CT What is wrong with Hayden as Anakin in the end scene of Return of the Jedi

GL is the creator and made the ghost change for story telling purpose. And the ghost is just a cameo, easier to replace than full scenes involving HC.

 

My point was to get him to see it from the other sides point of view... That ghost scene was there for 20 years...20 YEARS...until GL changed it! How would he feel (I know he is a huge HC fan) if that happened to some of the HC scenes that he loves I hate some of the HC scenes in AOTC and ROTS and would gladly see them turfed out...oh never mind!

 

I am sure this has already been said somewhere, but my issue isn't so much the concept of being a younger version of yourself when you become as force ghost as much as it is the execution of that concept.

First of all, why would only Anakin get to be youthful as a force ghost? Doesn't Obi-Wan and Yoda deserve that more than Anakin?

Secondly (and more importantly), Anakin appears to be an absolute creeper as his younger self. He has done countless horrible things in his life, he just barely redeems himself before he dies, and the first thing he does upon reappearing as a force ghost is crack some evil grin? Seriously? It's like he's thinking, "Hehe, I sure fooled the force. Now to find some Jedi I can kill for the second time..."

It is not Hayden Christensen's fault; they should not have copied & pasted some old footage of him and expected it to look good. I mean, look at him...

 

We, the audience, are NOT Luke. We know it's the same actor because the end credits tells us so but just because we saw what he saw, it doesn't mean he would instantly recognize Anakin like we did. He had plenty of time to know Obi-wan and Yoda to recognize their ghosts but Anakin was bald, scarred, and cybernetic when Luke saw him for the first time. From his perspective, he would've questioned who the 3rd ghost was and of course, Anakin would identify himself to Luke.

They weren't burned alive or deformed by the dark side like he was. Plus, Obi-wan did say that Anakin was a young jedi when he turned to evil.

 

Lucas does follow showbiz rules sometimes, when it suits him. That's why the trooper banging their head remains.

Quite honestly I have less sympathy for the young Anakin who murdered children than for the unmasked older man who destroyed the Emperor for the sake of his son.

I emotionally associate those images with those deeds, respectively.

The notion of the Force rewarding the older Anakin who belatedly repented with a youthful image seems arbitrary and counterintuitive.

 

As I stated earlier in the thread, I instantly recognized the ghost to be the same person that Luke had unmasked. I was ten-years-old when I saw the film in the theater in 1983. The audience recognized that they were the same person. Luke recognized that they were the same person. Everybody recognized that they were the same person, because they look like the same person. It is obvious. I did not need to see the end credits to know they were one in the same person. In fact, I did not know the actor's name until much later in life. I knew, instantly, at the age of ten, that they were one in the same person. There was never a question that they were one in the same person. I grew up watching these movies on VHS before the Special Editions. I had friends and classmates who were Star Wars fanatics. I have never heard anybody question how Luke knew that the 3rd ghost was his father. Nobody asked that question, because it was never a question. He knew, because he has eyes. He saw what the audience saw. He recognized what the audience recognized. Everything the audience sees, they are seeing as Luke sees it. This debate only came about as a result of the change in 2004. Now, you have people trying to justify the change with misdirection, asking questions that had never been asked before due to the fact that they were never questions to begin with. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Everybody, but everybody, including Luke, knew that the 3rd Force ghost was Anakin Skywalker, the same man Luke had masked on the Death Star for one simple reason: They look like the same person.

 

Only in the sense of pretending these movies mean anything important.

They aren't of course they're just movies which is kind of my ultimate point. They are Lucas movies so why shouldn't they be as he wants them?

For one you'd need to give an example as I don't see how that would apply. Reshoot the Vader scenes instead of HC in the suit?

Go ahead.

For another I wouldn't care because Lucas' story is his story. Whatever they do doesn't really matter to me since there is Lucas' Star Wars then whatever they do which is based on that work.

You'll notice in the movies the credit is something like "Based on characters created by George Lucas" as opposed to "Based on Star Wars created by George Lucas" it's an odd distinction because they want to say their Star Wars is as "real" as his which it both is and isn't.

To me the real question is why do some people attack it "religiously"?

From a story standpoint the far too old Anakin who never existed simply doesn't work at all in Lucas' story.

Of course.

I'd hope so. Selfishness vs Selflessness.

There is no "reward" the Force is not some intelligence. This is how Anakin sees himself just as Obi-Wan and Yoda do. He is not actually young nor are the others old. He certainly doesn't see himself as someone who never existed.

