Saga Anakin Skywalker - Character Discussion...among other things.

It matters becuase I'm not dicussing what Lucas wanted to do, but rather the impression I was operating under before the release of the PT, which was informed (in part) by what little the EU had told us up to that point.

Again, I think we just got yourself confused and we're actually just discussing two different things with the assumption we were both arguing the SAME thing.

I thought you moved past the "Luke's age when he fell thing" becuase you stopped arguing the point of the "young Jedi named Darth Vader" and shifted to the unused "boy I was training" line, which made me think you were no longer arguing your position but were claiming that Anakin was a child when he fell (which I countered by pointing out that both the PT and the stuff released prior to it showed he was already a grown adult)

Well, that's not true.

It was an inference based on Guinness and Shaw's physical ages, as well as Obi-Wan saying Anakin was already a skilled pilot when he first met him (I doubt many people read that line as "he was a nine year old racecar driver"). There's also the very few PT era visual depictions of Kenobi released prior to TPM as part of Legends, were he was already shown as grey-haired/greying, and the single image of Anakin were he looks to be in his thirties (the image includes Padme and one of the twins too, so we know it was supposed to be around 19/20 years before ANH).

There's only one "correct" answer, and that's what the PT and subsequent works have told us, but I'm talking about by impressions/assumptions from BEFORE the PT was released, made based on inferences from the scant canon information that existed. I'm not disputing that Anakin/Vader was nine when he started training and forty-something when he died, I'm just saying that's not the impression the pre-PT lore gave me back in the day.

I'm talking about what the canon (not Lucas) told us (or rather, what it implied/what I felt it implied), though.

My impression, based on what the movies shows us and what little information the EU provided prior to that point, was that the two characters were somewhat older then the PT ultimately decided to show, whereas you seem to have taken a literal interpretation of the "a young Jedi" line and focused on BTW stuff. And my impression led me to assume that Obi-Wan was in his sixties when he died and Anakin was in his early fifties circa ROTJ.

It's an inference that was based on the movies AND the rest of the lore that existed at that point.

Perhaps it was'nt an accurate reflection of Lucas's intentions, but the EU seems to have taken it as face value (as did many fans) in the days before the release of the PT.

No offense, but you seem to be very caught up on Lucas's intentions and perhaps missed the fact that I'm not discussing (or even disputing, really) his intentions - I'm just saying what MY impressions were and what the old canon seemed to have thought prior to Lucas finally getting around to make the ST.

Lucas had his ideas and he ultimatly made different decisions then what I (and others) had assumed, I'm not disputing that (nor am I claiming he was "obligated" to do anything other then what he wanted), I'm just saying *I* (and seemingly the writers of the EU) had different impressions. That's all.

 

This part is especially strange because I specifically remember most people being surprised when it was revealed that Anakin would be a Jedi Knight in Episode III, because in Episode IV Vader says, "When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the master."

Also, Ben says, "A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights." If he was a pupil of Ben's until he turned to evil, the natural interpretation would be that he was Ben's pupil when he turned to evil, as the other line seems to confirm.

So, if anything, this is a slight contradiction that needs massaging. So it's amusing that this is apparently one Lucas retcon you accept uncritically.

 

What's the point in using that, if that impression isn't brought on by the movies?

 

I think this operates under the concept that a jedi knight isn't still a learner. I think Obi-Wan does say in ANH, if I remember correctly, "I was once a Jedi Knight the same as your father."

 

Yes, but "Jedi Knight" has been used generically in the movies to indicate a Jedi of any rank. For example, the opening crawl of TPM:

Obi-Wan is of course a Padawan still.

 

I think that lines up with the idea that Anakin could still be a learner and a jedi knight, as is suggested by Obi-Wan.

 

But he wasn't a Padawan in Episode III. He had been knighted. He was no longer a learner.

 

Lucas was covering as many bases as he could between Anakin being a Jedi Knight and Darth Vader being a pupil and learner. Obi-Wan is clearly not a Jedi Knight because it was only conferred upon him at the end of TPM. Anakin makes specific reference to Obi-Wan as his master in ROTS.

