PT Jake Lloyd Appreciation

I've been going through the different threads and been seeing your posts and I must say I'm really impressed and I really love your posts. They all sound like poems or odes. Wonderfully eloquent.


I just watched that video of Anakin's lines from TPM and I must say it was a cathartic experience. Almost brought to me tears to see the pure innocence and goodness of his character played so wonderfully by Jake. My favorite lines were :

"I had a dream I was a Jedi. I came back here and freed all the slaves."
"Have you come here to free us? I think you have, why else would you be here."
"Mom, you say the biggest problem in this universe is nobody helps each other."
"I will come back and free you mom, I promise."

and then the funny moments like:

"Qui gon told me to stay in this cockpit so that's what I'm going to do."
"Now THIS is pod racing!" (My favorite line of his, he says it with so much enthusiasm. I even used that line to name the folder containing all the pod racers in my PT image archive. )

The innocence that we KNOW would be corrupted, just makes it all the more valuable. And then there's people on youtube proclaiming that he should have shown more dark side tendencies or shown a larger spectrum of emotions than just happiness and enthusiasm. Funny thing is that they did that with Kylo Ren and we have the internet bitching about how EMO he is or how immature and childish he is. SMH, no one can ever be happy with what they get and appreciate it on it's own merits.

And pardon my french but HOLY CRAP, that Podrace/Ben Hur comparison video! I've wanted to watch that movie for the longest time but never got around to doing it and now I regret it, haha. This just blows my mind! The podrace was a shot for shot homage to Ben Hur's race, oh Lucas you brilliant SOB!

When I first saw the podrace on TV, I was quite literally on the edge of my seat and it was such a thrilling ride seeing something like that. Even today I still love it for it's technically brilliant execution. But THIS. Oh THIS takes it to a whole new level of respect and appreciation! Thanks for sharing that video!

All of this just makes me feel even worse for how things have turned out. This just proves that the majority of people are incapable of thinking positively about anything unless it's exactly what THEY wanted and even then not everyone can be happy since everyone wants something different from movies like these. And when they don't get it, instead of acting normal they go wild and hate, hate and hate. Argh.

I just feel like we should all write one big letter to Jake Lloyd telling him how many people DO in fact appreciate his role as Anakin and that he still has a fanbase that supports him and would like to see him recover and live a happy life. I feel that guy needs one big hug from all of us to help heal all the hate he has suffered.

 

I've never had any complaints about Jake Lloyd's performance. For me, he was wonderful.

Just like everything else in TPM.

 

i liked jake as anakin. i never understood the hate towards his performance and didn't realize the full extent of it until his recent troubles. quite shameful and really sad to see

 

Happy-go-lucky -- to an extent.

He actually has his share of darker traits.

I made a post on this last year. In excerpt:

It might be the chipper aspects that people remember, but Anakin also...

- has a strong need to impress and hates being thought a slave ("I'm a person and my name is Anakin")
- has a (paradoxically) slightly gloomy view of his place in the world ("wouldn't have lasted this long anyways if I wasn't so good at building things")
- tends to comically overemphasize things and acts like a little know-it-all ("sandstorms are very, very dangerous")
- imagines a life of trail-blazing adventure ("I wanna be the first one to see 'em all")
- hides the fact he's building a podracer from Watto
- uses a bit of emotional blackmail to convince his mother to let him enter the Boonta Eve podrace
- and said emotional blackmail also shows a bit of dark frustration with the world and what he might conceivably do to help ("Mom, you say the biggest problem in this universe is that nobody helps each other" >> a very tragic line, actually)
- shows a cold focus in the race itself
- sneers at Sebulba (and later Mace)
- beats up or wrestles with a young Greedo for doubting his win (deleted scene)
- looks askance and somewhat disapprovingly at Jar Jar (while Padme bonds warmly with him)
- has a sublimated sense of guilt and fear about him (numerous clues)
- admires fantastic power ("No-one can kill a Jedi!" >> a very pointed and ironic preview)
- gets a thrill from blowing up a starship and killing all its occupants (Battle of Naboo)
- and seems to do everything, ultimately, in order to woo Padme and secure her from danger (probably -- to me -- the most striking aspect of the entire prequel storyline).

