Star Wars: "Anakin's Past" Debate

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OK, I know a lot of purists hate the prequels, but I really don't understand why so many condemn how Anakin's "pre-suit" life was explained. I grew up with the OT on VHS, and the films themselves only present a select few details about Anakin's younger days. Here's the highlights...

He was the father of Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa (obviously).
He was a Jedi Knight in the Clone Wars, and knew Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He was "the best star-pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior".
Obi-Wan defied Yoda to take Anakin as his student.
Anakin was very strong in the Force when Obi-Wan first met him.
He was turned to the Dark Side, becoming Darth Vader, and serving the Emperor.

All of those things are mentioned specifically in Episodes IV & VI, and all of them happened in the prequels. It seems like there was a prevalent mentality among many fans, that Anakin should've been a badass from the start, but the OT doesn't even allude to such a thing. So my main question is, why were so many folks disappointed?

three words man, jar jar binks.

Completely irrelevant to the topic of this post.

I think the problem with the prequels was that nothing would have lived up to expectations. Fans knew the story of Darth Vader before seeing them (as you've pointed out in the OP), so Lucas didn't have any surprises to deliver. It was going to be a story of how the force seduced Anakin and made him a baddie.

What I will say is that The Phantom Menace was all wrong, and so it got the prequels off to a bad start. I think it was a mistake to have Anakin at the age of 7 or 8, or whatever he was. Lucas tried to show us a likeable kid but he was really just annoying. There were too many CGI's for it to look real.

The other two were much better. I liked seeing Anakin at an older age and although Hayden Christenson got bad reviews I sympathized with him. He was playing the most famous villain in cinema history and he must have felt a huge pressure on him. I think he did ok, although his acting was a bit wooden at times.

What I did like about the 2nd two films, and was not expecting, was how the Empire came about in a slow, insidious transformation from the republic. I thought Lucas did well with that, and he showed us how one regime can become the opposite of what it was.

There is an inconsistency in the last film because the mother of Luke and Leia dies. While in Return of the Jedi Leia tells Luke she has a memory of her mother, which she cannot have because she never met her.

The originals will never be beaten, and any spin offs, prequels, or sequels will never live up to expectations.

Really? So, tell me, how do you watch those movies without jar jar?

....because I gave up after the second one.

I was surprised by quite a few things, actually. Chief among them were Qui-Gon's death, Anakin slaughtering the Tusken Raiders, and General Grevious.

I thought the effects still hold up pretty well, actually. Many of the exteriors were actually shot at real locations, like a palace in Italy for Theed, or going back to Tunisia for Tatooine. Anakin was supposed to be nine years old in "Phantom", which would make him 19 in "Clones" and 22 in "Sith". There's about 20 years after that, which would make Vader 42 in "A New Hope".

I like how Lucas made fun of all the haters when he received that award from the AFI. Even after 35+ years, so many still don;t understand that every "Star Wars" film was deliberately modeled after 1930s - 1950s serials, so judging them by modern standards doesn't work. You have to view them through the lens of the style they were designed to mimic.

Yep, and the "Sith" novel expands even more on that, showing how the Jedi Order had even become corrupted (most evidence in Obi-Wan's "absolutes" line).

That's one of the few things that Lucas has actually owned up to, saying he originally intended Padme' to survive the events of "Sith", but rewrote it at the last minute to make Anakin's fall more damning.

Well, as I said I think the major let down was the Phantom Menace. I didn't like the kid. Lucas should have got Hayden to play in that movie too, it would have given him more time to grow into the role and he would have pulled off the other two much better.

At times in that first film it was like watching the Muppet Show. Jar Jar Binks was an atrocious character and should have been permanently deleted before the final cut.

Another annoying thing was Yoda's back to front sentences. It became a running joke.

The costumes of Padme became too elaborate and Lady Ga Ga must have been inspired.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogoDUmqLg4c[/youtube]

Jar Jar Binks is likely a primary reason for much of the hate against the prequels (I, however, have learned to just ignore him).

I actually liked Jake Lloyd as a child Anakin in The Phantom Menace. And it had both Qui-Gon Jin and Darth Maul (so cool that they had to resurrect him) in it. Bonus.

Unfortunately, this was also the movie where Jar Jar played the most important role.

I think the real problem with Anakin in the prequels is Hayden Christensen, however.

- He is obviously chosen for the role based on his looks
- He is not a very good actor. His dialogue in the final battle against Obi-Wan was just... "ugh"...

And more importantly (not the fault of Hayden Christensen, but the fault of the scriptwriter): His skills as a Jedi do not make any sense.

He (alongside Obi-Wan, who defeated Darth Maul) gets owned by Count Dooku in their first encounter in Episode II. This is fair, as Dooku is a Sith badass, who can hold his own against Yoda just as good as Darth Sidious in a lightsaber duel. That probably makes Dooku one of the best lightsaber duelists in the history of Star Wars.

Then Anakin defeats and easily kills Count Dooku (after Dooku once again defeated Obi-Wan, who defeated General Grievous) in single lightsaber combat in Episode III. What? How did he just become so infinitely gifted? Did they clone Mace Windu and bleach his skin? OK, let's roll with the suspension of disbelief.

Then Anakin gets chopped to pieces in Episode III by... Obi-Wan? WTF? Obi-Wan was owned by Dooku... Twice!

So, Anakin has only really won *one* significant lightsaber duel in his entire career, and it doesn't fit with the story. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, has taken down Maul, Grievous and Anakin, thus demonstrating that you shouldn't pick a fight with a Scotsman.

.... .... So why didn't Obi-Wan just chop Anakin into pieces (*again*) when they clashed in Episode IV?

