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CT That Old Man Anakin

Discussion in 'Classic Trilogy' started by WhinyLuke, Sep 22, 2012.

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  1. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2001
    No, I was saying that it causes aging physically, but since we do not see their ghosts, any corruption from the dark side won't be known to us since they died as evil men. Dooku doesn't use the dark side to prolong his life and we know that Maul did, but we don't see what happened beyond the last time he was seen.


    Anakin wasn't evil. He did make a mistake, but it is the kind of mistake any one of us could make. That doesn't make us evil, unless you believe any form of murder is wrong.
     
  2. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Ha ha lol. Just had to throw my thoughts on the subject out there. Me too!
     
  3. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Anakin's soul was damaged from the Tusken slaughter but not irreversibly imo.
     
  4. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Why on Earth is their ghosts relevant in all this? You claim that turning to the Dark side ages your BODY faster than normal. We don't NEED to see their ghosts in order to observe this. We only need to look at their physical BODIES. And those we do see. Dooku does not seem to have aged beyond what is normal and he has used the dark side for over a decade. Over the three years between AotC and RotS he got older but no more than normal.
    So your claim is disproven by the films.
    End of story!

    You still have not proven that Vader used the dark side to stay alive. The suit is what kept him alive, the rest is conjecture on your part.
    Palpatine in RotJ was designed to be ANCIENT. So here he had used the Dark side to stay alive longer than normal. But he was very old so it is no surprise that he looks old. So he is not an example of premature aging as he already is extremely old.

    Aside from another appeal to authority fallacy, has Lucas ever DIRECTLY said that turning causes your body to age faster or that it stops your soul from aging? The two reactions seem oddly contradictory. Turning evil makes your body age faster but it does the opposite to your soul. I would think that embracing evil would harm your soul more than your body. That an evil man has a corrupted, foul soul inside him.
    I know Lucas has said that Hayden is in RotJ to show Anakin before the turn. But I am not aware that he said that Anakins soul stopped aging. Citation please.


    [/QUOTE]

    Again a very simple dismissal of what Anakin did. "A mistake." He slaughtered a whole village full of men, women and children. I would say that is a bit more than just a mistake. It was an evil act and others suffered for it. He killed them all, not in self-defense, not out of any sense of justice. But just because he wanted revenge. He was hurting and so he killed any and all he came across. He wanted to satisfy his desire for blood and he didn't stop until there was no one else to kill.

    Murder, in a legal sense IS wrong. Killing might not be. If you are attacked and kill in self-defense, in a legal sense, that might be justified. If you kill without intent, that might be man-slaughter. This could get you sent to jail but not as long as for murder. Mass-murder is a worse crime than just murder and often carry a heavier sentence.

    In any event, my original point was that Anakin, pre turn, was not pure or untainted. He had used the dark side and committed murder and mass-murder. He had given in to his anger and hate and allowed it to fuel his power and influence his actions. By all of what Yoda says in ESB, that is starting down the dark path. He might not be fully evil yet and of course his soul was salvageable, RotJ proved that as Anakin came back to the light even after a lot more horrors.
    But RotS Hayden had a lot of taint on his soul/spirit. So if the intent was to show an Anakin totally free from all taint, you need AotC Anakin or better still TPM Anakin.

    Bye for now.
    Old Stoneface
     
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  5. bluuu

    bluuu Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2013
    The tonality of your post clashes with the phrase "broader picture".

    For some, yes. Others may enjoy the prequels but still disagree with the ghost change.
     
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  6. T-R-

    T-R- Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 13, 2003
    Exactly. My opposition to the change has nothing to do with my views on the PT or Hayden. Once again, if you want to insert Hayden, fine, just age him appropriately so he looks the correct age. Don't insert Anakin younger than Luke, and looking like the evil, arrogant, jerk he was. That or leave Shaw since Shaw already exhibited the right look.

    Either way, just not a young Anakin.

    Your point has nothing to do with ghosts as the underlined portion shows. It has to do with "causing one to age physically," which is not supported by any movie evidence and is PROVEN wrong by Maul and Dooku.

