Photo Credit: [Rogue One : A Star Wars Story]Lucasfilm
Star Wars Theory has finally uploaded his Darth Vader Star Wars Fan Film. Here is my review and takeaways from it.
For those of you unfamiliar with Star Wars Theory, it is a Star Wars fan channel on Youtube, which originally began in July 2016, over the past two plus years, has amassed an impressive 1.2 million subscribers.
The channel is run by just one creator and is known for posting videos of all things Star Wars related, including comic reviews, fan fictions, character analysis, and news updates, just to name a few.
In 2018, SW Theory officially announced that it was going to create a Darth Vader fan film and that the channel’s creator was going to spend $100,000 of his own money to make it. Not only that, while he received a blessing from Lucasfilm to make the movie, he was told that it could not be crowd funded, nor could the final film be monetized on Youtube.
None the less, he proceeded forward in making his fan film not because of financial incentive, but because it was his passion and his dream to create a film portraying the character of Darth Vader in the way he believed it was worthy of.
In just a few short months, Theory put up the necessary funds to get the film made, hired Danny Ramirez to direct it, cast Dupree Jones to portray the infamous Sith Lord and Jesse Gomez to voice him, along with a supporting cast, and finished filming in late September of this year, ready to be edited, with the final film ready to be released less than three months later.
This Vader fan film, which was posted online on Friday, is set to be the first of a six-part series, which the creator hopes to continue making over the next few years.
Star Wars Theory clearly has a passion for the character and truly wants to make this movie for the fans. Lets see just how well it turned out.
Photo Credit: [Rogue One: A Star Wars Story]LucasfilmBefore I get into too much detail, let me just say that as far as fan films go, Vader Episode 1: Shards of the Past is definitely one of the better ones. If you’re a Star Wars fan and haven’t seen it yet, I’d highly recommend checking it out.
The run time of it tops out around 16 minutes, and is definitely a very high quality production. Vader’s suit in particular looks like a lot of care went into it, as it appears to be near movie quality. With all that said, let’s get into some detail on the story.
Be Warned: SPOILERS AHEAD
The fan film takes place eight months after the events of Revenge of the Sith, and follow’s Darth Vader’s inner struggles as he is haunted by the memories of his previous life as Anakin Skywalker, and still mourns for his late wife Padme.
The beginning of the film to me is its highlight.
Starting off in the middle of a brutal action sequence, akin to his scene at the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Vader is in the Emperor’s chambers on board a Star Destroyer, being attacked by several clone troopers as he attempts to kill his master Darth Sidious. Vader fights off a number of clones seemingly effortlessly, deflecting their blaster shots with his ligthsaber, taking them all out one by one while he force chokes the Emperor with the other.
Reinforcements soon arrive wielding mini-gun blasters, strong enough to knock Vader’s lightsaber from his hand, but not enough to really faze him. In what was my favorite action piece of the film, Vader uses the force to hold all the blaster shots in mid-air, similar to when Kylo Ren did it in Episode VII, but on a much larger scale. After stopping several dozen of the blaster shots, he fires them right back at the clone troopers, taking them all out, allowing him to focus his attention back on the emperor.
Vader shouts at Sidious, blaming him for Padme’s death and for ruining his life, while Sidious says it was his own fault and that mourning for his wife keeps him from attaining his true potential. The Emperor eventually uses force lightning on Vader and takes the upper hand on him.
This brings me to my main critique of the film. While the action is good and entertaining, some of the effects are a bit jarring. While I didn’t go into it expecting to get the same quality as we get in the movies, some scenes were certainly better than others.
The low point for me was the force lightning used by the Emperor while Vader uses the force on a dead imperial guard body to shield himself. The scene depicts a long shot of the room, showing both the Emperor using his lightning, and Vader trying to hold his ground, and it just appears cartoonish and sticks out when compared to some other scenes from the film.
Despite this, it doesn’t take away from the rest of the fan film, especially since the scene helps to set up Vader’s mental state so well.
During this fight, Vader eventually regains the upper hand, and uses the force to draw the emperor close and break his neck. As he examines Sidious’s body, he finds the necklace he gave Padme when he first met her as a child, and Vader visualizes Padme speaking to him and she closes her eyes as he hugs her.
When he let’s go of her, Padme’s eyes open and are a dark yellow like a Sith Lord’s. She speaks with the Emperor’s voice and says “and that is why you’ll never defeat me.” Vader looks up and now sees Sidious in front of him laughing, and says that as long as he hangs onto his feelings, Vader will remain weaker than him. Sidious once again strikes him down with lightning while Vader hears Padme shout his old name “Anakin” in his head.
