PT Did Hayden do a good job as Anakin?

In fairness to Hayden, he didn't even know that he would be included in ROTJ. The footage of him was from a costume test that George used for the film. Much like Sebastian Shaw, Lucas didn't give Hayden any indication that this footage was going to be put in the film.

 

He had the look of Anakin Skywalker but not the acting or personality.

 

I disagree. I think he nailed it; knocked it out of the park. What would a kid who knows he's the chosen one, more powerful than the rest act like? Realistically, it would be like Anakin acted. I think the unrealistic option would be for him to act like Jesus Christ, which is what most people wanted him to be.

 

If he knew he was soo powerful why did he spend half the trilogy crying??

 

Why did he cry about his mother being raped and murdered? Gee, I don't know...

Why was he upset about being held back by the Jedi? Palpatine is in one ear constantly inflating his ego, and the Jedi are in the other holding him back. As I said, it's quite obvious a real person would act like Anakin - not saint like, especially when we consider his past. He was a slave, raised in bondage. He was sick of being told what he could and couldn't do. He wasn't raised by the Jedi to be a beacon of goodness, like Obi-Wan.

 

Raped? I missed that part. He was whining and crying before he found his mom

 

I thought it was implied, but it is irrelevant. Is murder not enough for you?

And heaven forbid a teenager acting like one - I'm sure you never whined about anything. Lucas made Anakin interesting, not just some cardboard cut-out of "goodness."

 

You're right..... Lucas just made him a cardboard cut-out period.

 

What does that even mean? I assume you don't even know because you can't say anything with any real detail. Anakin was anything but a cookie-cutter character. In anything, I'd argue he was the most complex character in the entire Star Wars saga... which is actually pretty obvious.

 

Complex??? Anakin was done in the most linear way possible (in the prequels). Count Dooku was more complex. I always believed that Anakin would be a great, honorable Jedi Knight just like Obi Wan then tragically fall to darkside. In the prequels I never got the impression Anakin was ever much of a good guy. I had NO desire to root for him, esp. after seeing episode 2. In episode 3 you started to see signs that he may possibly become this great, honorable hero, but he flicks a switch and becomes Darth Vader.

 

I think we have to agree to disagree. Anakin was torn in many different directions, and that was where his complexity comes from. Dooku's character was painted to completion by the end of Episode II. I'm glad you didn't root for Anakin, you want cardboard cut-out heroes across the board - I just don't find that very interesting. And if you think he just "flicked a switch" to become Vader out of the blue, I think you seriously need to watch the PT again, because you clearly failed to grasp the point of the entire trilogy.

 

You want details?


Episode 1 - He's only there to say yipee and accidently blow up the main starship.... while acting like he's playing a video game

Episode 2 - You see Anakin on screen for maybe 5 mins before he starts taking Obi Wans head off with his whining. Throughout the movie he downtalks people in the most spoiled way. Disobeys orders, totally screws things up, and makes situations worse. Gets himself and padme captured, gets fried, gets his butt handed to him by Dooku and loses an arm.

Episode 3 - Kills unarmed Dooku in cold blood, as far as I'm concerned he's already Darth Vader in the beginning of the movie. Getting burned later is just a formality. More crying, then disobeys orders once again to save Palpatine after he just turned him in, totally screws up the galaxy for decades. More crying. Kills some kids. Kills some unarmed separatists. More crying. Get his butt handed to him by Obi Wan without ever landing a mark on him. Cries NOOOO. Yeah what a great and powerful character.

 

It's almost like Darth Vader in the OT is a totally different character underneath the suit

 

Anakin was a slave from a backwater desert wasteland prophesized to become the greatest Jedi of all time. He isn't some happy go lucky nit-wit who is a model of goodness. He is a slave for the first ten years of his life, and knows what a ****** universe it is. He feels like he can do anything a master could do at a very young age, because he could. He is being held back. It's like being stuck in the first grade until you are 20. Would that not make you whiny? I don't even accept that he is, as it is just small bits here and there, that betray what is really going on in his mind. He executes Dooku because of Palpatine. If a soldier had a gun to Bin Laden and was told to execute him by Obama, do you think he would hesitate? Oh wait, that happened and they didn't... I guess US soldiers following orders are tantamount to Sith Lords...

I'm sorry you see him as constantly crying. I know you are speaking from hyperbole but if that is your honest insight, nothing can change that. You don't like Anakin and certainly don't try to understand him. He is realistic, and I love every ounce of the character Lucas gave us.

