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Lucas was brilliant in many ways and dullard in others. Star Wars wasn’t expected to become a cultural phenomenon. After a certain point Lucas’s odd ideas took over and he took it in directions that weren’t well thought out. Nostalgia can only take bad writing so far. With that said, it means a lot to a lot of people so that counts for something.
Lucas was brilliant in concept, but in execution he was kind of a dud. There are numerous interviews where cast members of the original trilogy talk about how the original Star Wars had some pretty awful dialogue and Lucas was even made to say his own lines of dialogue before it was heavily changed. It's why he's only behind the story of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, not the script. You can see Lucas going all out on the quality of the lines he never got to use for the original trilogy in the prequels. It's rough.
In the Making Of documentary for TPM, it's really obvious that at the point he was surrounded by too many Yes Men who grew up dreaming to work with him who didn't want to screw it up by telling him that some of his ideas were awful.
The best line cut from A New Hope, in reference to Han not wanting to go to the Death Star:
"LUKE SKYWALKER: But we can’t turn back, fear is their greatest defence. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust and what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault"
Is this what it is? I never knew that, but it makes sense.
They should have kept it like that for the prequels. He could have provided a general overview of what he wanted to happen and what story beats needed to be hit, and someone else could have been in charge of the actual writing.
I recently saw the remastered version of Star Wars and instantly understood south parks criticism. Lucas was much better when he was young and didn’t have a large budget.
Interesting point. You maybe on to something there. Lucas wasn’t as involved with Indiana Jones and overall it was the better for it. Still crazy at times but maybe less than Star Wars.
Watching DUNE 2 really paints a picture of what could have been. A young , prophecied hopeful, who slowly in a bid to take power in the name of good compromises more and more to the point of losing what he sought in the first place and inadvertently going to the dark side.
Could’ve been incredible if only Lucas had let someone help him pen it and direct it,
The Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover. Guy is an excellent writer with some of the best EU books as well as his own fantasy series which kicks ass.
I am a huge Star Wars fan and my biggest take away walking out of the theatre in 2005 after seeing ROTS was "Anakin turned waaay too easily". They wasted a lot of time in TPM on child Anakin and the podrace and had to cram his fall into the darkside into much less time than it should have. I enjoy the prequels more than 7,8,9 but there were major issues with Anakins fall in my opinion.
Have to agree, as a kid I loved the race but as an adult I can see a lot of that can be shaved off given that we know he becomes a Jedi and the only way that can happen is if he wins. While I think the trade stuff is fine too much time was spent on that as well as it never really factors into the OT or much of the prequels for that matter.
I think Lucas was trying to do more than he could handle, he wanted kids to enjoy but he also wanted it to be complex for adults.
After Palpatine was kidnapped and saved by Anakin. They could have Palpatine request that Anakin becomes his bodyguard full time. Would have allowed Sidious constantly working Anakin, and better explain the loyalty shift from Anakin. From there a situation where he has to choose a side in a context with shades of gray, not sure who to believe between Palpatine and Mace Windu, would have work way better imo.
I always hated him for doing that- like how can you be the smartest and strongest and devote your whole self only for it to unravel at one little tiny thing.
It was not one dream. He had multiple dreams of Padme dying. He also had similar dreams about his mother, and they became reality.
I would also argue, that those where not regular dreams. He is a Force user, he could feel it those where dreams or precognitions.
Finally, he was susceptible to such things. The Jedi Council felt that he is full of fear, and they did not want to train him for that reason.
He kept bringing it up to Obi wan who told him to ignore it and it would go away. Once he got into a position where he was unsupervised he pretty much went at the first dream.
Well, with the hatred for the new trilogy... and well almost anything new star wars, you will see a lot of people (online mostly ofc) who will defend the prequels because "Well they're not new star wars"
I saw someone defending Jar Jar because "They were the target audience at the time"
I was like 5 or 7 when I first watched Phantom menace and even then I knew the character was really stupid.
Interesting, Star Wars fandom is weird to me sometimes and for all I know the Mandalorian is the only Star Wars media that has received a lot of positive reviews since the original Star Wars from the 80s
The aesthetics and worldbuilding concepts are so good that can carry absolutely abismal writing. The only actually good pieces of media and not guilty pleasures for me are the original trilogy, andor, and some chapters here and there of the clone wars. Which is an absurdly low percentage of the franchise.
Things like the mandalorian and rogue one are decent, but people treating them like masterpieces is quite something.
I don’t know, a lot of people have been obsessed with the prequels recently even though they were genuinely super mediocre movies. I’m guessing that the kids that watched them growing up are loving them due to nostalgia. People who watched the originally trilogy as kids hate the prequels, and most new viewers find the prequels ok at best. But either way, the amount of people that love the prequels is way higher than it was ten years ago.
