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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT Anakin Skywalker MEGAthread - Don't talk to him about sand, it makes him uncomfortable

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Tonyg, Feb 16, 2016.

  1. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    The novelisation seems to imply that Mace hadn't truly defeated Sidious, Sidious was just using him. Quotes like; Mace: "You lost for the same reason all Sith lose. Defeated by your fear." Palpatine: "Fool! You think the fear you feel is mine?"
    Take from that what you will. I think Palpatine was at least fighting defensively to prolong the duel until Anakin was close.

    On Anakin vs Obi-Wan, the dark side increased his power for sure, but I think his former close bond, resentment, and jealousy regarding Obi-Wan clouded his judgement. Obi-Wan is actually predisposed to being perfect to take on Anakin regardless of being a little weaker than Anakin. "You have become a far greater Jedi than I could ever hope to be." He trained him and knows Anakin's style, strengths and weaknesses, and fights defensively for much of the duel until he gets an opening.


    I'd say Anakin. Luke would be the most powerful person left in the galaxy at the end of ROTJ, but Anakin at full strength given his potential would Imo be a little stronger. Being a PT Jedi he's better trained, has more raw force potential ("fathered" by the force and Shmi, where Luke only has one force-sensitive parent as far as we know). And also, if this makes sense, I think the force was more "active" in the PT, with all the force users around. My personal interpretation is the force is a laying a little dormant in the OT, with the Jedi holding back to avoid being found, and the Sith comfortably sitting unchallenged at first.
     
  2. ObiWanKnowsMe

    ObiWanKnowsMe Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2015
    Anakin was just crazy good in RotS.......... He would've been remembered as the greatest Jedi warrior of all time had he not been seduced to the dark side. I'd say my favorite Anakin moment would be all of Hayden Christensen's acting at the end of RotS, right before he duels Obi-Wan. Someone told me that Hayden said his acting was bad in RotS, but I disagree. I thought he came off very convincingly as someone who was troubled and extremely confused but angered. He had to play a complex character whose mind was in turmoil in RotS and I thought he did that fantastically. And throughout his entire duel with Obi-Wan, I thought he pulled off the evil stares nicely along with how his face looks when he says "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!". You can tell by looking at his face that he does not truly mean this when he says it but he knows that he's gone too far to turn back now.

    And no, I'm not "fanboying". I'm just saying that Hayden Christensen's acting at the end of RotS really helped the final act of RotS become arguably my favorite part of the entire saga.
    [​IMG]
    (Just by looking at his eyes you can tell he is deeply troubled and saddened and that he is not meaning what he is saying. He knows that the Jedi are not evil but he is doing what he has to do to save his wife.)
     
  3. QueenSabe7

    QueenSabe7 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 23, 2001
    Anakin rules! He was pure bad ass in ROTS. :cool:


    Anakin, hands down. If he had remained whole and not needed the Vader suit after ROTS, he would have been a whole different story. I think Palpatine was probably relieved that Anakin lost his duel with Obi-Wan in the manner that he did.
     
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  4. AniLukeRey

    AniLukeRey Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 6, 2016
    He is extremely bad-ass, yet extremely vulnerable. He and Luke are very different, from what we have seen so far, and come from 2 completely different eras. So its hard to compare the two. I think Luke has more emotional stability, but as far as being a Jedi soldier, Anakin has all the training and skill and then some.
     
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  5. Padmes_love_slave24

    Padmes_love_slave24 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 24, 2003
    [​IMG]Slaughtering time!
     
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  6. AshiusX

    AshiusX Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Feb 7, 2016
    I don't like that line to be honest. It should have been something like '' The Jedi can't give me what I want''. I think would have been stronger.
     
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  7. Chewies_bandolier

    Chewies_bandolier Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    May 5, 2002
    Gosh I don't post here often, but I just wanted to share this really cool manip I saw .. the evo/devolution of Anakin Skywalker beautifully illustrated imho. Still THE single most tragic figure in the entire saga..

    [​IMG]
     
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  8. Ruffmeian

    Ruffmeian Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015

    For me this is a no brainer- Anakin. I think he's naturally more gifted in every way.
     
  9. Ruffmeian

    Ruffmeian Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015

    Literally, one of my favorite shots of the entire series. I don't know why people hate on it so much! Along with this:

    [​IMG]

    And:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    It's so bad ass. I mean... I know he's slaughtering younglings- but I distinctly remember getting chills and thinking how powerful he felt the first time I saw this scene.
     
