LIVE POLL: Which Star Wars Sith Lord Do You Love To Hate Most?

@urbanemovies​ 

They went a bit overboard on the legends.

@cinephile​

Obviously, a function of Disney declaring everything that came before their acquisition of LucasFilm either: non-canon or canon. Most of the Sith lords from the complete list were from books (comics, audio, encyclopedia, novels) and went unlisted in the poll. Even of the sixteen pictured options, they were skewed more to the video game depictions than those in the movies or TV series by a ratio of 2:1. I can understand, as it doesn't really require an investment to make a Sith Lord up for a short one-and-done story.

In the Star Wars Expanded Universe that existed prior to The Phantom Menace, no Sith Lord besides Vader carried an alias bearing the surname/title "Darth". (Strictly speaking, we didn't even know that he had gotten his name from his boss.) Afterward, it became popular for secondary storytellers licensed by Lucasfilm to include "Darth" it the name of just about every new Sith Lord, usually as a primary name. The sad part is that we the audience have never been informed of when in the fictional history of the galaxy far, far away, that Sith adopted this name/title. In my head canon, there must have been a Sith Lord with only one name, and he started naming his apprentices (or scions for that matter) after himself as a sort of family name.

@jeorj_euler​ Interesting, I did not know that.

There was also such a thing as so-called "Dark Jedi", something of an oxymoron, if not merely pointless. Nowadays, it suffices to point out which Jedi are corrupt or rogue (like Krell), versus former Jedi who may or may not have joined the Sith or otherwise learned the ways of the Sith, if not merely being non-Sith practitioners of the dark side of the Force. The mythos suggests that for the most part, nobody can be ever be turned from this dark side without his or her life being forfeit. To me, it seems like at least a few people can burn out on such a way of life.

@jeorj_euler​

Neither he nor Smoke were ever Sith Lords, despite both being Emperors of the First Order. I love the double twist of the prophecy about Anakin, where he goes from savior to annilator, back to savior again in the Skywalker saga. In the end, the prophecy was right along. 

Yes, I know, but the way The Rise of Skywalker was done (resurrecting the Emperor and all), opened up a lot of questions and doubts.

@urbanemovies 

It is fun. But, it is mostly attempt by Lucas to create meaning where they was no meaning. He seems to be the kind of person who is never satisfied with what he does.

Back during the gap of time between the releases of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, some fans were speculating about the meaning of bringing "balance to the Force", in the sense that by the time of the events of A New Hope, there were only two Jedi total and two Sith total, making the two Orders equally matched in quantities of members, but sort of like "a prophecy misread could've been." Of course, that situation described isn't a "true" balance, because the Jedi were already too neutral to begin with, rather than purely or almost purely good, on account of so much corruption in the Jedi Order before its members numbers were greatly reduced.

Darth Chief, as in harbinger of mischief?

@jeorj_euler​

FYI, the title "Darth" first appeared in George Lucas' 1977 film, Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, as part of the name Darth Vader. According to Star Wars: Behind the Magic, Lucas intended the name "Darth Vader" to suggest "dark father."

In the original Star Wars movie, Obi-Wan specifically mentions Darth Vader, referring to him as a young Jedi who betrayed and murdered Anakin Skywalker. Just as well, Leia is the first character to utter the name. Those parts are common knowledge. Only published in the past several years, there is a deleted part of a scene aboard the Death Star, whereby two of the Imperial brass gossip and scoff at the idea of having to work with "a Sith Lord". I'm also well aware that "vader" is a Dutch language word for "father" (and notably the German language word is "vater", all cognates with roughly the same sound but varied spelling). So, in a way, it makes more sense that "Vader" comes from the word "father" more than the word "invader", which might be the same, from the point of view of a mother. (Invading that pussy!) Haha! The interesting thing is that, when time came for The Phantom Menace to be written, Darth Sidious was introduced, and his Sith moniker appears to be derived from the word "insidious".