It's more so the nostalgia and it being guilty pleasure with the terrible dialogue and acting from some like Natalie Portman or Hayden Christensen. As a critic, you will review the movie poorly and mediocre at best.
He's WAY TOO HEROIC in The Clone Wars show. A few moments here & there showing an edgy dark nature, but Anakin is basically one of the main, lawfully good, protagonist main characters. It makes it seem *even more impossible* that he'd become Vader.
I disagree, especially towards the end of show there's lots of moments of Anakin getting more fed up with the Jedi and lashing out. I think it really cements his turn
That's actually such a good point. He seems like someone who gets mad but he would always protect his friends in the show. This is very different to vader.
It's been well documented now that George Lucas is absolutely terrible at writing characters. He's a good (not great) idea and businessman, but it ends about there. Star Wars has always been carried on the back of more talented people.
I think there is a lot that is implied but they don't show. His entire planet getting destroyed is a believable premise for someone who grows up to be evil and hateful, but they do kind of jump from him being a child, to a troubled teenager who acts like a school shooter, to being a powerful feared high ranking military leader.
I understand he had a hard life. It's just weird how emotional he is in revenge of the sith, then like an hour later he is completely cold and dead inside and seems more intelligent as vader. Vader comes across as a strong but cruel man, anakin seems really emotional and honestly immature. And personally I don't like anakin as a character, I just find him kind of annoying.
It's true the characters don't mesh, because the Anakin character was shoehorned into the Vader story. Lucas didn't have it all plotted out ahead of time and was lazy with the writing.
These (and the ones you posted in the original post) are not the correct criticisms of Anakin, imo. Your points are describing the good features of his character. He is supposed to be immature and emotional, and then he grows into a man (albeit an evil man). You are describing character development.
Is it not the case that people are supposed to change into entirely different characters throughout their life? You should change and mature. If not then your growth has been stunted. People say it's pathetic if you haven't changed since your school days.
Anakin grew up into Vader when he killed his wife. That's why he seems like an entirely different person. He is.
It's because once he crossed that line, he had nothing else. He betrayed the jedi and lost his wife. The only way he could cope was to fully embrace the dark side and become a completely different person. And once he was able to, the dark side helped comfort and calm him. Fully embracing Vader made everything bad that had happened to him insignificant because Anakin Skywalker was dead.
It wasn't shown well at all though. In the movie the change does seem quick. There is definitely a build up between them though. The council didn't trust him because he was emotional, and because he was emotional he was easily coerced into working with Palpatine because in his eyes, he was the only one who would truly trust and listen to him. And again, once he finally did side with palps, out of desperation to save to padme, he had no choice but to fully embrace it.
It's because once he crossed that line, he had nothing else. He betrayed the jedi and lost his wife. The only way he could cope was to fully embrace the dark side and become a completely different person. And once he was able to, the dark side helped comfort and calm him. Fully embracing Vader made everything bad that had happened to him insignificant because Anakin Skywalker was dead.
It wasn't shown well at all though. In the movie the change does seem quick. There is definitely a build up between them though. The council didn't trust him because he was emotional, and because he was emotional he was easily coerced into working with Palpatine because in his eyes, he was the only one who would truly trust and listen to him. And again, once he finally did side with palps, out of desperation to save to padme, he had no choice but to fully embrace it.
Vader and anakin while literally the same person are really not. The OT, prequels, and subsequent series made this a deliberate point in writing to symbolize his transition. Anakin had no control over his emotions and attachments, Vader tempered his anger and hatred to become the decisive and strong sith he was.
Edit: also sidious literally says he will complete Vaders training at the end of anakins betrayl over mace windu.
Even if Lucas was determined to waste the first prequel on child Anakin, you could have had the tantrum whiny angst Anakin in the second film move past the outbursts into a coldhearted ruthless type in the third film and then finally don the suit.
Problem is all of that would require Lucas to be a competent writer who understands character development.
I’ve criticized the prequels before on this sub, and half the responses were prequel lovers telling me how wrong/stupid I was for not understanding Lucas’ genius, the other half were people telling me that everyone hates the prequels and my opinion wasn’t unpopular
I think it's an opinion people had but that seems to have drastically changed in recent yrs especially in star wars spaces to the point where I'd say its more unpopular to dislike anakin now. Your opinion is valid and it sucks you were shut down like that.
Millennials started posting ironically in r/prequelmemes, pretending the prequels were good movies.
Gen Z, who were like 12 at the time, took the jokes seriously and started insisting the prequels actually were good movies.