Full post here: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...hild-in-phantom.50027755/page-2#post-52184727

Not sure why he can't be a little upbeat and making the best of a troubled situation, though.

For instance, he has a "cozy" place (Jar Jar's words) to hang his head, a loving mother, a boss who isn't too malign, and, by his own admission, loves entering podraces and is able to build things and indulge his talents in his spare time.

It also lends a good deal of irony to his tragic fate. As dire as things are for Anakin on Tatooine in an existential sense (he is still someone else's property, he could be split up from his mother at any time, and he might be blown up if he tries to escape), he has an alright existence, on some level. Or rather, and here is the point, he seems more contented in Episode I, under Watto, a scabby, avaricious slave owner, than he is in Episode II, under the Jedi, venerable mystics and "guardians of peace and justice".

Nonetheless, outsiders to Anakin's situation in Episode I, like Obi-Wan, think nothing of deriding Anakin (a boy Obi-Wan hasn't even met yet) as "another pathetic lifeform". In other words, they intrinsically recognize his low station in life (which is obviously no fault of his own), and how bad it actually is to be someone else's property on a dried-up backwater of a planet, far beyond the Republic, and its laws and riches, and also external to the galactic trade routes franchised out to technologically-advanced entities like the Trade Federation (which, ironically, controls much of the Republic -- making the Republic itself a "pathetic lifeform" of sorts).

In summary, Anakin has a basic, strangulated existence (is it any wonder -- symbolically speaking -- Vader's main party trick is choking the life out of people who annoy him?). And without his astonishing aptitude with the Force (even with), it's unclear what Anakin's future would be.

Interesting and fair enough.

Your outline is your thing.

I'll try to be brief here. I say this and always fail.

Right, well, TPM is about hidden darkness, and hidden jewels, concealed behind the coolest, the warmest, and the most improbable of surfaces. Your outline -- in this regard -- is far too dark.

It's also very simplistic compared to the movie. No Qui-Gon? Obi-Wan simply watches Anakin in a race? Anakin doesn't offer to help? Anakin goes from total novice to "fairly formidable padawan" in the same movie? Maul duels and mutilates Anakin? Anakin is already a dark and troubled character?

That's... different. But it's also nothing like the movie Lucas made. And nowhere near as stirring a story, in my view. But again, it's your outline, your thing.

Nice contrast with your Episode I outline. Although, ironically, how you describe your "Episode II", doesn't sound massively divergent with George's. It always seems like Anakin might bail (Organa) himself out of all the mess at the end of the movie (to me). Of course, he doesn't. But before that, he does "arc" up into an impressive war hero at the start of ROTS, even killing Dooku, and earning praise from Obi-Wan, much as you have Anakin killing Maul in II. But two things: i) Anakin kills Dooku at Palpatine's behest (showing how much Palpatine has got under his skin in all those years) and ii) Anakin bests Dooku because of his "doubled" powers due to increasing prowess in battle (his connection with the Force allowing him to see things before they happen and whatever else). This is one reason a viewer can infer (at least on repeat watches) that the Jedi don't want to send Anakin off to face Grievous. As Palpatine tells him, they might well fear his power, worrying that he'll become "too strong to control". The prequel trilogy is much better that way, in my opinion. That is, it shows a gradual amping-up in Anakin's abilities and maturity, rather than having him some dashing Hercules by the end of the second movie.

A more general comment here:

A lot of people seem to have trouble with the Episode II Anakin. I can see why. He is a swirling mass of contradictions. But I love that about the character. He simultaneously triumphs and fails in everything he does. He learns; or does he? He moves closer to getting what he wants; or does he? He is more somber and loving at the end of the movie; or is he?

Either way, the Jedi seem to think "the sky is the limit" for Anakin in II, oddly. They're nowhere near as concerned as Obi-Wan is. At least, not at the start of the movie, where Anakin is sent on his first assignment, and Yoda assures Obi-Wan that "the Council is confident in its decision", while Mace remarks that "the boy has exceptional skills" and reminds Obi-Wan that Anakin may be their last, best hope. Does he let them down at the end of the movie? They never comment on it (though Yoda looks sad, for one reason or another, after confronting Dooku, where Anakin lies crumpled on the floor). Ambiguity again.