    Your continued attempts to trivialize his action of Mass Murder is troubling. It is not a mistake, it is an active and continued choice, murder after murder.

    It is not an action 99+% of the population could or would make. Mass murder of a entire camp/village full of children does make you evil. As did his hate for them as animals. As did his murder of the younglings and other Jedi.
     
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  7. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Does that mean Cliegg's hate for the Tuskens made him evil as well?
     
  8. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2001
    Because if Dooku turned back before he died, then we'd see Dooku as he was thirteen years ago and not as he is when he dies.

    Vader didn't wear the suit until later. He survived the burning and climbed up the hill, because of the dark side of the Force. What was left of his power kept him alive when he should of died. Obi-wan tells Luke that he survived due to his own black will.

    "This little scene where he burns his father's body, it wasn't originally in the script. But I decided it gave more closure in terms of Luke's relationship to his father, letting go of his father. Even though later on, as we get to the end of the movie, as he joins the Force, he was able to retain his original identity, it's because of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who learnt how to do that: how to join the Force at will and then retain your identity. But it was his 'identity as he was when he died as Anakin Skywalker.'"

    --George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary.


    For the shot in which Luke Skywalker sees his father appear as a spirit in the company of Yoda and Obi-Wan, Hayden Christensen has been inserted in place of Sebastian Shaw. Following a brief discussion, Lucas confirms that he does not want to age Christensen, explaining that Anakin has reverted to who he was when he went over to the dark side.

    --The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

    "[Hayden in ROTJ] was added because it was a way of finishing off the series. The idea was that [Anakin's] inner person would go back to where we left off when it turned to the dark side -- when [Anakin] got burned up and everything, but before [he] got burned up. So when [he] comes back to the good side of the Force, that it's [his] FORMER PERSONA that survives NOT the DARTH VADER PERSONA."

    --George Lucas AOL interview, 2005.



    And as Lucas says, he wasn't fully evil yet. Ergo, despite his mistake, he continued to be a good person up until the point where he became a bad person and that is where the change occurs.

    Not everyone felt compassion for the Tusken Raiders as pointed out. Anakin's anger and hate in that moment doesn't make him evil. Just that he lost control of himself and didn't stop until there was no one left to punish. What he did later on in ROTS, though, was an act of evil. But it was conscious decision to embrace the dark side and go out to do what he did. That's why Palpatine tells him to not hesitate and to not show mercy.
     
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  9. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Again you seem unable to understand your own argument. You argue that turning to the dark side ages your PHYSICAL BODY faster than normal. This in an effect we would see while the person is still alive. Ghosts are totally irrelevant here.
    Let me try an example to show you. Say instead of aging faster, turning to the darks side gives you a purple nose. We see four people that have turned and NONE of them has a purple nose.
    This would be clear 100% proof positive that this theory, that turning gives you a purple nose, is wrong. But then you try and mix in the ghosts in this. THEY ARE NOT RELEVANT.
    You claim that using the dark side causes your physical body to age faster, Dooku is clearly proof that this claim is WRONG.
    End of story!

    He survived a short while without the suit, had Palpatine not arrived he would have died.
    Oh, when in the films did Obi-Wan say that? He didn't. But he did say that he is more machine now, than man. Twisted and evil. Seems the machine part was quite relevant here.

    And NOWHERE does Lucas clearly say that turning stops your soul from aging. He says that Anakin goes back to who he was before the turn, not that his spirit/soul had not aged. Anakin has reverted to who he was. That could mean that the Force made his soul younger or removed all of what he did after RotS, wounds and age. He retained his original identity, that again says nothing about his soul not aging. It could simply be that this is how he sees himself, or hwo Yoda and Obi-Wan say him.

    So still waiting for a Lucas quote that clearly says that turning to the dark side stops your soul from aging.

