This is pretty old news. It's a similarity that was pointed out on the great Phantom of the Paradise fan site, the Swan Archives, at http://www.swanarchives.org , eons ago. Their take on it: "The Phantom's heavy breathing on the soundtrack reminds us a lot of the wheezing noise made by another famous damaged villain, who will make his first appearance a couple of years later, in Star Wars. But that's where the similarities end; it's not like that other character has injuries that require him to wear a voicebox with switches and dials on his chest to enable him to talk, wears a cape, mask and black leather from head to toe, or...oh, wait. Yes he does. (As is well known, Lucas and De Palma were friends, and even collaborated at times: they ran joint auditions for Star Wars and Carrie; De Palma wrote the opening crawl for Star Wars; and Lucas hired editor Paul Hirsch to work on Star Wars having been impressed with his work on Phantom.) We think it's impossible that Darth Vader's look was not inspired, in part, by the Phantom's."