I’VE ACCEPTED that there will be only six Star Wars films instead of the nine I had been looking forward to since 1977, so I won’t get to see how good finally triumphs over evil in the galaxy. Now, all I want from George Lucas is to turn Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader for me.

I was 10 when the original came out. I saw it, I made the model X-wing fighter, I played lightsabers with my friends, and we talked about what the three trilogies would cover. That was almost 30 years ago, but if you ask me to name the single-greatest movie character of all time, it’s still no contest: I am 10 years old, looking up at that big screen with that music thumping, and that masked, caped, heavy-breathing, black-suited wrecking ball of evil is striding down that hallway, looking for the princess.

Darth Vader’s all-encompassing malevolence was only heightened by his having once been Obi-Wan’s friend, and his greatest disappointment. This "dark side" of the Force was no wussy Zen-babble plot filler; it turned a Jedi knight into this walking black hole. The 10-year-old mind reeled.

Admit it, any other character could have been killed off at the end of the first movie. Luke? Please. Leia? That crush passed quickly. Han Solo was the film’s other great character, but his function could have been filled.

But if Darth Vader’s ship had blown up, instead of spinning off into space, our hearts would have secretly sank. There could have been no sequel. Sure, the real enemy became the Emperor, but he was just another fun but disposable cartoon ogre, created to be defeated. We’ve seen ’em come and go, from Hansel and Gretel’s witch to Alan Rickman in Die Hard — they serve their purpose well, but ultimately they’ve got to end up roasting in the oven or plunging to the pavement.

So Darth got to have his arc played out, turning back to good and giving his life to save his son from the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, then lifting off his mask for a final farewell. Then, in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, he got to have his early days, before he turned to the dark side, with adolescent troubles and falling in love and heroism. All fine.

But now he needs to turn into Darth Vader. That’s what this is all about, the 28 years, the hundreds of millions of dollars. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, when my friends and I talked about Episodes I, II, and III, we weren’t making up scenarios for how Obi-Wan became a Jedi, or how Han Solo hooked up with Chewbacca, or even how all the Force/Empire/Jedi stuff came about. We focused on Darth Vader turning to the dark side. That was what it was about: the creation myth for the monster.

There must be a moment in Revenge of the Sith when we realize that Anakin is gone, that he will never be back (until the last reel of Return of the Jedi), and that Darth Vader is born. That’s the moment I’ve been waiting for.

It would be cool if it turns out to be a great creation story, even if it’s goofy — hey, the best comic-book creation stories are goofy. But they’re crucial: anybody who likes Superman, Batman, or the X-Men can tell you the superheroes’ creation stories, and those of their best archenemies.

I hope the rest of the movie, the rest of the story line, is good, entertaining, and satisfying. But if it’s only so-so, or if it doesn’t make sense, I can live with that. It’s only a movie.

Darth Vader is more than that, and it’s time for him to be born.

— David S. Bernstein