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

"After Star Wars was released, it became apparent that my story—however many films it took to tell—was only one of thousands that could be told about the characters who inhabit its galaxy. But these were not stories that I was destined to tell. Instead, they would spring from the imagination of other writers, inspired by the glimpse of a galaxy that Star Wars provided. Today, it is an amazing, if unexpected, legacy of Star Warsthat so many gifted writers are contributing new stories to the Saga."
Quote from George Lucas in 1994 or so.
Also about the Shaw ghost. Who the heck else could it have been? The only other Force user that died was Palpatine. And who the heck would think it would be him in that scene?

 

I don't see how. Maybe I should have said virtually impossible?

Either way in terms of this image presentation the choice is either Lucas' original take or his revised one.

So either one is Lucas choice at different times. If someone prefers the SS then that is still coming from Lucas. As I have said over and over it's his creation all we do is react to his decisions.

As opposed to one that never existed in the first place?

Lucas has given his answer on that and so either a person accepts his story (like they do most of the time) or variates on a few points.

Nine apparently!

1) After saving his son, is Anakin back to the good side?

Yes.

2) Is SS after being unmasked portraying Anakin Skywalker, as the credits of the movie suggest?

Yes. In his Vader persona's Dark Side consumed body.

3) Why doesn't his ghost appear as that Anakin as we last saw him?

I don't think anyone would want the ghost of Anakin to look like that. He supposed to have returned and excised his Vader self.

The Vader persona Dark Side consumed body can't go into the Force like Obi-Wan and Yoda can and did. Only Anakin's Force spirit or "ghost" can.

I have said this in many ways already but let's do it again. Obi-Wan and Yoda learned how to preserve themselves when they went into the Force. As part of this process it somehow involved their actual physical forms also "vanishing" into the Force.

Anakin never learned this technique nor did he even know of it's existence. He only exists in the Force in the now returned to the Light Side form because Obi-Wan and Yoda captured his spirit before he joined the Force. They could retain their identities. He could not without help. For Obi-Wan and Yoda their identities were tied directly into their physical being. They accepted who they were and saw themselves in spirit the same as their last physical bodies. Anakin did not see himself as the last physical state of his body. That was not the real him. Not Anakin. That was Anakin as Vader.

Whether the SS or HC version this is the case. The story point is the same. The Dark Side consumed physical form of Anakin Skywalker is left behind and the spirit leaves the body and is seen in ghost form because Obi-Wan and Yoda saved his spirit before it joined the Netherworld of the Force.

4) If it's related to his damaged body & the way he looks as you've suggested before, why should injuries & scarring matter?

Explain the question.

5) What if Vader, as portrayed by HC won his fight in RotS & was never injured? Yet the story played out the same & he eventually at age 45 turned back to the good side while his body was physically fine.

That makes no sense. If he wins his fight then Obi-Wan is dead and the story is totally different. Even if Obi-Wan escapes but Vader is not injured as before then he becomes ultra powerful and eventually overcomes the Emperor at some point. He doesn't need Luke and so Luke either joins him or dies. Going down a path that doesn't happen doesn't work.

6) Would he still revert back to a young looking ghost?

See above.

7) What if the story played out the same in RotJ except the Empeor's lightning wasn't fatal. Anakin survived & left with Luke & lived say another 20 years as a good man.

See above.

8) When he eventually died would he still re-appear as ghost HC-Anakin?

See above.

9) Why does ghost HC-Anakin appear physically scarred even in the afterlife? Yet his limbs seem to've been re-attached.[/quote]

Why does ghost SS-Anakin appear physically older even in the afterlife? Yet his limbs seem to've been "re-attached."

Again why do either of them (or any of the ghosts) have those clothes? Why does Obi-Wan look older in ROTJ than ANH? Why does he become more substantial over time? Why does Obi-Wan have his hood up and robes closed on Hoth? Do Force ghosts get cold? Was he tired on Dagobah and need to rest while talking to Luke?

 

To me it's really simple. Let's not pretend like Lucas put some really deep thoughts into this. In the original version Lucas wanted Luke to see the redeemed spirit along side those of his mentors, so he put in SS as a last minute addition. The only thing we knew at the time, is that good guys come back, while bad guys do not. SS made perfect sense, as he's Anakin as Luke and the audience just saw him. With the PT Lucas complicated the matter, by not having Qui-Gon Jinn become a Force ghost, promising the explain this discrepancy in the next films, but ultimately just putting in some vague explanation in ROTS as an afterthought. The entire idea didn't make much narrative sense, and it seems it was one of those things that Lucas wanted to expand on, but ultimately due to poor planning couldn't fit into the story. Anyway, while making ROTS Lucas obviously wanted to link the PT and OT in a visual sense, and so SS's Force ghost was sacrificed in favour of HC, and Naboo was added to the celebration. There's not much more to it than that IMO. It wasn't some stroke of genius, it was just meant to make the saga more cohesive. Personally I prefer the original, as seeing Luke's father as a young man doesn't make much sense to me from Luke's perspective, and it seems to me Lucas should have gotten his priorities straight, and not have muddied the waters with respect to Force ghosts, rather than putting in these unsubtle visual cues.

