Full Series Does Anakin act different in the series, or is that just me?

I enjoy Anakin in TCW much more than the PT, but I consider it to be more of a supplement to the character than an outright contradiction. We can fanwank it like this: TCW is baseline Anakin, how he normally is. PT Anakin (AOTC and ROTS) is going through some of his worst moments.

 

I don't really think it needs "fanwanking." I honestly don't think PT Anakin even establishes a reliable enough baseline for one to claim that he did something out-of-character - his character is constantly wildly fluctuating in Ep. II and Ep. III. That's a big reason why I don't find the story of Anakin in the PT alone to be one I can identify with and I don't sympathize with his reasons for turning evil at all. He just seems nuts. But when you add all the stuff from TCW, he actually seems sane now, and I can identify and sympathize with his reasons for turning evil. To me the character only works with TCW's help, and the guy the PT alone portrays doesn't make much sense (or have much appeal).

Also, the irony just hit me: the downfall of Anakin is supposed to be the story of how he became a different person...and we're debating whether him behaving seemingly out-of-character makes it impossible for him to be the same person. As if suddenly deciding to switch Force affiliation and slaughter everyone that had been on your side for the past decade is somehow more wildly out-of-character than having a less whiny inflection. Kind of silly in my opinion.

 

IMO, TCW didn't really fix the problem since it's still sandwiched between two movies filled with plenty of Anakin-angst.

In AOTC he's so preoccupied with Padme to the point of obsession and is heart broken if his feelings are not returned. And he's so frustrated with Obi-Wan being "overly critical," etc. He just doesn't really click with anyone. Padme and him then get married in secret.

Then TCW which takes place soon thereafter has Anakin far more arrogant, though in a smug way, not in a "waaaah, I'm going to be the best Jedi ever!" way. He has way more personality, he's much better friends with Obi-Wan, despite one of their last exchanges in AOTC being Obi-Wan threatening Anakin that he'll be expelled from the Jedi Order and with Anakin's arrogance nearly costing both him and Obi-Wan their lives.

ROTS also made it seem like Anakin hardly got to see Padme during the war. The fact that she was pregnant made it clear that he did see her during the war, but she was distraught, having heard rumors that he was dead and suggests that she hasn't seen him in the better part of the war's last year to tell him of her pregnancy. But TCW just made it seem like he saw her every weekend.

I kind of feel like TCW Anakin was the Anakin that we needed in between TPM and AOTC, which we didn't get to see because of how the movies were set up. TCW makes Anakin more likable, but it still seems like a sudden turn of character so soon after AOTC and before ROTS, where he regresses back into being emotionally unstable.

 

Yoda: Why wish you become Jedi?
Luke: Well, mostly because of my father, I guess.
Yoda: Ahh...father. Powerful Jedi was he. Powerful Jedi.

TCW portrayed Anakin just as that. Powerful. The PT did a very poor job in displaying the overall Force power of Anakin and, also, the way his duel with Obi-Wan ended was pathetic. TPM presented Anakin as this incredibly powerful person, but AOTC did very little to build on it. TBH, Dooku should've been defeated in AoTC - not the start of RoTS.

 

To be fair, TCW in its last 4 episodes gave us a decent enough reason for his regression. The Jedi screwed over his apprentice, they might just screw him over as well.

Then they take the stupid up to 11 when they go and ask him to spy on Palpatine.

Palpatine, who has become his close friend, (in his mind anyway), who is the only person he feels able to confide in about certain things, such as his fears for Padme.

Yeah. I can see him getting a bad attitude.

 

Dark Lord Tarkas: Well again, you can say "people are complex" or blame Hayden's acting if you want, which do sound like attempts to try to make TCW Anakin work, but I don't think they're good supporting points.

That said, I can hardly tell anyone which Anakin is "done better".. I know I like some characters in stuff that doesn't go with their film depiction. We all like what we like.

 

Honestly, of all the problems I have with PT Anakin, that's not one of them. He has the Force potential from the midichlorians but he still needs to develop his skills, which his arrogant attitude prevented him from doing to the full extent he could have in my opinion. Darth Tyranus' decades of experience using the Force still count for a lot even if he's at a disadvantage with the midichlorian count.

