Happy Father’s Day: 5 Of The Worst Movie Dads

Darth Vader — “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” (1980)
“No, I am your father,” (almost always misquoted as “Luke, I am your father”) is one of the most famous lines in cinematic history for so many reasons, which we won’t go into for fear of upsetting our I.T. friends with inaccuracies. Suffice it to say that after ‘New Hope’ in which Darth Vader is the epitome of all that is dark in the force, no one saw it coming that he and the protagonist Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) were father and son. In the second installment of the first trilogy “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” the pair have a big lightsaber showdown. Finally, Luke has his chance to confront the man he believes to have killed his father. Unfortunately for him and for anyone with a heart condition, Darth Vader thinks that this would be the most appropriate time to tell him that he is indeed his father, remember this is just after he had sliced off Luke’s hand. No other time in Luke’s 20-odd years did Darth Vader think to himself, “Hey, maybe I should check in on him,” or wait, even just let him know that Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) is his sister, so maybe he should keep his hands off of her. With this lack of involvement, the scenario was a Greek tragedy in space and made even creepier when the siblings kissed in that same episode. It wasn’t until “Return of the Jedi” that we discovered the unconventional family dynamic in the Skywalker household (or lack thereof). Even in a galaxy far far away, there are dads much much crappier than yours. — Diana Drumm, Rodrigo Perez, Kieran McMahon

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