The Truth About Who Darth Vader's Father Really Is

The identity of Anakin Skywalker's father has been a point of contention ever since it was first brought up in The Phantom Menace. Now, however, we have a piece of information that might shed some new light on the true identity of Darth Vader's deadbeat dad.

The major selling point of the prequel trilogy of The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith was that we'd be able to see Anakin Skywalker's origins, learning more about who one of cinema's greatest villains was before his fall from grace. In practice, well, we didn't get a whole lot that we didn't already know. He used to be a Jedi, then he went bad, and telling audiences that took six hours and $345 million. There was, however, one Death Star-sized truth bomb hiding in Episode I, and none of us were really prepared for it. When Anakin's mom, Shmi Skywalker, is asked about who his father is, she simply explains that there wasn't one. Instead, she just woke up one morning to find that she was pregnant.

The religious overtones at play here are pretty obvious: a virgin birth foretold in prophecy, heralding the arrival of one who will bring balance to the world. They're also a bit on the nose, even for Star Wars a series where the guy who's really good at piloting spaceships is named "Skywalker," the guy who doesn't want to join up with the Rebel Alliance is named "Solo," and the first hope for the Light Side of the Force to come along in years is named "Rey." These movies have never exactly been subtle, but giving us a messianic figure via virgin birth is on a whole different level.

Except, of course, that there's a twist to it. Rather than becoming the savior that the Jedi have been waiting for, Anakin grows up to put down a bunch of children with a lightsaber, get rebuilt as a cyborg, and then commit full-on genocide by blowing up entire planets. Not exactly what any parents would hope for their child unless one of them happened to be a tyrannical overlord devoted to death and corruption, that is. But we'll get to that in a bit.

Rather than letting its biblical overtones stand on their own, Episode I did provide a further explanation for Anakin's conception although fans weren't exactly thrilled with it. Up until that point, the Force had always been portrayed as being essentially, well… magic! Keep watching the video to learn the truth about who Darth Vader's father really is!

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A prophecy unfulfilled | 0:14
Jedi ex machina | 1:50
The tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise | 3:11
Road to Mustafar | 4:27
An unnatural child | 5:55
Success has many fathers | 7:28
No laughing matter | 9:27

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