Perhaps the ambiguous nature of AOTC is something that also sits uneasy with some people. Ambiguous emotions coarse through Anakin and everything else in the movie. The movie pullulates with intriguing counter-rhythms and artful paradoxes. It offers something a bit on the sublime side. The Dark Side? The uncertain side.

With all due respect, you posit a hyper-violent dramatis personae. Everyone seems out for blood. You have turned the prequel trilogy into a saga of petty vengeance. What makes Anakin a tragic character is how he gives into fear and uncertainty and tries to confidently "fix" the world with violence; or as he says to Padme, with childish naivete, he offers her the chance to join him and "make things the way we want them to be".

I think we also understand Anakin's pain and darkness pretty well in the finished movie. He was traumatized by the loss of his mother and never really came to terms with her passing. He was fatigued by war and deception. He projected his anxieties onto his wife and envisioned her untimely passing. He became increasingly convinced that the Jedi didn't trust him -- not even Obi-Wan -- and were actively restraining him. He had a terrible case of conflicted loyalties. He longed for a better world. Etc.

The central issue, I sense, is that Anakin is not a classically "root-worthy" character. He's more like John Wayne in "The Searchers". We understand he is driven by fear, loneliness, resentment, and a cold hatred of ambiguity and complexity, and so, he isn't the easiest of characters to sympathize with. But we are enjoined to emphathize with him; even if we can't fully "agree" with his temperament or swoon over his attitudes or behaviour.

It's a complex story. Watto doesn't treat Anakin badly. Qui-Gon showed him compassion. Obi-Wan thought he and Anakin had become more or less equals. But the Jedi distrusted him in the end and Anakin couldn't get over his fear of loss (nor could the Jedi quite understand his predicament). And they didn't realize (or they didn't want to contemplate) quite how deeply Anakin had fallen prey to Palpatine's meretricious tutelage. Communication breakdowns and a loss of healthy interchange all round.

Neat little twist. But I dunno.

In the film, Obi-Wan does warn Anakin not to try anything. Though it's ambiguous. One could read it as a bait or a lure.

But I think we have to see it, in a sense, that Obi-Wan has his own reasons for facing Anakin down in the end, and then finally leaving him the way he does.

Anakin chokes his pregnant wife, and murders men, women, and children. He threatens to take Obi-Wan's own life. I think this is too much for one person to bear.

The Republic lies in ruins and Anakin has become an accomplice to galaxy-wide genocide and oppression.

We might never know, though, if Anakin was going to show Obi-Wan a scrap of compassion at the end. Maybe. It seems, at the least, he underestimates Obi-Wan in that final moment.

I, personally, think the end of their confrontation is harrowing and tragic enough. Or I should say: harrowing and tragic aplenty.

George's opus is simply a lot more tangled and enfolded than you're allowing it to be, methinks.

 

So I'm not sure how this thread went from people appreciating Jake Lloyd to rewriting the prequels. There is a prequel rewriting thread conveniently located on this page for that.

I always liked Jake Lloyd and don't really understand the hate. Also, I suspect that people who complain about the dialog and his mannerisms don't know very many nine year old boys? I mean, even the angel thing... My nephew is about that age and I've been randomly asked things ranging from if I'm pregnant (not wearing that dress again!) to how come I always drive different cars (since I visit in rentals). I've also been told I'm just like a robot cheetah, or a princess, so... maybe that's why I didn't have an issue with his randomness?

I also never had an issue with Kid Vader, so while TPM isn't my favorite of the PT, it's certainly not because of the actor or character.

 

I know, right?

People are always doing this.

To swing things back to Jake/Anakin...

Very kind of you to say. Thank you.

Yes, I suppose my posts do have that quality, a bit.

And if they do, then I see it as a good fit with the prequel trilogy, which is constructed very much like a piece of poetry.

I think, in a lot of ways, it's more powerful to give an impression or an outline of something, than to be too precise or too detail-oriented.

That said, it's the little details I love about Star Wars, every bit as much as the big ones.

Wonderful! Glad you took something from that video.

