Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Star Wars film (Movie Review Sample)

Pre-Darth Vader Analysis
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Pre-Darth Vader Analysis
The Star Wars movies have had indisputable success in the film industry. Although some of the film critiques relate this success to its religious and mythological themes, (Lyden 2003). Another strong argument puts the protagonist’s character personality in question. The protagonist, Anakin Skywalker, who remains as the only recurrent character in the sequel, has been a subject of psychological assessments, which reveal the existence of post traumatic stress disorder. According to French psychiatrists and psychologists, Anakin Skywalker who later transforms to Darth Vader exhibits significant patterns of instability and impulsivity in the second and third films that make him an obvious candidate for borderline personality disorder (BPD) (Jeremy, 2010). Close examination of traits that are exhibited by Anakin Skywalker in the film in reference to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, reveals that the character fulfilled six of the nine borderline personality disorder (BPD) criteria, including anger management issues, crisis of identity and illusions of invincibility. (Bui et al. 2009)
Anakin Skywalker was conceived in a manner that would allow him to exhibit supernatural strengths and abilities surpassing those of the ordinary human nature. Born as a slave, he exhibited exceptional engineering, mechanical and piloting skills, that would later result in his freedom from slavery. As a small boy, he worked at a craft shop where he earned the reputation of building and repairing any faulty mechanical item. From a very young age, Anakin had premonitions about his future where he saw himself racing in the fields of Tatooine, the land he lived in, as an older man. He had no idea about what these premonitions meant and about his Jedi way of life that was destined to be. From a very young age, Anakin was quite adventurous and exhibited an overwhelming sense of inquisitiveness. He wanted to learn everything about the land and listened carefully to the stories the travelers narrated about the experiences of the land. Particularly, he was interested in the stories about the bloodthirsty savages who roamed the land, as they were a direct description matching his premonitions.
Resulting from the fact that Anakin had excellent piloting skills, and the ability to see things before they happened, he entered a wager that would allow him to participate in a pod race. The pod race required one to operate a high speed vehicle that no human had qualified to come out alive from preceding his wager. However, the boy has lightning fast reflexes, due to his Jedi Force sensitivity, and coupled with his excellent piloting skills he was able to win the race becoming the first human to accomplish such an achievement. This success consequently earned him his freedom. Obi – Wan, who had become his mentor, explained to Anakin that "he was the Chosen One, brought to the planet to destroy the Sixth force, and not to join them, to bring balance to the Force, and not to leave it in darkness." Anakin Skywalker was destined to the most powerful Jedi ever.
Growing up into adolescent, Anakin was also undergoing transformation since he was destined to be a Jedi, this transformation, which he had little or no knowledge about was quite confusing and resulted in Anakin spending most of his time as a loner. He exhibited traits of arrogance and social awkwardness. He had realized he could do a lot more than his peers and this made him perceive them as weaker and insignificant to him. His ability to do what he could, earned him a relative amount of respect in the society and this earned him great ego. He frequently acted in a show off manner. He had realized that he was destined for greatness as he was being described as the ‘Chosen One’. This was a sign of an illusion of invincibility. He had believed in himself as being the "Chosen One" and as a result of this, had a particular expectation of his future that was different from that of other people. This impaired his ability to have and maintain social relationships with other people. His lack of respect was evidenced by his backlash on Obi-Wan who was his mentor. He perceived Obi-Wan as inferior and unsuited for mentoring him, calling him a traitor in some instances, while still claiming he was like a father and brother to him. He believed Obi-Wan did not believe in him and this was the contributing factor to driving him to the dark side. This was a sign of alternation between idealization and devaluation, a criterion of PTSD. He lacked the ability of evaluating this relationship with the people closest to him like Obi-Wan, referring to him as a traitor. Obi-Wan had always had Anakin’s best interest at heart but Anakin and had even sought to train him on the Jedi ways until Anakin became a fierce warrior whose name spread to all corners of the planet.
Anakin at this time had been separated from his mother years ago, while he was still a young boy. He started experiencing disturbing nightmares about his mother resulting to sleeplessness and a considerable level of discomfort. He sought to look for his mother who he learnt had been taken by another man and had been captured. His love for his mother made him decide to go looking for her despite being on a mission to protect the senator. When he found her, she had been battered, dehydrated and sleep deprived and after a short while she died on his arms. The death of Anakin’s mother resulted in an outburst of rage, driving Anakin t kill all the people who were present. This massacre shocked Anakin and revealed his uncontrollable outburst of rag and inability to control it.
Anakin had experienced a lot of traumatic events that may have resulted to PTSD, including being separated from his mother at a young age, losing his mentor, losing his mother and losing his wife (Bandello et al. 2005). With no one to talk to because of his self created superiority complex, Anakin was suffering in silence. He lacked social interpersonal skills that would have enabled him get the necessary help in dealing with such unbearable situations. Anakin had also created a fallacy mindset of self importance and invincibility.Anakin was significantly fascinated by his wife, whom he met while he was still a young boy. He had been separated from her for close to 20 years but after meeting her later years, his love rekindled and he wanted to marry her. Obi-Wan tried to warn him, as this would go against the Jedi regulations but Anakin, resulting from his arrogance and little respect decided to go ahead and marry her in screw, impregnating her eventually. The course of his actions saw him experience nightmares ab...