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How you pictured Anakin pre-PT — Page 2

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A younger Jake Lloyd, surely?

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Surely, you can't be serious? ;)

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Where were you in '77?

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darth_ender said:

So perhaps a better question might have been:

If a PT really were necessary to tell a complete Star Wars tale, what would have been the best tale to tell?  What should have been left out?

There probably are already threads addressing this.

 Anakin of course.

We should have seen Darth Vader in the PT and no Anakin but only mentions of a great Jedi knight called Anakin.

A reference.

Obi-wan's story... Well did we really need to see him go in to battle with his friend on the volcano if it was already known it could just as well happened off screen. Imagine Obi-wan having to explain that the great Jedi knight was a traitor to a council and that he killed him. Would we even trust him on his word? We never saw what happened...

There was perhaps a big angle of story telling for the council perhaps being dubious about trusting Obi-wans word on the matter and would he in fact be the traitor raising suspicion amongst a back drop of Revenge killings from a man in a Black cloak with an iron lung systematically hunting down the Jedi.

That is surely better story telling?

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A great warrior, but certainly not "the chosen one".

I will say that after finally getting to read the Jedi Quest books, I feel that Anakin was just a big douchebag. Seriously, you go through the entire book run realizing that he is an arrogant Sith waiting to happen...and no one notices no matter how blatant it is.

I liked the idea of Anakin before he was explained in the PT. At least in book form it is shown just how far he goes from the open-hearted young slave boy and becomes truly disagreeable.

While I don't disagree with Anakin being Vader, the way it has been handled certainly removes all of Vader's menacing power. There is a huge difference between Vader now and the Vader of say for example Splinter of the Mind's Eye where he seemed like an unstoppable demon.

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
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I think he should've become Vader earlier. Episode 1 should've started with Obi Wan discovering Anakin as some rough around the edges ace pilot with promise. Maybe the impending Clone Wars has caused the Jedi to search out anybody who looks like they might have a knack for combat.

Show Anakin as more of what Luke might've been if he hadn't been held back by Owen. Maybe Anakin feels he's stuck in life, and sees Obi Wan as a chance for "Adventure, and excitement" like Yoda sensed in Luke.

Maybe have them grow close in their early adventures. Then the second film starts with the shit hitting the fan, and have it take it's toll on our heroes, and begin to create a rift between them. Then go with the standard Palpatine whispers in Anakin's ear, and makes him think that Obi Wan is a doo doo head. Instead of a blatant enemy, such as the sith with the red sabers. Maybe there never was such a thing, and Anakin blindly follows Palpatine much like many people followed Napoleon or Hitler, and he truly believes he is a good man. Heck, maybe have everybody know that Palpatine is a jedi. After all, the Jedi are entangled in politics. Law enforcement officers end up politicians quite often. Shove in Anakin in love story for good measure.

I think the promise that Palpatine is a going to be a great leader during the hard times the Clone Wars have brought forth is good for his uprising. Anakin's slip to the dark side could've been less drastic and more gradual. One thing I've noticed with great villains, is the fact that many of them believe what they are doing is right.

Obi Wan and Anakin could have their duel at the end of episode II, and end it with Anakin's supposed death. Episode III would start with many dark jedi, including Darth Vader, attacking the order, which would've already been weakened by the clone wars. You could have a duel between Vader and Obi Wan, lacking a lot of dialogue. I think the two being angry at one another is enough for consistency without giving away the identity.

There's more you could build off that basic outline..

"The other versions will disappear. Even the 35 million tapes of Star Wars out there won’t last more than 30 or 40 years. A hundred years from now, the only version of the movie that anyone will remember will be the DVD version [of the Special Edition], and you’ll be able to project it on a 20’ by 40’ screen with perfect quality. I think it’s the director’s prerogative, not the studio’s to go back and reinvent a movie." - George Lucas

<span> </span>

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 (Edited)

What's funny about Anakin is that Lucas himself didn't know what to do with him. Nevermind the whole lava/mutation thing, I think I remember he said in the ESB DVDs' commentary (I think they're from 1997, though) Anakin would've faced the Emperor in ROTS, but he would've lost both the battle and a great deal of his Force (explaining why he was forced to become his servant/apprentice, and probably Yoda's warning about the Emperor's powers).