  10. Darth_Furio

    Darth_Furio Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2008

    This in particular is awesome.
     
  11. astronaut23

    astronaut23 Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 9, 2005
    He's a very awesome Jedi Knight by the time Revenge of the Sith rolls around but Is he more powerful than the writers of the ST have made Mary Sue Rey?…lol I mean yes we know he should be being the Chosen One conceived by the Force itself but stupidly he may not be when the ST is said and done after they made her go from scavenger to Jedi Master in one film. Cmon give me a break.

    He's powerful for sure but they made sure to develop it over the course of three films not have him be all powerful by the end of TPM…lol.
     
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  12. Alienware

    Alienware Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 19, 2013
    Anakin's awesome and his costume rocks in RotS.

    [​IMG]

    The whole look is nothing short of majestic.
     
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  13. Chewies_bandolier

    Chewies_bandolier Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    May 5, 2002
    Eh.. well half cyborg Anakin was able to beat poor (albeit hafl-trained) Luke in ESB, and fully trained Luke refused to fight his dad in ROTJ sooo.. yeah. Anakin.

    DarthFurio .. I think that the music they play (Anakins' Dark Deeds) is one of my favourite in the entire saga during that scene.. I wish it had been played in the lead up to Anakin's attack on the Jedi Temple - the music was a bit too .. bouncy. Hayden would've been fine without Sith eyes but yeah.. together with Padme's scene just prior .. heartbreaking.
     
  14. ObiWanKnowsMe

    ObiWanKnowsMe Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 2015
    AshiusX I think George Lucas was way too direct with his dialogue and made his characters say what they were feeling blatantly to the audience. But Idk, it kind of appeals to me. It's different kind of dialogue than the originals and it's interesting
     
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  15. CT1138

    CT1138 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2013
  16. Prisic Duskleap

    Prisic Duskleap Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 24, 2014
    I sometimes wonder if Anakin never made that higher ground mistake could he have beaten Obi Wan? It's interesting to speculate on especially since they seemed evenly matched throughout the duel.
     
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  17. jerseydevious

    jerseydevious Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2016
    Not going to lie, I created an account for this place just so I could comment here. I'm way too used to seeing these one-dimensional caricatures of Anakin, and he's always been very near and dear to my heart, so I just had to jump in a thoughtful discussion like this - there are so many good posts! This is excellent! So, I'm just going to be obnoxious and interject my thoughts on a dead thread, whatever, let's do it. My vote is: extremely complex, and whiny doesn't explain his entire character.

    I've always felt that Anakin's story is about agency. It all revolves around choice, around personhood. Lines like, "I'm a person, and my name is Anakin," call lines like, "That name no longer has any meaning for me," to mind in startling contrast. I think it was very deliberate that they mock Anakin/Vader's agency in every movie he appears in - "I thought I'd find Tarking holding your leash," cuts to Vader kneeling before a master in ESB, which cuts to, "I must obey my master," in ROTJ, which cuts to the slavery issue in TPM, which turns to, "I will do anything you ask," in AOTC, Anakin kneeling before Palpatine, yadda yadda. These are all measured choices on the part of the writers.

    Anakin is a deeply flawed character, and he has a lot of issues. He has a tendency to murder babies, for one. But it's fascinating to me that, while these put him on a dark path, they're not the nail in the coffin. Violence doesn't put Anakin on the Dark Side, selfishness doesn't; that pivotal scene in the chancellor's office revolves around one thing: Anakin just can't stick up for himself. He can't make a choice outside of an institution; he runs to Yoda, he runs to Palpatine, but he never says, "I'm taking Padme away to Naboo, nobody can touch her, I'll figure it out myself." He's completely reliant on other people to tell him what to do.

    In AOTC, he he marries Padme, and it's the happiest he's ever been in his entire life; but he can't jump up and say, "I'm leaving the Jedi Order, because not being allowed to marry is dumb!" because he can't. So they keep it a secret. Anakin can't even manage to break Obi-Wan's rules when it's his mother, one of three people he truly loves in the galaxy, on the line; Padme had to do it for him, and then Anakin followed suit because, well, Padme did it first. Anakin's capable of twisting rules to his advantage, and he's mastered the fine art of the rebellious slave, but he doesn't know how to break away.