It would have been a better representation if Anakin had been much more powerful (compared to Obi-Wan, Dooku, Sidious, Yoda and Windu) in Episode II and III (which is already heavily hinted in Episode I, as he is supposed to have more potential than Yoda).

The acting in the prequels was pretty wooden at times, and a lot of lines felt forced.

Episode I suffered from having no clear protagonist and many gaping plot holes and stupidity on the part of the characters (and I'm not just talking about Jar-Jar).

The only good thing I have to say, is that the PT got better as it went along, but nowhere does it approach the quality of the originals, where the less George Lucas had the ability to impose himself onto the film (either for lack of being director, or lack of technology), the better the movie was.

Well, I actually liked Jar Jar, because I understood what Lucas was aiming for. He needed a blatantly humorous character at the beginning, to balance out the darkness at the PT's ending.

Actually, Lucas narrowed down the final casting call to Hayden and Colin Hanks. Hayden was virtually unknown at the time, where Colin already had a following from "Orange County" and "Roswell".

Anakin was constantly told to hold back, particularly by Obi-Wan and Yoda. One thing Sidious got right was knowing Anakin's raw power was too great for anyone to control...but he twisted that by having Anakin unleash his emotions in a blind fury. Dooku did the same, tempting Anakin to use his rage; that's why he lost both his hands. Hayden even noted in an interview that while Anakin was more powerful than Obi-Wan, he lost because Kenobi had more emotional control.

Obi-Wan deliberately surrendered to Vader on the Death Star, so he could guide Luke through the Force. Vader was more machine than man, while Obi-Wan was elderly, and nowhere near Yoda's strength.

I don't really understand the hate, I guess that my age meant that I had no real expectations and I was entertained by the prequel trilogy.

And on Obi-wan beating Anakin, well Obi-wan trained him, he knew his styles, Dooku did not know he was being set up to die.

That sums up my stance pretty well, too. The only thing I really hoped for was seeing Anakin fight Obi-Wan, and "Sith" delivered that in spades.

Good point.

I think Obi Wan was supposed to be one of the best Jedi's ever, so he could kick Anakin's butt.

One thing I forgot that was quite amazing to watch was Yoda's light sabre fight with the guy at the end of Attack of the Clones. That was pretty good and it showed some sophisticated CGI.

If one looks at the Canon Star Wars literature (beyond the movies), Anakin/Vader isn't really that powerful at all.

The best lightsaber duelists are probably Tulak Hord/Mace Windu/Yoda in decreasing order of skill.

The best wielders of the Force, on the other hand, are probably Darth Sidious/Meetra Surik/Darth Nihilus in decreasing order of skill.

Anakin never displayed anything even remotely comparable to any of those.

I liked the prequels for the most part, though I do admit that Episode I is probably the worst SW film so far. I still like it more than I dislike it though. Here's some general comments I'll make about the prequels though...

On Jar Jar, here's how I saw him. In all the other SW movies, C3PO plays the part of the comic relief character. In Phantom Menace, C3PO wasn't really even fully functional yet, and therefore wasn't in the movie much and couldn't be used for that role. So Jar Jar is actually the C3PO replacement for that movie. That's why when C3PO comes in more during Episodes 2 and 3, we don't see nearly as much of Jar Jar anymore. Now I think it's fine if you want to say Jar Jar just didn't do as good a job as C3PO in that role (I kind of feel that way myself). And it's even fine to say that maybe C3PO should have been more active in EP1 in order to not have a need for Jar Jar. But I'm just saying that's the reason he was there, to fill C3PO's role in his absence.

On Anakin, personally I thought Hayden did a fantastic job playing him. I think what most people didn't like about him is that he wasn't "badass" enough. But that isn't who Anakin was. He was a typically confused teenager / young adult, who's equally cocky and emotionally vulnerable. I found him to be written very believably as a young man, and I actually thought Hayden pulled off his complicated layers of emotion very well. Now as for the little kid Anakin in EP1, I wasn't really as impressed by him, and can grant the people complaining about him that he maybe wasn't the best choice to make there.

On the movies in general, I really thought they had a fantastic cast of interesting characters, very well written and acted, the moves looked great, and were even faster paced and more exciting than the original trilogy in some ways. But I admit it is a bit of a mixed bag. I think EP1 is the weakest SW film overall, but actually think EP3 is possibly the best one, even over the original trilogy.

Here's my compalints:
- The whole midichlorian thing is lame, and I generally agree with people's complaints about it.
- Kid Anakin and Darth Maul were lame.
- Jar Jar was admittedly fairly annoying, though I don't hate him as much as most people seem to.
- Having Anakin kill younglings in EP3 seemed like a little too far, too soon. I can see Darth Vader doing that, but Anakin didn't seem corrupted enough by that point to be doing that so easily.
- The ending when Palpatine tells Anakin he killed Padme doesn't make sense. It would have been better to tell him that Padme died somehow as a result of Obi-Wan or the Jedi in order to seal Anakin's devotion to the dark side. Realistically, telling Anakin that he killed Padme himself is far more likely to result in him either falling into a depressive slump and siding with nobody, or committing suicide right then and there.

And here's what I liked the best:
- Incredible acting jobs on the part of Obi-Wan, Anakin, Padme, Dooku, Greivous, Qui-Gon, Mace, Yoda, and plenty others.
- Palpatine was simply incredible to watch. It's hard to top Darth Vader, but I think I like Palpatine about as much. He really gave some strength to the series, especially EP3.
- Fast paced action doesn't get much better than this. I never really felt bored during any of the prequels, except a little bit with the pod racing stuff in EP1. Consistently incredible fight scenes in particular.