Does the Prequel Trilogy do justice to Anakin Skywalker?

Well, Sin seems to have beat me too it.

I would add, if you see revelation that there is a humble man with very human frailties inside Vader's armour as "undermining" the character, then that dream was shattered in back in 1983 when the mask comes of (if not sooner, when we first learn Vader's true identity).
Hard to imagine now, but Lucas really struggled to go through with his initial idea when writing the TESB screenplay, and have Vader be Luke's father at all.
Thank God he didn't let people talk him out of it.

That is the true tragedy of Anakin - it is a tale of what might have been.
In the PT he is full of potential.
But he gives it all up for the quick and easy path.

No offense, but I'm not sure I quite get these "doing justice" threads.
A character's story is a character's story.
Does ANH do R5-D4 justice?
Yeah, he's got a bad motivator - and up he goes in smoke.
It kind of implies that characters should be something other than what they are.

 

Very true.

 

I definitely agree with this and I think that's one thing that the ROTS book did great in that it said Anakin was loyal to people not ideals where as for most Jedi it was the other way around.

I think they're basically "Did the Prequel's do justice to the pre-conceived notions you had of the characters".

 

Anakin Skywalker is the central character of the Saga. A tragic character. Before 1999, we knew that he was once a good man, a pilot and a Jedi. Now we know the story of his life. It does him justice. Anakin is a character who has many faults. He is arogant, overconfident and somethimes even selfish. But he also cares about others and is very loyal, although he turns to the Dark Side in the end. With PT, Lucas helped us to understand the very essence of Anakin Skywalker and his reasons for becoming Darth Vader. That is very important for Star Wars.

 

Anakin was loyal to people not ideals. This is very true.

 

Yeah, true. That is a philosophy Luke continued later in the NJO. Luke's Jedi Order followed the Will of the Force, not an office or an institution or a man. Anakin too, followed the Will of the Force - he was destined to join to the Dark Side so he could bring balance to the Force.

 

Agreed

 

Anakin wasn't destined to join the Dark Side. It was a choice that he made selfishly. Because he was loyal to people, he choose the Dark Side and lost everything. This is why Mace was not keen on trusting Anakin. He couldn't remain objective, which a Jedi has to be. Because he choose to side with Palpatine instead of the Jedi, democracy and the Senate, he pays a steep price.

 

The Jedi are objective? How often do they talk about "using your feeling" to discover something? That's decidedly subjective.

 

That and plus, Mace never trusted Anakin from the start since he first arrived in the Jedi Temple and that is long before Anakin thought about using the Dark Side. As Qui-Gon mentioned in TPM, "Your focus determines your reality" and Mace's POV and treatment of Anakin became a reality.

 

General FYI, this forum is a place to be positive about the PT. Healthy debate with dissenting opinions is always allowed, and there are aspects of the prequels, and the originals, that people may not like. But please refrain from overwhelmingly negative, unconstructive posts. If you must do so, please go to the Basher's Sanctuary in SWC.

General FYI, people have a right to their opinions even if they aren't "positive" or "constructive" (as if all opinions must be so). That kind of attitude is nothing more than censorship. It's sad that you try to herd people with "negative" and "unconstructive" opinions to one single thread like that (funny how no one ever sees a positive opinion of Star Wars as unconstructive,eh?). As if the bad and evil negative posters need to kept from contaminating the rest of the forums (save the innocent children from the darksiders!!). I don't know why I even bothered to make my original HONEST reply. It's now beyond obvious that any REAL opinions are not wanted. All that is wanted is a bunch of "positive" replies praising how great the character was portrayed.

And please don't even bother to reply to this. I've said my piece and I'm out of here. Thanks.

 

I feel that in trying to make Darth Vader more than just a one-note villain, GL inadvertently lessened his responsibility for his crimes and made him too sympathetic. He naturally feels a great deal of sympathy for his creation, but this has muted the impact of the truly atrocious crimes of Anakin/Vader.

-Anakin commits genocide in AOTC, but from Padme's reaction is "you're only human." I feel that her reaction, which has more comcern for Ani than the being he just slaughterd, makes the audience look not at what Anakin did but how upset he is. Then a few scenes later, we're rooting him on during the battle on Geonosis. It's like the events on Tatooine never happened, or it they did, they were just a case of giving into anger, not sypmtoms of some major personality problems.

