Saga The NEW official Hayden vs Shaw thread

I've always liked the Hayden change. It makes sense to me. Plus it acts as a great end to the original six movies.

Not to mention that it is one change from the original films that George Lucas can say he always wanted to do, but wasn't able to at the time. An Anakin in his 20's didn't exist in 1983.

I'm not for all the changes in the original films (would have kept the original Boba voice and "Bring My Shuttle"), but I agree with pretty much all the other ones. I can't even imagine not watching the Blu-ray versions of these now.

 

Surely not "Jedi Rocks"?

 

Edit: kind of a redundant post, I got distracted. It was basically the same point I made before

 

Well then its your fault for not showing newbies the films in the order intended. Any time you start a film series in the middle you're gonna have that problem. If you show it to them in the proper I-VI format, not only will they know who he is, they sense of redemption is a thousand times stronger then if its some old guy that you never see anywhere.

I saw several comments on youtube on a video of the old yubnub song where people were asking "who is that old man next to Yoda?"

 

The movies are best watched in the order they were made, the prequels ruin the reveal about Vader and Leia if you watch them first. And judging anything by youtube comments isn't wise. Who is that old guy, it's the old guy YOU JUST SAW FIVE MINUTES AGO

 

The whole "I am your father" plot twist is literally everywhere in pop culture now. Even people who have never seen SW know what it's from. Now, watching them in order, it seems more surprising to see the hero, Anakin, become the villain. Now if you watch the OT first, you'll ruin that plot twist.

 

No, they are not.
The are best watched in chronological order as intended. There is no "ruining" of the father Vader or sister Leia bit because the films were made nearly 40 years ago and are so ingrained in pop culture that even people who have never turned on a Star Wars movie have heard "Luke, I am your father".

And which old guy you saw five minutes ago? You mean the utterly unrecognizable, scarred & disfigure half-face after Luke takes Vader's mask off? Nope, sorry, wishful thinking. Did Hayden's scarred face at the end of ROTS look ANYTHING like his normal face? Nope, just trying to tenuously tie something together that doesn't connect.

Changing Anakin to his REAL face was the singular best decision Lucas made with his edits!

 

I agree that once someone watches the films, they should view them in the I-VI order. However, I've heard some people say that they showed newbies the films in the 4,5,1,2,3,6 order to great success. It keeps all of the reveals, and still ends with Ep6. In my opinion, any viewing of the Star Wars films should end in Ep6. Ep3 is too depressing to end the saga with.

 

Honestly, I don't even give that thought. I'm watching the Twi'lek get pulled into the pit. I barely even hear the song.

 

I'd have 4,5,6 through Obi-Wan's conversation on Dagobah and then go 1,2,3 and then finish 6. You might lose continuity from 4,5, the start of 6 and then the end if you put the PT there but best way to do it I think.

 

It wasn't heavy make up, tenuous? Really? He's completely recognizable.

 

That makes no sense, if they know Anakin is the father. and they know the father is Vader, why is it surprising that he becomes the villain. Especially in light of how heavily "Sith eye Anakin" features into the marketing of Ep III.

The only people who don't know the story are kids. And with kids, the best way to show them is in the order they were made.

 

Then we shall agree to disagree on that regard, my friend.

 

Nothing wrong with that!

 

Twice I've shown I-VI to Star Wars virgins, and am about to do it a third time. The youngest was 13. All of them have heard of Darth Vader & "I am your father". But since there is no evidence of Vader in the PT until Anakin actually puts on the mask, there was no connection. There were all very surprised that Anakin turned to the Dark Side and that Palpatine was actually a Sith Lord. Its a different kind of surprise, but a less well known one.

Also, on my first viewing: I saw ESB first back in 2000 (yes, I started VERY late), talk about not knowing any characters! And I already knew that Vader was Luke's father before I even turned on the Tele. Heck that whole scene is spoofed in Toy Story!! Then in '05 I bought the entire Saga and watched them chronologically. I had no problems understanding ANY of it. And when I got to ROTJ, seeing Anakin come back as a ghost in his beautiful young form shot the ONLY feeling of intense emotion that I felt during the entire OT.
Other than young Anakin's force ghost & Qui-Gon's death, all my emotion was locked in ROTS.

 

Well, that's the problem in a nutshell: the point of that scene, basically, is to establish the existence of the Rancor Pit. Putting in an extended musical number ("Jedi Rocks" goes on for a significantly longer period of time before anything happens between Jabba and Oola then "Lapti Nek" does) is just fundamentally pointless.

 

It just seems weird to me that they changed the ghost but not the scene where Luke takes his helmet off??? Half job in my book

 

Don't go giving anyone bad ideas.

BTW, to all - any further discussion regarding the optimal viewing order of the films really belongs in its own thread, if anyone feels like carrying on with it (although it's good to see people agreeing to disagree on the matter anyway ).

 

The energy field doesn't have eyes, and who do you think was using the energy field throughout the OT?

BS. If Lucas intended for an Anakin in his 20's he could've cast a younger actor than Shaw. An Anakin of any age could've existed in 1983 based on casting.

Really? For 20 years the sense of redemption was strong with Shaw. Hayden lessens the redemption because he looks like the mass murderer and wife beater from the PT.

And if young people actually can't watch RotJ and know who Shaw is I fear for the future.

