10 Facts Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Star Wars

3. He's Anakin Before The Armour

The Misconception: Revenge Of The Sith is the film everyone was waiting for. We'd seen whiney 9-year-old Anakin and whiney 19-year-old Anakin. Now it was time for mass murdering 23-year-old Anakin. And most people came out of the cinemas moaning about how, after providing the crux of the marketing campaign, Darth Vader only appeared for five minutes where he just cried over Padmé. Well worth the 22 year wait.

The Truth: All the complaints about the lack of Vader in the suit really takes away from that the real tragedy with Anakin isn't that he ends up in an evil-looking life support machine (that the Emperor presumably had in production just in case), but that he turns to the dark side. And to that end, Vader is present from halfway through the film (earlier if you believe Obi-Wan in that killing Dooku was the final straw). He's not in the suit but it's clear he's bad and, as implied in various expanded material, the fake limbs and breathing mask, while making him more menacing, actually make him less powerful.

Google "Revenge Of The Sith Darth Vader" and you have to scroll a fair way to find a picture that isn't the suit. You could argue that it's only when he's finally in the armour that Anakin becomes Vader, but we think the point of no return is surely when he slaughters a bunch of children. We're old fashioned like that.