Why make Anakin a 10 year old?

We've got one of that sort already. It's Palpatine.

 

Indeed. And to my mind at least the utterly evil Palpatine is a much less interesting character than Anakin who started out good. For the same reason I like Han's ambiguous character better than Luke, who started out good and ended up good, without really being tempted at any point except the final fight.

 

Oh my gosh...

So many people have said that "what's the point? We already know the ending" But if you can make a film, that people already know the ending to, and it is one of the best movies of all time, then you KNOW there was a point. Have you not been paying attention to the movies? HOW!! WHY!!! Did Anakin turn evil? Weren't you wondering AT ALL about what the heck happened to him? He was a great Jedi, and then BANG, he's a Sith. I can't believe this...do you really think that the entire purpose of the Prequels was to show some violence and see a ton of Jedi get killed? tsk tsk

 

It's called a plot device. If he was older it wouldn't be as traumatic for the character.

 

I think its a plot device because if he was younger maybe 3 he wouldn't be as attached to his mother and maybe the jedi could have said he had no parents and like that he would forget those he had loved before and start of fresh and not have had all these emotions thus making him Darth Vader.

 

I agree somewhat. I think it was Anakins destiny to fall to the dark and nothing could change that. GL made Ani in TPM as a 9 year old boy to establish his innocense(SP?). The emotional level in ROTS wouldn't of worked and we wouldn't see it as a tragedy. It worked because we saw what he was, then he turned into what he was "meant to destroy and not join"

Good stuff

 

Anakin, at the age of 9, was more attached to his mother than a teenager would have been. A 13-year-old is beginning to separate emotionally from his mother, and a 19-year-old is completely, or almost completely, separated.

His attachment to her, and how it is severed, is key to his emotional immaturity, which in turn is key to his fall.

I'm glad Lucas decided to make him an innocent kid, rather than a bad seed who lies and steals and kicks small animals that get in his way. Making him a bad seed might have been crowd-pleasing, but it wouldn't have been true to the story. If he was a serial-killer-in-training to start with, where would be the goodness from which he would fall? The goodness Luke sensed in him? The goodness that enabled him to reject the Dark Side at the end?

 

I would rather he had been older, fiercely idealistic, but with a lot of repressed anger. Showing him as a good man with a small but important flaw is not the same as making him a teen serial killer. One of my problems with the young Anakin in TPM is that he seems a completely different person to AOTC's Anakin. All that character development happened off screen where we didn't get a chance to see it.

 

Except he's not a completely different person. He may be older and have gone through puberty, but he is still a lot like the child Anakin in many ways. He's immature, his arrogance has grown considerably. He still is better at fixing things than dealing with people, or his emotions.

Likewise for the character development that happened for the Big Three in between ANH and ESB. Luke has changed from callow farmboy to confident Rebel commander. Han has changed from wisecracking, shallow mercenary to serious, if unofficial, member of the Rebel Alliance -- he even talks respectfully to General Rieekan -- and he's fallen in love with the Princess. Something has happened between them (offscreen) and while he's ready to take the relationship to the next step, she is firmly in denial. And so on.

 

Yes, but the OT characters were already moving in those directions, and we were shown the genesis of these changes. We saw Luke start off as a farmboy, blunder his way into adventure, start to learn about The Force and join the Rebel Alliance, winning a great victory under their banner. He really didn't change that much between ANH and ESB. We saw Han begin as a self-serving mercenary, but we also saw him evolve during the course of ANH, and at the end he returns to save Luke at the risk of his own life, even though there was no monetary gain to be made. The biggest jump is the level of attraction between Han and Leia, and we saw that start in ANH, where they sparked everytime they were in the same room together.

Now, back to TPM. It never sets up the friendship between Obi-Wan and Anakin. One of THE most important relationships in the PT (it's even important during the OT), and they have maybe thirty seconds of dialogue together. Next time we see Obi-Wan and Anakin, their friendship is strained to breaking-point. For me, that's a mistake. One of the things I had really wanted to see in the PT was the friendship that Ben mentioned in ANH. I think GL was so close to the characters and story that he forgot that the audience hadn't seen them as friends. We know several scenes from AOTC were re-shot to try to rectify this, but I think the mistake was in TPM, having next-to-no interaction between the two charcters.

We didn't see Anakin begin his Jedi training, which he seems so at odds with in AOTC. TPM Anakin certainly bent the rules when it suited him, but AOTC Anakin seems determined to fight Obi-Wan to a level which appears almost self-destructive. We never really see why.

 

Well they had to show him at a young innocent age, and old enough to have a living attachment to his mother.

Like someone else said, Jedi were always taken at younger ages than Anakin. Thats why yoda says he's too old. Usually Jedi's are taken away from like birth to seven or so.

They couldnt start him training as a man,that would be really akward.