    In case you missed it, I said that Anakin wasn't fully evil too. But my point was that RotS Anakin was not untainted. He had done evil acts and they had tainted his soul. So in RotS, Anakin is neither pure or untainted before the turn. He gets fully evil later yes, but that doesn't mean he was totally without evil before.


    [/QUOTE]

    That no one feels compassion about the victims doesn't mean murdering all of them is ok.
    Also that loss of control was apparently not so great as he could kill every last man, woman and child in that camp. It seems he had control enough to search each and every tent and kill all those he finds. Also, Anakin didn't hesitate or show any mercy when he killed the Tuskens, so that is nothing new to him.

    The fact that Anakin didn't report this to his superiors, as he should have, and that he did not seek help for his problems, makes his actions worse. If he can loose control like that, he should have realized that he is danger to all around him and he needs help. But he never sought help from the Jedi and he instead kept this from him.
    Ex. if a person goes out drinking and takes his car. But on the way home, he causes a school bus to crash, killing 50 children. But the driver is able to get away without trace. He feels horrified about what he did but he doesn't turn himself in or try to stop drinking and driving. Those later actions makes the first action worse.

    And again, in ESB, Yoda warns about how quickly hate and anger can join you in a fight and that they are the dark side. Anakin used his hate and anger a lot when slaughtering the Tuskens. So he used the dark side over and over as he killed again and again.

    Bye for now.
    Blackboard Monitor
     
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  10. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    Sorry to butt into your conversation, but I just wanted to comment on this point.

    You're correct in stating that Anakin didn't report this to his direct superiors, but he did tell someone in authority -- Palpatine.

    It'd be like a federal agent not reporting something he did wrong to his agency head but directly to the President or his Head of State -- wrong, to be sure, but he hasn't kept it to himself.

    I bring this up because I think it's important to remember that Anakin was in a vulnerable state of mind and really venerated Palpatine. And Palpatine would have used this event to further push Anakin to the Dark Side. As he says it ROTS -- "it was only natural."

    I think it's extremely probable that Palpatine would have dissuaded Anakin from telling the Jedi by making it seem that they would never understand (since they didn't know their own mothers) and down-playing it by telling Anakin that he'd done nothing wrong and should focus on fighting in the war and saving people, that the action couldn't be undone anyway.
     
  11. Odolwa

    Odolwa Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2013
    Samuel Vimes

    "[Hayden in ROTJ] was added because it was a way of finishing off the series. The idea was that [Anakin's] inner person would go back to where we left off when it turned to the dark side -- when [Anakin] got burned up and everything, but before [he] got burned up. So when [he] comes back to the good side of the Force, that it's [his] FORMER PERSONA that survives NOT the DARTH VADER PERSONA."

    Doesnt this statement make the "Did dark side age his soul?" Pointless?
    Anakin did some bad things before ROTS, But he was still good and fighting the good fight.



    [​IMG]
     
  12. WhiskeyGold

    WhiskeyGold Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 13, 2001
    I think as a ghost, the person can come back at any time and any way they wish. Its up the force ghost
     
  13. Lars_Muul

    Lars_Muul Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 2, 2000
    ^ That would be the best, most simple explanation. That or the visual appearance of the ghost being a residual self image. Hopefully, the next trilogy will shed some light on this so we can be rid of this exhausting debate.


    Samuel Vimes
    I understand where you're coming from and to a certain extent, I agree. Anakin is responsible and he is always present. When I say that he lost his soul, I don't mean that his soul disappeared. What I'm suggesting is that he lost possession of it.
    Think of it as drug addiction. If you addict yourself to a hard drug, like heroin, it will take over your life. Somewhere underneath all of it, you will still be you, but your life will belong to the heroin. You will belong it. It will dictate the rules of your life. It will define you. It, not you, will be in control.
    As long as you let it, that is. That's the thing; It's always possible to retake control and purge oneself of the addiction. That's why you are responsible, even if you've handed the reins over to a seemingly greater power.