I think TCW makes Anakin's fall to the dark side more gradual and understandable which does fix a big problem with the PT if you watch them together. In Ep. III Anakin's reason for being frustrated with the Jedi Council is that they accepted Palpatine appointing him to join it but didn't give him the rank of Jedi Master. Of course, Anakin knows almost immediately that they only accepted the appointment at all as a ruse to spy on Palpatine. So it makes absolutely no sense to me that he would hold that against them, and that being the main schism between them makes for a really weak story to me.

In TCW we see the Jedi Council undermining and manipulating Anakin in ways that make it much more understandable that he would develop a legitimate grudge against them. In the Citadel arc Plo Koon sends Ahsoka on the mission after Anakin explicitly told her she couldn't which she even told Plo Koon. Total smack in the face. In the Rako Hardeen arc, Anakin is quite callously used as a pawn by the Jedi Council who manipulate his emotions to their own ends. And then of course in the S5 finale arc they even admit that they kick Ahsoka out of the order so the Republic can handle her trial instead for purely political reasons. Anakin is basically the Jedi Council's sacrificial lamb in real ways, not just in his own head because he wants to be a Jedi Master so badly.

The part about his character suddenly changing is there in the PT alone, adding TCW makes it less extreme (and crazy).

Togruta I understand if your mind is made up so you don't want to get into a detailed debate, but the main part of my argument is really this:

... which you didn't respond to. I'm more than willing to agree to disagree I just want to be clear on what I think the most important point is.

 

Well, that wasn't mentioned when you were replying to me..

And I don't see how a different depiction that takes place in between two films is as believable as one that takes place during one of those films, where major, game-changing things happen to that character. I don't think that's a good comparison..

But I'm sure we've had our says in this TCW Anakin thing before, so 'agree to disagree' is probably best.

 

In my opinion the PT doesn't have the major, game-changing events necessary to plausibly explain the drastic changes the character undergoes, that's my problem to begin with. But if you don't want to rehash the details that's cool.

 

Er, I think the loss/ attachments/ premonitions/ turning to the dark side stuff are all very "major" and "game-changing"..

But OK, I get it. The film depictions don't work for you

 

In the movies we are first introduced to a young Anakin, living a slave's life and having some strange abilities that make him a little arrogant/cocky but nothing too out of the norm for a 9 year old. He’s not greedy and gives with no thought of reward. He gets freed and saves the day and gets to be trained as a Jedi. A lot of good stuff starts happening for him so he's got to feel pretty good about himself, which would be perfectly normal and understandable. But as Yoda/Mace said, he’s too old to begin training…

We are then introduced to a whiney/angry late teenage Anakin because (1) he's not sleeping well; having visions of his mother suffering that he can't do anything about, (2) lusting over Padme; a women he would like to be with but can't do anything about, and (3) feeling held back by his mentor and probably feeling he can't do anything about that either. So he's having a pretty tough go at it as a young adult; Qui-Gon told him it was going to be a hard life, but it appears that he's having difficulty dealing. He loses his mother and gives into the dark side, but bounces back with the help of Padme in a way, so he does get the girl, but he has to lie and keep it secret. Danger and disturbing is his path; clouded this boy’s future is…

Now, the Clone Wars have begun. The keepers of the peace have to become generals, soldiers, strategists, and other positions that no Jedi has been for a thousand years. The American Civil War was only 153 years ago. Imagine waking up tomorrow and being told that you need to fight for your country never mind the good of the GALAXY. I can’t wrap my brain around it, and I’m sure the Jedi felt pretty overwhelmed. Thankfully they had an army of the Republic, but that didn’t make it easy.

Now our young Clone Wars Anakin, secretly married, full of angst and thrown into an all-out war, has now been given a padawan to teach! Jeez Louise!

So how does Anakin take the news? Well based on the Clone Wars movie, he thinks it’s a mistake, but eventually accepts it. He and Ahsoka grow from mentor/mentee to become like brother and sister over the years. Ahsoka leaves the order and Obi-wan and Anakin (I assume) get paired back up together because they grow to become brothers and away from the whole mentor/mentee. Just as kids went off to fight the Civil War or WWI; they didn’t come back as kids, but as men and I think that’s what happened to Anakin as well.