As for that final line...

So much to say! Ah, I'll just leave this here, for now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

You're very right. People are never satisfied.

If black, someone else will say "white"; and vice versa.

Your French is pardoned.

There are actually a number of salient parallels between "Ben-Hur" and "The Phantom Menace".

You're welcome.

There's a distinct lack of appreciation and understanding from some quarters of the fanbase.

That coupled with a proprietary attitude has, in the past, at least, made things a bit ugly.

But I hope, overall, I'm more predisposed to love. Can't dwell on hate or even hating hate.

I have said I appreciate his portrayal on his Facebook page before.

Couldn't hurt to say it again.

And yes... let's all be loud and proud about the things we love!

 

Cryogenic

Haha, good catch. Yes my use of that line does seem like the "This is not a pipe" conundrum.

And yeah, the emotionally fueled outrages that some people have to things they supposedly hold dear is sad. When change knocks on the door, they run and cower in fear and as we all know that fear leads to anger, the anger leads to hate and that hate, when inflicted upon innocents caught in the crossfire, leads to their suffering as we have seen with our friend Jake.

To avoid this people need to understand that change is inevitable and that emotions are fleeting. Logic is the only constant.

It is by that logic that I view anything in this world, so that my decisions and reactions aren't irrational and those that I will regret later. But some people can never even begin to think like that sadly. Very few think about the real consequences or their real actions on real people. Right now I am addressing this case of Jake Lloyd, but that statement can of course also be applied to anything in the world.

Anyway, I would like to say that I love your calm and Jedi-like or should I say, Yoda-like attitude. I really appreciate you saying that it's not even worth hating hate and instead we should use our time better to spread positivity and that's one reason I have been so drawn to this forum in particular. Everything here is mostly positive and logical rather than emotional and negative.

I'd also like to thank you for pointing out that I could reach Jake on his facebook page. I went over there and typed out a little gratitude and care and I hope he sees it at some point soon. Sadly, it seems his page has been inactive for almost a year, his last post was in March 2015.

 

Well, yes. But it's also just a plain goofy -- and fiendishly fascinating -- line in and of itself.

All of a piece with Lucas' extensive (and seemingly totally unglimpsed) comedic wordplay. I wrote this about it in 2012:

Lucas uses his young protagonist to voice an ironic truth: it's podracing and it isn't. Well, WHAT, exactly? The taking of lives in a hideous explosion? The capitulation to madness? The lust for exuberance? What qualifies this, in Anakin's mind, and our own, as analogous to podracing? In fact, what WASN'T podracing about podracing to Anakin, or to us? The line is clearly meant to be absurd. Note how Lucas develops and exploits a contrast here: when Anakin was podracing, his face was cold, and his voice was mute, but here, it's the opposite. Something dark is being implied here; it is up to a viewer to assemble the pieces how they may.

Very phlegmatic of you. You could almost be advocating for the tenets of Stoicism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism

My word, thank you. I'm not always so "Jedi-like", unfortunately.

But I agree (as you've just implied by invoking it): the "myth" of the Jedi is also an exceptionally high-minded paradigm to set one's own mind to.

Let me quote Emerson on this one (Emerson quotes are always good; like Twain...):

Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Oh, yes. Not on there right now, but I did notice he seemed to have gone a little quiet.

Maybe he'll still see it at some point. Keep the faith.

 

I've never understood the dislike of Jake Lloyd. He was just a kid with a pretty good natural acting ability, who said the lines Lucas gave him to say, and sounded as plausible as any other young actor, if not more so. I doubt Brando or Tom Hanks or any other adult actor held in high regard would have been as good as Jake was when they were 9.

 

Ah I see, that's what you meant! It's an interesting take on the whole line and now I feel weird for liking it, haha. Just to clarify, wasn't the TF Droid Control ship filled 99% with droids and only had some Neimoidians on the bridge? I mean yeah, it still doesn't take away from the fact that Anakin did in fact kill those few Neimodians, but in his defense, he didn't even have any idea there were any on that ship right? To him, all he saw was that the ship was filled with Droids. I'm just guessing here, so please feel free to correct me.