And I agree after Episode I he wasn't easy to root for, and I'm glad for this. Lucas didn't just rehash the OT, he gave us something completely fresh which added depth to the OT and made it even more incredible.

 

Hayden's Anakin was never a version people could easily root for (unlike Luke or Han) before he became Darth Vader. I remember watching Attack of the Clones on opening night and an hour in thinking that the Anakin - Obi wan duel might be in this movie!

 

I disagree. Anakin clearly displays some cynicism, pride, and a good dose of fear in this film. He flinches away from Watto as he's called in to look after the shop. He is well aware that the only reason he's lasted so long is because he's so good at fixing things. He wants to prove himself and be helpful -- such as when he puts himself forward to race the podracer. He's afraid for his mother and worries about not seeing her again. There's actually some pretty subtle Vader hints too -- such as when Watto insults Qui-Gon, Anakin puffs his nine-year-old chest out and crosses his arms. Far from being one-dimensional, Anakin in TPM lays the foundation for all of Anakin's personality, emotional problems, and relationships in AOTC.

I always liked those scenes because it was clear that Anakin wanted to impress Padmé and was embarrassed at being caught not listening to Obi-Wan. He and Obi-Wan don't always get along perfectly, but I saw that as realistic -- Anakin is difficult because he's arrogant and powerful (and he knows it and it is constantly told to him) and he's also well aware that Obi-Wan doesn't believe in him or have a great deal of faith in him. I don't think it's a coincidence, for instance, that when Anakin is angry about being unable to save his mother -- about not being the "most powerful Jedi ever" -- that he is paralleling what Palpatine told him earlier in the film:

I see you becomming the greatest of all the Jedi, Anakin. Even more powerful than Master Yoda.

Plus, the film is an important piece of the puzzle in understanding Anakin's character arc. Whereas TPM lays the foundation for Anakin's fall -- his separation from his mother, the Jedi's coldness, his attachments, his relationship with Palpatine from a young/vulnerable age, Obi-Wan's lack of faith in him, his past as a slave, etc, AOTC lays out Anakin's character flaws, his personal failings that make him susceptible to the Dark Side -- his arrogance, his desire for power, his fear of losing loved ones, his impatience, his dissatisfaction with the political system, his need to be in control, his tendency to challenge authority. And it's in this film that this takes place because Anakin in ROTS has begun to make progress against his own flaws -- he's more apt to apologize, he understands his own flaws, he tries to do the right thing, much more readily. He matures, basically. Which is more realistic, I think. AOTC is basically a film in which Anakin has to face a lot of difficulties and fails -- he fails to catch Padmé's assassin, he fails to save his mother, he fails to save Padmé in the droid factory, he fails to save Obi-Wan, he fails to stop Dooku. That, to me, is good writing, because these failures either augment his successes in ROTS (his defeat of Dooku and rescue of Obi-Wan in that film) or play into his dilemmas (his failure to save his mother clearly feeds his fear of losing Padmé.)

I don't agree that killing unarmed Dooku is equivalent to being Darth Vader, sorry. He was a soldier who was ordered by his head of state to kill the leader of the opposition. Morally questionable? Sure. But I would no more condemn Anakin for that act than I would condemn the soldiers who killed Osama bin Laden on the US President's orders.

And it's clear we don't look at the prequels the same way, but it seems to me that Darth Vader was never meant to be a "great and powerful" character. Instead, with PT, Lucas shows how hollow and empty the "power" of the Dark Side is. In the end, Darth Vader isn't some sort of unstoppable force. He's a frightened, broken, selfish man who was too weak to do what was right. And that's a powerful statement about the nature of evil -- that it is childish, that it is pathetic. There's a reason Lucas chose to portray Darth Vader unmasked in ROTJ as an old, weak, visibly scarred man -- and it wasn't so that we would be frightened of him or in awe of his power. It was so that we could see his pitiful nature and realize that this is what the Dark Side does to us.

I think it's brilliant, personally.

 

My friends and I never saw those redeeming qualities in Anakin that were imposed in Return of the Jedi.

 

Personally I think Hayden did a great job as Anakin.

 

Me to the best part is the fact that he didnt try to be vader too early those making stupid fanservice

 

Yeah! It's not as if Luke ever whined or cried is it?

 

OT quoque fallacy...

 

Luke whines way more than Anakin too