PT Did Hayden do a good job as Anakin?

Which I guess goes back to the fact that his acting isn't that great. I'm pretty sure another actor could've given some of Lucas' shoddy lines more inflection and impact than he did. Everything was done in boring Hayden robot voice... I guess his attempt at sounding dark, but it didn't work.

 

Honestly, I think Hayden isn't nearly as bad on repeat viewings. It took me a bit to realize that Lucas may very well have ordered Christensen to downplay his acting sometimes and overplay it at others, to show how Anakin is wrestling with his Jedi teachings of subduing emotion, and sometimes he loses control and the resulting outpouring comes across as whiny and angsty because it's so over-the-top, when really it's all his anger and such finally breaking through the dam. Anybody with repressed emotions knows that when you bottle up your feelings too much, sometimes it can be all the more ugly when you lose control and let it come out.

Thus, I think Hayden's performance was in hindsight kind of brilliant, and everyone just interpreted it as poor acting when it's actually a rather stellar internal conflict being shown. I think the dialogue and Lucas' direction was what made it seem terrible. There's no problem with the performance itself. Especially in Episode III, when Christensen really shined in his silent moments (such as the scene with Anakin in the Council chamber, as he thinks about Padme and her about him, and Anakin reflecting on what he has done while staring at the Mustafar landscape).

 

I honestly think that Lucas could have done better. I know he kinda wanted somebody whiny, but I still think that Hayden didn't do a good job with Anakin's darker moments. I really just couldn't take him seriously as Darth Vader before he put on the mask. It's gonna sound cliche by now, but Hayden just made Darth Vader seem like a whiny, immature, brat and not a real threat.

 

I'm certainly not going to call him a great actor, but I will give credit where it is due: It is clear that he and Ewan put a lot of time and effort into their lightsaber duels. I think actors deserve props for what is essentially doing their own stunts.

 

Another screenwriter should have done a complete rewrite of Attack of the Clones before shooting. Lucas was somewhat dismayed by the reaction to Episode I, and he wrote the next script in a very short amount of time. I think it shows, Episode II is my least favorite Star Wars movie.

But I think Hayden did a decent job with the lines and direction he was given. IMO he was written as whiny (and Obi-Wan as mostly annoyed), because Lucas had been angry when he wrote AotC. So at this point Anakin was supposed to be an immature brat I think, Revenge tried to backtrack a little when Lucas was in a better place.

Looking back, Anakin should have started out in The Phantom Menace as a young adult or at least a late teenager (like his age in Episode II), and then he could have been about 30 or 33 (the Jesus age) around the time of his fall.

Oh well, it's too late now. And I still like the prequels.

(By the way: hi, Dinos4Ever, I'm Derelict in the JPLegacy Forums!)

 

I really think Hayden's joy at being Anakin sort of faded when we see GL literally feeding him lines, telling him how to place inflection on words. I mean, he looks so bummed in those "behind the scenes". I feel sorry for him. He literally was told HOW to say WORDS. That is so horrible for an actor not to be trusted. I guess that's why GL got such young people. Mark and Harrison gave George so much crap. They were adults and Carrie was no wilting lily either, for her young age. He was not GL the legend then. The actors weren't cowed the creators weren't.

 

I didn't really like the portrayal of Anakin in Ep. 1 or Ep. II.... Really, I always thought they should've started it off with Hayden in Ep. 1 instead of Jake Lloyd. Ep. 1's events should've been condensed and combined with what became AOTC. Revenge of The Sith could've been Episode 2, and we could've gotten more time w/ Suited Vader.

But back to the topic at hand, did Hayden do a good job?

In Episode 2, He was too much of a teenage angst kind of character. I know that's why they picked him, and he was good in Life As A House (and he's good in Shattered Glass, too), but he just wasn't as convincing at it in Star Wars. His performance was very wooden compared to his other films. I thought he was good in Awake, as well. Just felt a bit too forced in Ep. 2, and I don't think he came off as natural as he does in other films.

In Episode 3, I thought he was absolutely spot on. Yeah, he had some corny dialogue, but that's not his fault, that's all on Lucas. And Hayden doesn't seem like the type of actor to improvise or change his lines on the set. So with what he was given, he did very well. He was absolutely tormented throughout the movie, and his performance was definitely above satisfactory. He also worked his ass off in the lightsaber battles, to show how far Anakin had come. He was excellent. Him/Ewan stole the show on Mustafar, and all of their scenes together there were phenomenal. I also enjoy all of his scenes w/ McDiarmid.

