ST Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader) in IX

I guess you are right. fan service is very much a POV type thing. but then i suppose so is what people consider shoehorning. i guess we need to know what the limit is to both of these things.

 

Random visual thought.

A final lightsaber duel between Rey and Kylo.

As Rey turns and swings, she momentarily appears as those thousand years.
For a moment, she's Luke, then Anakin, then Obi Wan, Qui Gon, older unamed Jedi. Ancient Old Republic Jedi. Changing with each edit cut.

And Kylo is representing a 1000 years too. You get a moment where Anakin is facing Darth, because it's symbolic of something or other. They get to throw in little images of Darth Bane and Plagueis.

In a perhaps minute or two of artsy editing, show the audience how long this rattle has raged.

Anyway. Random thought of the morning.

 

I'd say it had nothing to do with thinking that it wasn't important, but everything to do with the same reasons that caused Michael Arndt and JJ Abrams not to find a proper way to place Luke in TFA: if he's the grand hero who just curbstomps every villain, what do you need the new heroes for?

As Michael Arndt said, everytime he introduced Luke into the story, he completely overshadowed the new heroes. That simply wasn't working. Rian Johnson actually found a pretty ingenious way for Luke to display an awesome amount of power without directly defeating the villain. That was really as much as you could realistically have hoped for, because it's the job of the new heroes to defeat the villains, not the one of the old heroes. The old master sacrificing himself for the new heroes is a common story-point in fantasy, be it Obi Wan, Gandalf or even Dumbledore.


As for fan-service, quite frankly, I find that term to be overblown. It's the same as with Mary Sue, people jut throw it around if they don't like something. Yes, there are instances where things just get mentioned for the sake of mentioning them (e.g. showing the two Cantina-criminals in Rogue One) but most of the time things just make sense story-wise. Showing something from the past doesn't automatically mean that it is just in there to play on nostalgic feelings of the fans.

 

Well ther e would be alot of people who would consider that lazy, and that they just didn't try hard enough. but then its easy to say that from an outsider perspective then it is as the person writing the movie in the way they need to do it.

 

Do you mean like, just visually? Or do you mean that they both are fed force powers from those who appear? Maybe a bit clunky explained. I would be cool with both Rey and Kylo being enhanced by their respective sides, as in powered by force ghosts or whatever it is from the dark side.

 

Well, plenty of people say stupid stuff about things they have little idea of

It certainly is a valid issue that is anything but easy to deal with. Doesn't mean that there isn't someone out there who could have found a way to do it just right, but it definately isn't something that was easy to solve. One only has to imagine a scenario in which Star Wars had already been this hugely popular franchise before what is now the original movie, with Obi Wan being the big hero of the past. You either could have risked him overshadowing the new stars, or have him sacrifice himself for the new heroes, facing a possible backlash over how you just cast aside the old hero.

 

According to Jason Ward at MSW, Ren asks the helmet of Granddad to show him the darkness. Luke intervenes and a vision of Solo, played by Harrison Ford, appears and tells Ben he’s forgiven and it’s not too late to return to the light.

If true, there’d better be at least a FG of Hayden at the end with, Ben, and Luke. But why not have Anakin be the one to intervene? Ren wants Vader’s helmet to show him the darkness and instead Anakin intervenes?

 

Ben might see Anakin and Vader as separate entities though. He respects and idolizes Vader, and Anakin's just that pesky weak pathetic dude (representing Ben's own "light side" he's been struggling to overcome pre-TLJ) as a shell Vader had to shed to become his true self (from Ben's perspective).

He might not hold any respect for Anakin at this point anyway, wouldn't listen to him. Still think Ben will have a change of heart/perspective by movie's end, but for the majority of it he'll be all-in darkside. Non-Vader Anakin's warning him would be easy to brush off, if you don't care about what Anakin thinks.

 

Interesting... I may be taking your random idea into random excess, but... what if Rey's and Kylo's supposed Force Flash Fights are taking place in Forceback Visions of previous Jedi/Sith fights? This could give the symbolism you suggest and permit a greatest hits of all the saga films. This could be done in reverse for example...

1) Luke's/Vader's (ROTJ) with Kylo in the strange position (for him) of Vader saving Luke...
2) Luke's/Vader's (ESB). Kylo more in his element here.
3) Obi's/Vader's (ANH). Kylo wins!

And now the switch...
4) Obi's/Anakin's (ROTS) where Rey wins!
3) Anakin's/Dooku's (ROTS) where Anakin makes his fateful decision. Here Rey is in the position of killing Dooku/Kylo in Plapy's presence...but chooses not to.
4) This reveals the big bad of Plapy creating the Force Visions/linking of minds somehow.

 

I think the problem is that if you introduce Luke too early and have him still wanting to get involved, it makes things too easy for the new heroes, because any danger they face is immediately less threatening because Luke is there and can just save them. So yes the new heroes do need that time and space to show who they are without the focus being on a legendary character, but having Luke involved too early means there's no real threat or jeopardy as he can just save the day every time. So realistically, for the first film you need to either have him lost or exiled somewhere for most of the film, or have him in the film but reluctant to get involved (as in TLJ). Some have suggested it could've been Luke who picked up the saber in the forest instead of Rey, but that would undercut the whole point of the main character taking responsibility for her destiny. There may have been other ways around it but I can understand where Arndt was coming from.

