The controversy is going to be that people expect some horrible, horrific thing to happen to [Anakin] that caused him to [become Darth Vader]. It’s much subtler. It’s something that everybody faces–when you’re looking at yourself, you can see your good and your bad, and say, "Is this a selfish choice or is this a compassionate choice? And once I get something, what would I do to keep from losing it? Would I make a pact with the devil to keep it?
Oil painter Steven J. Levin says: “Vader … is the most interesting character to me, the central figure to the story, and a tortured one — the golden boy gone terribly wrong. The setting is Mustafar, the planet where Anakin sealed his own fate — where Vader was born. The thing that intrigued me about the Star Wars saga was the idea of the Jedi as protector knights and conversely of Darth Vader as a kind of dark knight.
“The portrait is of him in that role, as a knight might have been painted, with sword in hand and helmet under his arm, but hopefully capturing some of the conflict in his character. The clouds are dark and foreboding, but the light breaking through above is symbolic of his eventual redemption.”
