Saga How did you imagine Anakin to be like before the prequels?

The absolute honest truth? I didn't imagine him at all, maybe just some very vague ideas of some idealistic-type "superhero" who was a superior warrior and pilot but somehow turned evil and betrayed his master. Pretty much what Ben told Luke, nothing much beyond that. Frankly, during the OT era I didn't much care about what came before or after.
I never really anticipated the prequels much, but when TPM did come out I had at least some minor interest in SW again. That changed with AOTC when I personally actually experienced a more solid comeback of SW. Watching it was pretty much the first time ever that I thought "yes, this guy could actually convince me to pull off the future Vader character". I wasn't disappointed and therefore was much more hyped for ROTS than I ever was for TPM or AOTC.
Strange, the movie I was least interested in and least hyped for, AOTC, ended up becoming my favorite prequel. Maybe having zero expectations can be a good thing?

 

I imagined someone with his reputation to be a little ... older.

Actually, I'm serious. I pictured someone in their 30's.

 

I imagine him to be the best star pilot in the Galaxy, a cunning warrior, and a good friend.

 

Me too.

For my fellow gamers, I think I pictured someone with vibes like Jecht from Final Fantasy X. Someone kind of hard and rugged, but with a good heart.

 

I honestly had no assumptions on how Anakin would be in the Prequel Trilogy. In fact, I had no idea on what kind of story that Lucas would tell. All I knew was that the PT would spell the downfall of Anakin, the Jedi and the Republic.

 

I think for most people, he was only Darth Vader. A despicable villain.
No need to think about Anakin at all, beyond his appearance at the end of RotJ.

 

I imagined he had a decent haircut like Sebastian Shaw, not like a trailer park alpha male.

 

The short Padawan haircut doesn't exactly suit Hayden, I think. I find his long hair as a full Jedi Knight much more attractive, rather like Luke's shaggy 1970s blond mane, something which Lucas always envisioned and which we see in all of Ralph McQuarrie's concept art (in contrast to Leia's several different hair colors and hairstyles).

 

David prowse looks so much closer to Hayden Christensen then he has any right to be (may he rest in peace)

 

I first imagined Anakin when I was in high school, when I first found out the PT was being made and what it would cover, story wise.

That said, I imagined Anakin much like he was in ROTS, at least from a visual standpoint; a blue lightsaber (obviously), a dark-colored outfit (I actually imagined black), the longer hair like he has in ROTS, etc. Personality-wise, I imagined Anakin as very serious and ambitious, great with mechanics and an amazing pilot (kind of like Luke in this way).

The only thing for me that turned out differently is I imagined Anakin a bit older-like closer to how old Obi-Wan was in the PT, or at least maybe about 7 or 8 years younger. I didn't really anticipate the whole "padawan vs. master" thing until TPM came out. I saw Anakin and Obi-Wan as mostly friends and fellow Jedi Knights who went on missions together, after Obi-Wan trained him.

 

I envisioned him as being more big, masculine and intimidating. Also less whiny. More older and mature, just angry inside.

 

I kind of pictured ROTS Anakin.

 

I thought it was mistake to show Anakin as a 10 yr old. They wasted a film that could have established a great friendship and chemistry between Anakin & Obi-Wan. I remember at the time the different actors that were brought up by fans on who could play Anakin. I was hoping for either Chris Klein or Barry Pepper. Klein was known for American Pie so maybe the audience would have a hard time accepting him as a lead. I thought he had the size to be imposing yet his soft voice would have been a nice contrast to what would eventually be Darth Vader. Barry Pepper had an intensity to him that you could see in Saving Private Ryan but I think his best performance was in *61. He portrayed a sensitive and conflicted Roger Maris who was always second fiddle to fan favorite Mickey Mantle.

I was hoping to see a great friendship that fell apart but what we got didn't work for me. Anakin & Obi-Wan didn't feel like friends not the way Han & Luke, Chirrut & Baze, or Poe & Finn. They said they were friends but I didn't buy it.

 

I pictured him as Sebastian Shaw, even had both toys of him (regular and ghost version) when I was a kid in the nineties. I didn’t think much about his backstory back then, though. So when the prequels came out, it wasn’t hard to switch that mental image to Hayden Christensen.

In recent years I’ve looked back more on the making of the original trilogy, though, and I read about how Lucas also considered reaching out to more renown actors like Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. These actors, like Shaw I imagine, do seem to fit the idea of an older Anakin, someone closer to Alec Guiness’s style of acting compared to the modern actors we saw in the prequels.

Picturing either of these actors or Shaw as an older Jedi Knight alongside Guiness makes for an interesting alternate universe that is fun to imagine, but I loved Lucas’s final choice too.

 

I imagined him to be like a younger version of Rutger Hauer's character in Ladyhawke. Blonde, fierce, passionate, badass, dressed in black, etc.

 

I find it interesting how many people thought Obi-Wan was telling the truth about Anakin being a “good friend” but not about Vader being “young”.

 

I imagined Anakin to be similar to basically a light side Darth Malgus before the prequels. Figured he was a good guy that Sidious Palpatine actually took, like, two decades to turn to the dark side. While Palpatine does groom Anakin from age 10 to age 23, and just to be clear I mean he's grooming him like a mobster or a psychological criminal would an apprentice, I thought it would take the Dark Lord manipulating him from age, like, 17 to age 35ish or even 40.

I just pictured Vader and Sidious as much older than they turned out to be. That's a common thread, I've noticed, amongst friends I met in elementary and middle school. I thought Sidious as Emperor was not even human. I thought he was, like, 90 or 140 or something. Vader himself I thought was, like, 70. It's mainly due to the fact that I as a kid didn't understand how the dark side corrodes the flesh like a narcotic. I mean, us 10-year-olds may not necessarily pick up on that, especially if some of us are lucky enough to see our family members live to be age 90 and look quite fab. So, that was my take in the mid-1990s. As a kid, though, I was fascinated and kind of scared. I was like, "How in the world could a good guy like Anakin be corrupted by this evil darksider?"

But as I got older, I began to see Palpatine as more Hitler-like: less imposing and more insidious and vile. As a villain should be, ya know? Whereas I saw Anakin as a more complex, multifaceted man who had both flaws and virtues.

But, yeah. The Malgus analogy is pretty straightforward. I didn't know who Malagus was until, like, 2013. I figured he had once been a good man who was pretty pro-alien or something but got corrupted by the dark side. This was before I read his book to see that he was a dark side Qui-Gon. I figured that Anakin must have lost a family member or something...something seriously terrible...before Palpy lied to him and took him under his wing. But that's kid logic. As adults, we learned that Sidious just had to push Anakin. Lucas showed us that Anakin's greed was part of his downfall as much as Sidious' teachings. Yes, Anakin loved Padme, but he was also kinda obsessed with her, and Palpatine used that to his advantage.

But, yeah. I just called Sidious a groomer. He is in the same way that Jack Nicholson's character is in that 2006 gangster movie. Crime doesn't pay.

 

When the prequels were coming out, I had just started watching horror movies. I imagined Anakin at the time of his turn looking disheveled like the possessed James Brolin in The Amityville Horror. (Pic)