Clone Wars The *Official* Anakin Skywalker in the Clone Wars Discussion Thread

That's true. So then the argument would be between whether his upbringing before TPM caused problems, or if it was his upbringing with the jedi. Again, I'd have to say that growing up with Obi-wan probably only helped him, but if he was constantly hearing about how he was the "chosen one" then that could explain some of his arrogance.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it an OK life. For one, we don't know for sure if Watto ever did hit Anakin or not. We don't see it, but it doesn't mean it never happened. He sure thought of Anakin as property, and Anakin tried his hardest to negate that. "I'm a person, and my name is Anakin!"

Watto also forced him to participate in DEADLY races for his own gain. It's only due to Anakin's need for speed and connection the Force that he liked such a thing, but Watto was still risking his life everytime he made him do it.

He got to build all right, but not out in the open, or it would have been taken from him and sold for Watto's own gain.

I also want to bring up again, that Shmi and Anakin had EXPLOSIVE chips inside their bodies. You can't leave or you get blown up. Yeah, great life for a child's upbrining. No freedom, you are property, and you have no control over your own life.

It's no wonder Anakin grows up into the adult that he is.

I hope I don't sound harsh, I just disagree

I'm not saying that Anakin's life wasn't terrible, I'm saying that the movie doesn't go into any of the real terrors of being a slave, and that Anakin is moslty presented as being a happy kid. The fact that we don't know how Watoo treated him is exactly my point, we don't know because the movie never shows us.

Bump.

Oh well. Could use a better title, but OK.

You're right, might as well change it to the official thread.

It's been a while since I saw this thread.

I didn't even know we had one! Anyway, I like the way CW Anakin has been portrayed so far in the series.

Is it bad that I like animated Anakin more than RotS Anakin?

I actually find this version's fall to darkness more plausible, plus he's actually a hero now and not just Obi-Wan's sidekick.

Yeah, you see this side of Anakin in the early parts of ROTS as well.

You see this side of Anakin for about 20 minutes in ROTS.

Which is the problem with the PT.

Actually, you see it throughout TPM as well, but he's just so young and a different actor so it kind of negates it. IMO, they blew it with AOTC.

Yeah, they could have focused on Jedi Knight/hero Anakin Skywalker for episode II, but that is for a differant thread.

See the thing is, one reason that TCW works so well is that Kenobi is more like the TPM/OT Kenobi, and Anakin is exactly how I expected him to be: a bizarre but endearing cross between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.

Anakin in TCW is the rogue character and foil for the Jedi that the PT so sorely needed; he's not a 10-year-old kid, nor a whiny teenager.

I also have to admit, as I've mentioned several times before, that I like Matt Lanter far better than Hayden Christensen as Anakin. How much of it is Lucas' direction and how much Hayden's lack of acting skill, I can't say, but I found his delivery to be consistently terrible.

Lanter pulls off the wry/cocky humor much better, IM(exalted)O.

Agreed - Lanter is a much better Anakin. Hayden sounds like he's chewing on glass in most of RotS, like every word is being done in a voice instead of coming naturally. He was actually better in AOTC - when he's describing the "aggressive negotiations" at the table on Naboo, or "Obi-Wan's gonna kill me" after his lightsaber is destroyed. You get just a bit of that natural flow at the beginning of RotS, mostly in the in-cockpit scenes.

The animated Anakin is, oddly, less wooden than the real actor potrayal. You get the cocky arrogance, the frustration, and the genuine affection. The only thing we haven't seen much of, really, is him being truly angry.

I still prefer PT Anakin over TCW Anakin. This cross between Han and Luke doens't seem right. Possibly since we all grew up watching Star Wars at different times, our opinions differ.

What are opinions like again?

I guess my point is that Luke was this earnest,idealistic farm kid that didn't become a true badass until ROTJ. Han was the older, cocky, confident rogue.

I always expected Anakin to be some kind of combination of those 2 characters - you needed to have a slightly "darker" aspect than Luke I think.

From an audience perspective, one role Han filled was that of the "average" person or skeptic: "wait, what's this Force stuff? I don't believe it." He was also a foil to Kenobi and Luke.

In the PT, who are the interesting Jedi? Qui-Gon, who basically could have been replaced by Obi-Wan Kenobi, since Obi-Wan basically describes himself as Qui-Gon in the OT.

Lucas decides to make Obi-Wan the White Knight. Mace is a badass but still very boring. And Yoda is the old wise man we've already seen before.

Plus, so much of the conversation is formal "Master Jedi", "Your Graces", "My Lady", etc. In the OT, we had Han call Leia "Your Highness-ness!"


I know what Lucas was going for, but I don't think it worked, and I don't think it connected with the audience. The PT was mostly missing the sense of "fun" that the OT had, and TCW Anakin really brings back that sense of being on an adventure.

Y'know, this makes me realize that we haven't had a smuggler/rogue type character since...well, since Han Solo and Lando Calrissian. We need a new smuggler. If this season is Rise of the Bounty Hunters, I'd love to see a Rise of the Smugglers in the seasons to come. I mean, it's a war and all, smuggling would be huge business.

I think they might be saving the smuggling for the LAS.

This I agree with.

Agreed.

Well, sure, but wasn't the LAS supposed to have bounty hunters too? They've had plenty of those recently. I don't think that just because the LAS will focus on one thing, it can't be showcased in another form. The stars of this show will always be Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, so having a smuggler character or characters with about as much screen time as Cad Bane doesn't seem out of the question.

I always remembered an interview with Filoni about the show. He said that Lucas didn't wanted to concentrate on the Skywalker story, but instead on other stories during the Clone Wars.

Edit: I guess they ran out of ideas, and so Anakin is the main focus.

Everyone needs a fall back plan.