PT Should Anakin have been an evil child in Phantom?

With his "rushed" turn to the dark side (in my opinion), would the prequels have been better off having Anakin show signs of evil as a child?

I'm not saying he should be murdering people or causing harm to anyone...but maybe we could have seen him cheat during the podrace? Get angry and throw things in frustration when building C3P0? Show him spitting in a slave owners face? Maybe even see him slap Padme's ass? (that last one is obviously a joke)

My point is, did his turn to the dark side suffer AT ALL because of this? Should Anakin have shown signs of evil right from the start?

 

No...

 

I don't like the thought of him being an evil child.

I would have preferred the phantom menace give us an older Anakin at least 13 and no younger, and not whinny.

Obi-wan told Luke he was a good man. He called Anakin a good friend. Evil child from the start doesn't work for me.

 

No, Anakin should not have been an evil or even 'predisposed to fall' in TPM because that would convey the atrocious message that people are born evil, that we have 'destinies' as good or bad individuals, that it's impossible to change. Anakin's TPM self as it is showed us EVERYONE has the potential to become a 'villain', even if you start off as the purest of individuals. By AOTC we know he is no longer that 'good good' person and has made the decision through circumstances and his own will to let himself slip into selfishness, and we see the results of his path in ROTS. TPM serves as the opposite of ROTJ in the sense that he was that 'ideally pure' child who still ended up being a treacherous individual whereas in ROTJ we see the darkest of humanity (Vader) still able through his own will to return to the light. It makes his personal arc greater to have fallen from so 'high' to end up in the bottom bottom of the cave.

 

Just on a side note, this is the reason why I really don't like the possibility that the Sith created Anakin. To me it suggests that Anakin's fall to the Dark Side wasn't a choice at all, but, he was suppose to be evil, eventually. I am glad that Lucas dropped it from ROTS, but, wish he would have never left it up to interpretation by leaving the dialogue in that Plaguies could create life through the Force..

 

Actually I don't think Anakin being possibly created by the Sith means he absolutely has to become evil. Not one for EU material but I understand one interpretation for the Sith creation theory is that he was created accidentally by them 'messing' with the midichlorians. Sort of as a Karma for Sith, having their 'potential destroyer' born as a side-effect. Like the Force automatically balances unnatural uses of it...I myself find the idea intriguing but I'd rather go with an interpretation that doesn't give Anakin a destiny in either side-it's better that he decides to fall and come back on his own will.

 

no, because it completely defeats the point. anyone can be turned. everyone is capable of evil.

 

No. Good turning evil turning good again was the character's story arc. It works as is.

 

Having Anakin be an evil little kid in Phantom Menace completely kills Luke's thoughts about there "still being good in him." If Anakin's evil as a kid, then how could there have ever been good in him?

 

If Anakin was evil from the outset, then there would be no good in him that Luke would sense. It would contradict what Obi-wan and Luke say about him. Obi-wan wouldn't have considered him a good friend and Luke wouldn't say that the good had been driven from him. The only thing Lucas showed, even if it didn't make it into the final film, was that Anakin had anger issues and had fear in his heart even as a boy. Which falls in line with what Yoda said about Anakin in regards to Luke and what would happen when Luke himself would begin his training in earnest.

YODA: "Much anger in him, like his father."

LUKE: "I'm not afraid."

YODA: "You will be. You will be."

 

I don't think he should have started out evil, but I also don't think the script needed to be quite so heavy-handed at portraying him as good, either. For example, that line he says to his mother about not enough people helping each other just felt like it was trying too hard. He didn't need to be an angelic goody-two-shoes. A normal, decent kid would have been fine.

 

You nailed it

 

This I like

 

Bardan Edit: Unnecessary

 

No he shouldn´t have.

 

No such thing as an evil child.

Nothing angelic about a little kid trying to appeal to his mothers morals to get into doing something he usually isn't allowed to.

That certainly doesn't seem like a point that is communicated in the saga. Anyone can touch the dark side yes. But It's Dooku/Anakin's greed and arrogance that cause them to become evil. No one else does.

I don't know if you guys have kids or have ever encountered actual children. TPM Anakin is just a regular kid. Nothing signifies him as being "ideally pure." He is a slave, which he clearly has issue with since he snaps at Padme when she mentions it. He steals parts from Wattos shop to build Threepio. He has to seperate from his mother, which leaves him with some abandonement issues that the Jedi Council clearly sense. He's honestly just a regular kid who has had a rough life.

 

We have this film. It's called "Star Trek" (2009).

 

Long time no see Cryo...

 

He would disagree with you.

Why? Why is it wrong to have Anakin think that his mother was right like that? You don't think little kids don't think that way? Why else do you think kids identified with Anakin as a boy? Or Superman? Or Spider-Man? Or Optimus Prime? Little kids have shown that they believe in the notion of helping others because they're young and innocent. They haven't seen the harsher realities of life and they haven't strayed from the course as they've aged.

One of my favorite Superman stories is where Clark is bothered by the notion that various adults that he talks to about what would they do if they were like him, all have less the noble answers. Lex Luthor wants to rule, Emil Hamilton wants to be an even greater scientist, etc. But when he poses the question to a young boy, the response is that he wants to help others like he does. The innocence of youth.

 

I think Anakin was flawed from the beginning. Child Anakin never read 'innocent' to me.

 

He was innocent in that he didn't understand what greed was. What it meant to be selfish. He only believed in helping others because it was the right thing to do. It was only when he's an adult that those flaws become apparent. What flaws he has in TPM is that he is attached to his mother and has a great deal of fear and he had anger in him. Though the fear was more apparent than the anger. The anger became more apparent as he was older.

 

example?

 

No.

If Anakin had always been evil, then it's less likely he ever would have turned away from the Dark Side.

Plus it would make him a very one dimensional character.

 

No. I think it's the charm of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader that he wasn't entirely good or evil. He always had both in him.

 

Nope

If you make him evil you will feel no sympathy with him in any of the films. You wouldn't feel sorry for him for leaving his mother or sympathy for him in ROTJ.