 

What if they took the original concept art of Hayden as yellow-eyed Anakin/Vader they had and basically made it a force vision that a young Kylo see from the helmet to seduce him to the dark (manipulated by Palpatine)? it may not be the cameo people expected, and some will say huh why didn't anakin appear and be like thats not me!, but the story would be what it is.

It would get Hayden in the movie. it wouldn't be what some people wanted it to be, which is basically anakin being a good guy, but he would get him in there in a unique thing.

 

I REALLY want Hayden in this movie. I think his performance in Ep 3 was greatly underappreciated. And having Anakin appear to help bring the series full circle would be awesome if done well.

 

If putting Luke into TFA early in the script resulted in the audience only wanting to see Luke, then guess what that means? The audience wants to see Luke. They should have realized that the audience wanted one more run with the OT cast, and we should have gotten that. It's too obvious. But they outsmarted themselves. Considering Episode 7 was all about nostalgia in the end anyway, it should have been focused on Luke, Han, and Leia, and been an entry point for Rey, Kylo and Finn. Then 8 and 9 would have been focused more on the young cast.

As for Hayden, I'd love to see him get a cameo. It's not a complete story if Episode 9 doesn't have Anakin/Vader in it somehow.

 

George exiled Luke, though, he and Arndt. Sounds like light-on-Luke-heavy-on-new-people was the idea all along for if IV was going to happen.

 

All due respect to Arndt, but a pacifist Luke who was wise and hopeful and well in character mentoring and verbally sparring with the younger more brash, impatient and strident characters would have been a joy to watch. Shades of the clashing ideologies of Han and Old Ben in the original...It would only be when pushed into a corner with no other way to help but to fight that Luke would use is lightsaber, etc. I didn't need or want Superman Luke. I wanted real Luke, the character. Not Luke the plot device.

 

Well they took Georges idea but how they stitched it together was likely very different.

 

Exile is interpretation. Rian's dark interpretation of the set up.

"Luke's gone searching for the first Jedi Temple" doesn't have to be depressed exile.

It could have been Luke on a thrilling adventure.

 

Luke in TLJ is most likley how George saw Luke in his old age. A withered old man who failed his students and has to wait for our new hero to lift him up and give him hope.

Anyway regarding Anakin i bet we get a vision of him trying to reach Kylo with Luke, then a cameo during Plapatine return and a final goodbye.

 

Regarding HC in Ep9 - Id love to see it but there is no chance in hell you will see him. JJ wouldnt dare take a logical chance to bring the saga full circle...cuz you know...prequels suck and all (current LFL/JJ view).

 

witch is bs. Now more then ever we get prequel content then we did when TFA was around. we get novels, comics, TWC and Fallen order. I'm sure we get plenty of PT reffrences in TROS. MKS suggest you see all former planets from the saga.

 

"This will make things right" and Han coming into the picture again instead of Anakin is all I need to know about what JJ and KK think about the prequels. Name dropping Darth Sidious in Ep8 isnt enough, nor is any content in comics or novels. If its not in the Skywalker Saga supposed ST movies, I could care less about those ancillary materials.

 

I think people just take it to personal. but i very much doubt JJ has any bias towards the PT and i suspect he would bring Hayden back for a good reason. but il say this before and il say it again... it probably will need to be something unique but not too glorified.

Bringing Hayden back just to be a force ghost along side luke is fine and all that. but its kinda soft and doesn't do much beyond say hey look its force ghost anakin!

I wouldn't be shocked if Hayden was there. but i really don't think it will be what people would expect a cameo from him to be.

My reason is as simple as How they portrayed Luke. it was very unexpected and thats kinda how i think they would do an Anakin cameo too.

 

I think Anakin will there Yoda of TROS, you won't know he's in the movie unless you watch it, and besides JJ likes them but OT is his childhood so course he draws mutch from them. In Rian's movie we got a mix of PT and OT. I think Kk likes them in some regards to but OT is what Star wars is at it's core. Family. We get lore in ST that goes in line with PT.

 

I still think its possible Hayden will be part of some dark force vision to Kylo created by Palatine. it would be edgy, it would be unique, and something similar to what they did with twilight of the apprentice, which was about Anakin and Vader being of the same.

It wouldn't be the cameo people wanted, but Hayden would be there to acknowledge his part.



Anything less IMO might be too soft. especially coming from the ST who made Luke abit of a depressed wreck who exiled himself after thinking about killing his nephew for a brief moment.

 

"This will begin to make things right" has nothing to do with the prequels, that's reading far too much into a single line of dialogue. Abrams has said that his intent with the story of TROS is to make it so if you watch the saga in order from Episode I to IX, you'll see a clear story that culminates with a logical and satisfying conclusion. That means he kept the PT in mind when developing the screenplay.

And that's to say nothing of the bounty of PT-era content we've received in the past few years, as @Fredrik Vallestrand said. We have another season of TCW on the way due to popular demand and an internal desire to resolve the story, we have a ton of comics, every update made to Battlefront II since last fall has been in service of adding more PT content including characters and maps, we just got a book centered around Padme last month, one centered around Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon this week, there's an audio book centered around Dooku being released next month, etc. Just because you don't care about ancillary materials, doesn't mean other people don't care or that those materials don't exist. The idea that there's some sort of anti-PT stance within Lucasfilm right now is laughable.