Now that the Force has awakened, most, if not all, sites featuring production news and rumors for upcoming Star Wars movies have shifted their attention to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is scheduled to be released in theaters December 16th, 2016. (If you thought this post was going to be about Episode VIII, sorry to disappoint.)
I opened Facebook on my phone the other day to check the details of an activity and at the top of my feed was an article titled, "Darth Vader's Scenes in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Described As Brutal". My curiosity was piqued so I decided to see what it had to say. (Click here to read the article for yourself)
I remember reading an article a few months back that said Rogue One would set itself apart from other Star Wars movies by not having any Force-using/lightsaber wielding characters. The original concept of this movie, as described in early reports after it was first announced, was for it to be a gritty, more militarized story set in the Star Wars universe. However, over the past month or two I have seen more and more articles popping up about the possibility of Darth Vader showing up in the new film. Since he has been considered one of the most formidable film villains of all time, I think it would be a great idea to work him into the movie!
What really intrigued me about the article I read was the possibility of Darth Vader being portrayed as ruthless in Rogue One, and the potential display of violence that would accompany any scenes with him. One possible example of his unyielding behavior could include using bodies on the battleground as human shields. According to the original report on this rumor, the concept art depicts possible scenes in the upcoming movie as "more violent than what we’ve seen Darth Vader do on screen before."
The original trilogy was released before my time, so I would love to see Darth Vader in action on the big screen! Sure, the iconic suit showed up at the end of Revenge of the Sith, but he did little more than stand around for a brief amount of screen time. I think it would be awesome to see a new portrayal that gives the character more gravitas as the ultimate bad guy (and potentially re-establishes him as the greatest movie villain).
At the end of the article I saw on Facebook, the author said if these rumors of a more violent version of Darth Vader turn out to be true and these scenes are included in Rogue One, "there's a good chance that the standalone film could get a Rated-R rating, but I highly doubt they'd show something violent enough to get that rating." I highly doubt this as well. Star Wars has always been a franchise made with kids in mind (just look up any of the plethora of the interviews available online where George Lucas makes this point). With that being said, Darth Vader can still show up as a force to be reckoned with while keeping the violence and gore to a minimum.
I consider the portrayal of The Joker (RIP, Heath Ledger) in The Dark Knight to be one of the greatest movie villain performances ever. The Joker was a rather violent character but a lot of his more disturbing actions happened off-screen (such as "Let's put a smile on that face"). Darth Vader could easily be portrayed as a merciless character in Rogue One by implying a lot of his cruel behavior rather than showing it explicitly on screen.
In conclusion, a question for anyone who reads this post: Do you consider off-screen violence to be as bad as on-screen violence?
I think off-screen can be worse than on-screen. I am one who's imagination can often over-react to these types of situations. I'd probably imagine something worse than what was initially intended.
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