    It's because of how he was raised. Saying, "No," got people blown up. Shmi loved her son, but she couldn't sit a toddler down and start explaining, "Alright, so when the bad people tell you to do things, you do them, but you don't deserve to be told to do things, because slavery is wrong," no toddler is going to understand that. At nine, Anakin is aware of the wrongness of slavery, but Shmi's only just started to teach her son about the complicated situation they're in. It's a rudimentary understanding that he's a person, and people aren't objects - but that has to be reinforced. The Jedi train their padawans in a, "Do as I say, exactly as I say it," method. Padawans refer to their teachers as masters. Hallmarks of slavery include taking children from their families, forced dress code, and a forced hair cut - exactly what happens to Anakin at the end of TPM. What part of that isn't a dead ringer for slavery to a former slave child, even if that's not what the Jedi intended? In TCW, the Jedi even strike deals with Hutts, the very people that held the Skywalkers in chains.

    That rudimentary understanding was never enforced. And you get the tragedy that we have; Palpatine, sweeping in to snatch the Chosen One (funny, that name is) by saying exactly what Anakin wants to hear, for the low price of swearing himself over to the Dark Side. And, then, on Mustafar, he makes Padme the same offer he'd later give to Luke: "Want to rule the galaxy? I'll kill the Emperor and you'll get to. Just give me the word." And Anakin's plans and delusions of grandeur are entirely dependent on the people he cares about, because, ultimately, he's not claiming power because he wants it - he just wants to hand it over.

    And that's when you get to ROTJ, when Luke casts aside his lightsaber ("This weapon is your life," indeed) and says, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." Luke just... said no. He just completely refused to play Palpatine's game. He mimes the choice out for Vader to make, and then Vader takes out the trash.

    There's more I want to say, but this post is a mile long, hahahaha, so I'll just awkwardly leave this here.
     
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  18. {Quantum/MIDI}

    {Quantum/MIDI} Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2015
    Cryogenic HevyDevy Tonyg

    This post was absolutely wonderful, very detailed and the contrast between the "slave" aspects was exquisite. Can't like this enough...

    Hope you stick around here more J-Devious. We could use some more posters like you:)
     
  19. jerseydevious

    jerseydevious Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2016
    Ah, thank you for the high praise! :D I'm just glad that came out coherent enough to understand
     
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  20. Tonyg

    Tonyg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 16, 2016
    Very interesting post , jerseydevious . I’m actually glad that you revived this discussion. :) I should say that when I made the thread, I intentionally used these- as you said -caricatured definitions of Anakin's character in the thread title, because my goal was to overthrow them.
    Now to your thoughts. While I don't agree about Anakin carrying in him such morbid tendencies that you described I agree with your argument about the agency. I would say even Anakin story is a story about slavery and liberation (if we add the OT story in it). Anakin was born as slave, he raised as slave but he had free soul that wanted to fly ( I will be the first to see all the stars) and this was (not only but also) because he has this wonderful mother, i.e. he had love in his life. So, yes it is story about love and the lack of love. In TPM Anakin is freed, he becomes a Jedi (dreams come true) but he is really free ad happy only with Padme because with her he is a better man, all he wanted to be. When he loose her, he loose it all. In Episode 3 we see Anakin as slave again: he enslaved his soul to the devil, i.e. Palpatine and he enslaved his body to the costume. I a discussion with friends I said that i his Vader persona he looks like the Nazgul of Lord of the ring: nor living nor dead, someone who once was a man, but a difference from them he become human again liberating himself from the slavery of the Emperor (and from his mask in the last minutes of his life) for the love of his son. So, Anakin pays with his life both for the liberation of the world but also for his own. And he is a hero, but hero with flaws and sins, as happened many times even in the real world.
     
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  21. trikadekaphile

    trikadekaphile Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    May 6, 2015
    I don't see why Anakin can't be all three things: whiny brat, total badass and the most complex character in the saga. Characters, like real-life people, are multi-faceted, with all kinds of personality traits, some of which rise to the surface at any given time, while others do likewise at another given time. One thing that annoys me is how people dismiss him as a "whiny brat" in the scene where he confesses the Tusken slaughter, because he lashes out at Obi Wan: "It's all his fault! He's jealous!" Uh...maybe one can apply a little thing called context? Anakin's mother had died in his arms after being tortured for a month. He's full of conflicting emotions: grief, anger, self-disgust...and exhiliaration, because he's had his first taste of Dark Side power. So yes, he's being a whiny brat, but he's also being a teenager dealing with some seriously grown-up emotions that he doesn't know how to handle.
     