A lot of people hate on Hayden, but what about Samuel L. Jackson? Look at the strength of other performances he's given in movies, plenty of iconic roles, and I thought he was underutilized in Star Wars. And by that same merit, I thought he underperformed. He was very wooden throughout all 3 films, we never got to see him have a really breakout moment. And I love Samuel L, he's one of my favorite actors EVER. But his portrayal of Mace Windu always left me wanting more. Such a bad ass character, and there were times he exuded that, but it was never as good as it could've been, in my opinion.

 

Exactly what I was saying in my post about where Lucas started the story of Anakin at. He should've started it at the same age we first see Luke. Start it when he's 18-20, have Qui-Gon discover him, living on Tattooine, taking care of his mother. He works for Watto, fixing up droids, and stuff like that. Maybe he has some raw force abilities like being able to pick up objects, basically like parlor tricks, etc. and that's how Qui-Gon realizes he has force potential. Maybe the Tusken Raiders can kill Shmi in Ep. 1, and that's why he leaves with Qui-Gon, we could've gotten rid of all that pod racing stuff right there. Qui-Gon could still take him to Coruscant, and the Jedi denounce him, Yoda mirroring his OT words, "Too old to begin the training", etc. He could still help in the battle of Naboo, by using his pilot skills. Maul vs Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon can still happen the same way it did. Obi-Wan trains him. Then in Episode II go into the clone wars, have the seeds of that planted in Ep. 1, and move onto the actual war.

Ep. II fast forwards into the actual Clone Wars, maybe we can even be thrown right into the action with the Battle of Geonosis, kicking it all off, I don't know. There's plenty of different ways you could approach it. Maybe the events span a certain time period and by the end of the film, we are dealing with Anakin's fall, and he turns to the dark side in Ep. II.

Then in Ep. III, we can see the Jedi Purge!!!

The story was too stretched out in the prequels, and didn't focus on what it really should've. But I still love the prequels, and Revenge of The Sith might even be my favorite episode of Star Wars, as crazy as that might sound to some.

 

Agree strongly. I've actually written a synopsis for my own version of the prequels that follows a similar concept. I should really share it sometime...

 

Hayden did a great job in his role .

 

Hayden did a good job. I think he especially stepped up his game in ROTS.

 

Hayden did the best he could with what he was given. Even the future Academy Award winning actress Natalie Portman has several scenes in the trilogy which were awkward and poorly delivered ("it's only because I'm so in love.... then love has blinded you? ... but it's probably true")

 

I agree with this. There is only so much an actor or actress can do with the lines he or she is given.

 

yes, Hayden was great. No apologies folks.

 

Episodes 1 and 2 are kind of pointless the events in ROTS should be episodes 1-3

 

What an absolute fantasy you have constructed!

 

i liked him. its not his fault the script was cheesey

 

I think his rots performance was great his atoc performance was good but the script could have been better

 

I guess you don't watch bonus footage.



4:10. Not it's not overt, but actors hate it. Can you imagine Patrick Stewart tolerating that? It's been shown in more than this featurette too.

 

I watch bonus footage, all of it available. You must have giant muscles in your legs!

 

I don't get it. We'll agree to disagree since you just make comments and don't really explain why you feel that way.

 

I thought Hayden looked pretty dark.

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An actor can only do so much with the lines that he was given.

 

That's just another big reason the Prequels had failed for so many people. Nobody thought he would be fifteen years younger than Obi-Wan, let alone a child. He should have just picked one actor to play Anakin — a teenager, in fact. Although, I wouldn't have chosen Hayden (yeah, I checked out that tv show that he was in back then and knew he couldn't pull it off from the start), he would have been 18 at the time and much better than a 9 year old Jake Lloyd.

 

I thought Hayden did really well with the darker moments he was given. Actually, it even seemed like that was his forte, whenever there was a scene that came about when he needed to be pissed off or looking evil, he pulled it off to me.

I can see how Hayden's performance kind of ruins Vader though. But the OT portrays him to be an emotionless tyrant, the classic Vader we all fell in love with.