    What the film seems to say, though, is that if you've addicted yourself to something harmful and let it take control of your life, then the life you've spent in the company of that harmful thing will not have been your life. It will have been a waste of life. The only life that will truly be yours will be the life you had until the addiction began - and if you manage to break free of the addiction, you'll have to take up where you left off and deal with the things that made you escape into addiction in the first place. You'll have to face those worries and get past them.
    Then, the life you should have lived can commence.





    - All these wookiees are dead.
    - Wesa free!

    /LM
     
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  14. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Not sure your question should be directed at me. darth-sinister is the one who claims that turning to the Dark Side does two things. 1) It starts to age your body much faster than normal and 2) It stops your soul from aging at all. No 1) is disproven by the films and 2) has no real supporting evidence.

    That Anakin, as a ghost goes back to the person he was before the turn, to me, does not suggest that his soul was frozen in time or something. He just reverts back to who he was 20+ years ago and the ghost is a reflection of that.
    Some have argued that this is the only way to show that Ghost Anakin is good, pure and untainted.
    I do not agree with that. When he died, Anakin was once again a good man. Also, as you said, RotS Anakin had done some terrible things so he wasn't pure or untainted.
    So if the reason is to show an Anakin before he did anything bad, then Jake Lloyd should be there instead.

    PiettsHat

    Anakin belongs to the Jedi order and those are the ones he should have told.
    As far as Anakin knows at that time, Palpatine doesn't know all that much about the Force and what a how a Jedi should or shouldn't act. Anakin himself says that he is a Jedi and he should not act this way. He would have been told that giving in to anger and hate is dangerous and so the Jedi are the best to counsel him with this. So it is the jedi that he should have gone to with his problem and what he did. They are the ones who have authority over him, not Palpatine. If they decide that he should be expelled, Palpatine can't stop that, it is an internal matter for the order.

    That Palpatine told him to not tell the Jedi is very likely and he must have doing cartwheels afterwards as Anakin has just made his work that much easier. Why Anakin told Palpatine and not Obi-Wan is probably due to several things. He likes Palpatine more than Obi-Wan, probably due to the former is quick to flatter him and stroke his ego while the latter is demanding and a bit stern.
    He probably also figured that telling Palpatine would be easier as he would tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear. In short, I think Anakin knew on some level that telling the Jedi would have more severe repercussions than telling Palpatine.
    It would be like if a child has done something bad but tells his/her mother as he/she knows that the mother is more forgiving than the father.

    Add to this, I think it likely that Obi-Wan or Yoda would have asked Anakin about Tatooine. Obi-Wan knew he was there and asked himself why Anakin was there. Yoda sensed something terrible about Anakin. So both of them have reason to ask him. IF they did then Anakin must have lied about some of what he did.

    Bottom-line, that Anakin kept what he did a secret from the Jedi and that he didn't seek help for his problems, makes what he did worse.

    Bye for now.
    Old Stoneface
     
  15. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    I can see your point and to an extent agree. The Dark side can be thought of like a drug. The more you use it, the more it corrupts you. I can also see Anakin as someone, after the turn and the death of Padme, as someone who has shackled himself to his rage and hate. He can't let go of those feelings because he thinks those are the only things that he has now. Well, that and power.
    And yes, as long as Anakin doesn't let go of his anger and hate, the chains of the Dark side will always be on him and his choices aren't entirely his own. Ex. in RotJ I got the sense that Vader didn't want to hand Luke over to the emperor and he didn't like what he did. But he did it anyway because he believed that he could not do otherwise. Later Luke proves that he could.

    Where I disagree with you is that this experience did not change the person that is Anakin Skywalker.
    I think it did and he came out of it a different person than he was before. My mother used to work with recovering drug addicts so I met a few of them. And most of them don't like the years they spent as addicts and what not but those years still are a part of who they are now. Those years changed them.

