Christensen, you're smarter then most give you credit for!

And he is! Very intelligent young man! But, to business!

I was pondering a while ago on why the whole Hayden-is-a-wooden-actor thing is such a big deal. We all know that SW isn't a movie that rides solely on it's actors backs, it's a visual movie.

I admit, (no spite against you Hayden!) that I once thought that Hayden's acting was not up to scratch, he was fairly new in AOTC, and the bluescreen must have been daunting.

So then I decided to ponder the actual character Hayden had been assigned. Anakin Skywalker has always entailed so much to so many. I couldn't help but notice when he was "Anakin" you couldn't help but love him, and watch him and try to draw some parallels between he and Vader. But when he merged into "Vader" you hated him with a vengeance! We all knew he was going down a terrible path, we all hated the contrast between Vader and Anakin. So what if that had actually been Christensen's intention? What if that is what he and GL had planned all along? To instill such a broad range of feelings in one (albeit, a confused one!) character? Like I said, smarted then we've given him credit for!

Feel free to discuss!

Cheers_Cazza

 

I do not fault Hayden, or any other actor in the PT. Ewan and Ian are both accomplished in their respective media (movies and stage), yet at times both had their 'wooden' or 'corny' dialog moments in the PT.

What I noticed about Hayden only after the completion of the trilogy is that his voice cadence matches up pretty well with that of JEJ's in the OT. More impressively IMO, his gait while leading the Temple massacre was dead-on OT Vader, and his saber action against Kenobi on Mustafar as Anakin's saber strikes side-to-side against the walls of the control room hallway match perfectly with Vader's style in TESB.

So Mr. C. did pretty good on the leash that Lucas held.

 

i agree with you and i would like to say that i never had any problem with his acting. i dident even fined out that thats what people dident like him for until a whole year after the movie came out! i just never had a problem with the acting in that movie and if i ever thought there was a problem it had to do with story only. people can say what they want about TPM but AOTC was allmost as good as ROTS if you ask me. it got a bad rap and it should have dun better at the box office.

 

He did well with what he had to work with.

 

Don't forget when Padme asked him to do that thing for her...
"Don't ask me to do that. Make a motion in the Senate where that kind of request belongs."

I found his finger point and cadence to be very Vaderish. When he back-handed Kenobi and had his chin down as he stepped forward... that was Vader. And the most Vaderish of all was the near infamous line: "This is the end for you my, Master." --That line and its delivery screamed-of Classic Vader. Hayden was only wooden when Lucas directed him to be so.

The scene that Chron mentioned was awesome,
[image=http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z274/EyeBashBadWriting/Sparks02.jpg]
[image=http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z274/EyeBashBadWriting/Sparks04.jpg][image=http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z274/EyeBashBadWriting/Sparks03.jpg]


it reminded me of the Bespin walkway... when Vader took the glancing shot on the upper arm.

 

Very nice photo montage, Sx3! Very nice indeed!

Good points on the Padme 'finger' and other 'Must-be-far' scenes too.

 

yes, very good points..he was very "vaderish" ,the lowering of the doors was also very "vaderish" to me also.

 

I wonder if Hayden imagined the breathing noise when he said any of his lines.

 

Heck I wonder if they had to reshoot once or twice due to him MAKING the breathing noise while doing the hand thing...

I know I would have.

"When I left you I was but the Learner..." --They would have gotten sick of me walking around the set. I also would have tried to Force-choke every person that walked by.

 

Yeah, Hayden's matching JEJ's speech patterns I think may be the source of much of the complaint, but at least imo for some reason it overall sounds better with JEJ's more imposing voice than it does Hayden's. I mean, I think he was fine in RotS and the majority of the lines that seem off in AotC are just lines that I don't think you could deliver convincingly like "I don't like sand."

Edit: I do think he did a better job as a 'young Vader' in RotS than he did as 'Padawan Anakin Skywalker' though. However, that may just be because I prefer everyone in RotS to their AotC counterparts.

 

Nice! Brings to mind my 'wish' for Anakin's dream sequences . . . I would have totally fangasmed if, just as the Padme dream sequence ends in ROTS, Anakin stops his tossing in bed and rolls onto his back. Lying still, he starts a rythmic breathing like Vader's, his eyes suddenly snapping wide open, Anakin soaked in sweat, expressions of fear and panic on his face!

 

Yes indeed, there are lots of parallels there! I remember the, "Don't ask me to do that!" mirrored starkly, and if not a little creepily with "That name no longer means anything to me!" The body language is chillingly similar.

