: protect the Death Star from the punk-ass rebellion, led by that skeeze Princess he should’ve killed from the get go.  Alas, Vader fails.  That’s right.  Our cherished villain is unable to protect his master’s WMD from a few X-Wings.  Luke Skywalker, the protagonist, is able to “use the force” and shoot his torpedoes through a ventilation shaft into the heart of the Death Star, effectively destroying it and creating a NEW sense of HOPE throughout the galaxy!  And Vader looks like a failure the first tie we meet him.

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back — Okay!  Here we go!  This must be the time when the Empire strikes fear and death into the heart of the rebellion!  We’re finally gonna see some Vader kick-assery now!  Turns out that Vader didn’t die in the Tie-Fighter spin-out he caught himself in last episode — though he does seem kind of pissed.  When we see him again for the first time, he’s all anxious about catching Skywalker, while pounding into the planet Hoth.  He fails and the rebellion group escapes (for the most part).  Vader sets a trap with this treacherous mother f**ker named Lando.  It works — sort of.  he catches Han Solo, though that was never really his goal.  Solo was only bait to get Skywalker’s ass to the Cloud City.  Well, Skywalker shows up and Vader tries his darndest to get this young Jedi to join the dark side but fails, but not before taking two things: (1) Vader takes a bit of the boys pride when he admits that he is in fact Skywalkers father (Oh snap!); (2) Vader cuts off his son’s hand — Whoop-dee-doo…  Skywalker has it replaced within fifteen minutes.  Verdict?  Vader tried to convert or kill his son and failed, once more.

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi — By definition of the title things don’t seem to bode well for our not so successful villain.  Here’s the gist: Luke is a badass and ftries to bring his father back to the light side of the force.  It works, barely.  Vader fails his emperor and millions of followers for the last time and pays with his life.  Wow.  At this point, I remember thinking that, while a good story, Darth Vader was the most unsuccessfully, bad, bad guy in the history of storytelling.  He failed, once more.  You can’t help but wish he could’ve at least killed Solo?  Maybe Chewbaca?  But no.  This “badass,” jedi-turned-villain, red-light-saber weilding, “I-only-kill-ancillary-characters,” loser, wrapped in neat black packaging cements himself as the worst antagonist ever.  Darth Vader is forever a loser — though there are three sequels coming…

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace — Darth Vader is a kid.  It sucked.  There is an annoying alien that doesn’t di and that sucks too.  Anakin Skywalker (Darth) is able to help out the galactic empire by accidentally stealing a fighter jet and blowing up some stuff on accident.  But he doesn’t win because every character in this movie loses very, very badly.  Go ahead and disagree with me.  You’d be wrong.  Nobody in this movie wins anything.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones — Okay, here we go!  Anakin Skywalker is a teen filled with angst and we now he turns into “the most powerful jedi ever” (though he won’t ever win anything), so we have got to see some victory now, right?!  Surely Anakin will prove a more worthy “badass” than Vader ever does…  Nope.  Wrong again.  This time Anakin gets his ass (and hand) handed to him by Count Dooku — this old man who fought Gandalf in a tower.  Yoda breaks up the fight and whoops some ass, but this isn’t about the awesomeness of Yoda, it’s about the bitchiness of Vader…  So, Anakin loses.  Again.

Episode 3: Who cares about Vader at this point? — It doesn’t matter anymore.  By this point in the series my childhood was raped and I felt like a betrayed little boy all alone in an ice cream truck along the coast of a strange european country run by clowns with fangs and bulges in their pants.  Know only this: Anakin loses, get’s all jacked up and becomes Vader, his future loser self after a brief stop at Frankenstein lab…  For eternity, Vader will remain win-less.  Though he was a cool-looking loser…

So back to my point.  Why was Vader tough?  He never really killed anyone important to the story (technically he didn’t even kill Obi-Wan…) — only the non-importants would ever feel his wrath.  He never did any job that he was given with even a modicum of success.  And his “force” powers were no good against his punk son.  Wow.  Cool.  At least Kahn killed Kirk’s kid.  The Machines got almost everyone in the Matrix (and weren’t even defeated in the end).  The Aliens ultimately killed Ripley.  But in the world of Sci-Fi, Vader shall remain Jedi-lord-BITCH.

Thanks for reading.  And I’ll leave you with this little gem of our dear Vader:

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff