[SPOILERS for Rogue One ahead.]
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Star Wars fans got a special treat when their favorite Sith Lord showed up to represent the Dark Side of the Force at the end of certified box office smash Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Not only did Darth Vader bring out his iconic red lightsaber, he also got to flash his terrifying Force powers, tossing the crew of the Rebel flagship around like rag-dolls (only to watch the Death Star plans disappear through the airlock into Princess Leia's ship).
As if that cinematic nostalgia-trip weren't enough, there's now a 16-bit rendering of Vader going berserk on all those poor Rebels that will remind everyone of the classic Star Wars games from Super Nintendo. This is but the latest fan-made rendering of the now-famous Rogue One sequence - one that has also been reimagined by way of LEGO animation now.
In this YouTube video from Mr. Sunday Movies, we see Rebels with their guns out, thinking they're ready for what's about to hit them. (Spoiler alert: They're not ready.) Darth's red saber ignites, lighting up the darkness with an appropriately devilish glow. The Rebels fire off a barrage of blaster shots but Darth effortlessly deflects them (if only it had been that easy in the SNES games). Vader proceeds to decimate the hapless Rebels, saber-slashing and Force-tossing his way through them like a dancer-of-death, just like in the actual Rogue One movie (and the LEGO version) before it.
Mr. Sunday Movies – a huge Star Wars fan as you can tell by his previous output – does a marvelous job not only recreating the final moments of Rogue One but also calling to mind the 16-bit majesty of SNES Star Wars. Those who spent hours trying in vain to fight their way through those absurdly hard games might even feel a twinge of PTSD watching the clip. Even if you didn't make it through the games, it was still great fun slashing away at the endless waves of enemies like a mad-man (until you died, which you most assuredly did, over and over).
Those who found Rogue One, and particularly Vader's final scene, a little too video-game-like might get an extra chuckle out of Mr. Sunday Movies' clip. At the end of the day, is there really that much difference between the carnage unleashed by Vader in the movie and pixilated Vader in the 16-bit version? Mr. Sunday Movies' clip could be taken as the perfect critique of Rogue One. It's literally a video game, but it's a fun one too.
Perhaps the tone of Darth Vader's final over-the-top scene clashes somewhat with the grittier war-movie stuff in Rogue One, but so what? It's Star Wars. If you can't have Darth Vader going haywire on helpless Rebel soldiers, what's the point? You have to admit, Vader's assault does help explain why everyone was so terrified of him at the start of A New Hope.
Source: Mr. Sunday Movies
