Will the Dark Side win in Cracked's Adventures in Jedi School mini-series? The only way to know is to watch!

Darth Vader and his underlings planned every last subtle detail, right down to the color of the spaceships and Vader's own robot voice, according to what science says works.

The Rebels got lucky. Han, Luke, Leia, that Nib-Nub guy who flew with Lando, all of them should have been death-starred hard in the face by the Empire -- and not just because of the Empire's superior numbers and technology.

5 The Color Black Is Scientifically Proven to Intimidate People

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At the beginning of Episode IV, stormtroopers blast the crap out of some rebel scum. As the smoke clears, out steps a 6-foot-6-inch black-suited man-giant. We realize immediately that this dude is bad as hell, and he's done nothing more than appear on screen for a few seconds.



Also, he does this.

And It Works Because ...

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We know what you're thinking: Big deal. Bad guys always wear black. It's an easy way for the audience to know they're evil.

Yeah, but ... why? Why would that one color have any emotion connected to it at all, let alone fear and intimidation?

After all, black also makes us more aggressive. Researchers back in the late 80s noticed that hockey teams in black uniforms earned more penalties and generally played a meaner game, and not all by mere coincidence. Teams that switched to black mid season were suddenly visiting the penalty box and calling the ref a dick a lot more often, too.

The answer may go back to our built-in fear of disease and uncleanliness; experiments show that people instinctively connect black not only with evil and immorality, but contamination and sickness (if you noticed a patch of skin or one of your teeth turn black, you wouldn't assume it was a good thing).



By the way, there's no way he could've brushed his teeth with that thing on.

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So when people see black, to this day it serves as an instinctual cue to thoughts of death and evil that, at least in Western cultures, motivate feelings of aggression.