Darth Vader's Performance Review

Maybe I should not try to watch Star Wars episodes IV, V, and VI while alternating them with the Robot Chicken parodies... but I had to stop and wonder the other day. Darth Vader, the right-hand man the Emperor sends out to crush rebels and root out traitors... is actually pretty damn useless.

Episode IV: A New Hope

Vader's Star Destroyer catches Princess Leia's starship just before she reaches Tatooine. The secret Death Star plans slip out of his grasp. He sends troops to find them while he drags Leia back to the Death Star for a bracing round of interrogator-droid fun. He can't get her to talk.

As Princess Leia is escaping - with the Death Star plans - Vader cuts down his old master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. This is about as good as he gets.

Later on, he shoots down a few nameless Rebel pilots who are trying to drop bombs into the Death Star's sewage overflow vent. Then he gets distracted, has a high-speed collision and goes spinning off into deep space... about twenty seconds before the horrendously expensive Death Star blows up in a giant special effect. As Robot Chicken's Emperor puts it, "That thing wasn't even fully paid off!"

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Vader's "Death Squadron" of super-huge ships blockade the Hoth system to stop the Rebel Scum getting away. He's already throttled the flagship's commander in a fit of pique and has handed overall command to a terrified subordinate.

Vader enters the Rebel base just in time to see the Millennium Falcon blasting off. Most of the Rebels have already escaped by this point.

He hires a bunch of bounty hunters to find the Millennium Falcon, after coming to the conclusion that he can't keep choking his officers to death.

At Cloud City, Vader turns Han Solo into a 700-kilogram wall ornament and tries to do the same to Luke Skywalker. This doesn't work out and they flail away at each other with lightsabers for a while before Vader chops Luke's hand off.

Luke escapes Vader, leaving the Big Guy to ponder what the Emperor might have to say about all this.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

The new Death Star is way behind schedule - probably due to supply issues - so the Emperor sends Vader to frighten everybody aboard into working faster.

When the Emperor arrives to inspect the incomplete Death Star, we learn that he knows all about Vader's fixation on Luke. Not at all sad, or creepy, or potentially treacherous, oh no. Turns out that the Emperor is setting things up to "let Lord Vader go" in favour of a new Dark Side apprentice. It seems that being the Emperor's right-hand man is not such a certain thing after all.

Vader lobs the Emperor down an open ventilation shaft, where he explodes. Unfortunately for Darth, all his metal arms and legs made him a human conductor-rod for all the Force lightning the Emperor was throwing around...

Perhaps it's all down to the law of diminishing returns. I'm not sure. I purposely didn't reference the prequel movies when I wrote this - I have my blood pressure to think of. Yet when you take an objective look at Lord Vader's accomplishments over the course of these three films... what does he actually do? Besides crush a windpipe or three, torture a young woman half his size, and chop down an old man with his lightsaber?