I understand that a lot of people aren't comfortable with AOTC Anakin, indeed he does come across as awkward, uneasy and nervous. But again, to HC intelligence, it wasn't Hayden who was awkward, uneasy and nervous, it was Anakin. Think of his situation? Awkward with Obi-wan because of their strained relationship and because of Padme. Uneasy because he is going down a dark road, uneasy because of his mother, and again, Padme. Nervous... because of Padme.

I couldn't help but think that Hayden was so good, that he fooled everyone into thinking he wasn't! He must be laughing to the bank!

Cheers_Cazza

 

Too bad the moron was soo blinded by rage that he couldn't put 2 and 2 together. He never saw himself in the dreams, just Padme and Kenobi. They were both on Mustafar... what was the dream trying to tell him? Not that Padme would die in child birth... the dream was telling him that HE WOULDN'T BE THERE when his kid(s) were born. Idiot.

 

[image=http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee76/samurai_3/balcony.jpg]

Hayden as classic vader on the bridge of his Star Destroyer from Empire.Looking good!




[image=http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee76/samurai_3/Haydenasvader.jpg]

Hayden as classic vader himself.Not so good


Two things that where seriously missing from Anakins/Vaders manuerisms was his finger point and his Akimbo stance.Ok,nothing so far and then we get to the end of Rots,here he comes,Darth Vader,The Black Knight himself, walking ominously towards The Emperor and Tarkin with cape swaying.Vader stands next to The Emperor and folds his arms? We can't get the Akimbo stance for the last DV shot of the movie?


Now that it's all said and done I think GL missed the mark with Anakin.

 

Great thread, and I agree 100% with it. Hayden Christensen gave an underated performance, imho. Lots of thoughts running through my head:


1. When he needed to be great, he was exceptional. And that's tough to do, when your director says the number one thing he hates about making movies is directing. And when the director, who is a poor writer, decides to write the dialogue on top of it. Green screens and Portman aren't helping any, either.

2. Most of the time, he was great in RotS. With the exception of the disaster that was AotC, he is a tremendous actor in general (check out Shattered Glass if you don't believe me). But he got killed with the love scenes and the scene with going to tell Mace Palpatine is Sidious. Other than that his performance was remarkable. He did a lot of little things that that added to his performance that people maybe didn't pick up on, like changing how he spoke to match's Vader's in the OT, which I thought he did well. But his gestures and facial expressions thoughout RotS were brilliant. Like when he's talking to Padme and his eyes shoot up when he senses Obiwan. That always stood out to me. And the look he gives Obiwan when he says, "this is the end for you, my master" if that isn't Vader, I don't know what is.

3. I believe in the future, Hayden's performance will be acknowledgedd in a far more positive light.

4. And to clarify, Hayden Christensen is a very smart guy. He turned down a tennis scholarship to Harvard University to get into acting.

 

The ability to play tennis is insignificant next to the power of the flick.

 

^^^^^^^


But he got killed with the love scenes and the scene with going to tell Mace Palpatine is Sidious. Other than that his performance was remarkable.

But remember, those werent his idea. Hayden only did what GL told him to.

 

I think he did a great acting job and critics should stop hassling him. The movies/dialogue are of an epic nature, and he was very flexible in bridging the gap between a cute Jake Lloyd and an ominous JEJ.

Nice! Brings to mind my 'wish' for Anakin's dream sequences . . . I would have totally fangasmed if, just as the Padme dream sequence ends in ROTS, Anakin stops his tossing in bed and rolls onto his back. Lying still, he starts a rythmic breathing like Vader's, his eyes suddenly snapping wide open, Anakin soaked in sweat, expressions of fear and panic on his face!

Remember now, he did have that Force experience in the cave (where he had the blue body tattoos) that forsaw he was going to become that which he sought to destroy and gave him a glimpse of Vader on the cave wall. I have since wondered if when he became Vader he remembered that experience and was kicking himself in the ass for not being more attentive.

 

Right.
And that "Anakin tells Mace about Palpatine" dialogue was some of the worst ever. Even for Star Wars.

 

I do wonder how badly that scene was hacked up. Half the time the dialogue was barely in sync.

 

A Sith.................Lord?

 

IYO. I don't see the problem with it, unless Anakin and Mace aren't being emotional enough or something.

 

That has to be the absolute worst line in all of Star Wars. Had Sam Jackson said it differently it may have worked better but the way he says it is terrible.

But really if you think about it he and the other Jedi Masters just seem way to calm before they go confront Palpatine. As if he's just another Chancellor who happens to be a Sith. They should look nervous... Mace should show more emotion. But what do I know.

 

I don't know, calmness makes sense to me for Mace given the Jedi Code. I thought the problem was just the oddly long pause.