    Young Anakin could not let go of his attachments, he could not let go of his fear and anger. He had not learned the most important lesson of being a Jedi, to be at peace. Only as an older man did he finally do those things. Only as an older man did he pass the test to be a Jedi, to let go of things and be at peace with yourself and the world. So old Anakin is a different person than his younger self, he has done terrible things to be sure but he also managed to learn something from all of this terrible events. So the years are wasted in that he did very horrible things, things he should not have done.
    But not wasted in that how they changed Anakin as a person. Old Anakin learned something his younger self could not or did not want to learn. That is why I have problems with removing all that from the character of Anakin. The full character arc of Anakin Skywalker has both good and bad in it, and an older Anakin is a better image of all those things. Also a young ghost comes of as saying that what happened after the turn in RotS didn't really matter so now they are erased and don't think about them again. Had old Anakin lived, I think there is no risk of him repeating the mistakes his younger self did. He has learned and grown as a character. So it slightly cheapens the character and the journey the character goes on by just showing a young Anakin ghost. That is just a part of the character. As he died an older man, an older ghost, Shaw or Hayden, would show the full character.

    Bye for now.
    The Guarding Dark
     
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  16. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2001
    And so is the dark side keeping him alive.

    Or that it stopped aging. The part that said he didn't want to age Hayden lends credence to that.


    Right, but he didn't go all the way over. That's why it wasn't enough. And we don't know that he went through ever hovel. We don't see what he did. For all we know, they all came out to fight him or ran.

    Except he understood that the only reason he lost control was because his mother died. He didn't see himself as a danger to others, which is why he was with Padme and had continued to have relations with other Jedi.
     
  17. squir1y

    squir1y Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 1, 2003
    Old Anakin was the original, sure. But I like the new version better because Anakin was supposed to be Obi-Wan's pupil and Shaw looked a lot older than Guinness to me.
     
  18. TOSCHESTATION

    TOSCHESTATION Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2003
    But then - leaving aside the confusion of the characters' ages with the ages of the actors playing them - Hayden Anakin ghost looks younger than his son Luke.
     
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  19. squir1y

    squir1y Jedi Master star 3

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    Feb 1, 2003

    A Wampa paw to the noggin could age anyone. Haha
     
  20. TOSCHESTATION

    TOSCHESTATION Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2003
    o_O No, no, no....you're doing it wrong. You were supposed to bring up Mark's car accident from early '77. ;)


    In all seriousness though, while I'll grant that Shaw looks older than Guiness (after all, he WAS older than him), Hayden Anakin didn't look like Luke's father to me, but more like a younger brother.

    It's things like that which make me look at saga (visual) continuity and 'tying the trilogies together' as not worth the effort, when said effort leads to conundrums like the above. Furthermore, I'm a bit puzzled by the creative thought process which labored under the notion that keeping visual saga continuity was of such paramount importance that it required Hayden - and an UN-aged Hayden at that - as Anakin's Force ghost in ROTJ, while at the same time, not even bothering to 'fix' things like the Imp. Star Destroyers from ANH looking like different ships than the ones in TESB/ROTJ, the "Christmas Tree lights" look of the Falcon cockpit in TESB compared with the Falcon cockpit in the previous film, Vader's chest plate/general look between the three OT films and his appearance at the end of ROTS, etc.
     
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  21. squir1y

    squir1y Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 1, 2003

    Perfectionism is a dying art form. Kudos on your desire to keep it alive!
     
  22. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    Note that I didn't contradict you in stating that he should have gone to the Jedi.

    But I think you're missing the point. When you've done something wrong, everyone is taught from an early age to seek someone in authority that you trust to give you advice and help you. That's what Anakin did -- the only problem is, he sought help from the wrong person.

    Palpatine isn't ignorant of the Jedi and their ways. He meets with them quite frequently from what we see in the films, and by AOTC he's already been Chancellor for ten years. More than that, though, the Jedi answer to the Senate; they have sworn their allegiance to that body and Palpatine is the elected head of the Senate and the Republic. I think that's something you cannot ignore when you question Anakin's decision not to inform the Jedi --> he essentially went above their heads to talk to someone who headed up the body they served.