 

You're 100% correct in that they had to show this because of his older age. But I think Lucas could have shown this in a flashback in the first prequel, and it would have proven the point.

Now I know that flashbacks were never shown in the OT, but that would distinguish the PT as something different. This was going to be same Star Wars movies, but maybe in a different way.

If you had shown an "Anakin Flashback scene as a little kid" and had him 20 years old in the first prequel, you would have had the best of both worlds. Show his past and how he got there, and really got the story going instead of wasting useless time in TPM.

This is my complaint of the prequels is that it is spread out over so many years. The whole point of the prequels is the relationship between Anakin/Padme, and Anakin/Kenobi. Anakin/Padme was explored in AOTC, but Anakin/Kenobi was slightly explored in AOTC, and only part of ROTS. If Anakin/Kenobi relationship would have been fully developed over 3 movies all within 5 years of time, like the OT was, and QuiGon was not in TPM, thus Kenobi truly found and wanted to train Anakin, then we would have gotten a better sense of their friendship, thus making the tradegy of the duel in ROTS much better.

 

The excuse that he wouldn't have as strong of an attachment to his mother if he were older is really weak.

Since there was no father figure to care for Shmi, Anakin as he grew older, would have assumed the role of caretaker and provider, filling in for the absence of a strong paternal figure to guard over the family, speaking in a sense of archtypes. If anything, that would have been a more intense bond, and more interesting, than the "I needed hugs from mommy" approach taken by Lucas. The attachment would still have been there, just different, if not stronger. The excuse everyone provides usually has the typical teenager in mind. Such teens do the eventual separation because there is a complete family being left behind. If he/she leaves, the mother won't be lonely, she'll still have someone, so that frees up one's imagination to picture their own life. I've had many frieds who come from single mother homes, and they stay with their mothers out of a sense of obligation.

It's not a creepy man-boy image people try to paint to rationalize Lucas' decision, it's of a teen forcing himself to grow up and take the role of an adult to keep the household intact. They don't leave because they can't afford to, and they'd be guilt-ridden if they did.

There is no reason Anakin could not have been older in Episode I.

 

I don't have a problem with Anakin's age. I do think it would have been cooler to have a kid that was more rugged looking with messy hair, and a tougher sounding voice.

 

It is great to show Anakin as a child because it shows the viewer that he was once a innocent child who was selfless and cared about others and had a good heart. Now when watches him as Vader the viewer knows their has to be some good left in him.

 

Yes he did.

Which is still substantially different from the serious, if unofficial, member of the Rebellion, who's put off paying Jabba for three years.

Interesting, because when the movies were originally released, people assumed she'd end up with Luke.

It contains the genesis of it.

And then in AOTC, the very first scene they have together demonstrates their camaraderie.

Hardly. Anakin is acting out. He's chafing under Obi Wan's tutelage, but their friendship is far from "strained to the breaking point."

You did see it.

We don't need to see him begin his Jedi training.

No...he appears to be going through an adolescent rebellion. He's chafing under Obi Wan's tutelage (the way Luke did, albeit not as much, under Yoda's tutelage in ESB), partly because of his own arrogance in his abilities. Palpatine has been also been tutoring him, in secret, and Anakin is slowly being torn in two directions.

Yes we do. Anakin complains about how Obi Wan is overly critical and never understands. When his mother dies, he, in a moment of grief and rage, screams that Obi Wan is holding him back. He is childishly blaming Obi Wan for everything, even though he knows better.

 

We don't need to see him begin his Jedi training.

I disagree, because obviously Anakin?s Jedi upbringing over the course of the ten years in between Episodes I and II accounted for the character?s total change in mentality and worldview. ?Show, don?t tell? is the basic rule of quality writing. In the OT, the main characters? major turning points in which we saw growth and development were clearly shown on screen. Luke stepped up and destroyed the Death Star, thus showing he possessed the composure and confidence necessary to become a Rebel leader. Han selflessly intervened on Luke?s behalf in ANH, also taking it a step further by participating in a Rebellion awards ceremony and demonstrating he?s not averse to participating in an organized hierarchy (not to mention his flirtatious wink to Leia, which clearly sets up the romance that?s developed further in ESB.)

For Anakin, though, any key turning points in which he becomes the bitter, cynical, and emotionally disturbed Padawan from AoTC are nowhere to be seen on-screen. At the end of TPM he was a happy go lucky and good-hearted boy who already demonstrated a tremendous urge to become a member of the Jedi order he so openly revered. Clearly, ten years of Jedi training trounced away his spirit and replaced it with a tremendous amount of angst that all too easily transitioned into hate. The same goes for Anakin?s relationship with Obi-Wan. At the beginning of Clones, it is clear the relationship between the two is already strained. The only sign of any friendship is a brief mention of the time ?they fell into a gundark nest.? Aside from this, Obi-Wan clearly views Anakin as not much more than a student, while Anakin alternates between denouncing Obi-Wan and naming him as a father figure. Unfortunately, I see no real evidence to support either idea of these claims.

