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Post #1519733

Author
Spartacus01
Parent topic
George Lucas should get more credit for "saving Anakin Skywalker" in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1519733/action/topic#1519733
Date created
16-Jan-2023, 5:42 PM

Channel72 said:

But when people say TCW Anakin is a completely different character or that Filoni fixed him, it isn’t really correct. He’s the same as ROTS Anakin, we just got to see more of him.

Meh… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the way Lucas directed Hayden Christensen, or perhaps Christensen’s own creative choices, but his portrayal of Anakin often bordered on eerily unstable or psychotic, like he’s channeling Malcolm McDowell in a Clockwork Orange. Even during the opening sequence of ROTS, where Anakin is arguably the most level-headed and closest to what I would have imagined him to be, Christensen still occasionally injects this underlying element of borderline personality disorder that comes out sometimes in a facial expression or line delivery.

In contrast, Clone Wars Anakin is a lot closer to something like a Han Solo/Luke Skywalker hybrid. Basically a typical “hot shot” hero character who sometimes also functions as an anti-hero when he wants to be expedient. This portrayal is definitely closer to how I imagined Anakin to be prior to the Prequels, but I also think it loses a lot of the vulnerability that Christensen’s portrayal offered.

Regardless, it’s hard to reconcile the two portrayals as representing the same character.

Agreed, and I genuinely prefer Hayden’s Anakin over TCW Anakin.

Emre1601 said:
For example, I really enjoyed the Dooku segments of 2022’s Tales Of The Jedi. But I could not help but question just why we were not shown such material in the Prequels themselves, which would have made his character and story arc far more compelling.

There’s a thing called limited amount of on-scream time. The Prequels are supposed to be three films, so you can’t expect everything to be explored in detail in three simple films, unless you want to see 10 hours-long Prequels. But I sincerely doubt you would have liked to see that, wouldn’t you?

Though I still don’t understand why Obi-Wan and Anakin’s friendship, them becoming a team, and then closer like “brothers”, wasn’t shown in the Prequel films themselves; that it needed “a footnote” such as TCW to explain or show this.

Again, it’s a matter of limited amount of on-screen time. The Prequels are not supposed to be about Anakin and Obi-Wan’s friendship, the Prequels are supposed to be about Anakin as a character, his motivations for joining the Sith and becoming Darth Vader, and the fall of the Republic. It’s only natural that they can’t show everything about Anakin and Obi-Wan’s friendship, as it’s not what they are supposed to show in detail. Unless you want to see 10 hours-long Prequels, again.

In general, I think that the Prequel Era would have worked better as part of the EU, being developed through books, comics and video games. This way, the authors wouldn’t have worried about limited onscreen time and could have developed and explained everything in detail.