    Where I agree with you is that the Jedi have their own internal rules and for this reason I think that Anakin should have informed them. Regardless, though, I think that ignoring Palpatine's close ties to the Jedi is somewhat disingenuous. Anakin would have taken Palpatine's advice very seriously because while the Jedi are the ultimate arbiter's regarding his training, they also have never grown up knowing their own mothers and so it's understandable that Anakin would turn to Palpatine -- who works closely with the Jedi and grew up in a more traditional home rather than the Jedi Order, for guidance.

    The issue with Obi-Wan is also further complicated by the fact that Obi-Wan tried to tell Anakin to forget his dreams in hopes that they would pass. And Anakin likely doesn't feel comfortable talking to the man about how disastrously that turned out.


    At the end of the day, though, my point was simply that Anakin didn't sit on what he had done and keep it a secret from everyone -- he told important people in his life and those who were in authority. Did he make a mistake in not telling the Jedi? Yes, but I would not say that it compounded his wrongdoing at the Tusken camp because he was clearly being fed lies and misinformation by Palpatine at a time when he was vulnerable and needed help rather than further manipulation.

    **********************************

    As to Shaw and Hayden's age -- I don't have a problem with Hayden portraying Anakin because Anakin never was much of a father to Luke anyway. He didn't raise him, didn't impart him with any great wisdom, didn't look out for Luke's best interests in life. Anakin is Luke's father, but he was never there for Luke growing up and hurt him repeatedly throughout his adult life. Ironically, it's Luke himself who imparted far greater wisdom to Anakin than Anakin ever did for Luke.

    Because of that, I'm not overly concerned with Anakin appearing younger than Luke. In the end, it wasn't Luke who needed his father, it was Anakin who needed Luke.

    I also am not terribly fond of the continuity error of Shaw being significantly (almost a decade) older than Guinness. Now, originally, Shaw was hired only for the unmasking scene and Lucas was persuaded to include him as a Force ghost later on, which explains his casting -- Shaw's an excellent actor and with his aged, tired (heavily made up) visage staring back at Luke, it makes for a startling revelation of Vader's fragility -- of how much his power was based on a lie.

    To me, though, Shaw's age is problematic due to the merging of Anakin and Vader. In the OT, no reference was ever made to Anakin's age, however, we do get several references to Vader's.

    Vader was a young Jedi before he turned to evil
    Vader calls Obi-Wan "old man" in ANH
    In ESB, Yoda says Luke is too old to begin his training

    The last point -- about Luke being too old -- is particularly striking because Luke himself isn't old. He isn't even in his thirties yet. So this implies pretty strongly that the Jedi started training as young teens (at the latest) for Luke to be considered too old to begin. If that's the case, it makes it really confusing for Obi-Wan to have been Anakin's teacher since Shaw looks quite a bit older. Obi-Wan would have had to be exceptionally young and I don't know if that necessarily works.

    My two cents.
     
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  23. TOSCHESTATION

    TOSCHESTATION Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 17, 2003
    PiettsHat, you do realize, don't you, that the above is a persuasive argument for the OT/Saga being about Luke , rather than Anakin?


    But this is again confusing the age of the actor with the age of the character that he or she plays. If the above is a 'problem', then the Hayden ghost looking younger than Luke is a 'problem' as well, your understandable caveat aside.


    Good point.


    Let's leave aside - for a moment - the confusion of Shaw ('77 years old during filming) with the older Anakin (continuity wise, 60 yrs old circa ROTJ in the original OT era time-line).

    If ROTJ Anakin (who also is Vader) becoming a Jedi when he was in his late 20's/early 30's is a 'problem', then this would also be a 'problem' for the pre-Father Vader, ANH SW '77 'Annikin' who was presumably an anxious idealist who didn't want the life of a farmer, like that of his older brother Owen, becoming a Jedi as an older-than-teenaged adult. The only way 'out' of that, I suppose, would be that Lucas in '76//77 had thought that Annikin had undergone Jedi training under his father - as was the case with all Jedi in the earlier drafts of the screenplay. However, Owen not being a Jedi would speak against this notion.

