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

He wouldn't look almost exactly like what he just looked like a few minutes ago?

It doesn't heal aging or else Yoda and Obi-Wan would both be young too.

 

Yet, once again, Anakin was only 45 when he died unlike Obi-Wan (57). Slap a wig on Christensen today (at 40) and he wouldn’t seem all that different from Anakin from 2005, especially at distance + a blue glow to hide the more obvious differences.

So it doesn’t bother me one bit.

 

Is Hayden 40 already? Wow.

 

This is who we the audience, and Luke, just saw a few moments prior and it looks nothing like Hayden Christensen. That's everyone's point. If Lucas wanted Hayden to be in ROTJ, he should have changed all of Shaw's scenes and not just slapped his head onto his body as a ghost.

 

Why would he? He isn't that man anymore. The scared husk of Darth Vader is left behind. His spirit is a butterfly leaving the cocoon. The body that is wracked with hatred and evil only had that spark of the good left in him.

Besides that it's a beyond completely and utterly generous statement that he looks almost exactly like he did just a few minutes ago!

It's about the inner person and being at peace with yourself which both Obi-Wan and Yoda were. Their self image reflects that. Anakin's reflects his which is a memory of who he was and what the good inside him is. Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight not Darth Vader burnt husk of hatred in Sith armor.

As gone over many times it does look something like HC as the burnt up Vader. What looks nothing like HC is the original Force Ghost when it has to look like him.

It wasn't at all necessary do so for the reveal scene but was for the ghost scene.

 

@Qui-Riv-Brid You're not making any sense anymore.

You're telling me that Shaw... doesn't look like Shaw? I'm done here. I don't know what is up with these forums at night, but I'm done.

 

Personally, I would be a little bit offended if my 'afterlife ghost' had the same physical appearance as my younger self who made a lot of stupid mistakes.
I'm pretty sure Anakin would agree with me (if he were a real person)...

(Well, maybe you could say that Anakin deserved the regression because of his stupidity back then, but that's not how it works...)

 

Personally I like young Anakin as a Force ghost in ROTJ. It has a very "rebirth and renewal" feel to it, that is reminiscient of certain fairy tales and ancient mythology-which GL drew heavily from. Also, I don't see much of an issue that Shaw is still in the unmasking scene, as Darth Vader is older there-and his face is more mangled and half hidden in the suit-so it doesn't really take me out of the scene there.

I think it's a great way to end Anakin's arc with him appearing as we last knew him before he was consumed by the Darkside, as if the Force is recognizing the good in him (which ultimately never really left) and not the bad-and he returns to what he once was.

Ultimately I think whether someone likes the idea or not is completely a matter of opinion and really has no factual basis for argument in either direction-whatever people think is fine either way. But I personally love it, and I totally get what GL is going for in that moment.

 

As I'm saying the same thing that I've been saying for the longest time. Which is that it's not solely about the actor's but the characters they are playing and within the context of what's happening in the story and situation.

I think it's very instructive that the argument is about Shaw the actor as opposed to Anakin the character. I get that you want to make it specifically about the actor's but that doesn't work for the story.

So you are saying that we as the audience can't possibly accept these characters are one and the same?



but it's alright to accept these characters as one and the same?



Yet obviously the actors are different people with different voices but they are playing the same character. What's more for the Vader unmasking scene from the helmet being taken off to the end of the scene is about one minute during which we see Vader/Anakin's face for about half that time or some 30 or so seconds. Even in that his face is obscured by the lower jaw part of the Vader mask.

The above all works. Different actors playing the same part and the cross connections in terms of the character, story and visual imagery merging it all together.

What does and doesn't work is based on the the plausible visual character connections of different actor's playing the same parts:



Obi-Wan to Obi-Wan works. Anakin to Anakin simply doesn't. The few moments of the unmasked Vader works just fine. The few moments of the spirit Anakin doesn't.

 

To you.

To you.

To you.

 

Honestly I think Spencer Wilding (Vader in Rogue One) should be Anakin's force ghost.

