PT Anakin: My Issues

I always felt the PT nerfed one of the all-time greatest villains. I never had anything against Hayden, as an actor and felt he was fine as Anakin. His acting shortcomings had more to do with script, acting without any physical objects and poor direction.

That aside - it always bothered me how Anakin came across. It seemed he was just another Jedi. Nothing special.

If I had a magic wand and could adjust the PT - the changes I would make:

1. Anakin would start older. This would give us more time to explore his dealings with the Jedi.
2. His ultimate motivation to move to the dark side would have more grounding. I would make it about choices in a war. That he truly lost faith in the Jedi council. That he was truly a good person and wanted to help everyone and it was that passion that led him to seek power. That they did make choices he felt were "evil". For instance, the Jedi were forced to make choices that ultimately led to the death of people he cared about. Such as, there was a primary goal they must accomplish, but in so doing they cannot save Padme (and what he thought were the deaths of his children). This would shake any person to their core.
3. Episode I focus on Anakin the Jedi and bonding with his mentor and the clone wars.
4. Episode II focus on Anakin's slow progression to the dark side.
5. Episode III focus on Darth tracking down Jedi and ultimately his battle with a Jedi on Mustafar. Perhaps not Obi-Wan, since Darth states that the last time they saw each other - Obi was the Master.
6. That he simply decimated the Jedi in their climatic battle. That with the dark side, Anakin was truly powerful. And in his anger and sheer ferocity, he caused his own downfall.

I don't know, just thoughts.
Do you feel that Anakin came across weak in the PT? What would you have done to address it?

 

Funny. George said that he always had people on his neck telling him that they should have darth vader killing jedi in episode 3. He didn't like that idea.

 

I don't know if they needed to show Vader killing Jedi. Alluding to the acts can ultimately be far more powerful.

But, I do agree that he needed to have Anakin spend more time as a Sith without the costume and involved with the Dark Side.

I mean - if we think about it this way:
Episode I - Anakin is light side.
Episode II - Dark side begins seducing him ultimately winning.
Episode III - Anakin is dark side.

 

I don't think that Anakin came across as weak in the PT, and personally I think it succeeded in creating a tragic character and adding volumes of meaning to Darth Vader's actions in the OT. It was a perfect complement to the originals.

However, I do see what you're saying about pacing. The time skip between TPM and AoTC is significant, and ideally we would have been able to see more during that period of time. But at the same time I think that it is essential for us to see where Anakin comes from. How would you have the films address his childhood without us being able to directly see it? Anakin's background is such a pervasive motivator for him throughout his life.

I like the way that everything comes together during ROTS. In my opinion, the build up was clear, but just slow enough to be believable.

 

Yeah, he lost two out of three saber fights against other Force users. And to demonstrate his Dark Side transformation, he murdered children instead of besting real Jedi Knights.


Of course it was a weak depiction.

 

And his "great pilot" moment happened accidentally when he was a small child.

 

Dooku round 1: Anakin, still a padawan with much to learn, takes on Count Dooku the Rogue (sith) JEDI MASTER and MASTER SWORDSMAN.
... What do you expect? He does actually holds a little of his own but, it was not enough.
Dooku round 2: Jedi Knight Anakin fights Count Dooku, who has the same threatening reputation.
... Anakin brings him down pretty decisively.
Obiwan final round: Newly minted sith Anakin fights his Master, Obiwan Kenobi. Obiwan is no slouch.
... If you actually watch the fight, Anakin was constantly pressing the assault. Obiwan was almost always back stepping and making defensive moves. Anakin was beastin it! He was the Pacquiao and Obiwan was the Mayweather. Like always, Obiwan patiently waits for his moment to strike. He finds an opening in Anakins arrogance and makes the final blow.

I don't find any of that weak at all.

As for the killing children comment, we clearly see him in the holo records taking down Jedi. Two at once even. Yoda even said some Jedi were killed by lightsaber so, I think it would be safe to assume that he did wipe out some full fledged Jedi. The youngling scene was done to show how desperate he had become. It was very chilling. And don't underestimate the younglings. I'm sure every one of them in that room could have wiped the floor with kylo ren haha. IMO.

He had a few great pilot moments.
Podracing
Battle above naboo
Speeder chase through curoscant
Knew how to ride a speeder bike
Battle over curoscant (pulling off some slick moves)
Landing half a ship

Pretty great pilot by the looks of it.

 

Did you miss ROTS opening?

 

Or the Pod race.

 

Too much work to film that.

 

To be fair the ROTS piloting is completely irrelevant... Obi-Wan specifically said that Anakin was already a great pilot when he met him. It's clear Lucas decided (rightly or wrongly) to ignore that dialogue and retcon.

