Official Thread: Hayden Christensen replacing Sebastian Shaw as Anakin's Force Ghost

First I was shocked, when I did look at my freshley bought DVD. I did watch the scene for twenty times, still grumpy that the original Ework music did vanish. But after I´ve been Episode III now, I think that Hayden really deserves to be in that scenery. It also would suit to Anakin´s ego to look young and sexy as a ghost. What would he gain anyway if he´d look like an old man.
He was young "when he felt into that nightmare". Now he really has another fresh start on the other side.

 

I cried when I saw the change. It was very moving.

 

Bravo, quiet mandalorian!!!

 

I was upset when I first heard about George making more changes for the DVD release, especially at the force ghost change. But once I saw it, it wasn't as big a deal as I thought.

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v359/eballa1/ROTJ-AnakinFixed.jpg]

 

I was fine with it before, and I'm fine with it now.

 

Obi and Yoda would not have ever seen any Anakin but the Hayden Anakin...that was the last time he was a man...after that he was "more machine than man"... A burned and disfigured no arms, no legs Anakin would have had to been the ghost otherwise...he never ever looked like Shaw... before the PT, Shaw was fine, because we didn't have the backstory yet...once GL finished the series, Shaw would have mad absolutely no sense. +1 for Hayden. I loved the change. I love all changes that make watching them all from ep.1 to ep.6 make more sense...

 

I don't mind most of the SE changes, but I absolutely HATE the ghost change.

Anakin was Sebastian Shaw when he died, therefore his ghost should be played by Shaw.

And please don't give me the BS (no offense) about how Anakin died when he became Vader.

If I changed my name to Bob Muhammed and started being evil, would CommanderJamesBond (not my real name of course) be dead?

Also, people are saying how Hayden works better if you're watching the saga in numerical order. But IMO, if you're watching the saga I-VI, Shaw works much better. Why? Because then you truly see the story of Anakin Skywalker. You first meet him as a child, and then you continue watching the story of his life unfold as you see him as a teenager, a middle aged guy in a suit, and then finally an elderly man. You see him from childhood to old age.

And that's my two cents.

 

My goodness, it's all on for young and old on a similar topic over on the ROTS board.

 

I never really cared. I thought it was fine.

darth_nemisis

 

I agree that Shaw NEEDS to stay. Here's why..take a look at the photo above....What's wrong with this PICTURE???

Anakin is young...he's younger than LUKE! Insane.

Anakin, as mentioned in a previou board, became Darth then became Anakin again when he tossed over the emperor.

Point being..he DIED AS SHAW the last time. No more foolish talk about how he died when he turned to Vader. If that theory was true, he died again when he tossed over the emporer. That's the last "good" anakin and the last one that should be on the ending of ROTJ.

Odd how some don't care (really, I can respect that but there's a continuity issue here) in addition to those who actually know deep down that Hayden vs Shaw at the end is a no brainer.

Think about it......Anakin, the youngest guy out of the crowd is still the youngest as a ghost and younger then his own kid.

Makes Star Wars critics laugh us all off.

 

The good man who was ones CommanderJamesBond would be dead. That doesn't mean that your body is dead, it means that the good spirit in you has died and the evil spirit has been born. Imagine a pause button of sorts: when Anakin falls to the dark side, his good spirit is put on pause. It is then unpaused when he is redeemed, but since when you pause something it picks up where you left off rather than where you would be had you not hit pause, he remains as he was at the beginning of ROTS.

Anakin was 23 in ROTS, Luke was 23 in ROTJ.

The last good Anakin prior to him killing Palpatine was the one from ROTS. After that, he picked up where he left off.

If you want to get technical, Shaw was also a "perfect image" of Anakin. He looked nothing like the unmasked Vader we saw at the end of ROTJ. The only difference is that in the new version, there's a different concept of the "perfect image" of Anakin. If you want him to look just like he did when he was redeemed, you better be praying Lucas decides to insert a floating torso and head into the shot.

 

I'm starting to have problems with Anakin's whole "redeeming" himself in Jedi. Considering everything he did in ROTS and all the suffering he caused, how can Obi Wan and Yoda just help him join the force and then forget about all that stuff? Sure, he killed the Emporer, but please, he slaughtered younglings and Jedi.

/end rant.

 

<<Point being..he DIED AS SHAW the last time. No more foolish talk about how he died when he turned to Vader. If that theory was true, he died again when he tossed over the emporer. That's the last "good" anakin and the last one that should be on the ending of ROTJ. >>

No matter what you do, you are not going to make anyone believe that a 46 year old Hayden is going to look like a 60+ year old Shaw. Now if you look at the burnt up Anakin before the mask lowers on his face then you can see how the heavy scaring of the flames could make him look like Shaw when Luke takes off the mask in ROTJ. But there is no way Shaw looks like Hayden. He'll come back as himself before Kenobi cut off his arm and legs and was burnt to a cinder.
This has nothing to do with bringing him back when he was a good man. It has everything to do with bringing him back from right before he was sliced, diced, and burnt like a carbroiled burger on Mustafar. The Force brought back his last pure form which was his young self. I can imagine that inside the character is 46 years old and remembers all the horrors he caused.