Of course one could say that even if two Jedi Knights were supposed to be dispatched that the Council decided that just one and his padawan were enough! He could have said a Jedi Knight and his apprentice were dispatched.

I suppose to be exacting in the extreme Lucas could have just said two Jedi (since Obi-Wan is certainly one) and leave out the Knights but at the same time in the overall context it ties into the line from ANH.

It's another example of Lucas not been exactingly stringent to the detriment of the story but instead looking to the wider text. He could have had Anakin still an apprentice in ROTS like Vader was but Anakin was a knight so the saw off was to have him be both but then create the Jedi Master level which still allowed Anakin to be a "pupil" to Obi-Wan in a sense.

 

I think Obi-Wan is referred to as Qui-Gon's padawan, or at least, apprentice, more than once in the movie.

 

No, he's referred to as Sick Boy, which is a terrible mistake.

 

I agree, it's not actually a problem. Anakin needed to show some concrete progression from the last movie, and Anakin and Obi-Wan needed to be on a more equal footing in the beginning of the movie to demonstrate the strength of their relationship. Hence, Lucas bent the letter of the originals a little bit and made him a Knight.

At the same time, Anakin still refers to Obi-Wan as "Master" and he still looks to him as somewhat of an authority figure, and as he gives in more and more to the dark side he regresses emotionally into the headspace of the resentful Padawan. So you get the best of both worlds, and the spirit of the originals is maintained.

But my point was that this was a retcon. And it was one of the more clear-cut ones. So it's funny that this isn't a problem, but Anakin being the age he was always conceived as when he fell to the dark side apparently is.

 

Because SW is more then just the movies? And at the time of the release of The Phantom Menace *I* had consumed far more EU works then I had SW films and they thus greatly informed the way I viewed the universe and the lore/storyline?

I can see why some people would see similarities where they do, but I doubt most of it was intentionally (and that parts that were more call forewords then direct parallels, IMO). The characters have always struck me as very different.

Aside from estimations made by fans regarding how old Obi-Wan and Anakin appeared to be, there's also the stuff I posted yesterday (from Topps and the old Marvel comics), the first of which shows an Anakin who *has* to be from around 19 BBY but physically looks around a decade older then how Anakin was ultimately depicted in ROTJ by Lucas.

The Clone Wars was also referred to in a way that suggested their was more then one war and IIRC it's also mentioned/implied somewhere to have taken place further in the past then it actually did (though I could be wrong about that), but @Iron_lord might be a better person to ask about that .

That's not true in the least; there's plenty of examples of Lucas not only contradicting the EU (TCW is especially "guilty" of this) but also the EU contradicting itself.

Lucas was always quite clear about the fact that he personally did'nt care about the EU and considered it not part of "his" universe, but LFL itself always classified it as canon as part of their official company policy prior to the Disney buyout.

As for it being common knowledge how Lucas felt; it was and it wasn't - it was no secret but I did'nt find out that he did'nt care until around the early/mid-2000s (becuase that's the time I started to hear/care about what he said), and growing up "my" Star Wars was always the EU, not the movies.

I would defiantly consider Vader's usage of it to be dismissive ("he's just a boy"), especially since that's standard village fare and Dooku and Kylo act the same way towards Anakin and Rey. As for Obi-Wan I've always assumed he meant "boy" in the same way that @The_Phantom_Calamari seems to be using it (as a stand-in for teenage/young man) because, obviously, Luke is clearly not a child at the time of ESB.

Even if I agreed with that I'm talking about the assumptions *I* had formed at the time, when I was unaware of any of Lucas's BTS thoughts/unused ideas, so how could those have possibly influanced my thinking?

That's how you fell, but that is not an opinion I hold or have ever held.

It's not a contradiction; Anakin has *always* been described as a knight prior to his fall - this has been true since ANH.

The retcon is more that it seems the original intent was that knights could be apprenticed to other, more experienced knights, rather then apprentice/padawan being it's own specific rank; both ANH and the old Marvel comics refer to Anakin as being both a Jedi Knight AND Obi-Wan's student; and to be honest my assumption back in the day was that Anakin walked away from Obi-Wan to pursue the ambitions that ultimately led to him becoming evil and there was more of a gap then their ultimately was (basically it wasn't "Anakin immedatly betrays the Jedi and fights Kenobi" but rather "Anakin leaves the Jedi Order to pursue his personal agenda, does some stuff for a while, and then attacks the Jedi and fights Obi-Wan)

When did I say ANYTHING was or wasn't a problem?

