The Dark Side. A legendary grouping of words that instantly bring up imagery of epic battles between good and evil, corruptive control over the entire galaxy, and Darth Vader - the most bad ass bad guy ever. Period. But it wasn't always that way. As we all witnessed over the course of three films, and 5 years, what has always been our perfect vision of evil is really just a confused young man in love. Evil born from good intensions.

Truthfully the Vader we grew up with was NOT pure evil. At the end of Return of the Jedi father and son come to terms and make peace. His soul rests in peace. It apparently rests in a more youthful form as well? whatever. Still, for all intents and purposes Darth Vader is a fantastic icon for evil.

I had been wondering how Lucas would unravel this transformation from eager young padawan to ruthless tyrant of the empire. It was a long walk to get from point A to point B. Could they really put together a convincing series of events to make us believe that such a drastic change could take place?

What they did was interesting, and over all pretty good, but foolishly rushed. I understand the time constraints, but to have him go from doubtful Jedi to "My new empire?" in the course of a day is a bit much. Granted it was quite a day, but still. I'm getting ahead of myself. The real reason for the change was love. He did it for love. Is there nothing more noble then that?

Some may say it's corny, and I wouldn't blame them. Love was not exactly the strongest emotion expressed in this movie. Every time Anakin and Padme embraced, the theater would erupt with laughter. But ideally it's the best reason to make anyone do anything. Think about it. The person you love, you would do anything for them. Anything to keep them alive. Even kill a bunch of little kids?. (!?) Ok. Maybe not that, but these were different times. Kids were really jerks back then.

I'm glad "love" was the reason that he leans towards the dark side of the force. It ?s believable and it allows the character to retain some dignity and reality. The audience can empathize with his choices. From there, though, it takes a few big leaps. He goes crazy. Talking about overthrowing the emperor, and ruling the empire their way. Where did that even come from? Since seeing the movie I've justified this in my own mind that Anakin was intoxicated by the Dark Side of the force. He had a taste of the advanced powers the Dark Side yields, and it had gone to his head. It's believable, but it just happened too fast. 3 days. That would have worked. Although maybe not. You can't underestimate a confused environment. When the bad stuff goes down all at once people act first and ask questions later. That can have dire consequences. Like ending up naming your kid Luke. (I'm just kidding, Luke is an awesome name. 20 years ago.) So in my mind ? the transition works, but it was as confusing and frantic to the viewer as it was to Anakin. As it should be, I suppose.

While Vader is the biggest figure in the Star Wars rouges gallery, Palpatine really steps up here and makes his presence known. It's tough. We all knew that the Chancellor was the great sith lord. Mostly because we grew up watching his wrinkled ass boss people around a shoot lighting. But even to those who hadn't seen the original trilogy, it's still obvious from episodes 1 and 2. "Oh the Chancellor put on a cloak. Now we're supposed to think he's someone else? I don't get it."

But again we benefit being the audience. The good guys never saw him with the cloak on talking all deep and sexy like. If they had, then this trilogy would have been a lot shorter. What bugs me is Anakin's naivet?. In the first half of Episode III the chancellor could not have been a bigger supporter of the Dark Side. He might as well have been blowing a horn and waving a flag that said "Dark Side!" on it. He was like a college recruiter for DS university. "There's a lot of stuff they can do that a Jedi can't teach you. Power is only limited to how closed minded you are. We've got a great student to teacher ratio." All the while Anakin is completely oblivious. Sure he's got the night tremors and the fact that Mace Windu hates him, constantly in the back of his mind, but come on! Open your eyes. When he finally puts the pieces together you're so happy for him you want to? I don't know. Bake him a cake. Yeah. I wanted to bake him a cake for figuring it out. It's all good. It would have taken me another couple of days to get it I'm sure.

For the most part it could have been handled a lot worse. You get the feeling that they dug themselves a pretty big hole story wise. 25 years ago did Lucas really have this all in mind. I mean the volcano stuff ? sure, but did he really know how Darth Vader became Darth Vader? My guess is no. But the fact that this ultimate bad ass, this figurehead of all things evil was really a guy trying to save his wife and child, is very sweet. You've got to respect love.