Come to think of it the only time we are ever even really shown Anakin’s great piloting skills in a real dog fight on screen is in ANH as Vader in the suit during the Death Star battle… when he wasn’t even written into the part of being Luke’s father yet… How sad is that.
Winning the Podrace, destroying the Trade Federation Command Centre, Battle of Coruscant? Or are you just referring to the OT? Because in that case that line about his skills was referring to a then dead character to set-up Luke having inherited his skills, hence justifying Luke’s sudden piloting skills during the Death Star attack at the end of ANH.
I did say in a dog fight did I not? Sure he drives the podracer pretty well, but I don’t think that really qualifies as showing him as “the best star pilot in the galaxy”. What did he do in the Trade Federation battle other than that neat little spinning trick… he was a little kid who just kind of lucked into destroying the command center no? What does he do in the battle of Corsuscant? I can’t really recall much besides getting some buzz droids on his ship and crashing into a hangar.
The way Vader surgically disposes of the rebel fighters in the first Death Star battle is far cooler than anything we see Anakin doing in the prequels… I always imagined him doing something similar before his turn with him coming to save the day for the good guys. I remember my first viewing of ROTS thinking we were finally going to get something like it in that battle at the beginning and just ended up being extremely disappointed.
It is just funny is all that in my mind his best moments as a “star pilot” comes from scenes when he wasn’t even intended to be the same character and that nothing even came close in the 3 movies where he was intended to be shown as that great pilot that Obi-Wan referenced.
Fair enough.
However to continue being nitpicky I think he did a bit more than knocking off the buzzdroids in ROTS, however I see your point.
Then again the Clone Wars cartoon, and probably the CGI series as well but I never saw that, had him in a some dogfights. But, like I said, Ben referring to Anakin as the best star-pilot he’d ever met was just a bit of backstory and not meant to mean anything else than setting up Luke as also being a good pilot. But you are right, it would have been pretty cool to have seen another dogfight like the one from ANH. But after having seen in in ANH, I guess there wasn’t any good reason to do it again. As for the PT, well, I don’t think I really need to add anything to that discussion. All I’ll say is that there’s a surprisingly small focus on the actual Clone Wars in the movies about the Clone Wars.