    Of course, you may say that the TESB Yoda line had introduced the 'age' factor. But I don't think that Yoda's re: Luke's age line is as significant as you're making it to be, for several reasons.

    First, Yoda is clearly testing Luke (and Ben), almost in a 'biblical' way. He keeps making 'excuses' to Ben. Luke is 'impatient'. Then he's 'reckless'. Then he's 'too old'.

    Second, the merging of Anakin with Vader didn't at first predicate that the newly merged Father Vader had trained under Obi-Wan. As a matter of fact, the same draft of TESB that introduced "I am your father" also has Yoda stating that both Ben AND Luke's father were his students and had done their Jedi training there on the bog planet. It was only in later drafts that he changed it to Yoda teaching Ben and then Ben teaching Anakin, even though this wasn't revealed until the third film.

    Third: While it's true that Anakin's age isn't referenced in the OT films themselves*, one must 'take the good with the bad' and acknowledge that Obi-Wan or Yoda never ONCE say that Anakin was about Luke's age - early twenties - when he fell to the dark side/was killed, etc, in complete contrast to how they compare and contrast Luke with Vader vis-a-vis the latter's training. Couple this with the fact that Lucas stated to Alan Arnold in 1979 that each trilogy takes place over a period of 2 to 3 years. Given a prequel trilogy spanning 2 to 3 years at the most, this would rule out Anakin being a teenager at the start of the trilogy, considering his OOT ROTJ age, which would make him an older adult when he turned or fell to the dark side.

    *though in conference with Kasdan for ROTJ, Lucas said that Ben was about 70 in SW, and that Anakin was 10 years younger.
     
  24. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    I'm not sure where I suggested otherwise. The OT is, undoubtedly, Luke's story. The Saga (I-VI) is Anakin's and I imagine Luke's will continue on in the sequel trilogy. Regardless, though, the fact that Anakin's story is a thread that runs through the OT doesn't change the fact that it is told from Luke's perspective. And, while I can recognize that Luke's admiration for his father is a central part of his character, in the end, Anakin has never been much of a father to Luke throughout his life (I think we can all agree on that). So while Shaw may represent Luke's idealization for a father figure, I think Hayden is also appropriate in the sense that he reflects the fact that -- in their relationship -- it was Luke who imparted wisdom to Anakin -- who made him "see the light." Because their relationship is the way it is, it's never been extremely important that Anakin appear as a father to Luke. By my estimation, Luke taught Anakin far more about life and love than Anakin ever did for Luke in return.

    But, here's the thing for me. Hayden's age works where Shaw's doesn't (for me) because (with the Hayden ghost) it's blatantly obvious that he isn't meant to reflect Anakin's actual physical age when he died. Thus, the ghost takes on a more metaphysical dimension. With Shaw, there's really no question that the audience is supposed to believe that this is Anakin's "healed" physical form. And it's confusing, in that sense, because Anakin appears quite a bit older than we had been led to believe that Vader was. He looks like a kindly grandfather, which I can understand people would like and even prefer to the Hayden ghost, but which (to me) doesn't match up with the implications of Vader's youth made earlier in the OT. And -- I'll readily admit my personal bias here -- I'm more attached to Hayden's visage as Anakin.

    At the very least, the OT implies very strongly that Vader was younger than Obi-Wan (given that nothing is ever said about Anakin's age, we have to base it off Vader's), not the least of which are Vader's taunts to Obi-Wan about being an old man.

    I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Anakin could certainly have been training as a Jedi from a young age, even a child. Even leaving aside the existence of the Jedi Temple in the PT, I would image in that there could exist apprenticeships and other early education programs for those who wanted to be a Jedi. At the very least, it's never stated that Owen objected to Anakin learning to become a Jedi but rather that he didn't want him to leave and get involved in a "crusade." Besides the PT, another way this could have worked would be to have the Jedi be a form of local apprenticeship/militia from an early age. Anakin wanted to leave and fight in the Clone Wars whereas Owen felt he should have stayed to protect his home.