I think the pod racer thing is a weak counter-argument, Obi-wan didn't even see the race.

Honestly, I think Obi-Wan's speech heavily implies that Anakin was an adult when he met him myself so there's really no way I can view it as anything other than a total contradiction.

Of course it's certainly not the only contradiction in SW... The OT movies contradict each other.. .the PT contradicts the OT... and the world spins round

 

Even if Obi-Wan didn't see the race himself it was likely Qui-Gon told him about Anakin's Jedi reflexes. He also blew up the Trade Federation ship - even if it was luck/accident his piloting skills probably influenced the outcome.

Of course it would've been better for continuity if Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon switched places on Tatooine and Anakin was older and didn't blow up the ship by accident.

And honestly contradictions happen with sequels all the time. Tolkien had to go back and change the Gollum chapter in The Hobbit significantly to match LOTR (and a lot of minor changes too). So The Hobbit we're reading today is not the same it was in 1930s, it's basically a Special Edition!

Consistency is less important than telling a great story.

 

No, Lucas didn't ignore that. Anakin was a great pilot. What exactly are you expecting Lucas to show?

What does that matter? Obi-wan said that Anakin was already a great pilot when he first knew him. He was the only human to race Pods and he survived the Battle of Naboo because he listened to Qui-gon who told him to feel, not think. He has no experience piloting a starship and managed to do very well.

Actually, it was vague as to how old Anakin was. You just assumed that he was an adult and not a child, as did most everyone else.

"If I'd taken the prequel trilogy to a marketing company, Episode I would've started here [III] and Episodes II and III would've been about Darth Vader killing people. But in the end, I wouldn't be able to write movies like that."

--George Lucas, The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith.

Well, while you have you reasons for disliking how it was done, you should at least understand why Lucas didn't go that way.

"...some of the people had a hard time with the reason that Anakin goes bad. Somebody asked whether somebody could kill Anakin's best friend, so that he really gets angry. They wanted a real betrayal, such as, "You tried to kill me so now I'm going to try and kill you." They didn't seem to understand the fact that Anakin is simply greedy. There is no revenge. The revenge of the Sith is Palpatine. It doesn't have much to do with Darth Vader; he's a pawn in the whole scheme....

So I had to ask myself, what was I trying to say and didn't I say it? Did it just get missed or it is it not there? I had to look at it very hard. I had to ask myself, Is this how the audience is going to react? Fortunately, Steven confirmed that most of everything was working. So I may lose a certain demographic - maybe, maybe not. But I had to make a decision, and I decided that I'm not going to alter the film to make it more commercial or marketable."

--George Lucas, The Making of ROTS, page 188.

 

darth-sinister I always like your posts!

How do you manage do get these quotes? Do you have all the "Making of" books of Star Wars?

 

There is a thread where there are alot of GL quotes. I forget where it is doh.

 

I got the quotes way before that thread was started. I picked them up here and there.

 

There's no retcon that happened. Obi-Wan was clearly referring to pod racing in ANH, or even the space battle above Naboo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree... I'll always view that as a pretty massive retcon.... and "clearly referring to pod-racing" COME ON... he literally said "Best Star Pilot in the Galaxy"

 

Anakin himself says he's a pilot in TPM.

Anakin: I'm a pilot you know and someday, I'm going to fly away from this place.
Padmé: You're a pilot?
Anakin: Mmm. All my life.

It's not surprising that Obi-Wan would describe Anakin as such to Luke given Anakin's own thoughts on the matter and the skills he demonstrates during podracing.

Edit:

Also note that Obi-Wan describes Anakin as the best starpilot in the galaxy in ANH. But in ROTJ, he says that when he first knew him Anakin was already a great pilot.

 

No contradiction. As noted, Obi-wan is talking in two different contexts. In ANH, he is summing up Anakin's life. In ROTJ, he is telling Luke about when they first met. Obi-wan also says that Luke is a fairly good pilot, but all he's flown was a Skyhopper and a landspeeder.

 

I guess you guys missed the part where Anakin was also a "cunning warrior" when Obi-Wan first met him.

 

Or Naboo I said. Plus Anakin said he was a pilot when he met Padme. It just wasn't important to the story so we didn't need to see him in action, at least until ROTS.

 

The "cunning warrior" part is from ANH.

 

"He was the finest star pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior .... And he was a good friend."


Doesn't say anything about that being "already, from the moment we first met" though.

 

Ok - while I still personally think it's a retcon, I could see where you guys are coming from... I was mixing up the dialogue in ROTJ with the dialogue in ANH... and I see how one could read it differently from how I do


. When I first met him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.