Exactly. You want to know why? Because if you watch the movies 1-6, you don't get an explanation of the Force until episode 4 and 5!

You contradict yourself my friend. If everyone knows Vader is Luke's father, how can they be shocked Anakin turns to the darkside? That doesn't make any sense.

I agree, replace Hayden with a young Shaw

So they know Luke SKYWALKER's father is Vader. They know Anakin SKYWALKER is Luke's dad. They can't connect Anakin is Vader?

 

Choker, not beater. Facts please.
And if that's ALL you got from the PT.....well its no wonder you don't get it. The last half hour (or less) or ROTS does in NO way describe Anakin's entire character!! We saw him for 2 & 3/4 of film (1 & 3/4 if you're only counting Hayden) as the hero, and 1/4 a film as a fallen hero. Shaw provides nothing at all except some guy shoehorned in. Hayden provides a connection to the true Anakin.

And hopefully less & less children will ever see Shaw, as all DVD & Blu-rays will have Anakin from now on.

Not sure which version of TPM you're watching, but there is a right good explanation in there!

Not a contradiction at all. Just because they know Vader is Luke's father, doesn't mean they know Anakin is Vader. There is no pop culture quip attached to that.

You seem to not understand the definition of "real". Guess what face we saw on Anakin for the majority of the Saga? Hayden! Guess who we saw for 5 seconds at the end of a movie that was changed as soon as the character had be fleshed out? Some old dude.

Real face = Hayden
Stand in = Shaw

Once again, just because they know Vader is Luke's father, doesn't mean they know Anakin is Vader. There is no pop culture quip attached to that. You seem to not know the difference between "knowing a pop culture line" and "knowing ever detail about the film.[/quote]

 

No love for Jake?



Guess not...

Bear in mind, though - for sixteen years, one, and only one, actor was the face of Anakin Skywalker, just as there was only one Obi-Wan Kenobi (or Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, etc).

For a solid chunk of that period, and more, for that matter, the Star Wars Saga was comprised of three films, with no more on the way. Despite the reasons GL may have had for replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden, and the in-universe explanations for Anakin's youthful appearance as a Force Ghost, it's not all that easy to simply dismiss what was originally the triumphant image which ended the SW Saga (and summed up the title of the film) and which many accepted as such.

With Eps VII-IX on the way, one has to ask the question - would any serious SW fan accept anyone other than Mark Hamill playing Luke Skywalker? Or Harrison Ford as Han? Or the Divine Carrie as Leia? With what little we have to go on about the new films, it seems that GL, Lucasfilm and/or Disney certainly wouldn't - they've stated that if the actors weren't prepared to be involved, they'd write the characters out of the story.

Sebastian Shaw certainly didn't make the impact on the SW Saga that Mark Hamill did, but it's still important to understand that despite his scant couple of minutes of screen time, he was fixed forever in the minds of the first generation of SW fans as Anakin Skywalker circa 3-4 ABY, just as Alec Guinness was Obi-Wan Kenobi 0-4 ABY.

 

And if young people actually can't watch RotJ and know who Shaw is I fear for the future.
------------------------

this comes up often as an excuse to have a Hayden ghost, and to be honest I thinks it's scraping the bottom of the barrel at best,

and like you say if people were asking who it was supposed to be, I really do fear for the future.

 

ok, abuser, not beater. Doesn't change the facts.

AotC showed Anakin as petty, jealous, arrogant, possessive, and a murderer - hardly a hero.

and the image used of Hayden only represents how he looked in RotS as he looked different in AotC.

The ghost should represent Anakin when he died, which is ~25 years post Hayden in RotS, not the person described above.

I said Force, not midis. Who explains the Force in TPM?

So they don't know Anakin is Luke's father? Seriously? They can't use common sense to connect the two?

The term real means the guy from 1983 playing the older Anakin, who WAS Anakin almost 20 years before Hayden. Jake, Hayden, and Shaw are all Anakin - REAL Anakins - from different points in his life.

You don't need to know every detail about the film to know that Anakin is Luke's father. Should be able to connect the dots.

Not only for the audience, but for Luke as well. Luke see's Anakin's face on DSII. The face of an old man. The face of HIS father. Shaw represents his father as Luke knew him, not as he appeared to the audience in 1 movie.

For Luke to see his dad as a man, younger than himself, and as he looked BEFORE Luke was even born, makes no sense and is the main problem. If young people think this makes sense and can't figure out Shaw is Anakin, and can't even connect Anakin = Vader because Anakin = Luke's dad and Vader = Luke's dad, this world is in serious trouble.

 

Sure. For most of my time as a Star Wars fan it's the novels that have defined these characters to me, not the films. I've long ago stopped defining them as solely brought to life by specific actors. And even without bringing prose works into it I can look at something like the latest Star Trek--I had a fair amount of problems with that film, but the recasts weren't one of them.

 

But that was a reboot in an alternate timeline/universe. VII-IX are sequels continuing and concluding the Saga.

I know that among my friends and family that like Star Wars, not one said they would see the ST if there were recasts to Luke, Leia, and Han. Most of them are 1st run fans and have been waiting for this since the early 80's. For the record I checked with them and none of their kids had any problem realizing Shaw was Anakin and Luke's dad, or that Jake and Hayden were also Anakin.