I don't have an issue with what Lucas ultimately decided on showing us, I just had a different impression on what the characters/stories would be BEFORE he decided to actually get around to telling the stories, because the impression the lore had given me/the way I read the original films led me to a set of conclusions that differed from Lucas' eventual ideals.

 

Nope. "Jedi Knight" has always been used as a catch-all generic for members of the Order, but it was never the case that an individual with the specific title of "Knight" could be apprenticed to another Knight or Master. That's totally at odds both with common sense and with the medieval conventions the ranks are based on, which an apprentice to a knight was called a squire.

The concept of a Padawan learner rank has existed since the earliest drafts of the original Star Wars:

There's no indication in any of the films that you could be a "learner" and also hold the specific rank of "Knight." That's something you made up in your head. And isn't it just so strange how all this stuff you randomly made up was completely ignored in the prequels, in favor of stuff that had long been established in early material written by Lucas? Weird! Why would he do that?

 

You'll note that Ulic says "we're Jedi Knights serving under Master Arca", so it defiantly seemed like pre-PT the idea was that a knight could be apprentices to a more talented knight or a master (there's also ANH, were despite your admits to dismiss it Obi-Wan EXPICITLY calls Anakin a knight while Vader EXPICITLY says he was still learning when the two parted ways, and the old Marvel panel I posted the other day, where Anakin/Vader and Obi-Wan are both referred to as knights while Anakin/Vader is also described as Obi-Wan's pupil(s)) Also...


Here Kyp (still and apprentice) identifies himself as "Kyp Durron, Jedi Knight" and Luke introduces Kam not as "my apprentice/padawan/student" but rather just "Kam Solusar, Jedi Knight", while Kam HIMSELF flat-out says he was apprenticed to his father and his now "begun my service under Luke Skywalker", which is basically just an outright statement, clear as day, that a knight can also be an apprentice.

It's not good form to claim people lack common sense just because they did'nt interpret the lines in fantasy film the same way you did; the way I see it, I *am* using common sense, at least in the regards that I'm viewing the pre-PT works in a vacuum devoid of anyting released from the time of TPM onwards to discuss/explain the impressions the older stuff gave me - honestly I don't see why you have to be so combative about this, or why you keep bringing up stuff that's irrelevant to what I' talking about (like BTS information/unused ideas of Lucas)

And I don't think "Jedi Squire" was ever a thing; Jedi draw a some inspirations from medieval knights, true, but they also draw inspiration from other sources, and they exist in a fantasy universe were there's no reason to think they have to mimics all things perfectly; the distinct rank of padawan exists now, but back in the 80s/90s it defiantly seemed like apprentice wasn't a formal rank and Jedi Knights could indeed learn from master/other knights - at any rate, relevant to the topic of the conversation *I* defiantly don't remember ever having the impression that knights couldn't be learners at the time of the film.

True, but that's not really relevant to this discussion because the term did'nt actually appear in use until TPM - before then the term was always "apprentice", and their was no indication that I can remember, that you could be a apprentice and not also be a knight - in fact the implication seemed to be that they were (Obi-Wan says "I was once a Jedi Knight, same as your father", while both him and Vader describe the latter as Obi-Wan's learner at the time they parted ways)

I was once a Jedi Knight the same as your father.

When I left you I was but the learner.

May I present Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight? (keep in mind this is BEFORE Luke went back to Yoda and learned he had completed his training, so he was still operating under the assumption that his tutelage was incomplete)

I guess I just imagined the above lines, then? (I mean, just going by ANH alone how can Anakin be a knight "the same" as Obi-Wan and also be Obi-Wan's learner without being...a Jedi Knight?)

No, it's not weird at all; why would it be? Lucas's PT was different (in various ways) then how a lot of people, least of all myself and the EU writers, assumed it would be.

