Did You Know Star Wars' Explanation for Darth Vader's Birth Is Completely Bonkers?

It's time to talk about the weirdest open secret in the galaxy.
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Because I am a delinquent prone to committing myself wholly to ideas best described as "very dumb," I decided to start my week by rewatching the Star Wars prequel trilogy. It was pretty bad! Except for the parts that are totally bananas, parts that no one really talks about, because mention the prequels to anyone and all they'll do is yell about how bad they are and cite one of five truly atrocious scenes; I guess that's how you get your Good Star Wars Fan merit badge or some shit. Anyway, because you're not really supposed to talk about the prequels, I had completely forgotten that they just tuck in a wild tidbit about how Darth Vader was born: Immaculate conception.

I'm serious. In The Phantom Menace, when Qui-Gon Jinn meets tiny Anakin Skywalker and his mother, he goes on about how the Force is like, crazy strong with Anakin or whatever, and then asks his mother about Anakin's dad. Shmi Skywalker is pretty clear in her answer: There isn't a father. She was impregnated by the Force.

Immediately after seeing this, I tweeted about it, because it is a genuinely strange decision that's really not talked about all that much. I had completely forgotten how horny The Force was, and how everyone in the movies just sort of rolls with it. Also, this makes Darth Vader Space Jesus Gone Wrong, which is fascinating. But not long after that tweet, I got a response about a fan theory about how Revenge of the Sith makes this tidbit even stranger, implying that Anakin wasn't just suddenly conceived by The Force, but that a Sith Lord used The Force to impregnate Shmi Skywalker—which would be gross as hell if it were true.

Here's the scene in question, where Palpatine tells Anakin about a Sith Lord who could use the Force to "create life":

Buying this twist, however, requires a small cognitive leap that isn't necessarily supported by the movie. You have to decide that Palpatine isn't just telling this story to Anakin to suggest that the Dark Side is where he'll find the power to save his loved ones, but also because he wants to cryptically hint at his parentage...which honestly, doesn't really make sense, even for movies as garbled as the prequels.

Either way, we should probably talk about the fact that Darth Vader is Evil Space Jesus a lot more. Feel free to bring it up at any and all of your holiday parties.