 

It's clear that Obi-wan has an almost condescending attitude towards Anakin throughout the film. They were setting up the future anamosity between the two by having them be at odds with each other about everything. There wasn't a smooth transition like there was in the OT between characters. At the start of ESB, Luke calls Han "Old Buddy." If you watched the first film, they spend the majority of the film together, so it's feasible they can be close friends when we finally do see them. In the Prequels, Anakin and Obi-wan shared four, maybe five lines before we're introduced to them again in AOTC; if Luke and Han, two central figures in the saga, didn't speak through all of ANH, would it be feasible for Luke to call Han his "Old Buddy" in ESB? No, it wouldn't. You would have to go through extreme stretches of logic to rationalize it when they could have simply written the character ensemble better in the first part. That happened in ANH, but Lucas failed to do that in TPM.

 

I would've had Anakin as a 12 year old to start with. No younger or older.

 

Anakin and Obi-wan shared four, maybe five lines before we're introduced to them again in AOTC

All Obi Wan said in ANH about Luke's father was initially "good friend". Just two words. He never said what they did (to be good friends). If one thinks its not enough in the PT, its upto each individual. Can't please everyone.

However, I think Obi Wan had an affection for Anakin, especially noted in the lift scene. He's trying to prep Anakin up. When Anakin notices Obi Wan snickering, it was a light banter. Anakin smiles afterwards. There is camaraderie, IMO.

 

Obi-Wan clearly views Anakin as not much more than a student, while Anakin alternates between denouncing Obi-Wan and naming him as a father figure

precisely. Obi Wan is doing a job, Anakin is making an emotional attachment.
Anakin must always define his relationships in this manner.
Why should they be pals in TPM and AOTC? I don't see any sort of bonhomie
or comraderie betwixt Qui Gon and Obi Wan in TPM.
Masters are doing a job by teaching their padawans.
I don't see it as any complex manner of setting up tension for ROTS,
in fact, it works out better if the tension comes suddenly from Anakin's choices.
In ROTS, after Obi Wan is no longer Anakin's teacher, then you see their
friendship.
How ironic is it that in AOTC, Anakin always defines his relationship to Obi
Wan in familial terms while Obi Wan simply looks at is as Master and Padawan
and then at the end of ROTS, Anakin simply calls Obi Wan Master and Obi Wan
defines his relationship to Anakin in familial terms. Nice flip flop.

As to the posted question: To see Anakin in important phases of his adult life.
He starts off as innocent 9 year old. When we last saw him in ROTJ, he was
a twisted and formerly evil old man. Juxtaposition of beginnings and endings.

 

But the Anakin/Kenobi breakup wouldn't make any sense whatsoever because if Obi-wan had found Anakin and had wanted to train him, then Anakin would've looked up to Obi-wan the same way he looked up to Qui-Gon...with respect and admiration. Their bond would be so strong, that Palpatine would never be able to sever that bond no matter how hard he tried to win Anakin's trust. Even if Anakin was threatened by the possibility of losing Padme, he would never betray Obi-wan and the Jedi Order no matter what Palps says to him but with the way the Anakin/Obi-wan realationship is displayed on the films, it makes a whole lot of sense.

Just because Anakin will grow up to be his mother's caretaker and provider doesn't mean that he'll still be attached to her because when she dies, he'll never be so desperate to learn how to stop death. By then, Anakin will be old enough to learn that death is a part of life and will have the strength to cope with her loss. Look at Luke, he's lived with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru his whole life and when they died, Luke didn't go crazy and slaughtered a village full of people like his father did and do you know why? Because Luke was old enough to learn that death is inevitable and can never be controlled.

Children between the ages of 5 and 10 do not learn how to let go because they are too young to learn anything and the whole reason why Anakin couldn't let go of his mom was because he left her at age 10...an age when a child still needs his parents.

 

It would have made plenty of sense, and not only that, but it would have been much more tragic. Palpatine was poisoning Anakin the entire time, feeding his ego and making him doubt his affiliations. At that point, he would have turned even on Qui-gon as well. Some would say he was "destined" to fall. Just imagine how tragic it would have been if Anakin turned and fought Qui-gon, now put Obi-wan in that place. That would have been better.

By that rationale, he shouldn't have fallen at all since Anakin had ten years to learn that death was a part of life. If he was attached to her after ten years, then it shows he's prone to attachments, so he doesn't need to be ten years old. He wanted power and was displaying his opinions on it while on Naboo before the Tusken incident, so his mother's death is almost rather irrelevent since he would have "formed an attachment" to Padme anyway, which was what made him ultimately fall.