Vader/Anakin Ghost in Jedi

Sebastian Shaw

Come on, folks, this is a non-issue.

In your opinion. I think it is the worst thing Lucas has done to the OT. It's totally tasteless.

 

(For the record, I say leave Mr. Shaw in there... and I think that Luke only saw those figures, in his mind's eye, because not even his force-sensitive sister Leia noticed 'em!)


Leia's senses were not attuned enough to see them.

 

"if they replace Sebastian Shaw with Hayden, why not replace Alec Guiness with Ewan?"

Because Obi-wan didn't die until he was an old man while Anakin died when he fell into a lava pit and became Darth Vader.

 

Lucas wasn't "lucky" we financed his career. We financed his career because he made great films that we ended up liking.

He has never disrespected the fans.

 

I think destroying something that someone cherishes is disrespectful.

If Lucas isn't "lucky" then neither are we since he needed our money in order to have his vision in the first place.

 

"if they replace Sebastian Shaw with Hayden, why not replace Alec Guiness with Ewan?"

Because Guiness is one of the most legendary actor's of film history and Sebastian Shaw is, well...Sebastian Shaw. I still dont think its a good idea.

 

I have to admit I'm getting kinda sick of repeating this but Anakin DID NOT DIE when he fell into the lava.

If Anakin was dead, there would have been nothing for Luke to redeem.

So the whole young ghost thing doesn't wash based on that reason.

 

well, this is the 3rd board ive posted my opinion about this change

HAYDEN + FORCE JEDI = STUPID

SHAW + FORCE JEDI = THE WAY IT SHOULD BE

FIXING + SOMETHING NOT BROKEN = FOOLISH

there, thats the simplified version.

 

That's very thoughtful of you JediFlork. Thanks for not burdening us with actual arguments that could stimulate the discussion.

 

Someone said Sebastian Shaw must feel insulted for being replaced. NOTE: He DIED in 1994 and just like Alec Guiness he DID NOT LIKE STAR WARS.

 

I love the new Hayden ghost scene. It ties everything together perfectly. No complaints here.

 

I read through this whole thing, so I'm pretty sure no one has posted this but I have a link to a 10 sec video of this sequence (in quicktime.) Alot of you probably have already seen it but it might be useful for this thread. Spiegel, is it ok to post a "semi-spoiler" link? I won't post it until I get the green light.


*As a side note. My personal opinion is that George right now is at the top of his game and I applaud him for making changes to the OT for continuity perposes. I can't understand why people are so miffed about all this anyway.

Rick McCallum thinks you're seriously deranged!

 

can't understand why people are so miffed about all this anyway.

*joke*

Because they didn't think of it first or stubborn .

*joke*

 

I am of the opinion that while Anakin shunned his former identity when he became Darth Vader, his deeds as the dark lord were entirely of his (Anakin?s) own volition. Turning on the Jedi? Anakin's choice. Unwittingly torturing his own daughter just to ensnare his own son in a trap? Anakin's choice. Turning on the Emperor to save his own son at the cost of his own life? Priceless... I mean... Anakin's choice.

Darth Vader is the side of Anakin that rationalized his wrong doings in such a way that the Good man who was Luke's father could overlook it.

Some might call this a split personality, but in my opinion, split personalities are not a split in one's self as much as a split in one's ownership responsibility.

Deep down inside, everyone likes to think that what they are doing is right and justified. Still people do bad things. One might assume that the people who do bad things are just rotten people who could care less about the consequences of their actions, and certainly from the outside that would seem self evident.

But from the inside, a lot of these people have simply rationalized what they have done to themselves, so the part of them that knows right from wrong can begrudgingly say, "okay, fine".

Take Anakin striving for a relationship with Padme. When she asks him if Love was forbidden by the Jedi Code, Anakin comes up with some tangent about how compassion is essential for a Jedi's life... therefore, you -could- say that Jedi are encouraged to Love. He rationalizes this to himself and absolves himself of any responsibility for his own actions.

The same thing happens with everything else he ends up doing. He will feel in his own way, righteous for slaughtering the Jedi Order, in the same way he felt justified in killing the entire tribe of Tusken Raiders.

This entire time, the part of him that has become obsessed with power, will subdue the part of him that still knows it's wrong.

So when Hayden appears at the end of ROTJ, it visually references the good man Anakin was, by forsaking the twisted wreck of a man he had become.