 

First off, where do you get any of that on the way Force Ghosts are made? It's not presented in any of the movies.

What do you mean ghost SS is older? Shaw played both parts in the original ROTJ. So it was him both times.

Don't be a jerk about OW being older. The 3 movies obviously were made a little time apart so AG was older each time they filmed hence why OW looked older. No way to stop that.

 

Why do you persist with this fallacy as an argument device?

The Hayden Christensen ghost never existed as a person either, because he appears long-haired and scarred from the Revenge of the Sith era, but with his severed arm intact, lost some years before.

 

Because it’s a parody account. He does this in every thread and has no interest in having a civil or intelligent conversation.

 

I sorta figured this, I just wondered how he had that Jedi status under his name if that was true. What is wrong with people that get their enjoyment from that?

 

Other choices:

1. an aged HC
2. no ghost period

And when it comes to Star Wars, I like some of Lucas' ideas better than some of his other ideas. Sometimes, I also like ideas that came from people other than Lucas.

An Anakin who up to that point, hadn't existed yet. He's a progression of Anakin, the Anakin that went through one side of his Vader persona and come out of the other side.

No such caveat/qualified statement exists in the film. And if he's Dark Side consumed, where are his yellow eyes?

I don't think that Anakin taking his body with him into the Force, like Obi-Wan and Yoda did, is a necessary component of the pro-SS argument.

The movie says nothing about them 'helping' him. In the draft(s)/versions of the script where they do help Anakin, they also encouraged Vader while he was still Vader to embrace the light. Something which doesn't happen in the film.

Except this isn't in the finished film, just like them encouraging Vader to return to the light, isn't in the finished film either.

1. It's a hypothetical. The reason it's not "making sense" to you is that you're taking what ended up happening in the films and using that as fictional constraints on what amounts to a hypothetical/alternate scenario. Doing that is what doesn't make sense.

2. Also, assuming the "path" that the PT took doesn't work. Question 5 was a hypothetical question. It doesn't assume the PT concept of Anakin becoming "ultra powerful" (as per his 'Chosen One' status), a concept that wasn't attached to Anakin in the CT/OT. The question is: if he was never injured/required to wear the suit, but still returns to the good side, and dies, does his ghost image revert to his younger self before he turned evil?

How is that an answer to the question? ROTJ plays out the same, except Anakin doesn't die for another 20 years. Think about it: he lives for another 20 years as a GOOD man. Why then, when he eventually dies and becomes a Force Ghost, would his ghost have the image of his younger self just before he became evil?

The same reason why Obi-Wan and Yoda appear as their respective ages as Force Ghosts.

How does any of that help the pro-HC argument?

 

This is the only answer to be honest! Nothing more to it...

 

Can you pls elaborate on this "Dark Side consumed body" theory of yours? In what way was it Dark Side consumed? What were the effects of the consuming? What I saw, when viewing the Saga in order was a person who'd suffered horrific injuries. He had burns to his entire body, had severe internal damage particularly to his lungs, & had been dismembered. As a result he spent the next 25 years inside a life-support suit. When we see him unmasked we see the physical effects of all of this. What does that have to do with the DS? Separate to those injuries, what did the DS do to his body? If he'd not suffered that damage & had not been in the suit, wouldn't his body & appearance be okay, as we saw with Dooku or Palpatine before his injuries?

Interesting details. Are they all drawn from canon sources? Including Obi-Wan & Yoda's specific roles?

You're avoiding the question by nitpicking the hypothetical scenario. Why not just answer. It's about Force ghosts & physical damage. If Anakin hadn't been so physically injured when he turned away from the DS but was still killed would he revert back to a 20 year old looking spirit?

No, it's a simple premise that was very possible. If Anakin's suit held up long enough for Luke to get him medical attention & he survived, what would've happened when he eventually died?

You haven't even attempted an answer. Does this mean you have none? Is the scar a mistake on GL's part?