And haha, I guess I have been becoming a bit stoic recently. Not to digress but for most of my life, I've been very emotionally driven and that has made me do a lot of things I regret and recently something happened that made me realise the true importance of looking at things only through the lens of reason and rationality rather than emotion and irrationality, since that for me is the only way to attain true peace and happiness with myself and life. I've found that it definitely does help a lot and my life is moving way more calmly than it did earlier, haha. Secondly, I just checked that wiki page and even though I've seen it earlier, it was before I became a Naturalist and only now do I see that Stoicism and Naturalism could very well go hand in hand. So yes, I may have almost advocated the tenets of Stoicism by association.

About that quote by Emerson, I agree. It's way better to focus on what's positive than what's negative.

And yes, I hope Jake is fine and sees that soon.

 

Well, that's a thoroughly good point, and one I hadn't considered before. The line, as a whole, meshes brilliantly with the tragicomic absurdity of Star Wars, but you're perhaps right to indicate that Anakin didn't realize he was dealing with anything other than droids. After all, when he starts the ship, he does it to fend off those droidekas, allowing Padme's infiltration gang to continue with their mission. And when he flies into the TF ship hangar, it's nothing but droids (all the way down, young man; sorry >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down ). Still, if you allow for the fact that droids are lifeforms (seems to be a contentious point in the fandom), Anakin definitely ends a lot of lives when he makes the big ship go "boom".

Oh, I can definitely relate to that. Emotion not only gets one in a lot of trouble, but sudden displays of it tend to shock other people. It can be a very isolating experience, having emotions, that's for sure. Good to hear you feel you're getting (Obi-Wan time) "on top of things".

Well, alright, then! Hellenistic philosophy is pretty cool. What a world we might live in if it had endured even more than it has.

Yes. Although, of course, every philosophy has a "dark side".

Taken too literally, Emerson's precept would condemn anyone from criticizing anything. Life is about chanting more than just the good.

And didn't a wise man say: good is a point of view?

But yeah, there is certainly a case to be made, I think, for being a bit more positive a bit more often.

He's off to start his Jedi training and he may never see that Facebook page again, so he came to say goodbye.

But we are sure your Facebook posts go with him.

Thank you, Your Highness.

 

Great kid. Great actor. Did well and was very convincing. Most underrated performance in the saga along with Hayden.

 

Cryogenic

Droids aren't alive, they don't even have an independent AI. They are simple robots manufactured in a factory for the singular purpose of attacking what they are pointed at. How is this even a point of contention?

About everything else you said, yeah I agree.

And I can only hope that were true for Jake, haha. I have a feeling things will iron out soon enough for him. The new Star Wars movie might just make people forget TPM and move on at long last.

 

Many people hold that view and say they're as dumb as a toaster. Lucas himself has propounded such a view before.

Myself, though, I'm less convinced than they are. I think a case can be made that droids are the conspicuous slave underclass of the Star Wars saga.

Little Jake has a toughness in him. Just like his character.

I think he can get through all this. He's a smart cookie.

 

I think Lloyd's performance was probably actually more convincing than Schwarzenegger's in Jingle All the Way.

And attacking a nine/ten year old as some of those (apparently child-phobic) Internet weirdos have done is callow and evil.

Cryogenic I agree, Star Wars fans should write him an appreciation letter or something like that.

 

LOL! Well, yes.

I dunno about "evil", but certainly callow, I think, and inappropriate.

Yep.

It's always good, I feel, to let someone know you appreciate them. No-one is invincible.

 

I probably should have said "callow and cruel" instead.

 

I can run with that.

 

I honestly don't see how someone can really criticize Jake Lloyds performance in TPM. Everytime I watch it, He just comes across as a 9 year old kid. If you've ever been around a 9 year old then you should know that's exactly how they act. I think the real problem people have with Jake/Hayden and the prequels in general is that these films really humanized Anakin/Vader. The prequels show that Darth Vader is less of a villain and more a victim/slave to the dark side and palpatine. Anyways I feel sorry for Jake because I really do feel like being a child and going through that sort of thing is one of the catalysts for his mental issues. Backlash and criticism is something even adults have trouble dealing with, but a 10 year old kid. I hope he gets better, and I do think that SW fans owe him an apology

 

It's pure evil how some of the OT purists have been to Jake's performance. Hate TPM all you want but to personally insult a kid over it is all kinds of messed up. Goes to show how ridiculous some ppl take these movies going as far as personally insulting others. I do wish we could send him a letter or something so he knows not everyone hated his performance as young Anakin.