  22. Dandelo

    Dandelo SW and Film Music Interview Host star 10 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Aug 25, 2014
    Whiny Brat? Total Badass? The Most complex character in the saga?

    why he is all three of these,

    it's what makes him Anakin.
     
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  23. Ord Sorrell

    Ord Sorrell Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2016
    I would say he's none of those things....

    what you consider whiny, I consider deep seated inferiority complex and fear of loss due to his upbringing in slavery

    what you consider badass, I consider gifted with a strong connection to the force...

    and complex? I would consider him rather simple... a gifted young man, who, along with his mother, suffered as a child and sought to empower himself to protect those he loved and finally be in control of his own destiny..

    The Irony is.. in falling to the darkside... he doomed himself to a life of slavery as an adult as well
     
  24. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Indeed. That was a great addition to the thread.

    The "slavery" aspects are huge in the "mosaic" of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader; and, one might add, across the saga generally.





    I deployed this quote last year and will gladly repost it:


    "What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sewer of uncertainty and error, the glory and the scum of the universe." -- Blaise Pascal




    Anakin surely embodies all that is heroic, pathetic, tragic, and badass about the human condition.


    And if you look at all the torments he is subject to in AOTC -- "Anakin: One Tragic Chosen" (loop) -- from "sweating" in his "arrival" scene over seeing Padme again, stewing in doubt that she has forgotten him "completely", slippin' and slidin' all over Zam's hovercar and performing an over-the-top "rape" with his lightsaber, clutching his worse-for-wear viscera after being thrown from the hovercar at speed, being heckled by Obi-Wan outside the nightclub, complaining about Obi-Wan's restrictive methods, getting rebuffed by Padme at a lake, falling off the shaak, getting rebuffed again by Padme at a fireplace, having an intense nightmare in paradise, watching his mother breathe her last, killing her captors and annihilating an entire tribe and getting his first disorienting taste of the Dark Side, revealing his crime to his "angel" and being unable to shake the hate he feels, becoming detached from his identity and thrown into mental chaos, feeling powerless to help Obi-Wan (until Padme steps in), almost losing Padme in the droid factory, almost losing his arm in the droid factory, finding his lightsaber crushed and being captured by Jango in the droid factory, looking death and suffering square in the eye in the arena, watching helplessly as Padme falls out of the gunship, arguing to go back and rescue her with Obi-Wan, charging recklessly at Dooku and landing in a heap, rousing back to help Obi-Wan only to lose an arm, and getting married in secret at the end, having transitioned from relative openness ("Just being around her again is intoxicating") to choosing a life of concealed affection, well... it's quite a trip.

    All that shifting sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating. Having traversed a number of psychological environments, Anakin's condensed sense of self, his impregnable anima, has begun to crumble and he has become sand by the end of AOTC. AOTC is really his movie. It is The Body of Anakin stretched large. He has witnessed the passing of his mother, felt his own passing into shadow, and allowed himself to venture down a path of knowing self-destruction. He becomes, in effect, as rootless and subject to wider forces of nature as the sand grains he disdains. AOTC is a journey picture which makes clear -- and also opaque -- that Anakin has taken his "first step" into a larger world: a sort of grudging concession, by Anakin, and perhaps the series itself, that the world is ambiguous and full of light and shadow; internalized by a soul that has become weary and tasted death. Sadly, Anakin goes on to fight off the light in the next film, becoming perilously lost in darkness. But in AOTC, he perpetually hangs back from the edge of the cliff, as if he might never die to Darth Vader but remain a creature clinging to a speck of hope and goodness: a creature forever caught between the best and worst that a person, a performance of the Force, a quivering bow on the cello of the universe, can ever be. This is Anakin finally. Not a monster, not a man, but a living embodiment of the yin-yang duality that defines existence. An organic Death Star, a space station in the clouds, a coherently incoherent splodge on the milky veil of nothingness. All the movies go back to this revelatory chapter. Can one chapter encompass the whole? Perhaps always, perhaps never.
     
  25. Tonyg

    Tonyg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 16, 2016
    Wow! One of the best descriptions of my favorite Episode! And let's not forget: his cliff is Padme. If she is present there, he won't fall, as happens in AOTC. But when he looses his ground, his center, he dissapears in the shadows of Vader.
     
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