He wakes up, out of his armor and being examined by a medical droid. It was all a dream.
Following his dream about confronting and killing the Emperor, Vader is summoned to his master’s chambers.
Emperor Sidious senses Vader’s anger and inner conflict, and berates him for not channeling his anger, and even orders him to strike him down, but Vader refuses. The Emperor calls him pathetic and blames his inability to reach his full potential due to his attachments from his old life as a Jedi. Vader states that Anakin Skywalker is dead, but Sidious continues his verbal assault, saying that he was much more powerful before when he was Skywalker, and he continues to tell him to embrace his hatred, but Vader still refuses and doesn’t attack his master, despite his inner desires.
Regardless of this, in another attempt to test his apprentice, the Emperor sends him to the planet of Naboo to track down and kill a Jedi who clone troopers have confirmed to be in hiding there. This is also meant to torment Vader further however, as Naboo is his late wife’s home world, and the site of her final resting place.
Sidious also says that the Jedi is on Naboo likely because he knows Vader’s true identity and is trying to draw him out. Sidious tells him to embrace his hatred and take out this rogue Jedi, and in doing so he will achieve a greater power as a Sith. Vader then sets out for Naboo.
A quick note here. Contrary to the poor force lightning effect I mentioned previously, the cut scenes visualizing Vader’s ship flying through space and eventually landing on Naboo are terrific. These short scenes are on par with some movies and stick out because I feel that I rarely see CGI effects this well done on fan films. Very well done.
On Naboo, Vader is debriefed by a clone trooper, who gives a brief rundown on the Jedi’s whereabouts, and that he has barricaded himself in the catacombs below the mausoleum they are walking through. The clone trooper says that they blasted a hole into the catacombs and sent squads in to take him out, but so far none of them have come back alive.
As Vader approaches the hole into the catacombs, he once again hears Padme whisper his old name.
He stares down into the catacombs and hears blaster fire, the hum of a lightsaber and a few clones calling out for more reinforcements and for help. Then everything goes silent.
The hum of a lightsaber is once again heard and a blue glow appears from inside the catacombs. Vader ignites his red lightsaber, stares down into the catacombs and the film cuts to black.
End of Vader Episode I: Shards of the Past
Photo Credit: [Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith] LucasfilmOverall, I thoroughly enjoyed Star Wars Theory’s film. As far as Star Wars fan films go, I can very confidently say, this was one of, if not the best one ever made.
Just to quickly recap what I’ve already touched upon, the action in this fan film, although limited to just the start of the fan film, was quite entertaining, and was very reminiscent of Vader’s fight against the rebels at the end of Rogue One.
The biggest issue I had with the film was that it had some spotty effects at times, such as the force lightning. However, seeing as it’s a fan film, and since other CGI effects out performed by expectations at certain times, this can easily be forgiven. Even for what it is, it didn’t take away from the story of the film, or Vader and the Emperor’s relationship.
Of all of Vader’s inner thoughts and conflict, the relationship shown in this film that stuck out the most was that of Vader and his master, and not Padme.
While she was shown as one of the main focuses of his feelings and the source of his overwhelming grief, his interactions and relationship with the Emperor were much more interesting.
The way the two of them share such a mutual hatred for each other, and the fact that Vader constantly dreams about killing him but cannot bring himself to do it. This is all the while his master is constantly baiting him to do it in order to force him to embrace his hatred is all very interesting, especially because it’s never really been shown in a live-action film in such detail before.
Additionally, I must say, the casting was excellent.
While the Darth Vader suit appears to border on movie quality, Dupree Jones is the right body type and really helps to make the character feel genuine to his other appearences, which the voice of Vader, Jesse Gomez, is just about as close to James Earl Jones as you can get.
Steven T. Bartlett, who plays the Emperor also does a fine job at capturing the mannerism’s of Ian McDiarmid’s original portrayal of the character, while Bradley Klein, who voices the character, does a convincing job of replicating the emperor’s voice. His laugh in particular felt very accurate to that of McDiarmid’s from the other movies.
Overall, I thought that this was an excellent fan film and one that every true Star Wars fan should check out.
Star Wars Theory definitely went the extra mile to give us a Darth Vader film that lived up to the fandom behind the character, and did it all not for profit, but out of sheer love of the character and for Star Wars on the whole.
On behalf of the Star Wars fanbase, I would like to congratulate Star Wars Theory on creating such an excellent fan film, and we all eagerly await the release of Vader Episode II.