Personally, I love it.

 

I didn't really like the whole Hayden/Sebastian switch when I first heard about it, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. I think it is very similar to the explanation of "residual self-image" given in The Matrix - that is, Neo can appear in the Matrix and the training programs with his full hair, healthy muscles, and no machine plugs because that is how he sees himself in his mind's eye - therefore Anakin sees himself as a healthy young man because that is the way his mind pictures it - so that is how he looks when he appears as a Force Ghost in ROTJ.

It also allows for Alec Guiness to still be in that shot instead of Ewan McGregor - Obi-Wan's "residual image" is that of an old man, so that is how he appears.

Not to mention, if they DID try to replace Alec with Ewan, don't forget that they would also have to re-do all Alec's "ghost" scenes on Hoth and Dagobah - difficult to do well, to say the least.

 

I don't have any problem with Hayden replacing Shaw in ROTJ (if rumors are true). In fact, it makes even more sense to have Hayden there (he IS Anakin) and it really connects the saga as a whole! I am definitely in favor of the change!

 

So i take it you don't like Ian McDarmid to replace the monkey/woman Palpatine in ESB ??

 

A whole other way of looking at it:
They're spirits. Spirits aren't your regular manifestations of life. Spirits in the SW galaxy can choose where they appear, and it seems they're also able to choose if only their voice or their entire body appears.

Who's to say they can't decide for themselves in what form they'll appear?

 

I'm with lyle990 here

 

I am against the Hayden change. Personally, it messes with the already established story that was layed out for over 20 years

How do you know that this was not always in Lucas' mind? I think the end of ROTJ(original version) clearly shows that Anakin returns to his former self. His scars are gone, his hair is back and his body is whole. Seems to me like he is intended to look the way he did before he became Darth Vader.

BTW: Even if he was intended to look the way he would have looked at the age of 45 had he not turned, Shaw was way too old.

 

So Hayden is the Force Ghost at the end? Is it really that big a deal?

Is it that Shaw's performance in this two-shot sequence was irreplaceable? Nothing against Shaw in any way, but we are talking about a ghost fading in, looking around and smiling.

Is it that some of you guys can't stand the prequels and don't want to have to enjoy your classic trilogy with any reminders of the episodes you are trying to forget? If that's the case, then I think it's time to just consider that half of the story OF THE CLASSIC TRILOGY is told in the prequels. We didn't need them before, but that's just because we didn't know what we were missing. Taking the CT's story on it's own merits, Vader's redemption is little hollow. Looking back on it, they show how bad Vader is, then at the very end, he just happens to say: "Whoa, I do have a choice" and suddenly all the bad stuff he had done was forgiven. I know they foreshadowed this well and it all fits in with the way the story flowed, but without seeing where Anakin came from, it's just a little too contrived IMHO. You get the point that Sebastian Shaw represented the good man who was Luke's father in the original version of the ghost scene, but now that we are seeing the prequels, being able to tie this back to how Anakin was when he succumbed to Vader at the very end doesn't seem like such an outrageous idea to me.

 

They'll flip out even if he does explain it. Because that's what they want to do.

So true... I keep hoping that Lucas does something so polarizing that the only people left loving his movies are those who actually try to like his films (and his choices).

RB

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I don't think you should have to "TRY" to like a movie. You either like it or you don't. Sure a film can "grow" on you over time, but the majority of the people debating on this site are here because of their love for SW.

That being said... This change bothers me and it doesn't. Yeah maybe he'll make up some lame excuse for why he put Hayden in Jedi, but the fact of the matter is that GL put Hayden there to help tie the two trilogies together. I'm sure GL sees, as most of us see, that the PT doesn't exactly flow into the OT, so Lucas is making changes to the OT in an attempt to make them work better together.

GL is also known to make lame changes and then make up lame excuses...

Example: Greedo shooting first.

GL said that this was how he always envisioned the scene, Greedo shooting first... If that were the case then why didn't he film it that way in the first place? It wasn't like there was some unforeseen limitations keeping Greedo from shooting first. Lucas changed it because he wanted to, plain and simple.
Now if he'd just come out and said that, maybe people would've understood his motive better, but whatever.

Sorry I don't have any direct quotes, to back this up, I assume most of you have heard or read this before...

D_M_S_L

 

People shouldn't try to like a movie. If they don't they should accept that they don't.