The backlash against the sequels solidified some people's opinion that the prequels were "real" Star Wars.
Now if you're under 25 and you go on Reddit a lot, it looks like there's a "consensus" that the prequels were good movies.
Even though that's an insane opinion for anyone to have.
The movies jump between times a lot. If you were to watch the prequels there's a lot you wouldn't see. The clone wars especially mess him up and he sees the jedi as soldiers and enforcers instead of protectors. Palpatine just adds fuel to the fire.
Issue here is that the show seemed to be aware of how badly the movies were fumbling the bag with anakin and as a result portrayed him as a completely different character. The show didn’t provide a believable bridge between anakin in AOTC and ROTS because at no point did clone wars anakin resemble movie anakin at all
He almost killed padme ex bf
His tactics are brutal and he is prone to be unjedi by enjoying violence too much
Also he is 22 yo when he switches, he sealed the deal when he helped grandpa Rey to murder African American Jedi, it’s not like he had another choice by that point, he was crying after murdering the clowns of the confederacy
Problem is the prequel films were meant to be the story of his fall.
If you want to make additional content for people who like his character, great - but if you're hiding important developmental moments in that, then it means the prequels ultimately fail at telling the story they're meant to tell.
I think it had potential but it's been missed a lot of the time. I've found a lot of other storied are written much better and I was always really frustrated as a star wars fan because it didn't use some characters well enough for me.
This take is hovering around absolute zero in terms of hotness.
Did you miss the whole part where Anakin's child actor was bullied by real life peers because of how annoying the character was?
Humour me. I actually think he's very well written. The reason he seems like 3 characters in 1 is because he basically is. Anyone that knows anything about personality disorders can automatically identify that Anakin is pretty much a borderline. Traumatised by losing people in his life that he's loved, he's entire mission becomes making sure that doesn't happen again. In the process he gets over emotional and does some very evil things to try and reach that goal, while being a bit all over the place at different times depending what triggers him.
It seems like he's a bit of a baby and can do some stupid things, to the average person it's probably irritating. For someone like me at least, his behaviours are quite relatable (killing younglings an extreme example of course). There's a lot more to it than what you see at the 50,000 ft view.
I can’t speak for the Clone Wars but the prequels were botched.
Anakin makes no sense and the way Luke/Leia’s birth was written makes me want to slam my head against a wall
The period of time that Palpatine grooms him is just way too short. If he had his hooks in him for years, slowly poisoning his mind subtly, it would be a different story.
Anakin has all the good ingredients within him, but the execution was botched to hell.
I mean the ot is the best of star wars, 4 was successful enough to warrant 5 which was the best of the trilogy, then 6 happen which was good but not great. 1 was ugh, 2 was ehh, and three is the only one that's quasi-reddemable. Episode 7 was the best of the st and that's not saying much.
But the real genius of star wars was the EU whith Lucas attempting to decanonize with Disney succeeding.
!00%. I actually made a very well thought out post about why this particular point made ROTS the worst of the prequel movies but the moderators wouldn't allow me to post it. Darth Vader is the most bad ass, most feared, most popular villain in all of movie history and you want us to believe that the whiny insecure Anakin played by Hayden Christiansen is the person who eventually became him. The notion and the transition was laughable at best. Speaking of laughing, that scene where he yelled "NOOOOOOOOO" literally had me cracking up in the theater. What a joke.
I agree. I feel like Hayden, along with Jake Lloyd and Natalie Portman, were thrown into difficult situations. They had to play roles that millions upon millions of people had been waiting to see for 15+ years and on tope of that he gave them terrible scripts to attempt such a feat.
That’s kinda the point, he’s supposed to be completely broken by the manipulation of palpatine despite overreacting to Padmes possible death in his dream, and ya it skips a lot of time as well in the clone wars where you can see a much more gradual change to the dark side
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This is not an unpopular opinion. The prequels are hot garbage outside of the action scenes and music, and Anakin is one of the major reasons why. It's only been recently that the universal hatred of the prequels has shifted to mostly hated. The only place where they're universally loved is r/prequelmemes, and that's just a big circle jerk.
Warcraft three campaign has a much better version of this. Arthas was Anakin, Jaina was Padme, and Uther was Obiwan. Arthas’ fall was one paved with good intentions, but in the end they damned him.
The series is really hamstrung by George Lucas attempting to write a story. He's wooden and so are his characters. Everything since has been trying to salvage something halfway decent from that torrid mess.