I mean, if the guy himself is confused... :D

The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201

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I pictured Anakin to look a little older than Luke, mid-to-late 20s, maybe early 30s. Dark features, tall, masculine, strongly built. I imagined him to be an alpha-male type, at least in appearance, but be a charismatic and caring person, something like Starkiller's personality when he turned good.

I never imagined him to look the same age or younger than Luke. And although it makes sense that he would have light colored hair like Luke, I always imagined a young Vader to have dark features. 

One more thing, I never liked the reveal of Vader under the mask in ROTJ. I assumed his voice was affected somewhat by his respiratory machine but even so, a British accent would not disappear. I also thought his face was going to be way more scarred up as hinted in ESB, but here he's just a pale bald older Brit, with or without eyebrows. 

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Voss Caltrez said:

One more thing, I never liked the reveal of Vader under the mask in ROTJ. I assumed his voice was affected somewhat by his respiratory machine but even so, a British accent would not disappear.

Umm, I'm pretty sure Shaw spoke with his natural accent in the movie. 

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Voss Caltrez said:

I pictured Anakin to look a little older than Luke... maybe early 30s. Dark features, tall, masculine, strongly built.

Pretty much exactly what I pictured. It would have been so much easier to relate to him as being Luke's father, if he'd been a little older. Obviously being an earlier time period, he could be depicted at any age but in cinematic terms it would have been more easily digested IMO.

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I had imagined Anakin to be a Han Solo type, a hotshot pilot who is the best in the galaxy who also happens to be knowledgeable in the force.

It would also explain why Leia was interested in Han.  Han would have been like her father.

We saw abit of this cocky attitude in Clones.  I'm abit more forgiving on Hayden then most since part of his portrayal adds up to what I was expecting of the character.

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Honestly, I never gave a shit about what a young Darth Vader would look or even be like.

It was just never a thing for me. I wanted and expected the PT to tell another story.

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Ronster said:

darth_ender said:

So perhaps a better question might have been:

If a PT really were necessary to tell a complete Star Wars tale, what would have been the best tale to tell?  What should have been left out?

There probably are already threads addressing this.

 Anakin of course.

We should have seen Darth Vader in the PT and no Anakin but only mentions of a great Jedi knight called Anakin.

A reference.

Obi-wan's story... Well did we really need to see him go in to battle with his friend on the volcano if it was already known it could just as well happened off screen. Imagine Obi-wan having to explain that the great Jedi knight was a traitor to a council and that he killed him. Would we even trust him on his word? We never saw what happened...

There was perhaps a big angle of story telling for the council perhaps being dubious about trusting Obi-wans word on the matter 

That is surely better story telling?

 It surely would have been a far better movie. What if ObiWan was exiled for killing the great Jedi Knight? Perhaps that would have been why he survived the purge? Like Ahsoka.

Phisically, since 2000's Gladiator, I always pictured Anankin as Joaquin Phoenix.

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AntcuFaalb said:

Honestly, I never gave a shit about what a young Darth Vader would look or even be like.

It was just never a thing for me. 

 Same for me, starting in 1977.  I may have wondered why he was so mean, imagined where he lived, where he came from, etc. However, those thoughts were fleeting.  

I didn't really care too much about him or find him terribly interesting. He was just a masked bad guy who answered to his superior officers. He was in a supporting military role, working for others.  His own superiors didn't seem terribly interested in him or his thoughts.  He was just someone they tolerated.

 Even if the prequels hadn't been shit, they were still three films about young Vader. A character in which I had little interest

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Honestly, I grew up with the PT, so I'm used to seeing Hayden. However, I can imagine an Anakin similar to TCW, since he fitted more of the Anakin that was generally on everyone's mind, both his image and character.