What *is* weird is that we've been going around a circles for three days because for some reason I'm not allowed to have gleaned a different personal impression then you did from watching the movies and reading a bunch of comics and novels over twenty years ago on the grounds that...I dunno, the impressions a child in the 1990s is not allowed to conflict with some movies made in the early-2000s and a bunch of then-unused BTS ideas said child did not know about at the time?

Because he wrote the Prequals and I did'nt, and so his ideas got to be used instead of my impressions; obviously had I written the prequals they would have been very different movies (and likewise they would have been different if Zahn, KJA or, heck, even Kasdan, wrote them).

But I fail to see how Lucas decided to depict that era is relevant to how I thought that era played out PRIOR to him showing it to us (or what it has to do with the fact that at least some of the EU writers seem to have imagined it differently as well).

 

It was completely and absolutely intentional. That was the whole purpose. The characters are different but share the same journey both parallel and inverted all at once. I just find it very odd that you seemingly place so much importance on the Star Wars writing of everyone else except the person who actually matters the most. I get that you adore the EU and weren't much interested in ferreting out Lucas' material but it does exist.

Which is simply a reflection of backstory information from Lucas himself. Which makes the point that information about those times which Lucas had created was around in Lucasfilm and some of it got into the EU albeit it without refinement and oversight by Lucas.

Which again makes the point. If the EU was contradicting itself (as in it's own material outside of reacting to Lucas's story) then that is problematic for that branch of Star Wars. Either way that has no real baring on Lucas' Star Wars because that can't contradict the EU for the simple reason that the EU isn't his Star Wars. If he wanted to he might take material from that and accept it in but he had no obligation to do so. He liked the name Coruscant so used it. He didn't like the name Korriban for the Sith planet so disguarded it and renamed it Moraband. His own creation, Darth Bane, was given a visual look by the EU that didn't work for him so he have us the real look of the character.

Except as I pointed out the context simply doesn't work. If Vader is truly "dismissive" (feeling or showing that something is unworthy of consideration) then his entire drive from the start of the movie doesn't make sense:

The evil lord Darth Vader,
obsessed with finding young
Skywalker, has dispatched
thousands of remote probes into
the far reaches of space...

It's quite the opposite.

That's the question that I'd ask. Why don't you? Now obviously whether you (or anyone) agrees with it or not is irrelevant because it does matter above anything else anybody else did. That's why it all changes once he makes his decision.

I don't know the EU anywhere near well enough to answer that. I don't know how their process worked from whatever actual access to Lucas material they had then how that was filtered through to the EU. What minimalist part at best that Lucas played. I understand that he had some suggestions or comments at times. Basically you were influenced by what they were influenced by which in part traces back to Lucas but more like a game of telephone as opposed to a direct conversation with him. For example the novelizations of the movies were overseen by Lucas as they were directly tied to the movies and from his scripts. Hence why you get things like the Emperor referencing Yoda in ROTJ or backstory that Lucas had at the time like Owen Lars being Obi-Wan's brother.

Feeling is kinda irrelevant. That's just the way it is. There are Lucas' 6 movies and TCW then there is everything else be that the EU or anything Disney has done. That's where the story is. Even if someone doesn't "feel" that way then at the very least it should be appreciated in respect to the artist's creation from which everything else flows. That's why the EU changed as more actual Lucas content was revealed to them. Then they had to react to that with material like Palpatine actually being a Sith and his name being Darth Sidious. That Sith Lords all had name/titles of Darth.

The underlying feeling I get is that you look at Lucas as just one writer of Star Wars that has no differentiation of importance from any other writer. If you want to feel that way you can but that simply isn't the case and still isn't now. Disney writers can write all sorts of rubbish (and apparently they have) trying to tell us what really went on in the movies but there is no reason whatsoever to pay any attention to that.

 

IMO I think you (and others) are overstating the (largely superficial) similarities between them.