So does Anakin act different in the series as compared to the movies, YES, but that’s not a bad thing. Look at all the things that have happened in his life between the ages of 9 and 22. He’s going to act different as he grows in front of the audience -- becoming the man or the machine that he will eventually become. He’s no one special. He’s a pawn of the Jedi Council, a pawn of the Emperor and eventually he makes the mistake of taking the quick and easy path and fully gives in to the dark side of the Force.

 

We got about 20 minutes of the TCW Anakin in the prequels. And that's the Anakin we should have gotten in the entire PT, the hero and likable character worth rooting for. Of course Anakin would need to have some darkside moments to become Vader.

IMO, GL totally butchered Anakin from the get-go.

This is coming from somebody who liked the prequels and especially ROTS.

 

I personally enjoyed Anakin more in TCW. He was a lot more like the man that Luke probably thought about in the original trilogy. Anakin in the prequels isn't exactly the type of role model Luke should be proud to think of. Anakin in TCW on the other hand showed us that he was a great pilot, had a great personality but had his own personal feelings and convictions, and he trained his own Padawan. The way he's portrayed in TCW is way more in line with what the OT led us to picture about Anakin.

 

WOAH I didnt expect so many replies while I was gone for the night.... You all have very strong valid points.
BUT BUT I still only have a slight problem as i said earlier. Just because it's more spread out and he acts like that normally, doesn't mean he should still have the mopier personality every now and again? I mean like... Yes he probably acts like he does in TCW 90 percent of the time, but he doesn't show any of that mopier personality in the series. There was more than one situation where he'd give off his dark attitude in the series, and i'd see more of Anakin in him if he did. I like that he's not so distressed all the time, but he acts more stubborn and agressive over 'angsty' during his stressful moments in TCW, If you know what I mean of course.
Whether annoying or not, you can't wipe it off completely.

 

Yes I agree and I also think the 3 episodes were just 3 periods of time over like 25 years and those 3 periods had a lot happen to him.

P.S welcome to the boards.

 

Thanks, and that's a good way to put it. I honestly can't think of one time during TCW when Anakin acted like the Hayden Christensen Anakin. He's a lot more energetic and a lot more fun to watch. When he has his times when he's angry, it's done a lot better than, say, when Anakin got in a rage about killing the Sand People in Attack of the Clones.

 

You mean he's less of an abrasive douche in the show than in the movies? Yup.

 

He does act really different in some ways compared to the movies. However, when I think of PT Anakin, I instantly hear Matt Lanter and see TCW Anakin, not Hayden. TCW Anakin is what Anakin really should have been. A sarcastic, fun, action guy with a few dark traits showing up as well as reasons for him to hate the council and trust Palpatine. After watching the Clone Wars, it has fixed one of the few bugs I have with ROTS, moving it to my 3rd favorite movie now that the fall is more fleshed out and over time, with Padme just being the last straw in a long line of dark actions and betrayals by the Jedi Council. This was probably the Anakin Lucas had always intended, but the melodrama and darkness that took place in AOTC and ROTS kept us from seeing this "regular" Anakin out saving the galaxy type persona.

 

Movies were about his weaknesses:

His mother and his replacement mother; the attachment and fear of losing them.

It's why he's not devastated over Tano leaving; she ain't his weakness, even if he cares a lot about her.

 

I'm not so sure about that. He strangled Poggle the Lesser nearly to death to save her and nearly had a freak out when he was afraid she'd died on Geonosis. I think when he thinks people he's cared about have died is when he turns into the way he acts in the movies, ie when he thought Obi-Wan was dead in Season 4.

He can accepting leaving, but he's terrified of losing those he loves. During the Clone Wars, that would have been Padme, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka.

 

He clearly has the same attachment issues in TCW and the PT, but since he doesn't lose Ahsoka to death it preserves the uniqueness of the Ep. III plot (losing Padme to death) in his life.

 

True, Padme would've been the third and final straw for him. That makes sense.