I have seen other people try to reimagine Anakin something more like a younger Sebastian Shaw (both here and here). I do find it interesting and I think it would be awesome, but I'm not sure how it would work exactly.

Screw lightsabers, I’ll stick with regular swords. At least they won’t blow up in my face like this franchise has.

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I'll say Hayden in Ep 3 was fairly close in many ways to my mental image of "when I first met your father." Dashing cocky Anakin, not psycho whining Anakin.

Going by the chronology implied in the OT, by the time he went bad he would have been considerably older. 

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I think Jude Law could have made a good Anakin. He was in his late 20's - early 30's when the PT was made (the appropriate PT era age for Anakin, IMO), he had the acting chops (though that's not hard when your competition is Hayden Christensen) and I think he bore a reasonable resemblance to a young Sebastian Shaw.

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Wannabe Scholar said:

I have seen other people try to reimagine Anakin something more like a younger Sebastian Shaw (both here and here)

The second one is awesome!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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DuracellEnergizer said:

Voss Caltrez said:

One more thing, I never liked the reveal of Vader under the mask in ROTJ. I assumed his voice was affected somewhat by his respiratory machine but even so, a British accent would not disappear.

Umm, I'm pretty sure Shaw spoke with his natural accent in the movie. 

 But Shaw didn't speak as Vader for the vast majority of the original trilogy. You get used to James Earl Jones' voice, and nothing about it sounds soft and/or British. So when you finally see and hear Vader without the mask it doesn't even feel like this is the same guy that was ruthlessly cutting down rebels. If Lucas was going for a Rorschach-like reveal I guess it's okay, but I assumed that even without the mask Vader would have some bass in his voice. And not sound British. 

In the Force Unleashed I like how [spoilers]during the end scene, Vader is talking with his mask off, his suit badly damaged, but it's still in the same JEJ-styled voice. He sees Starkiller's lifeless body on the throne room floor and says "He is dead." [/spoilers]

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Voss Caltrez said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Voss Caltrez said:

One more thing, I never liked the reveal of Vader under the mask in ROTJ. I assumed his voice was affected somewhat by his respiratory machine but even so, a British accent would not disappear.

Umm, I'm pretty sure Shaw spoke with his natural accent in the movie. 

 But Shaw didn't speak as Vader for the vast majority of the original trilogy. You get used to James Earl Jones' voice, and nothing about it sounds soft and/or British.

I can distinctly hear Jones speaking with a Mid-Atlantic accent when he does Vader.

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The JEJ voice is a setting on a machine. If Stephen Hawking were to be miraculously cured he wouldn't sound like a freakin Cylon. Anakin inside the cage of Vader speaks in an English RP accent and that's how he should have sounded before going inside the cage.

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For starters, I imagined that Anakin wasn't a pansy like he was in the prequels... those movies don't exist in my Star Wars universe.

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He should have been older. 

He should have grown up with Owen (actual brother or brother-in-law or at least close enough to be an "uncle" to his son), who thought Anakin shouldn't follow Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade.

Basically, the prequels make Obi-Wan into much more of a liar than he originally appeared to be. According to ROTJ he only lied about the identity of Darth Vader, not all the other stuff. That's helped by him actually looking uncomfortable on that line reading.

I also guessed back then that there would be a real or imagined love triangle between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Luke's mom that would be the basis of their conflict and mistrust.

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thelonius said:

Basically, the prequels make Obi-Wan into much more of a liar than he originally appeared to be.

Or senile. Judging by how moronic most of the characters in the PT are, I'd say the latter's more likely. 

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I don't think I ever pictured Anakin as a teenager or even a very young adult. I always pictured him as 35 yo dude, at least, maybe even 40, who was trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi and always was a friend to him for years and years until something happens and THAT's when the movie start...

But I guess I always was wrong because Obi-Wan says that he hoped he could have trained Anakin as well as Yoda and he failed. So I guess Anakin always was quite young dude in Lucas's mind when he turns to the dark side. But it's not how I pictured him for some reasons.