 

Regarding appearance- I would conjecture that a character's appearance is based on what they looked like, the last time they looked in the mirror, so to speak. They are rebuilding the appearance of their bodies, from their own memories

Hence, since Anakin is "a face that has not seen itself in over twenty years" (ROTJ novel) his appearance is of a 20-something year old- with a facial scar - whereas Yoda's and Ben's are of their age at death.

And since artificial limbs look very much like real limbs - and are controllable exactly the way real limbs are- they make little difference to the character's "mental image of themselves" (in the character's mind, it "feels exactly like a real limb") thus, they aren't required to reimagine themselves with just stumps.

 

Honestly I always saw this as Vader accepting who he truly is by forgiving himself after spending 2+ decades trying really hard to erase that part of himself.

 

Why do you say "so to speak"? It sounds like you mean that literally. The last time they actually saw an image of themselves is the self-image within their memories. That's what their Force ghost appearance is based on. Okay, but how many mirrors would old Ben have in his hut? Or Yoda in his mudhole of a cave? I don't think this was GL's intention, for whatever that's worth. His description here from the dvd commentary:

"As we get to the end of the movie, as he joins the force, he is able to retain his original identity…but it was his identity as he was -- when he died as Anakin Skywalker."

...suggests that it's a case of Anakin reverting to when he "died" as Anakin Skywalker. Which for years the entire audience thought was after he returned to the good side & saved his son's life. Which I imagine was GL's thinking when he used SS as the ghost back in '83. Seems he decided in the meantime that Anakin didn't die at the end of RotJ after all. Maybe it was Darth Vader in a good mood.

 

What do you mean by presented?

That we don't get some onscreen and detailed explanation of why anything works?

How Lightsabers actually works isn't in any of the movies either. How can Luke possibly construct a new Lightsaber when he didn't tell us how he made it?

I raise the point because as I have talked about already there are production realities. The reality is that SS was used for ROTJ as the Force ghost because that is all they could realistically be expected to do at that time. It would have made no sense for the movie presentation at that time to cast another younger actor as the ghost of Anakin. Lucas was unsure about even including them anyway. In the context of the overall saga and 6 movies it makes perfect sense to use HC as Anakin's Force ghost because he played Anakin before he became Vader for 2 entire movies. Using SS who is far too old to be credible as what HC would like 25 years after even taking into account that we accept that AG's Obi-Wan is EM's Obi-Wan but 20 years older.

I would also appreciate the cessation of all name calling.

By that logic then why would anyone be OK with the SS ghost also having his severed arm intact that was also lost several years before ROTS? They are the same character.

Extrapolating that then why should the SS ghost have any limbs or much of a body at all? Why are his scars gone? His skin normal? His hair regrown?

The arm that BTW was lost due to a Sith Lord who cut it off. The scar was apparently not a Dark Side injury and for some reason remained.

If in fact Lucas left it in there not by mistake but to make a point then what was that point? All of the wounds that Anakin suffered from the Dark Side were healed while that scar was not.

For that matter again I ask why be worried about Anakin's scar but then accept his being unnaturally aged?

This is no parody.

And I entirely disagree that we are not being civil or having intelligent conversation. That is exactly what we are doing.

We are disagreeing of course but if disagreeing with someone means the person you disagree with is therefore not intelligent then that is totally wrong. The people I am talking to are very intelligent but we disagree that HC image is the best (which I think) while they think SS is the best and makes the most sense to them.

 

Woah wait a minute. People aren't just pointing out the scar and the regenerated arm to solely discredit the Hayden ghost. In fact, I'd say that they don't care whatsoever that injuries have been healed in the ghost form. Instead, they're pointing out these things as a flaw in your argument. Because you keep saying over and over again that the Shaw ghost "never existed":

You simply cannot have it both ways. If you're going to argue that the Shaw ghost never existed (presumably because the ghost has healed injuries compared to the version that actually died), then why are you okay with the Hayden ghost??? The Hayden ghost has his arm regenerated, does he not? Well guess what? That specific Hayden ghost never existed either! There has never been a single point in time where the long-haired, facial-scarred Hayden-Anakin has ever had an intact right arm.

So do you understand now? From this point on, you can't use the argument that the "SS ghost never existed"......and not because it isn't true.....but rather because it directly conflicts with your support of the Hayden ghost since the Hayden ghost as he's shown never existed either.

 

I don't think anyone is arguing that the Force Ghost was so genius only Lucas could come up with it. But he was the one that decided to execute it and come up with the idea that it would make more of a continuity sense so the audience could connect far more to the ending than before. That was a very smart idea.

How would Luke in general know who that other man is? His face? His body type? The man never spoke and Shaw was so distorted from his real look that you probably wouldn't been able to tell the difference. Realistically, it's an error for him to react so dumbfounded either way.