Anakin is charming, confident and impatient man of action who likes to solve his problems mainly through cunning and is always spoiling for a fight, and is bold and foreword from the moment we meet him. He's humble at the start, but prideful and arrogant as he grows (something he is aware of, even if he doesn't care), and ultimately falls to the dark side because of a selfish desire to save his wife after giving in to the Dark Side several times and not really seeming all that guilty at any point, subsequently embracing his inner monster before finally sacrificing his life to save his son and accepting what he had become in his final moments so he could die at peace with himself.

Luke is cocky, rather then confident, and patient rather then impatient, and he tends to solve his problems through negotiation and talking, only resorting to fighting when nessesery. He's not a notably bold or foreword person (at times he appears downright shy, and as while he's a bit like nine-year old Anakin in ANH as he grows he ultimately tends towards being a quite and sometimes pensive person with a much calmer exterior demeanor then Anakin. Like Anakin, he *does* become more prideful and arrogant as he grows up, but it's a more gradual growth then Anakin and one he himself never takes note of (until it's too late). Luke also never falls to the Dark Side, catching himself both times he comes close to crossing a line, and the second time he becomes so distraught by simply having a momentary urge to do a bad thing he runs away to hide for a decade, ultimately regaining his vitality and coming back for one final, grand sacrifice.

There are similarities, true; both are Skywalkers, both are from Tatooine, both were trained by Obi-Wan, both became Jedi, both wore black attire, both lost their hands in duels and got them replaced by prosthetics, both wielded the same lightsaber at one point, both fought a Sith Lord in a duel in front of Palpatine while he sat in a chair at the top of tower during a space battle, but these are superficial as I've said and Luke also shares superficial similarities with Yoda and Obi-Wan. Personally I think a lot of what you feel are meant to be parallels between them on Lucas's part are just call-forwards or skin-deep similarities.

Well, first off I don't consider Lucas to have mattered "the most" (I don't think any of the writers matter "the most," save for in a subjective sense of "which writers to I enjoy the most?"). Secondly you (like @The_Phantom_Calamari) have fundementally misunderstood my "argument"* - all I'm trying to do is share the impressions I had in the years BEFORE the PT came out. I'm not arguing they trump what Lucas actually showed us in the prequals.

*which is'nt even in argument anyway, just be sharing how I originally envisioned things about the characters and the untold backstory due to my personal inferences from the lore over twenty years ago. These aren't even views I currently hold - and haven't been views I end since I was a freaking child - so I'm not even sure what the issue is here.

"Adore" is a very, very, very, very (very, very, very, very, very) strong word; I *like* the EU - I even LOVE parts of it - but I hardly adore it. There are people on these boards who adore it, but I'm not one of them - the EU, for all it's pros, was bloated, inconsistent, top-heavy and filled with to many things that were either forgettable, bad, terrible or some degree of forgettable and bad/terrible. My fondness for it is the same kind of fondness I hold for Team Rocket, Rugrats, Murder She Wrote and old James Bond movies in that it's mainly because I grew up with it and have fond memories, not because I think it's amazing or something.

And Lucas's material amounts to...seven movies, an animated show, a holiday special and two direct-to-video kid movies about Ewoks. It was never hard for me to ferret it out - we'll except for the Holiday Special, but do you really expect me to try?

Of course it's promblemic when the EU contradicted itself - just as it was problematic when Lucas ran roughshod over it and carelessly created messes and headaches for his own employees; I don't consider Lucas any more justified in randomly deciding to rename Korriban, be inconsistent about Bane's appearence, alter Bariss Offee's character or re-retcon Boba Fett's origin story then I think it's justified for the EU to give us a billion different depictions of how the Death Star plans were stolen, have Anakin become a knight at both the start AND the end of the Clone Wars, have Bel-Iblis be like "yo, dude, the Death Star? What's that?" even though he's BEEN ON IT (lol) or have retcon Boba Fett's original origin story.

An inconsistency is an inconsistency is an inconsistency to me; I don't much care if it resulted from Lucas not giving a **** or the EU writers not paying attention to what was going on.

Maybe "dismissive" was the wrong way to put it, but semantics aside the word I'm looking for is whatever you best feel describes the way villians are often dipicted acting towards heroes when they call them "boy/girl".

Vader does this, and so does Kylo and Dooku. Voldemort and a billion other evil characters do it as well; it's basically a trope.

