SWTOTD SWTOTD 14 - The Vader Effect 10:16 AM | Zeroplate When did Darth Vader become such a wuss? I guess you could say at the end of Return of the Jedi when he threw the Emperor down the reactor shaft. What kind of building plan is that anyway, to have a throne room with an open balcony overlooking a deep, dangerous abyss? Anyway, Vader is number 3 on AFI's (not the cheesy band) pick for best movie villain of all time, and for little kids he's a scary, imposing figure. But for the rest of us, Vader is seen just as often as an icon of cool as he is an icon of evil. Okay, these are just movies, I get that! But as movies, these have opened a lot of windows through which we can peer into our culture and see what makes us all collectively tick. That's the power of the all-encompassing pop-cultural behemoth that is Star Wars. So, for the sake of argument, when did we start equating the greatest evil in the universe with being 'cool'? If you go back and look at merchandise and ancillary products from the great and overwhelming history of the movies, you see that the emphasis early on was on the heros. There were puzzles and t-shirt iron ons and plastic cups with Vader on them for sure, but for the most part, Luke and Leia, Han and Chewbacca, and the droids were the ones being most exploited. I'm sure that teenagers in 1977 thought Vader was as cool to have on a denim jacket then as they do now, but the lunchboxes, coloring books, bed sheets, and all the rest of it was pretty clearly defined as good vs. evil; by buying into that you were aligning yourself with the good guys. Somewhere along the way though, maybe it's after Empire Strikes Back or probably much later, like the 90's when the Star Wars reinvention machine was kicked on and Kurt Cobain and co. were the leading youth movement, Vader and the dark side of Star Wars became the cool thing with which to identify. The love for Boba Fett started growing, the original movies were released one last time before the special editions and two of the boxes featured Vader and a Stormtrooper (the other had Yoda), rather than the normal cast of heros. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that the likenesses of the actors require clearance or royalties and the likenesses of characters created and designed by Lucasfilm are free to use. In that case, the droids would have worked too, but obviously the play was towards the seductive power of the dark side. The nostalgia dollar has been courted by the bad guys, in a strange twist. Fast forward to now, with the release of the last movie and a marketing onslaught like we haven't seen since The Phantom Menace, if ever, and you'll see that Vader is not only the defacto selling point for the movie, but he's the single icon of the entire movie series that's getting all the play. Something about having your movie's most evil and ruthless character also featured on draperies, backpacks, and lollipops takes away from any real threat the character represents, doesn't it? I mean, if you didn't know any better, you'd think Vader is the hero of the saga at this point. Are we really that tired of the hopeful, bright-eyed hero? Or is it that we all just continue to get darker, meaner, and more understanding of the 'villain role' as we move along. Either way, the Vader Effect is spreading and you can see it in everything from Scarface merchandise to Frank Booth and Charles Manson T-shirts. Do we have Lucas and Vader to blame for this cultural shift where we worship bad guys and only tolerate heros? That might be overstating it, but I think there's something to the phenomenon. Star Wars is based partly on Lucas' love for the old Buck Rogers serials, but kids in those days wanted to be Buck Rogers, not Ming the Merciless. Now, I'm not so sure, and that's a little troubling. Back to Top {0} Comments

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