 

They didn't turn to the dark side like Anakin did. If he had remained good his whole life, then he would look old.

He wasn't trying to affect a creepy smile. That's just how he looks. He was just told to smile, same as Shaw.

Why would he even question him? He's not stupid. He can figure out that's his father in like ten seconds. It's called using your brain.

The Force didn't reward Anakin with his youth. That's just a by-product of his fall and return. Your real issue should be with Obi-wan and Yoda helping Anakin to have an identity at all.

 

I'm honestly okay with it. When they first changed it I was like, "Whoa, cool!" But after sometime I actually preferred Sebastian Shaw. Now I'm just used to it and I don't mind it. I really hope Anakin's force ghost shows up in the sequel trilogy so it's more justified.

As for him looking young, who says he can't? Maybe when you become a Force ghost you can choose any form of yourself, young or old. If that's the case then I understand why Anakin would choose his younger self. He spent most of his young life as a Jedi and all of his old life as a Sith. He would want to look how he did when he was a Jedi.

 

Sebastian Shaw. Does not work with the timeline because we know Darth Vader died when he was in his forties but Shaw was in his seventies during the filming of ROTJ And I do not think the decision to replace him was easy on George I'm sure George was a fan and grew up watching his films you people only know him from one scene

 

PMT99

Do you really believe what you are writing about the audience (us!) not knowing who the original Anakin was at the end of Jedi...? I feel you have dug in quite deep on this and have decided not to relent despite the fact you are obviously wrong I have never met a single SW fan...not 1...over the years that EVER brought this up as an issue.

 

I didn't recognise Anakin's ghost on first viewing the original version.

 

I didn't either but I was 11 when I first saw rotj.

 

When I was a little kid, I called lightsabers 'lifesavers' lol.
Random post, I know.

Back on topic, I did recognize Anakin in the OOT version of ROTJ, however.

Tbh, I like both versions. I'd like the OOT on blu ray though. I also enjoy the SE on blu ray. Watched ANH on blu ray yesterday in fact.
I still have 2 VHS tapes of ROTJ that work, so I can see SS and hear Yub Nub if I want to.

 

No, he's referring to Luke not being able to recognize his father as a twenty three year old individual since he never saw him that way. Never mind that Luke isn't stupid and never mind that Luke might look up his father via old holos from his time during the Clone Wars.

 

Qui-Riv-Brid

He willingly sold Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Company knowing that they would assert creative control. Nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to sell Lucasfilm. Nobody took it away from him over his objections. He made that choice.

Therefore, I do regard Disney’s films as being “real”, regardless of what I think of them.

 

I didn't have a problem with the Hayden being a force ghost at the end of ROTJ. It ties well within Anakin being redeemed and from an out of universe perspective is easier to understand for newer fans.

 

They are real but they aren't part of Lucas' story. That their addition based on Lucas' story.

 

Star Wars is fantasy and the Force is fantasy too
Why Anakin can not look young? Anakin "died" when he joined Palpatine even yoda say that

 

Isn't the point, though, that Anakin survived? That everyone--including himself--believed that Anakin was "dead", yet in the end they were all wrong? If Anakin truly "died" on Mustafar, no redemption would have been possible.

 

I agree. While Anakin couldn't possibly make amends for all he had done in the past, he did show what kind of man he had been in the past, thus throwing off the Vader-persona and returning to being Anakin. As such, it would have been perfectly fine for him to appear in the way he looked like at his death. I don't think the "Anakin died on Mustafar" argument works.

That doesn't mean that him showing up as young Anakin is wrong either. There has never been anything in the movies that defined in what ways a force ghost can appear.

 

He was "dead". That part of him "died" which is why he has no qualms about killing Ahsoka and Obi-wan, two people that he had once cared for. It is only through Luke that Anakin is "resurrected".


"...if you start with Star Wars, then Vader’s just the villain, and that’s it. But you don’t realize that he’s a human being, that he’s got problems. You don’t realize that he could have been saved, that he was tricked and can be resurrected."

--George Lucas, Empire Magazine 2001.

 

He wasn't dead. As Luke said, "You've only forgotten." And Anakin remembered his true self just in time to give Sheev the old heave ho.

 

And Yoda said "the boy you trained, gone he is," not "dead."

 

Yep. Vader became what he started out as....a slave. He had dreams of overthrowing Palpatine but the hold Palaptine had over him was too great. Vader lifting the Emperor up and tossing him down the reactor was a huge deal for him.