You know, when somebody asks me a question but then immedatly follows it up with "now obviously whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant" it kinda makes me not want to answer, becuase it kinda makes me feel like the person asking the question doesn't really care about what my position may be and has prejudged it as invalid.

But I will anyway, for the sake of trying to be polite and re-orianted this discussion along a more productive course; I don't consider what Lucas may or may not have thought or said to matter to the actual lore of Star Wars unless it actually made the transition from idea to concept; likewise I feel the same about Abrams, Johnson or anyone else who has ever written for Star Wars or any other fictional story.

For an analogy do you know Deep Space 9? The Star Trek show from the late 90s? Well, one of the showrunners, Ira Steven Behr, has stated the character of Garek on was "clearly" gay or queer, but since that wasn't actually in the show and Garek is very clearly shown to be interest in woman, not men, so I don't think that matters. If Garek were to pop up in a new Star Trek show though, and be like "hey, I'm out of the closet now! I'm gay!" then Behr's behind-the-scenes opinions would then matter to me within the context of the narrative - likewise Lucas's BTS opinions matter to me in the context of the narrative now, but they did not at the time period we were discussion (least of all because I did not even know about them)

Lucas's involvement in the EU was virtually non-existent save for relatively early on, and largly amounted to him making occasional suggestions that the writers took ("bring Palpatine back to life rather then have the villian be someone pretending to be Vader") or overruling things that he learned about that he was worried would conflict with the ideas he was in the process of forming ("call these aliens something other then Sith because Vader being "the Lord of the Sith" doesn't mean he was "the lord of a species called the Sith"")

Well, that's a fairly narrow view, if you don't mind me saying; suffice to say I'm not nearly as much of a, let's just say, purist for lack of a better word, as you are; SW to me is a growing tapestry, not a rigid statue.

I never claimed I did'nt respect Lucas's artistic creation - in fact, one thing that's consistent about me is that I place a huge value on a persons artistic vision, even when I disagree with their decisions or don't enjoy the story they told. That's even true for Lucas in the case of the one SW movie he made that I don't enjoy - ATOC; I don't like it, but it's his art and he told the story he wanted to tell.

That's not precisely true, but your on the write track; I don't think his status as a creator grants/granted him an specific rights other then the legal/copyright ones he formally held as owner of Lucasfilms, but I *do* think he's different from any later writers in the sense that he created Star Wars.

Ultimately I would say I view him similar to how I view Gene Roddenberry, Sydney Newman, Walt Disney or Hugh Harman; they of course should be acknowledged for their vision and the fact that they were creators, but I don't think Star Trek becomes invalid because Roddenberry did'nt make it, feel that Doctor Who stopped being Doctor Who once Newman ceased involvement with the show, or think that any depiction of Micky Mouse or the Looney Tones is rendered invalid because it wasn't made by Disney or Harman.

It still isn't? Lucas is no longer involved in SW in any way, shape or form and official canon policy is that all works - film and otherwise - are equally as valid, so it defiantly seems like whatever debates one might want to have about if it was true in the past it defiantly is now, at least according to the people in actually in charge of the franchise.

As for reasons to pay attention to the post-Disney stuff, I can think of a few (though granted, their subjective reasons that, given the implied feelings in your text, you presumably do not agree with)

 

With this debate continuing, I'd like to clariy and put on record once again that Anakin Skywalker is the best character in the "Skywalker Saga" - regardless of everyone's imaginations of what he was "supposed" to be before that fact became reality from '99 to '05

 

Mostly everyone else exists though

Jokes aside, if we count TCW I'd actually rate Anakin fairly highly on the list of main SW characters (though I still imagine I would have like the version of the character I had envisioned prior to the PT showing us the real him, even if most of his fans would doubtlessly feel otherwise)

 

One interesting thing about Anakin's lightsabers. Take a look at the three he constructs and uses in the Saga:

His first lightsaber


His second lightsaber


His third (Vader's) lightsaber


Now, what do they all have in common?
That's right: they bear a strong resemblance to Yoda's lightsaber!


