Star Wars: Sith Lords

It was actually with great joy that I heard there was going to be a Star Wars Episode VII since I really did not think that the series should go out on the prequel trilogy, which was a very lackluster send off. However, I feel that there is one major problem that needs to be addressed in the Star Wars Universe, both EU (Expanded Universe) and Canon (The Movies). This is the names of the Sith Lords. It all started out real nice with the name Darth Vader. It sounded good, and the character was just menacing as all get out. Then we found out that the second Sith Lord was just named Palpatine, which was excellent too. Now, let us fast forward to Episode I where we meet Darth Maul. All right not that bad of name, and the character while nowhere near as good as Vader wasn't horrendously bad (in fact it was quite good), unlike some of the other characters in the prequel trilogy (yes, Anakin, I am looking at you.) Then we also got Darth Sidious. Here, we begin to enter the stupid name territory. Later, we discover that there was a Sith Lord named Darth Plagueis. I mean seriously, the word plague there isn't even really disguised any more. We find out in the EU that he was trained by Darth Tenebrous. All right, not bad. We are using a word that has a Latin root and means dark or shadowy, but it isn't as obvious as Plagueis. We then find out in the EU that Darth Tenebrous broke the rule of two and trained another apprentice, Darth Venamis. Seriously, Venamis as in venomous. Little obvious, people. Then we go farther back into the EU, and we discover Darth Andeddu (pronounced un-dead-u), who apparently happens to make zombies. Seriously, say what you will about Kevin J. Anderson, who quite frankly I despise as an author, but at least his Sith Lords had names not tags. The names may not have been great, but they are better than Darth Andeddu. Yet perhaps, we should just get into the spirit of things. So getting into the spirit of things, I would like to give a few suggestions of names to J.J. Abrams for possible Sith Lords in Episode VII.

Darth Badu: Obviously this would be a very, very evil Sith. I mean his name says it all. He is bad.

Darth Evilus: On a similar note.

Darth Vileus: You could even make him look utterly and completely disgusting, and you could have him act in vile ways like belching all the time or something.

Darth Chokus: He obviously chokes people a lot using the dark side of the Force. Maybe we should have just called Vader that. I mean it is a whole more blindingly obvious than the name Vader, which could possibly point to him being someone's father, but who knows.

Darth Lightningus or if you want be a little more subtle Darth Keraunos (Greek for lightning): Obviously, he uses dark side lightning.

Darth Decepticon: All right now this one is so very brilliant. It could allow us to join two major money making franchises. I mean clearly now that Star Wars apparently has zombies with Darth Andeddu, all we need are gigantic transforming robots. Perhaps, we could even have a Jedi Master named Autobot. I mean wouldn't that just be an utter and completely awesome fight scene.

Darth Villainus: He would of course be the pinnacle of villainy. The most wicked and hated Sith Lord of them all.

Now, we could also of course go with the first female Sith Lord to appear in the movies. I know that there are a few in the EU. Perhaps one like this:

Darth Neferia: She would of course be quite nefarious. While we are at it, why don't we just make her a Twi'lek because apparently everyone likes Twi'leks. Just look at Darth Talon.

Of course, my main suggestion to J.J. Abrams would be to take none of these names. They are all idiotic in the extreme. My main advice (and trust me, I really cannot believe that I am saying this), take a page from Kevin J. Anderson's playbook and drop the entire Darth thing. It was cool back when we had Darth Vader, mainly because the character made it cool and the name wasn't bleeding obvious, but it is old now and not cool. Mind you this is the only page you should take from Kevin J. Anderson's playbook. We don't need any of the crossing of lightsabers in front of dark side spirits like that of Exar Kun's to banish them. I mean seriously, how did anyone think that was a good idea.

If though, you do want to keep the Darth thing going, then please look at how Bioware has done it in their games. In KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic), Darth Revan's name before he became a Dark Lord of the Sith was Revan, and Darth Malak was named Malak. Or take for an example some of the Sith Lords in TOR (The Old Republic), Bioware's Star Wars' MMORPG. Yet again quite a few of the Darths like Zash maintain the name that they had before they became a Darth. The main point here, is don't try to get overly clever with your naming.

All of this aside, I am looking forward to next year when we might finally get a good Star Wars movie. I will admit that I was somewhat skeptical when I first heard that Disney was buying the franchise, but I became excited when I heard that they had recruited J.J. Abrams. I've enjoyed both of his Star Trek Movies, although the second one had a little too much referencing going on in it, in my opinion. Still, they would have been a far better send off for the Star Trek franchise than Enterprise was. Ugghh. So I look forward to him giving Star Wars the series it rightfully deserves. J.J. Abrams definitely seems to have become The Emperor of Sci-fi.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the Sith Lord names and Episode VII.

To give credit where credit is due, this article was an idea that both my brother, Isaac, and I had. Several of the names came from him.