    Now that's just one suggestion, of course -- your way works as well. Owen not being a Jedi isn't a problem if being a Jedi and Force abilities are inheritable (as the films imply with the Luke/Leia being the "last hope" deal) so this is a possibility. Discounting the PT, an alternative could have been that Anakin showed the aptitude to be a Jedi from a young age that Owen did not. Thus Anakin was taught by their father while Owen was not.

    In regards to Yoda, I agree that he's testing Luke -- he wants to see his commitment to learning. Whether he will continue to push to be a Jedi. At the same time, though, age seems like a very odd thing to bring up if was never a factor in the first place (at least to me). Luke being too angry or impatient is easy enough to understand since being a Jedi has a lot to do with one's frame of mind. But age? It seems a bit odd to fixate on something like that unless there's a precedent or tradition (at least in my opinion).

    Additionally, I think we have to go with what was in the third film because Shaw was introduced in the third film and thus what might have been for ESB isn't really relevant by that point.

    Most importantly, though, the films themselves (and what is shown onscreen) are the ultimate arbiters of the facts because most people who watch the films aren't going to have Lucas' interviews to pull from. So while I can introduce the fact that Shaw wasn't even originally supposed to be a ghost and you can introduce the fact that Lucas saw him as around 60, the fact is that most of the audience will never have any indication of this.

    Either way, my point remains that the OT itself establishes that Anakin is younger that Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan's declaration of Vader as a "young Jedi" and Yoda's implications of Luke being "too old" are mostly circumstantial evidence, true, but (unless Anakin's going senile) when Anakin insults Obi-Wan as an "old man" in ANH, that pretty much acts as on-screen confirmation that Anakin is younger than Obi-Wan by a not insignificant margin. A 62 year old man would sound rather silly calling a 65 year old man "old" after all. The only way it would work is if he was teasing, but I think it's pretty clear that ANH intends us to view Vader's remark as an insult.

    Shaw might have worked better if he hadn't been completely healed -- that way the ravages of the Dark Side remained and his more advanced-looking age would be more understandable.

    Or, Lucas could have completely left Anakin out which, I'll admit, is increasingly becoming my favored option. I think there's something to be said for including a bit of ambiguity in regards to Anakin's fate. But that's another discussion completely I'd reckon.
     
  25. Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn

    Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 23, 1999
    To your first point, I think Darth circa 1977 was probably supposed to be similar in age to the Anakin that showed up in the eventual prequels. However, there is still a way for the merged character Anakin, if instead using the older-than-Darth-age, could still have been considered 'young.' With the anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy approaching, there have been numerous remembrances recently. Many of these make note of his age when he was killed, and consider him 'young.' For example, there is a concert piece called "Elegy for a Young American," composed to commemorate him. Kennedy was 46.

    One might say that perhaps the word 'young' and its application depend on context. When Ben says that line, he himself is an older man, and older people (at least the ones I know) will sometimes consider anyone noticeably younger than them as blanket 'young.' Obviously Lucas went with the Darth age for the character, but I guess I'm just pointing out that even the "young Jedi" line didn't have to lock in that youngest age for a merged Annikin-Vader "Anakin."

    To your second point: Darth calls Ben 'Old Man," but then Han calls Luke 'kid.' Han is only ten or so years older than Luke. 'Old Man,' if we want to really speculate on alternate ways the story could have gone, could even have been turned into a term of endearment in the prequels between Anakin and Ben, used in ANH as a way to twist the knife of Ben's failure.

    As to your last point, I think TOSCHESTATION responded about as well as is possible. I think Yoda was just testing Luke's resolve. With TPM, the line seems to have been turned into a reference to a Jedi practice of old. But personally, (and I know this is anecdotal), I never got that sense from ESB itself. There is a note Lucas made while he was coming up with ideas for ESB where Minch says that Luke's training would be easier if he had started younger, but even then it seems to be a guideline more than a requirement.

    Also, in the Journal of the Whills, CJ Thape goes off to become a Jedi-Templer at 16.

    Can you remember specifics on where this is said (in MoROTJ, I assume)?
     
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