Maybe there are a few background Jedi with similar lightsaber handles, but Yoda is the only major character whose style Anakin shares - and he is widely considered the greatest swordsman in the galaxy.
A sign that he - consciously - aspired to dethrone the Grand Master?

 

I’ve come to like PT/TCW era Anakin a lot more. I used to follow internet trends in regards to attitude, but I think the point of his character is that he’s descending even as he matures.
In AOTC, I think we’re supposed to think he’s out of order when complaining about Obi-Wan, and we’re meant to see his interactions with Padme as those of an socially awkward, inexperienced person. I wouldn’t do too much better of a job despite not having lived the life Anakin has.

The Tusken Raiders is Anakin’s first truly evil act, but as we can see, he does it not from wanton ness, but vengeance. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but Anakin’s thinking is meant to be seen as flawed. That’s what makes him different from the more classic protagonist like Luke (another favorite of mine, especially OT era).

 

I've seen people use this reasoning to explain his behavior in ATOC before, and while I understand the logic behind it, I don't think it's the case.

We see how Anakin acts before and shortly after ATOC, and he's nothing but confident, charming and varying degrees of charismatic even at the age of nine when he's far less worldly and experienced. Given that, and how nobody in ATOC (most notably Padme) acts like he's awkward or socially inexperienced, I'd lean much more towards the intention being for him to be in line with his depictions elsewhere but the execution simply being flawed, because it makes no sense that Anakin is just going to randomly lose all his confidence and charm for a few days and nobody is going to notice.

 

If you mean in the elevator with Obi-Wan (the one scene before Padme in AOTC), then he’s more relaxed and comfortable talking to a father figure he’s known for ten years. He doesn’t seem awkward with Jar Jar or Watto, but in those cases he isn’t attracted to the individuals and doesn’t intend to woo them.

In TCW, you may be right that he’s more charming, but he’s also older, even if only slightly. He’s had to mature in a short time.
At the age of nine, I can’t speak for everyone’s experience, but young children are often less self conscious than teenagers and young adults. If he had asked Padme if she was an Angel at nineteen, I don’t think it would have looked as cute as a nine year old asking it. In that scene, he’s still asking a question that would seem as awkward as some AOTC lines if not more so, but he’s younger while doing it.

In other words, he comes across as more charming at nine because what he says is more okay from a young child than a young adult, but I don’t think that shows a regression between TPM and AOTC.

 

He's kind awkward, IMO, throughout the entire movie (to varying degrees), but everyone (including Padme) does'nt act like he is save for in the bedroom scene were she says he's making her uncomfortable, but even then his own reaction lines up with someone whose self-confident and playful, not someone who's feeling awkward.

TCW begins just a couple months after ATOC, IIRC, and nobody acts like his personality has shifted dramatically.

It's not just the angel scene, it's the entire movie.

Anakin in TPM swaggers around displaying considerable self-confidence, boldness, wit and street-smarts, and is really only out of his element and unsure when he's adapting to losing his mother, is faced with "cross-examination" by the Jedi Council and is worried about his future at Qui-Gon's funeral. His behavior in this movie lines up not only with ROTS, but with mostly every canon adventure of the character; ATOC is really the outlier, so speaking for myself I'm pretty confident holding the opinion he's not *supposed* to be awkward during the events theirin.

 

Exactly. Anakin has supreme confidence in his Jedi skills which is a natural and maturing outgrowth of his previously seen piloting and mechanical skills.

His social skills regarding Padme are still like a young boy's in their ineptitude but she also has deficiencies there due to her spending all the time as Queen then Senator. The point being that while both are extremely accomplished in some ways they are also both deficient in others though Padme is the adult between the two of them.

Which is exactly how it plays in the movie where she makes the decisions for both of them. First to not get together when he pledges his love to her, she stops it for the both of them then later when she decides to pledge her love to him. It's super ultra corny to the nth degree of course. Just as Lucas intended. He already had a Rhett/Scarlet relationship in TESB so he wasn't going to do that again nor would that make sense for the characters.

 

Great post here - Ive heard people find the dialog between the two clunky and maybe it is at times but I think thats by design as you pointed out. Its so nice and refreshing to read mostly positive things about Anakin and the prequels.