10 Famous Movie Characters Ruined By Elaborate Backstories

1. Darth Vader

And finally, there could only be one character on the top of this list €“ Anakin Skywalker, AKA Darth Vader. As with Boba Fett, the €˜less is more€™ approach of the original trilogy only told us the salient facts we needed to know about this character. He€™s Luke€™s father, a former Jedi and a brilliant pilot, who turned to the Dark Side and eventually killed his former mentor Obi-Wan. In the prequels, though, George Lucas went into unnecessary detail about Anakin€™s life, dispelling the mystery of his iconic villain altogether. Just as Joe Wright later did for Peter Pan, Lucas forced a messiah-type plot onto Anakin who we€™re now supposed to believe was conceived from the Midi-chlorians (which are, tragically, still canon). A technical genius (for some reason), Anakin apparently built C-3PO. He also abandoned his mother, and only returned to visit her years later. He also thinks €˜I hate sand€™ is a viable chat-up line. In among all these wobbly plot points, Lucas seemed to forget the important fact that Obi-Wan and Anakin were meant to be close friends. Instead, he presents the pair as rivals, for the most part. And €“ despite having three movies in which to draw it out €“ Anakin€™s actual, final decent to the Dark Side seems to transpire very quickly. It feels like we spent more time on pod racing than we did with the more important elements of the plot. All in all, then, the prequels made a shambles of Darth Vader€™s mystique, making his the most elaborate backstory to ever try and ruin a famous character.
Contributor
Contributor

Film & TV journo. Quite tall.