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How you pictured Anakin pre-PT — Page 4

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Someone rugged, tall, muscular, dark, and mature. Christian Bale would have been awesome, had he been the right age at the time.

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I pictured Anakin as a masculine, grown man, age 30 or so, with a beard, much shorter hair than someone like Hayden, already a fully trained Jedi, noble, respected, perhaps a bit more on the quiet side and hard to get to know. Obviously trained by Obi-Wan and the two must have been close.

In my Star Wars universe, that is still younger Anakin, and the prequels don’t exist.

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My prequels start and end with the clone wars tv series. Don’t need anything else to know how we get to the OT (definitely not the awkward and ham fisted “turn” and purge we are lumbered with in Ep 3).

More or less the kind of anakin old Ben describes - great pilot, Jedi knight, good man and a loyal, close friend. Plus the series is entirely more interesting, the Jedi are actually a thing to behold and admire and introduces characters we care deeply about.

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I always thought (a bulked-up) Russell Crowe would’ve made a good Anakin. 6’0" might not be tall enough though.

Like earlier posts suggested, I imagined a tall, masculine, rugged alpha-male with dark features who also had some kindness in his face.

Russell Crowe

He would be a great warrior, a real adventurer, who was overall a good bloke, but who occasionally had a hot temper (but NOT whiny!).

An important part of the story would be him following old Obi Wan on some damn fool idealistic crusade, which, inexplicably, we did not get in the PT.

Anyone remember different camera angles from ROTJ?

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The way I imagined it as a kid, we would have seen a gradual and natural progression in Anakin’s character in the PT from a good guy who we identify with to Darth Vader. Instead, the PT portrays him as obviously bad as soon as Hayden Christensen is first introduced near the beginning of AotC. Right in that first scene, he’s blatantly defiant to Obi Wan in front of everyone, the look on everyone’s face is along the lines of… “um… should we start calling him ‘Darth’ now or later?”

This was one of my biggest problems with the portrayal of his character in the PT… scene after scene after scene of him holding up a huge sign that says, “I’m headed to the dark side in a handbasket” and everyone else acts like there’s nothing that can be done about it. If “Breaking Bad” is an example of a tragic character arc done effectively, then this is the textbook example of the precise opposite.

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Assuming PT-era Anakin to look like Sebastian Shaw (dark hair, blue eyes), I’d imagine Mother Skywalker (Padme/Arcadia/whatever) to have blond hair and brown eyes, like the heroine in EE “Doc” Smith’s Spacehounds of IPC. (That is to say, she’d look more or less like Billie Lourd.)

“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”

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DuracellEnergizer said:

You pictured Anakin as a young Alec Guinness? ;-P

This is kind of what I pictured. I figured Anakin was kind of a more powerful and slightly more reckless Obi-Wan, and someone who was smarter than Obi-Wan as well; the kind of person tempted to consider their own judgement superior to others because in fact in many cases it would have been (as opposed to Hayden’s portrayal, in which he is almost comically wrong-headed about everything, and isn’t very smart - to the point that Palpatine remote controls him from the moment they meet). The kind of person tempted toward failure of character through hubris. But also someone good-natured enough that they could have spent a lifetime in friendship with someone who was, in the final analysis, their moral superior (Ben).

The Merchant said:

I found a good fanart of what appears to be a young Sebastian Shaw playing as Anakin Skywalker:

^ This isn’t too bad, though the uniform wouldn’t be something I’d have imagined. Looks interesting though. This guy definitely looks like someone who could have shared adventures with Alec Guiness, almost a Lamont Cranston type.

Jude law with lighter hair might have been passable facial-structure-wise, but he has a kind of Fred Astaire body language that I think would have been wrong.

SpilkaBilka said:

I always thought (a bulked-up) Russell Crowe would’ve made a good Anakin.

Yeah, this might work, if Crowe could put a little less Gladiator and bit more Guiness in the performance. He probably would have found that difficult, though, his testosterone levels are off the charts. I’m not sure any kind of deft, classic British cinematic aplomb is in his range. I’m also not sure I could see him and Guiness ever hanging out irl. Him and MacGregor, maybe.

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. 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.

This.

joefavs said:

This reminds me of something I was wondering about a couple weeks ago: I remember knowing that Obi-Wan and Anakin fought their duel on a lava planet well before The Phantom Menace came out. Even before the PT, that was just an accepted fact among everyone I knew. My question is, where did that come from? Was there an interview with Lucas or an EU novel or a comic book that had that in there? EVERYONE took it as gospel, but I haven’t a clue where anyone got the idea.

I always heard it was in the original novelization.

ZkinandBonez said:

[Ryan McAvoy said:]

A younger Jake Lloyd, surely?

How about the older Jake Lloyd?

Holy Shit that freaked me out. Let’s stop destroying kids lives through childhood fame from acting roles, huh? Seriously, upsetting.

Bingowings said:

Arguably the pre-ROTJ Force was such a merit based power. The reason we don’t have Jedi is we don’t have Jedi masters to school us in the Force. Even a farm boy on a planet in the middle of nowhere can become a Jedi.

In ROTJ the power of inheritance is introduced and Luke’s sister is a Princess but she is an adopted Princess so she might be still ‘low born’.

In the PT Luke and Leia are the offspring of royalty and a demi-God.We have gone from the age of Aquarius back to the age of Dragons. Luke is no longer Uri Geller with Kung-Fu moves, now he’s a royal prince with magic blood.

This is a brilliant observation. I always thought of the Jedi as a monastic order of warrior sages, not as a society of supernaturally gifted mutants. I hated the way the prequels suggested that Jedis sought out “their own” to train them. Of course there would be some in this order who excelled more than others, and who would play greater roles in history.