@jeorj_euler​ Overall, I am impress how well George Lucas incorporated the back story into New Hope, when you consider how detailed it had to be and he wasn't sure there would be a second film? I have caught a few mistakes, but only after repeated viewings, and it was a small number considering the complexity and potential for a lot more.

The original Star Wars almost never made it past the post-production phase, but thanks to the woman George Lucas was married to at the time, the studio was able to release a more than suitable product to the silver screen. The absence of her touch can definitely be felt in all the Star Wars movies made subsequent to Return of the Jedi. Anyway, I tend think of Lucas as a better businessman than a storyteller. He founded the best special effects companies of the late twentieth century, paving the way for The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Stargate and The Matrix, among many. Unfortunately, the video game division (LucasArts) wasn't as profitable as it could've been, so upon Disney studios' acquisition of Luasfilm, many divisions were trimmed down (or disbanded) and outsourced. I'm uncertain of the exact truth of the matter, though, given how Disney hasn't exhibited the greatest respect for Lucasfilm assets (Indiana Jones and Willow, in addition to Star Wars). The amount of money that Disney studios paid to acquire the company was recovered in the initial month's worth of ticket sales for The Force Awakens, a December release, but there always was a lot of risk associated with the assets, because of the varied and potentially-volatile sentiments of the target audiences.

Just to note, George Lucas originally had a vision for every character's backstory different from what was more closely settled upon by the time The Empire Strikes Back was written. He didn't exactly originally intend for Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader to be one and the same. His idea for the leadership of the Empire was that the Emperor was almost exclusively a mere figurehead, no connection to the Force, a puppet of corporate interests, and thus that the Moffs were really running the executive arm of the Empire. Given the way the original Star Wars movie went down, whereby the Moffs were obliterated in one blow, there was a need make sense of the continued existence of an organized Empire under the leadership of the only surviving villain of the original movie. The idea that the Emperor and the dark side of the Force were inextricably linked emerged. By the time of the prequel trilogy, Lucas went with the idea that Palpatine was rather two-faced, thus reconciling the idea that he was a mere corrupt politician with no connection to the Force and that he was also the mysterious war consultant who transforms former Jedi Knights into Sith Lords. Now, we have multiple television series, both live-action and cartoon, taking place during the time in Republic/Empire history in which the Moffs rose to power and Palpatine ceased to micromanage matters of military importance.

@Jessica,

The scope the title refers to is multi-media: movies, TV and video games, not just movies. The puncation mark was a possesive apostrophe, not a a single quotation mark.

What is the rule for when you are referring to combined TV and movie franchises at the same time?

I am trying the ​account for three odd-ball (secret, claimant, and suspected) Lord options. Plus, there are a lot of Sith lords I could not be included, since they have only appearances in print media, like franchise encyclopedias, novels, comics, etc., hence the depicted modifer. The poll really only has 6  depicted Sith Lords from movies and TV appearance, the rest either were mentioned in passing and/or had video game characters built upon them.

Anyways, I re-phrased the selected scope parameters to better say what I meant.

 * answer pool includes declared, secret, claimant, and suspected Sith Lords that have been depicted in non-print media

@urbanemovies​ 

What is the rule for when you are referring to combined TV and movie franchises at the same time?

Don't know, but it might be better to leave it without quotation marks altogether.

I don't think the apostrophe is needed at all, but I could be wrong.

@Jessica​ Fair point, I could see it working either way, but I remove the apostrophe, because it is less confusing with out.

I have spent a little time trying to figure out the single vs double quotation rule of thumb for multi-media franchises and have not gotten a definitive answer. If I had guess, the rule would be not use them, but if forced to use the type associated with how the franchise's originally debuted. 

Replacing "Star Wars Sith Lord" with simply "Sith Lord" would be fine too. I don't know of any other franchise that has Sith Lords.

@Pencho15​ Thanks, if I had listed these as options. I am sure I would have heard allegations the poll vote was rigged.