My Unfortunate Real Life Battle with Darth Vader

If you know me, you know I am a Star Wars fan.


It is not just a film to me.  It is the classic example of Joseph Campbell’s “Monomyth”, or the Hero’s Journey.  This is the very blueprint I have employed to constantly expand my comfort zone.  


So can you imagine what would happen if I got into a real life argument with Darth Vader?


How is that even possible?


Let me explain…


A few years ago I made the zen like decision to purge myself of many items that I collected that I no longer needed.  I wanted to make myself smaller and give someone else the opportunity to enjoy a cool “relic”.


These relics where mainly rock n roll or movie memorabilia. While at one point in my life these relics were very important to me and had great value.  However, over the years, these relics came off the wall and found there way into storage to gather dust.


So off to E-Bay this stuff went.  I was amazed at how much other people wanted my stuff, and I was having a pretty good run.


That is until I placed my framed “Empire Strikes Back” poster signed by the entire cast, some crew, John Williams and George Lucas.  It had a COA, it was professionally framed.  I checked the signatures and compared them to other images of authentic signatures.  It looked legit to me.



Until I received an email from Darth Vader.


No, I’m not talking about James Earl Jones, the voice of CNN, we know as the  epic voice of Darth Vader.


I speak of Mr. David Prowse, the actor who filled the Darth Vader suit for the original trilogy.  , Mr. Prowse was so bitter they dubbed over his voice, he spoiled the end of Empire by telling people he was Luke’s Father before the movie was released. This might be what caused a rift between Prowse and George Lucas that led to Prowse not being invited to official Star Wars events.


It was Mr. Prowse that claimed my poster was fake and tried to block my ebay account.


So I had the following email exchange with Darth Vader hoping to convince him to release my auction from his force grasp:



He asked for all my back up information, so I gave it to him.


Then I received this response:



Holy cow, not only does Darth Vader think it’s a fake, but he sent my materials to Bobba Fett, Chewbacca and an unnamed Star Wars autograph expert who all agree… my poster is a fake.


Did Darth Vader really share my email with Bobba Fett, Chewbacca and an unnamed Star Wars autograph expert?  Just that very fact blows my mind.


Unfortunately I do not believe that is necessarily accurate as Mr. Prowse is very old and reports are his .


Would Mr. Prowse arbitrarily block legitimate e-bay auctions so he is able to sell more personalized photos from ?  I sure would hate to think that.


So what is a Star Wars fan to do?  I delisted the item and and politely complied with Mr. Prowse’s request (even though I don’t think it is a fake).



And now the poster is hanging proudly in my office.  The questionable authenticity has now become a legend in my office.



And that is the story of my real life battle with Darth Vader, errr, well… David Prowse.



 

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