Stop trying to apply real life to Star Wars. Star Wars is a fantasy, the OT is basically a classic fairy tale.
They don't play by the same rules.
A classic fairy tale where the entire aesthetics of the villains is drawn from Nazi Germany with new films being released (and impacted) by the rise of white nationalism.
Bringing back Palpatine was bad enough, but in the first two minutes of the film and never giving a definitive reason as to how he survived? The fuck outta here.
I really don't see why it's necessary. It's very clear by how he appears in the movie that he is not fit and healthy and something twisted had to happen to bring him back. I think it's better to be left to conjecture. For all we know he really did get burned to dust in the reactor core and this is his clone in a mangled body. We have not, as far as I know, seen a successful force-sensitive clone. The movie didn't need to spend time explaining it.
Would Vader have saved Luke if he wasn't his kid? Saving your kid at the last second from your boss and then dying right afterwards, is itself a very fast redemption arc, if you can even call it that. How are you redeemed for all the terrible shit you've done, just because you have a single moment where parental instincts kicks in?
Imagine if Himmler had a kid he didn't know was alive, that was fighting on the allied side. Later when he realises that he has a kid, he attempts to persuade that kid to join him and together they can rule as father and son over the Third Reich. The kid refuses, and then later Hitler is about to kill the kid, when Himmler's parental instinct kicks in and he intervenes. He kills Hitler, is mortally wounded doing so, and then dies. Would anyone in their right mind claim that Himmler was redeemed because he saved his kid? Like isn't that the bare minimum as far as being a parent goes?
If the Sith are Space Nazis, then Vader is Space Hitler's right hand man, and thus he is akin to being Space Himmler.
I think the difference between Vader and Kylo insofar as being redeemed go is fourfold:
1. By time we saw Vader redeem himself in ROTJ he's gotten his hand chopped off, revealed to be a cyborg, and very clearly saved his son at the last minute only to die shortly thereafter. He's kinda making his last ever act to save his son. Until now we didn't know how Kylo would die, so the idea of him surviving at all makes it seem like a dumber redemption.
2. We're told early on in ANH that Vader 'used' to be a good person and hero. This doesn't happen for Kylo, who's just called 'a good kid' or something briefly. He doesn't feel like he fell tragically.
3. After all this time, with "The Clone Wars" we've actually
seen heroic Anakin, so in retrospect we can see the fullness of his arc and still hope there's still some good in him. Again, with Kylo, we really have no reason to sympathize with him at all.
4. Vader largely felt detached, in the movies, from the worst acts of the Empire. Obviously, in the EU and whatnot, he was much more involved, but in the movies (and even Rebels) Tarkin and even Krennic seem more involved in the day to day war crimes of the Empire, while Vader just kinda mops up the mess. He's not involved in the creation or use of the Death Star, he's just there when it goes off. Kylo seems much more invested in Starkiller
and Starkiller kills far more people than the Death Star ever did.