 

Don't even change the clothers. Just make him glowy.

 

He's certainly more hunky than Shaw. Although Shaw may well have been hunky in his day.

 

I don't know if "hunky" is how I would describe him. Spencer is sort of muscular like David Prowse though. Although, Prowse seems to have a lot more body mass.

 

So the argument is that what I say only applies to me (and George Lucas) but what you say applies to the entire audience.

Yet your answer is that if all of Shaw's scenes had been replaced then you'd accept it but half of Shaw's scenes being replaced doesn't work.

The unmasked scared and burnt Vader to Vader face isn't dependent solely on the actor's face as both of them are under heavy make-up that gives the character's destroyed visage. Obviously we know that it isn't HC in both but that isn't the point anymore than EW not actually being AG is since they are both clearly the same character.

In the spirit Anakin's case the actor's faces are more important because they aren't and weren't likely to match as well as Obi-Wan because they were done in reverse order AG to EM as opposed to SS to HC. The first was very important to do the second was completely unimportant.

 

My point is that Sebastian Shaw looks like Sebastian Shaw. It's not like he's under pounds of makeup. They put a bald cap on him and a scar underneath one of his cheeks. Now, if we were talking about Eric Stoltz in MASK, then yeah, I could see your point. But my argument is stemming from the objective fact that Shaw looks like Shaw. You've just started stating your own personal and subjective preference.

There is a distinct difference between what you're doing and what I'm doing. You're argument seems to hinge on...

But seeing Hayden only "works" if you watched the PT first. So, right off the bat, your way only works under certain circumstances. Seeing the actor who we just saw playing the same character works under ALL circumstances.

 

Except that the current ghost, Hayden, still has a facial scar.
So now not all wounds are healed.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

He does? I honestly hadn’t noticed.

 

The footage is from a costume fitting when RotS was being made. In that film, Anakin has a facial scar, so when doing the fitting, Hayden had that scar. And Lucas either didn't notice or didn't bother to remove it for the ghost. Instead he just cut and pasted Haydens head onto Shaws body.

End result, the ghost has only some wounds healed.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

Sebastian Shaw doesn't look much like himself in the unmasking scene, no. Can you figure out why?

One thing I find funny about this debate is that everyone's always talking about how other people might be confused about why Anakin looks young. But no one ever cops to being confused themselves, before Lucas explained it. I wonder why that is?

 

I'm confused now.

 

Oh, really?



These are clearly the same facial features.

 

He's not that man anymore. He's left him behind. The man of evil that he was existed as a walking undead being of hatred and greed. It's that spark and ember of good in him that left that body behind to return to his true inner spiritual form.

Regardless of what he calls himself, he was still Anakin Skywalker for the decades he spent living as Anakin Skywalker. His true inner spiritual form may not bear the injuries of his physical form, but he aged the same decades that Obi-Wan did.

The father has become the son just like the son has become what his father should have been. The inverse and parallel journey's of father and son is now complete. Having the true Anakin behind the mask be a mirror of Luke internally ties directly back to TESB:

Sebastian Shaw is no less the "true" Anakin than Christensen. Shaw is the man he was when he died. He did not "leave that identity behind," rather, by acting on Luke's behalf and removing the mask, he became the man behind the mask rather than the one embodied by it.

 

....Yeah. No kidding. It's the same person.

But he's wearing heavy make-up and prosthetics. You know it's Anakin because he looks just like he did before the helmet went on. His most striking features are his burned skin, bald head, and scars (these are not, in fact, features possessed by Sebastian Shaw himself). It isn't jarring like having a 77-year-old Sebastian Shaw sans make-up trying to pass himself off as either a 23-year-old or 46-year-old Hayden Christensen. Surely you can see the difference.

Wrong. He was Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker was thought dead, but was in fact lying dormant within Darth Vader. Anakin did not age the same decades that Obi-Wan did, because he wasn't developing as a person. He was in a state of arrested development as Darth Vader. It's a parallel to Han Solo being frozen in suspended animation.