[edit- Removed a paragraph that has nothing to do with this topic]

 

I absolutely HATE it too.

I'm an OT old-schooler yet I like some of the OT changes (except for Greedo, the Jabba palace song & Boba Fett's voice). I like that he removed the Ewok music.

But Hayden as a blue ghost is just silly. It's so horrible that is makes me want to punch my TV screen.

Reasons why:

1. Did I mention it's completely silly?

2. Why does he get to be young when Obi-Wan is old? I don't buy the 'Anakin died at 22' arguement either. That's rubbish.

3. He's not even wearing the right costume! I don't buy the 'that's his padawan outfit' because if he's retaining his padawan identity, then GL should have used Jake Lloyd's ghost.

4. What does Luke think? My Hayden-father was a hippie?

5. The whole Lucas revisionism bothers me. As I said, I like some of the changes but I don't like when GL goes too far (that awful ROTJ palace song). In my opinion, his changes made ROTJ worse than it was. If he removed Hayden ghost I'd be okay with it, but when I see that, it just ruins the whole movie.

6. I could go on but this is making me mad.

 

DUDE i think i figured it out!! I read a few things on this topic so i hope no one has brought this up yet.

But when I was reading what some of you were saying when i read "how could Anakin choose what to look like, if qui gon and yoda hadn't teached him yet?"

then i remember ppl saying "the reason why anakin is a ghost is because Yoda and Obi wan helped him become one with the force"

THEN it hit me. If obi wan and yoda helped him then the last time they saw anakin (without the mast) is when he was young during ROTS time. They weren't there with luke when anakin took off his helment. They dont know what old anakin looks like.

So they helped anakin keep the idenity they know. The anakin they last knew him as. So they helped him look young and slapped him on the true jedi uniform. Thats why anakin looks down at his clothing. He didn't choose it, ben and yoda did. (he looks down. and is like "wow this is cool. thanks for the outfit.")

 

Pretty good, JMaster but even if that's true, hippie-Anakin is still a silly childhood-rape to this cat.

 

i dont know what that really means. But i would like to say one more thing about hayden as anakin in ROTJ. I like the IDEA of it, but i dont like how they did it. I'd much prefer anakin smiling the whole time and being happy. That last look anakin gives luke is alittle creepy. Its like hes mad again and he's gonna cause terror in the jedi heaven place.

The shaw guy was smiling the whole time and had this proud look on his face. So keep Hayden but please it'd be better if he had a proud look on his face instead of "i'm gonna kill you in your sleep luke" look.

 

Applause!

 

The DVD boxset is awsome

Some of the changes are realy silly though. Bobba's voice is silly and the change of dialog with the emperor. No matter how silly theese changes are I can still have a great time. The ghost scene is THE real pain in the neck It's a real stinker

I thought ROTS was a cool movie but thats it. Ep1 and II are pure crap and I still get pissed when I see that ghost.

Thats my opinion.

 

Sure, I mean if you can choose what you would look like, why would you not pick your peak of youth, or in his case, before you lost all your limbs and caught on fire, you'd freak out the other force ghosts.

 

it maybe acceptable but I doubt anybody actually likes this change. There's a lot of people fooling themselves saying they like it. Not everyone, of course, but a lot.
Sebastian Shaw is way better, when Vader gets unmasked, it's Shaw, not Hayden . . . It's lame to have him just as the unmasked Vader. For someone that doesn't like the prequels but loves the OT and has loved it all of his life it is completely ridicolous, even painful.

 

I really liked the change after awhile. It makes sense to me. First, there's the Hayden-as-Anakin issue that connects both trilogies. Second, if Anakin's ghost were simply a direct reflection of his physical self at the time of death, then he should be a blackened, peeling torso. Since Anakin appears young and healthy, I assume a force-ghost is not just a blue image of what you looked like when you died. Something more is at play here, and unfortunately it's never explained in the movies. Since all we've seen of force-ghosts have been Jedi, I could reasonably guess it's a Jedi thing. So no matter how Anakin got to be a force-ghost to begin with, it makes sense that he looks how he looked when he was last a Jedi. Third, Luke's main thought in ROTJ was believing in the good of his father, so it's more emotionally satisfying for Luke to see his father as the good man he knew him to be rather than the burnt twisted soul he became.

 

When I first heard about the change, I was very much against it. I was enraged that George Lucas would change such an important scene in my beloved original trilogy. However, after having watched ROTS, and then actually seeing the DVD version of ROTJ, I must say, I like it. I like it a lot. After ROTS, I see no one but Hayden Christenson as Anakin Skywalker. Seeing him in that scene at the end connects ROTJ back to ROTS and makes his redemption so much more compelling and truly brings closure to the whole saga. As for issues of how and why he turns young, I say not to worry about it too much. He was redeemed and so became the Anakin we all know.

 

So Obi-wan chooses not his youth at the peak of his power and when everything is golden, but he chooses the look he had while in his exile?
And the same for Yoda? (but in his case he looked rediculious "younger", so I guess I'd choose that too).