Darth Vader: The Exclusive Interview

This post was originally published on June 6, 2005.

We caught up with the Dark Lord of the Sith, who took a few minutes out from his busy publicity schedule to talk with yourish.com.

MY: Well, the story is now complete, and your legion of fans knows how and why you stepped into the black suit.
DV: Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny. I’ll bet you make bunny ears on blind people for laughs.
MY: Lord Vader, we’re curious to know what you think of the movies, and how your story has been told.
DV: You know the saying “History is written by the winners?”
MY: Yes.
DV: Hello, I didn’t win, y’know? That Lucas got almost nothing right, not even my name. I mean, Anakin? Annie? Annie? What kind of man calls himself Annie? First they get two of the worst actors in the universe to play my younger self, then they ruin my name and call me Annie! It’s enough to make you want to use your Sith powers to make sure that Lucas will never write another decent script so long as he lives.
MY: So what is your real name?
DV: It’s Leonard. Lennie! A nice manly name. None of this Annie crap.
MY: So what else did Lucas get wrong?
DV: I have never in my entire life—until now—ever uttered the word, “Yippee.” When Qui-Gon bought me out of slavery, I believe my words to Watto were more on the order of “[bleep] you, you stinking sack of [bleep] [bleep] [bleep]!”
MY: Whoa, family blog here!
DV: Edit it out, you [bleep].
MY: Lord Vader, how did you come to the dark side of the Force? What was it that really turned you bad? Was it truly your inability to find a good anger management class?
DV: Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The Sith Lords are no darker than your average Republicans. The Emperor wasn’t an Emperor, the Rebellion wasn’t a Rebellion. It was all politics. Palpatine won a closely contested election, and the Jedi got ticked. The Sith may have controlled the Chancellorship and the Senate, but the Jedi had the damned media behind them. And the academics, and they’re the ones who write the history books. The truth is, I started out with the Jedi, and Palpatine ultimately converted me to the Sith. The Sith political party, not some scary cult that went around lopping off people’s hands.

Plus, the Jedi were starting to talk about raising taxes and getting all touchy-feely on me. And then there was that insufferable Yoda. The creature never learned how to speak Galactic properly; always mangling his sentences. You have no idea how boring it was to sit in a Jedi council meeting and listen to him drone on and on. And Mace Windu? Listen, the man had fourteen mirrors in his home. Conceited? Hey, one of his padawans once pronounced his name Windoo instead of Windu, and Windu had him exiled to Tatooine to go undercover in Jabba the Hutt’s organization.
MY: Wait a minute, wait a minute—are you saying that the Sith and Jedi are only political parties? That there’s no Force behind either of them?
DV: Sorry to burst your bubble, bubelah, but I did tell you that Lucas got nearly everything wrong. And, ah, Palpatine and I didn’t kill the Jedi. The party died out of its own volition. There we are at war, and the Jedi are advocating diplomacy over force. Idiots. If someone’s shooting at you, saying, “Please stop shooting at me” has a proven one hundred percent failure rate. Come to think of it, the Sith and Jedi disagreements are not unlike the current battling going on between Republicans and Democrats, only our Jedi weren’t stupid enough to put a Howard Dean in charge. That snot-nosed son of mine—
MY: You mean Luke Skywalker really was your son? And he really defeated you in battle?
DV: I lost the election to him. You try and try to bring your kids up in your traditions, and the damned tree-huggers in the Jedi school system totally ruin them for you. He broke with me and ran on the Jedi ticket.
MY: You were elected?
DV: Of course. I was Palpatine’s Vice-Chancellor. We beat the Jedi twice, a fact that Lucas—who, I might point out, is a Democrat—seems to have overlooked in his films. But we didn’t win big, so Windu kept crying about a recount, then the lack of a mandate, and then the Jedi party used their influence in the media to beat up on us and make us look like the bad guys. They even tried to say we started the tariff war with the Trade Federation. So not our fault. We were all for free trade! It’s the Jedi that wanted to impose tariffs on everyone. So of course the Federation started taxing our goods. Everything started costing more, then my kids teamed up against me, and, well, you try to win an election when the cost of living is rising and your own kids are calling you Dark Father. After a while, people only heard “Darth Vader,” and that was that.
MY: I’m still trying to process this election stuff.
DV: Yeah, so are the Democrats. Get over it already.
MY: Okay, current Earth stuff: Bush or Kerry?
DV: Please. Bush.
MY: Favorite TV show?
DV: Lost. Oh, and Desperate Housewives. I’m a sucker for a nighttime soap.
MY: Who do you think will run for president in ’08?
DV: Hillary. Definitely Hillary. Though she may find some surprises waiting for her.
MY: Meaning?
DV: Let’s just say that Luke and Leia weren’t my only kids. Padme may have dumped me, but she’s not the only fish in the sea. My second wife and I retired here after I lost the election, and, well, that’s all I’m saying for now. Except that he was born in the USA. And he’s a Republican.
MY: Thank you, Lord Vader, and, uh, may the—
DV: Oh, shut up.