What Happened to Anakin's Face?

Anakin's face was burned on Mustafar. At the end of his duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith, he lost his legs and remaining arm, slid to the edge of a lava river and caught fire. Palpatine saved his life, but the burns left him scarred, hairless and dependent on the mask and breathing system of Darth Vader for the rest of his life. The vertical scar over his right eye is a separate, older wound from the Clone Wars. (Revenge of the Sith)

The burns: Mustafar#

The duel on Mustafar ends with Obi-Wan on the higher ground. Anakin tries to leap past him and Obi-Wan cuts off both his legs and his left arm. Anakin slides down the black sand to the lava's edge, screaming that he hates his old master, and the heat sets his clothes and skin on fire. Obi-Wan takes his lightsaber and leaves. (Revenge of the Sith)

Palpatine arrives with clone troopers and finds him alive on the bank. On Coruscant, droids work on his burned body, and the mask is lowered over a scarred, hairless face before the helmet seals with its first mechanical breath. How Anakin survived Mustafar covers the rescue. (Revenge of the Sith)

What's under the helmet#

The saga only ever shows his face in glimpses, and each one shows the same thing: the damage from that day.

• The Empire Strikes Back. Admiral Piett walks into Vader's meditation chamber before he has finished putting his helmet back on, and the audience sees the back of a pale, scarred head as the helmet comes down. (The Empire Strikes Back)
• Rogue One. In his castle on Mustafar, Vader rests in a bacta tank, a scarred figure out of the armour, on the same world where he was burned. (Rogue One)
• Star Wars Rebels. On Malachor, Ahsoka Tano breaks the right half of his mask. Through the gap she sees her old master's scarred face, and his voice comes through partly as Anakin's. He still tells her, "Then you will die." (Rebels, "Twilight of the Apprentice")
• Obi-Wan Kenobi. In their last duel, Obi-Wan cracks open the left side of the mask and sees the scarred face of his friend. Vader tells him he is not Obi-Wan's failure: "You didn't kill Anakin Skywalker. I did." (Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Part VI")

The unmasking in Return of the Jedi#

The only time anyone sees his whole face is at the end. After turning on the Emperor to save Luke, Vader is dying. "Luke. Help me take this mask off." Luke warns him he'll die. "Nothing can stop that now. Just for once... let me look on you with my own eyes." (Return of the Jedi)

Under the helmet is a pale, scarred old man with no hair, played by Sebastian Shaw. He tells Luke he was right about him, and dies. (Return of the Jedi)

Interpretation: the scene uses his face to make a point. For the whole trilogy Vader has been a mask and a voice. The first time he looks at his son with his own eyes, he's Anakin again, damaged and human. (Return of the Jedi)

Why the mask kept him alive#

The films never list his injuries, but they make the stakes plain. The suit's breathing system starts working in Revenge of the Sith, Vader puts his helmet on inside a special chamber in The Empire Strikes Back, and taking it off kills him in Return of the Jedi. Interpretation: the fire damaged more than his skin. He could not breathe on his own. (Revenge of the Sith; The Empire Strikes Back; Return of the Jedi)

The other scar: his right eye#

If you mean the single line through his right eyebrow, that's from the Clone Wars, not Mustafar. Anakin doesn't have it in Attack of the Clones but does from The Clone Wars film onward, and canon has never shown where it came from. In the older Legends continuity, Asajj Ventress slashed his face in a duel on Coruscant in Star Wars: Republic 71. The full story is on how Anakin got his scar. (Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film); Star Wars: Republic 71)

Read more#

Darth Vader covers his years in the suit, and why didn't Darth Vader upgrade his suit looks at the armour itself. For how he ended up on that lava bank, see how Anakin became Darth Vader.