-ROTS shows Anakins fall as, for the most part, a result of his wanting to save his wife. The noble ends he wants somehow soften the impact of the means he uses to achieve them. Also, Anakin is not even responsible to a large degree for his turn. He's more of a manipulated puppet due to the influence of Palpatine. Since Anakin doesn't think of the consequences of his actions and decisions, even in passing, he's given the benefit of the doubt. So his transformation into Vader is not a just outcome, but rather a sad, tragic event.

I wish that Anakin had been more of a prime mover in his own story, and less of a puppet controlled by others. Even making him older in TPM, and his heroics at the finale of that movie the result of his own skill and not just "what does that button do?" happenstance might've helped.


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Does the Prequel Trilogy do justice to Anakin Skywalker?


Yes and no.

TPM

Anakin is seen as a kind, loving kid in TPM. He is pretty much as kids should be. He has a skill beyond that of a normal human and is guided to greater things. He can podrace and is at a level that shows he is special.

AOTC

The cracks start to show in his character especially his inpatientness and the evident downfall is the death of Shimi. His love for Padme and his intensions show his further slip out of being a true jedi.

ROTS

Misguided, untrusting, inpatient, ROTS revels the slip into the darkside and gives some of us the Anakin we were waiting for.

Now OT Vader was the perfect villian for me and many others. When you view the PT that representation has to be special even though he is not in the suit.
TPM did that representation fair. Skywalker is a kid afterall. Maybe not the best acting from JL.
AOTC, well the love story was evident but I didn't like seeing the whine constantly coming from Anakin's mouth and to be honest up until this point I didn't care for Anakin Skywalker.
ROTS, This movie saved my original thoughts of something along the lines I hoped Vader would be. Great representation and well done. I think there has been great redemption for Anakin Skywalker because of this movie and thus gives justice to the actor, the character and most of all the movie.

 

These questions are so subjective, that there is no right answer and everyone had their own opinion of what Anakin, or Yoda or Obi-Wan would be like in the PT. But they can't be everything to everybody. It's far more interesting for me to study the character that George gave us, instead of dwelling on what I think he should have been. But I would also recommend those who are discontent with his character to read some Joseph Campbell, study up on the character archetype that Anakin is- tragic hero. You will see that he clearly fits into the model and Campbell's expert analysis, George did a masterful job with his overall character arch. Sure, there are small moments even I don't like, bits of dialog, certain attitudes, but overall I think the character behaves exactly has he should for the most tragic impact.

 

For the mosr part agree with this.

The only problems I ever had with the character and the saga for that matter, is the dialogue.

GL has never been known for his enthralling dialogue. Especially when it comes to the mushy love story stuff.

 

Well being a lover of the OT, the true masterpiece of the series I'd say you are asking the wrong question. The question should be did Anakin's story do justice to Vader and the resounding answer to that would be NO!

Anakin's story has diminished Vader's mystique, taken him from the greatest villian ever to an arrogant whiney brat who was so lacking in self-control and critical thinking skills that he was easily duped into betraying everyone he loved including himself. His fall is too easy and fast to have any great impact or to garner him sympathy.

The great Darth Vader in essence turns out to be nothing more than a flunky who never achieved any greatness at all in his former life as a jedi/though I think that perhaps in the beginning of ROTS we get a small glimpse of what Lucas intended but its too little and nothing more than Windu and Obi-Wan do as well.

Anakin seems nothing more than a war hero who seems to be in it for the thrill rather than conviction or for the better good like the rest of the Jedi or even Padme. If you are just looking at the movies, Anakin is the weakest of the Jedi (Obi-Wan and Yoda) and the Sith (Dooku and Sidious). These particular Jedi and Sith were given much more spectacular feats and were much more impressive than Anakin and even though he defeats Dooku he doesnt do it that impressively or convincinly, after all Dooku does have two against one in the beginning, he's much older and Sidious is sitting right there very likely helping him out. However more importantly he's never shown to be a good person or a hero, therefore the tragedy of his fall is diminished greatly and not a big surprise.

 

There's a difference. A Jedi searches their feelings to determine if their instincts are correct or not. If a Jedi feels that it's not a good situation, they go with their feelings. A Jedi does not let personal bias interfere.

