My Heroes Have Always Been Monsters Part 26

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...a giant, heavy breathing, robotic monster stopped a very small child dead in his tracks and made him walk to the TV like approaching an altar. I was only a toddler when Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope hit theaters, but my earliest memories involve Star Wars. I saw Empire and Jedi in the theatre, but didn't see New Hope until we bought a VCR.

Darth Vader was absolutely my favorite  part of the entire saga and that Luke Skywalker always got so much screen time was a great annoyance to me.

One thing that became more and more fascinating to me through the years was the scene in New Hope where Vader, Tarkin and the other Emperial officers were talking about the Emperor dissolving the senate, and the one smart ass that insulted Vader's faith and got force choked for it.
As I said, I saw Empire before New Hope and in Empire Vader seemed very much in charge, but in New Hope he comes off as more of Tarkin's flunky.  

 This made me, like everyone else, obsess over what must happen in the first three chapters. I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith quite a bit, but the story I want to see still hasn't been made.

At any rate, since my first Vader action figure my love of Star Wars has been cemented-no amount of Holiday specials or Jar Jars or Ewoks will ever change that.

Like Frankenstein or Batman, Vader spoke to some- thing in me and the evolution and demise of the character over the three films is one of my favorite stories in cinema. And like Frankenstein and Batman I never have enough of them in the family collection. (All the photos of from my son's room including figures my wife and I passed down to him). The poster to the right is an actual framed poster from a theatre with little red lights around the border-some idiot threw that out!

To the left in the middle is my original Kenner Vader. Cape and lightsaber long gone.













This is probably the coolest action figure I've ever bought for my kid. I think it's from a video game, I'm not sure, not much of a gamer unless it involves Batman.

My son built this wonderful TIE fighter by himself on a saturday morning before we woke up. LEGO has done a great job with their Star Wars line.


There has been talk about a live action Star Wars TV show that takes place between Sith and Hope and  I truly hope it gets made, especially if it involves Vader hunting down and killing the remaining Jedi. That's the story I've been waiting to see.

Keep watching the sky, nerds!