Vader

One of the scariest memories in my mind from my childhood always revolved around the dark, cloaked figure menacingly approaching... and I would always find myself unable to move - held captive by the ominous power he wielded from deep inside that all to familiar helmet.

Surely I'm not alone.

It was one of the earliest movie memories I have.  My parents took me to see it at a drive-in.  Can you imagine the opening sequence shown against a backdrop of real stars?  The words start to scroll and 'A New Hope' is one of the first thoughts put in your mind.  

Then the spaceship. 

Then Vader.

In the midst of this 'star wars' comes the villain we come to hate, root against, but at one point deeply want to know...

Why the mask?  What's the story?  Is he as evil as he seems?

The first three movies takes us from Evil Sith Lord to absent father to reluctant hero as he plunges the Emperor into the bowels of the new death star.  Who would have known that this fearsome character would come to define a generation of moviegoers and even permeate the culture.

And for Luke it would be looking into the mirror and recognizing the evil and even the good inside of himself.  Inside all of us.

And then we see the back story in the first three movies.  And then we see Jar-Jar, but that's a blog of another color all together.

He was a real person.  A child that was sold into slavery (how many of us have been a slave to something in our lives).  Then reluctantly taken into the Jedi, even though there were warning signs.  Someone took a chance on him (again - how many of us have had that person who took us in and helped us to grow?).

But like many of us, well, at least like me - he started to falter and fail.  Life became something unmanageable and he cracked.  The last of the prequels shows the mask being put on.  

How many masks have I worn?

It's not so hard to imagine.  One day a child.  The next the greatest of the Jedi.  Then the greatest movie villain of all time.  But in the end, a Father who saved the life of his son.  Who came back from the Dark Side and took off the mask.  Who saw his own face in his son and left the world a victor, instead of in defeat.

Vader.