Show me where he doesn't trust Anakin in TPM? It had nothing to do with trust on his part. It had to do with Yoda, who didn't trust that this was a good idea. And he was right. Mace was adhering to the Code, which said that he should not be trained. But then the Council votes almost 11-to-1 in favor of letting Anakin in. Only Yoda expresses that it wasn't a good idea. Mace did trust Anakin, as did Yoda, by the time of AOTC. They both agreed to let Anakin go off on his own. It was Obi-wan who didn't trust Anakin to be by himself. And Obi-wan was right again, though he didn't know how right he was. Things changed after three years. Obi-wan trusted Anakin and let his personal feelings interfere, by not doing something sooner. And Mace was having trouble trusting Anakin, after his little outburst in the Council. That kind of behavior as a Knight, with that much anger, is counter productive to being a Jedi. That is why Mace has trouble trusting him. This carries over with Palpatine, because he wasn't sure if Anakin could remain passive in confronting Palpatine. He sensed fear and was concerned that Anakin would do something foolish, which he does. He was doing it for Anakin's well being.

 

"Using your feelings" for the Jedi also means, IMO, listening to your conscience when it's telling you what you don't want to hear. Anakin was loyal to people, yes, but some more than others. How much crap did he give Obi-Wan, who didn't pander to his ego, as opposed to Palpy, whose "advice", "feels like honey, sounds like sagacity - because it is just what he wants to hear." Thanks Richard Corliss, Time, 5/9/05

 

When you mention it, the scene in the council was quite strong. Perhaps it could have had even more strenth if Mace had actually stood up and said "STAND DOWN" or something. But actually, it's better as it is. It shows Mace as quite calm, and Anakin to be quite a hot-headed guy!!

 

And Obi-Wan's reaction - a very subtle disapointment in Anakin mixed in with a "just shut up and sit down before you make it worse" vibe.

 

I will admit that before the PT came about I always envisioned Anakin Skywalker as this tall, square jawed, broad shouldered hero type guy who was very confident and very formidable in every sense who was a hero through & through who ran off to defeat the dark side hastily(through Yoda & Ben's comments to Luke) but wound up seduced & trapped by it instead.

But no matter how I saw the PT in my brain before '99, I am still very pleased with how I, II & III played out on screen. I do feel the PT did him justtice, yes....but as a *Fan* there are surely things I saw differently.

 

Before the PT, whenever I watched ESB and ROTJ I truly thought Anakin/Vader was once a good man.

Now, he is nothing but a whiny immature punk, as shown by the prequels.

 

Ah, so true so true. Almost as if he thinks "oh crap, he just had to, didn't he? stupid kid. Never learns when to shut up!"

 

And when watching the immolation scene -I don't feel sorry for Anakn in any way by this point - but feel a real sadness at the waste; all of what Anakin could've been, how much he had, if he hadn't thrown it away - and the knowlege of the suffering he'll cause for the next two decades.

 

I don't think the prequels do justice to Anakin. The character of Anakin Skywalker should have been one of those legendary cinematic characters that was left to one's imagination. Everyone had a different perception of Anakin Skywalker, and a lot of us were let down by how the prequel trilogy portrayed him. I know for myself I certainly had a lot of different thoughts on who exactly Anakin Skywalker was.

The original trilogy had me thinking he was somewhat older than 22 years old when he fell to the dark side. I thought that maybe Obi-Wan had found him when he was in his late teens or early twenties. I never imagined him being found as a little boy on some distant planet, nor did I think Of Obi-Wan as his master. I thought of Obi-Wan as having taught Anakin the ways of the Jedi, but not as a master but as a friend. I had imagined the two of them being commrades and fighting side by side in the Clone Wars which had been an ongoing thing from the moment Obi-Wan found Anakin, not a war that was only three years long.

I thought of Anakin as having been older as well, as Obi-Wan in the original trilogy says he was already a good pilot when he met him. The Phantom Menace showed Anakin as more of a lucky pilot than a good one at the tender age of nine.

I always thought that maybe Anakin had saved Obi-Wan's life and that's how they met. I pictured the two somewhat closer in age than sixten years apart as well.

All in all, I'm a huge Star Wars fan, from the very beginning, and I like the Prequel trilogy immensely, but Anakin's character wasn't done justice by George Lucas. He should have developed the character from what we already knew about him in the Original Trilogy.