 

I agree. He did a fine job as Anakin in my opinion and he came off natural to me like GL intended for him to be.... whether you like Jake Lloyd in TPM or not, this one TV spot used for promotion did a pretty good job of utilizing him:

 

That's some really ironic foreshadowing of Anakin's premonitions in AOTC and ROTS.

 

I was horrified to know what some “fans" did that to Jake.. Have you watch the movie The fan? Is about that type of fans (they did different things in the movie, but the sense is the same). Despicable.
Anyway, the problem is not Jake's performance, or Lucas direction, or the script. Jake’s performance was very natural. The problem is as Ezon Pin mentioned that many people just didn’t want to see the little Anakin. I wouldn't say little Vader because they wanted to see exactly Vader: the same, but 9 years old. And they wanted to see Vader in his 20-ties in AOTC, but that was Anakin, not Vader.
By the way, Hayden is NOT a miscast. He nailed the character, the problem is that many people weren't prepared to see Anakin Skywalker, they wanted to se Vader with face. Is not that. The PT are multidimensional, they show complex things. For me it is one of their best characteristics, but many fans complain exactly about that.
For example, in TPM I like the fact that Watto is a good master. Not only because Anakin had the chance to build his own things, to race in other podraces, to have more time with Shmi, but because Lucas is showing clearly that is bad to be a slave. No matter that Watto is not a bad master, no matter that Anakin has a humble but decent life with friends, mom, enough food and place to live: being a slave is not a good thing. "I’m a person and my name is Anakin" very strong and underrated line (and the whole conversation with Padme). So, what I like in TPM and all the prequels is that we don't need a one dimensional, obvious events to understand the situation.
And Cryogenic , fantastic thoughts about TPM. It was pleasure to read.

 

Sadly that's what the state of the General Audience has come to, where they need to be spoonfed each and every little thing in a completely linear order or they can't comprehend it. No wonder Marvel movies do so well.

A similar thing happened to Man Of Steel. They used a narrative that jumped back and forth between the past and present and people totally lost it.

Don't mean to start any Marvel vs DC stuff, just sayin.

 

Yes. I think a lot of the animus comes down to the simple fact that Lucas decided to start his epic saga off with the central character -- no less an icon than Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith -- as a mop-headed child. No matter who played the part, they were going to be derided, in my opinion.

That Lucas went a step further than this and also cast an "unstudied" performer, gave him lines like, "Are you an angel?" and "Yippee!", just cemented the deal. This was a character that some fans were going to have a problem with and confuse character with actor.

Indeed. They wanted a mature, reasonable, sophisticated, and gallant Anakin. Well, Anakin is all of those things in the movies, in my view, but he's also obviously very hot-headed, gloomy, tempestuous, and given to bursts of self-centered complaining. Y'know, like a normal person. Which itself is a beautiful paradox, making Anakin, or his struggles, the reality amidst the fantasy.

Multi-dimensional, yes. All the characters are that. And Anakin, most strongly, I think. One of the real successes of the films is how they deal strongly in archetypes but also invest those archetypes with authentic human failings; so that they are more than mere abstractions. What Anakin is dealing with is somewhat remote, but also real and tangible. And he perhaps hits a bit closer to home than some are willing to admit.

That's a salient observation. Watto may be a "cartoon", but he is not a cartoon. He's actually a rather sympathetic character. And he does, in a way, get swindled by Qui-Gon. Seeing him again in AOTC makes that point quite plain. He was never able to recover from the loss of Anakin.

But yes, in not making Watto a contemptible guy, Lucas keeps "noise" to a minimum, allowing the "signal" of the ignominious circumstance(s) of slavery itself to shine out more clearly. He doesn't muddy up or oversell Anakin's misery, he presents things "as is". Audiences can draw their own conclusions.

Well, thanks! My pleasure.