But It's Star Wars so we accept it right? Thank god they are a set of B-movies...

It's a simple change that didn't need such a freakout. Both are fine in my opinion, although I prefer Hayden as I had more of a connection with him than Shaw.

 

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't quite agree. Most polls I've seen still show an overwhelming majority of viewers preferring to watch the films in release order. Hayden as a Force ghost only really works, if you watch the films in chronological order, while Shaw works both ways. As far as Luke goes, remember the original version of Vader being unmasked:





To answer your question, how does Luke know who the other man is? The same way we did, he has the same facial features, so it's the same guy, and we the audience don't even have the Force...

 

Sleep.

Like I said, both can be accepted. If Luke can sense his father through the force then Hayden shouldn't be a problem.

 

So then you’re disagreeing with a figment of your imagination because I said no such thing. But you already knew that didn’t ya? And stop PM’ing me.

 

I don't see why bringing in some statistics on the matter is such a sleep inducing matter. We're discussing how fans react to this particular change, and you have raised the point that the audience would connect more to the current ending than the old one, because of continuity. This assumes most people watch the films in chronological order. As those polls show, that is not generally the case. Ergo to all those kids who's parents show the films in release order, that young stranger at the end of the ROTJ is very confusing. Up till 2004 the old guy who looks like Luke's father wasn't, no matter the order you opted to watch the films.

 

Polls....Aren't entirely representative as a whole and they don't always work.

What is the numerical description for said poll?

 

That isn't the crux of the argument. Qui Riv Brid maintains repeatedly that Sebastian Shaw's ghost appearance is of an Anakin that never existed. It is a false argument because by that rationale, neither did Hayden's.

I accept that there can be a bit of artistic licence on what is presented using either actor, but for me, using the fatherly image of a man senior to a twenty-something year old Luke, and obviously the same actor that played the character that was unmasked moments before, now sans injuries, is more satisfying.

 

Well, the one with the most votes is from imdb, and offered the voters a whole range of possibilities to answer the question:

Poll: What Is the Best Order to Watch Star Wars Movies?​

These choices included skipping the OT entirely. These were the top 3 choices:



There are others out there, that are even more skewed, but this one is unbiased in it's options.

 

Except this is false.
If Lucas wanted a younger ghost a simple solution existed.
Cast a younger actor to play both roles.
Say an actor in his 40's or early 50's, he is in the unmasking scene under heavy makeup and then does not have it in the ghost scene.
The audience would still be able to see that it is the same person as it is the same actor.
And see that he looks younger. Simple.

Lucas cast the not yet 40 year old Ian McDiarmid to play the very old looking emperor.
So he clearly had no problem casting younger actors to play older characters.

But some early draft of RotJ has both Obi-Wan and Anakin come back in the flesh at the end and Anakin is then described as "elderly".

Excpet it does not make perfect sense as the logic the other films established is that the ghost looks the age of the person when they died.
And Anakin did not die as a young man, he was older when he died.
The only way the young ghost makes sense is if you assume that Anakin Literally died in RotS and Vader is just his animated corpse.
But that totally ruins the redemption story.

And here again you use the age of the actor despite saying that you have not done that.
And SS is still IN the film, so "Can not be wrong" Lucas apparently did not fix the problem of "Too old Shaw" being in the film.

Simple, his wounds are healed, same as Obi-Wan's ghost that does not have a wound from Darth Vader's lightsabre.
Obi-Wans ghost is healed of wounds but looks the same age as when he died.
The Shaw ghost follows that same logic.

Wait, what????
So you argue that it makes sense that the young ghost has it's right arm back as that was cut off by a sith lord?
But the scar on his face was not caused by a sith so it remains?
You do realize that by that logic, the young ghost would miss the other arm and both legs as they were cut of BY Obi-Wan. Who was NOT a Sith Lord last I checked.

[/QUOTE]

Except the wounds Anakin suffered are from Dooku (one arm), Obi-Wan (the other arm and both legs), severe burns (him being very close to molten lava) and being very pale (due to spending over 20 years sealed inside a walking iron lung.)

So Anakin did not suffer any wounds from the dark side.
He suffered wounds from others and horrible burns, also caused by others.
If Anakin had never turned and yet had all this happen to him and if we assume that he got put in a suit. Then his body would be just as damaged 20+ years later.

As has been said, Dooku spent 10+ years as a Sith and he didn't look any the worse for wear.

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

That’s a misquote. QRB said that, not me. You may have gotten confused because he’s now pretending that he never made that point to begin with, among all the other nonsense he’s been spewing. I agree with you 100%.