TomMcSkywalker

The problem with using Sebastian Shaw’s force ghost in ROTJ is also that he wasn’t blond like Hayden and had rounder facial features.

Ok, his ghost has grey-ish hair but it’s still obvious that Shaw must have had quite dark brown hair when he was younger. Hayden and Jake Lloyd were both blond though (probably to make Anakin look similar to Mark Hamill / Luke). They were pretty bad casting choices when you compare them to Ewan McGregor as younger version of Guinness’ Obi-Wan.

Maybe it would have worked better if Anakin was the dark-haired one (like Leia) and Padme had blonde hair (like Luke).

SilverWook said:

Stress can certainly take it’s toll. Look at any U.S. President before and after eight years in office. Anakin was horribly burned and spent two decades in essentially a portable iron lung suit. Plus the effects of being on the Dark Side, which certainly didn’t help Palpatine’s looks.

That doesn’t explain why he looks old as a force ghost though.
Hayden Christensen is 40 now (almost the same age as Vader in ANH) and he still looks pretty much like his younger self in ROTS.

If Anakin never fell to the Dark Side, then there is no way he would look like Shaw.

DominicCobb said:
It’s interesting that so many pictured him with dark hair. Is that because he turned bad? What are you saying about people with dark hair? As someone with pretty dark hair myself, I have to say I’m offended.

Sebastian Shaw (RotJ Anakin) actually had dark hair when he was younger.

But I can see the point of casting Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen to make Anakin look more like his son.

I think the prequels would have worked best with Anakin being around 12-14 years old in Episode I, 22 in Episode II, and around 32 in Episode III.

Based on this calculation, he would have been 55 years old at the time of his death in RotJ.

I think Shaw can easily pass as a 55-year-old Anakin Skywalker, but never as 45.

I can somehow see the point of casting an experienced actor (instead of David Prowse) for the end of Return of the Jedi and I have to say that Sebastian Shaw’s performance of Anakin’s death was really great.

From my point of view however, 78-year-old Sebastian Shaw seemed like a weird choice for the character even back then in 1983.

Since ANH it was established that Darth Vader was a “young Jedi” and a pupil of Obi-Wan until he turned to the dark side. In the same movie, we hear Vader calling Obi-Wan an “old man” during their lightsaber duel.

I know that Vader and Luke’s father were still separate characters at this point of time.
Luke’s father was probably meant to be more or less the same age as Obi-Wan.

In TESB, both characters were merged into one and Luke’s father Anakin suddenly became “the young apprentice of Obi-Wan who turned to evil”.

So, I basically imagined a Jedi who was in his 20s (like Hayden Christensen) or early 30s when he became a Sith and fathered Luke and Leia but Shaw looks noticeably older than that (more like a guy who became a father in his 40s).

Furthermore, I think that Shaw didn’t really look menacing or “dark” enough for Anakin Skywalker.

When I saw the unmasking scene, my first thought was: “This friendly grandpa was Darth Vader, one of the most feared villains in the galaxy? Really?”

What do you think?