The inherited gift thing sucks; it makes the extinction of the Jedi much easier to accomplish and far less heinous as an act; the extermination of an aristocratic or mutant bloodline would arguably involve fewer individuals than the erasure of whole culture, not to mention its millenia of history.

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I figured that he was young when he turned. However, I also thought that the saber that Obi-Wan gives Luke is the saber that Anakin used for his entire Jedi career. I also thought that Anakin and Uncle Owen were close before Obi-Wan entered the picture and that Owen tried to convince Anakin not to become a Jedi.

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darklordoftech said:

I also thought that the saber that Obi-Wan gives Luke is the saber that Anakin used for his entire Jedi career.

There’s literally no reason why this shouldn’t be the case in the PT. Like, as much as we disagree with things such as showing Anakin as a child and such, at least there was a specific narrative choice behind that. Not having Anakin use the same lightsaber throughout is just pointless and only serves to take away from the importance of the saber.

Same goes for Obi-Wan (though obviously to a lesser extent because it doesn’t get passed on). I always felt like it could have been a really cool and subtle but powerful thing if, after Obi-Wan lost his lightsaber in TPM, he uses Qui-Gon’s for the rest of his life. Just a little thing, but it could have been easily done and would have given some sense and weight to his changing saber.

Also, what the hell is Obi-Wan doing chiding Anakin about losing his lightsaber in AOTC anyway? Obi-Wan drops or loses his lightsaber more than anyone.

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DominicCobb said:

darklordoftech said:

I also thought that the saber that Obi-Wan gives Luke is the saber that Anakin used for his entire Jedi career.

There’s literally no reason why this shouldn’t be the case in the PT. Like, as much as we disagree with things such as showing Anakin as a child and such, at least there was a specific narrative choice behind that. Not having Anakin use the same lightsaber throughout is just pointless and only serves to take away from the importance of the saber.

Same goes for Obi-Wan (though obviously to a lesser extent because it doesn’t get passed on). I always felt like it could have been a really cool and subtle but powerful thing if, after Obi-Wan lost his lightsaber in TPM, he uses Qui-Gon’s for the rest of his life. Just a little thing, but it could have been easily done and would have given some sense and weight to his changing saber.

Also, what the hell is Obi-Wan doing chiding Anakin about losing his lightsaber in AOTC anyway? Obi-Wan drops or loses his lightsaber more than anyone.

Yet another sin of the prequels: making lightsabers as replaceable as flashlights.

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How you pictured Anakin pre-PT

As a noble & likeable man with extraordinary pilot skills. He has enthusiastic ideals about peace, right and order. With the help of his new friend, the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin becomes a Jedi. He hopes to end the Clone Wars which disrupts the republic for quite some years now. Over the past years of the war the republic is close to a downfall. In time pressure Anakin starts looking for faster and more effective ways to end the war. During a crucial key moment that involves a Senator named Palpatine, Anakin tastes & uses the Dark Side of the Force. With the power of the Dark Side he finally achieves what the Jedi failed to do: Anakin ends the long-lasting Clone Wars. Eventually Anakin refuses to give up the Dark Side of the Force which ignites the extinction of the Jedi, the rise of the Empire and a certain duel with his former friend Obi-Wan Kenobi.

As a child i always assumed that Anakin was the first Jedi ever, who defected to the Dark Side. Despite being a Sith he still uses the typical Jedi weapon: a Lightsaber with the unusual color red.

Rogue One is redundant. Just play the first mission of DARK FORCES.
The hallmark of a corrupt leader: Being surrounded by yes men.
‘The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly.’ - V.E.S.
‘Star Wars is a buffet, enjoy the stuff you want, and leave the rest.’ - SilverWook

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Anakin using the Dark Side to end the Clone Wars in a single stroke is an absolutely brilliant idea. Now I imagine Anakin being trained by Obi-wan while fighting the clones, and throughout the film (which mirrors Empire) he knows that there is a critical battle for which he trains. As the Jedi (including Obi-wan) are dispatched to the battle, Anakin is told to stay behind beccause he is not ready to face this challenge. However, the Jedi are in trouble and begin to be killed, and in order to save his master and end the Clone Wars, he intervenes, tapping into the ‘quick and easy’ Dark Side to literally save the galaxy.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Although I’m apart of the “prequel generation” the whole OOT concept is something I like, so I imagine Vader looking like Sebastian Shaw in his 20s/30s for continuity. I have several ideas for SW, one of which is that in my PT there really was a Darth Vader that trained with Anakin who saw Vader as a role model of sorts. They both fall to the DS, but have different ideas which results in a duel. Vaders life support is based on the armor the OG Vader used.

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My answer to this thread:

Never really ever thought about pre-OT Anakin apart from having a vague image in my head from what Obiwan describes which is later married to the imagery of Shaw after the unmasking and his force ghost. It sure as heck was nothing remotely close to what we got, I don’t think anyone ever pictured the Anakin we ended up getting except George himself…

.Val

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That’s a really depressing picture knowing what we’d actually get!

The Person in Question

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Well, this thread is probably long dead, but I thought I’d come back to this after what I’ve just found. Apparently, there is an image of pre-pt Anakin, his wife, and baby Luke from 1993, called ‘The Skywalker Flame’ (link below). Brian Ashmore had made the image for Topps’ Star Wars Galaxy 2 card set, which was sadly pulled from the project. It looks kinda cool, similar to the young Obi-Wan trading card with Alec Guiness, especially with a 30-ish Anakin and his shadow forming Darth Vader.

https://clubjade.net/the-first-image-of-padme-and-anakin-from-1993/

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 would have cast Michael Fastbender and had the script written by an actually good writer.