"When the mask of Darth Vader is removed, you see an unformed man, one who has not developed as a human individual. What you see is a strange and pitiful sort of undifferentiated face.

Darth Vader has not developed his humanity. He's a robot. He's a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but of an imposed system."
--Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“The Han Solo journey is a continuation of the motif of death and rebirth, which is the overall theme of this whole series in relationship to Darth Vader, who comes out of his evil hibernation and is reborn as Anakin Skywalker. Han has been put to sleep, which is a common device, especially in fairytales and mythological tales; it’s like going into a state of suspended animation and then, usually, you come out rejuvenated. Sometimes it’s the equivalent of going down to the netherworld and coming back enlightened.”
--George Lucas from J.W. Rinzler's The Making of Return of the Jedi

Then why doesn't he look the way he did when he died? You see, you can't resolve these contradictions, because you're contradicting the intent behind the story. The idea has always been that Anakin was restored to his prior identity after shedding that of Darth Vader. That's why he lacks any of the scars or deformities he possessed when he was unmasked. But back in 1982 when ROTJ was made, Lucas of course hadn't made the prequels yet, so the 77-year-old Sebastian Shaw was used, with make-up and darkened hair to make him look as young as possible (since he was supposed to be younger than Alec Guinness's character despite being ten years his senior in real life.)

For the 2004 release, Lucas took this original intent to its logical conclusion while harmonizing the films with the prequels, reasoning that the restored Anakin would shed not just the scars and deteriorations of his Vader persona, but also the physical toll of wasted years. If he is to be rejuvenated, then why would he be rejuvenated in every way except for his physical aging, when this too was something suffered by Darth Vader, not by Anakin Skywalker?

 

When Dooku turned to the dark side, did his body suddenly stop aging?
The dark side seems to have all manner of unexpected side-effects, it stops your spirit from aging and apparently it also stops your body from aging.

Anakin did develop and change after the turn, not in so very nice ways but change he did.

The parallel to Han is weak as I have said before as Han and Vader start out as quite different, go through quite different character journeys and most of Han's changes comes before he was frozen and when he thaws out, he proceeds along the same path as before. Vader has changed a lot during the time in the suit and comes out a very different man than how he went in.

He does not look like when he died for the same reason Obi-Wan is not cut in half or has a big wound in his side, the Force healed his wounds. Well, that was easy.
Hayden as the ghost causes contradictions, he is much younger than the age when he died, only some of his wounds are healed, he has his arm back but his facial scar is still there.

As for what was intended back when RotJ was made. Early scripts had both Obi-Wan and Anakin come back in the flesh. Anakin isn't described in great detail but he is called "elderly". So clearly not the age when he turned.
Then that idea was scrapped and for a while no ghost of Anakin and I think it was the producer that suggested it and Lucas went with it. So it did not seem that Lucas had gone into great detail about this.
Also, it would not be difficult to have a younger actor, say in his 40's, playing unmasked Anakin, with make up and then as the ghost, the make up is gone and now he looks younger.
Lastly, Obi-Wan was supposed to be in his 70's in ANH, so older than the actor playing him.

Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are the same person.
I have come across people that have argued that Anakin really didn't do any of the things that Vader did. That Vader was just some dark-side demon that possessed Anakin's body while the real Anakin was off in limbo of something.
So Anakin is really innocent of all of Vader's crimes.
I do not agree with this reasoning and I think it weakens the redemeption story.

Anakin is Vader and Vader is Anakin. He lived those years, he did all these things, he suffered for the choices he made, the evil he had done. There was still light inside him, a faint voice crying out "No, stop!" But he would not, could not listen, his anger and his hate, combined with the venom of the Dark side were too strong. Until Luke showed him a better way. Until Luke not letting go of his faith in his father.
Now Anakin could break the chains he himself forged, break out of the prison of hate he had locked himself in for all these years.

Bye.
Old Stoneface