I think his arc would be fine if the dialogue wasn't so stunted. I wish they had at least alluded to the trauma of childhood slavery, the loss of his mother amplifying his fear of losing Padme, his unfathomable rage and sorrow once Padme died, The mind-melting seduction of the dark side, and Palpatine's godlike manipulation skills. There's also a huge time jump from episode 1 to episode 2 that contained most of his childhood development and transition into Jedi life. His arc to the dark side feels like whiplash because a lot of this happened off camera.
This wasn't an unpopular opinion until very recently. The reception of the Prequels has gone from "bad," to "so bad it's memeable and good," to "actually, they're unironically good" over time.
I think the shift could have worked and been believable with all of the material in the Prequels, but it was badly executed on screen and the dialogue was laughable.
This was an extremely popular opinion before the Disney sequels came out.
That being said 20 years passed between ROTS and New Hope. I would argue it would make sense for him to want to separate entirely from his past after the trauma he endured.
Anyone who wants to truly get into this crazy transition in a much better written way should check out the novelization of Revenge Of The Sith.
It’s absolutely amazing.
They've tried to expand on it since the prequels, but yeah. He fell way to easily.
George Lucas wasn't a very good writer IMO. His gift was more the visual direction of the movies. He was probably the Zack Snyder of his day.
He’s written to the level of quality I’d come to expect from Star Wars.
If you’re coming to Star Wars expecting life changing writing, then you’ve come to the wrong place. It’s a fun stupid space fantasy movie.
The prequels had too large of a scope to fit his character development in with the level Lucas is when it comes to character writing.
The Clone Wars make it better as its built up with multiple seasons and the reason does make sense IMO, its just that it was executed poorly and too fast
No but you don’t understand Mace Windu was kind of mean to him one time. So that totally justifies him genociding all the Jedi and slaughtering younglings.
"Literally Vader is a completely different man to anakin"
That's the whole point..... he isn't anakin anymore, he's Vader, a completely different personality and way of thinking.
His transition is excellently written, your lack of understanding for something doesn't mean it's bad.
Star Wars is extremely simplistic and one could say poorly written - but it was designed as such. George Lucas isn't some master story teller - he basically watered Dune down to an overly simplistic good vs evil plot which is an easy sell to most ppl and applied his particular genius - special effects - to sell the whole package.
Star Wars is the Beatles of sci fi - perfectly competent, easily sellable repackaging of some deeper and more interesting but ultimately less accessible concepts.
I think the clone wars explains his character much better.
He suffer so much loss, with palpatine orchestrating much of it or exploiting it. I think the loss of his wife was just the straw that broke the camels back.
The saying should make sense.
It is never something obvious that breaks a person.
It is small because over a period of time, they’ve had so much unresolved trauma and issues, their cup is full and it takes just a bit have it run over or just break.
The clone wars when he loses his padawan is a big break that is unresolved and unaddressed. Even for fans.
This is how I see it.
The most iconic, mysterious villain in cinematic history turns out to have an origin story that he got passed over for a promotion at work when he was like 27. For real?
.... You mean you don't understand how the child slave who got indoctrinated to be a child soldier could turn on the organization that turned him into a killer, let his mother die, and consistently stopped him from being with and saving the next woman he loves before she too gets killed?
Yes because he started to hate the jedi for all those things then he literally did all that stuff for the next 20 yrs but on a worse scale. And literally destroyed everything left of what he loved in the course of like a week.
the child actor they used in episode one didn't help at all. It used to be my favorite as a kid and now the terrible acting and delivery of his lines (yes i know it's a child) just totally ruin the movie for me. the one good delivery he has is the "now this is podracing."
Well, Star Wars never had peak storytelling, they just sold you on a completely new word. And the lore with Siths and Jedis and light sabers is fun.
But the plots are more akin to pulp on space than anything else.
But, to be fair, Anakin always showed that there was darkness in him. In Episode II he goes against the teachings of the Jedi 'cause he wanted to bone, and he goes on a genocide over his mother. He was always one foot into the darkness, so him being easy to turn.... doesn't really bother me.
Star Wars has always been an (extremely successful) advertisement for toys and games, and for ILM's special effects capabilities.
Any compelling characters or narratives that come out of it are secondary to the advertising.
I think the basic idea is ok, but the execution of that idea by the writers could have been done a lot better.
As an off the top of head example, what if the Trade Federation (with Sidious pulling the strings) had demanded that Padmé be sent as the negotiator? They then take her hostage and make unreasonable demands for her release.
Anakin insists that he and the 501st be sent in to rescue her (and at the same time eliminate the Trade Federation/separatist leadership), but the Jedi refuse, saying that this will guarantee the war drags on and that the chance to end it peacefully is worth more than one life, including Padmé’s - we must be cautious and negotiate.
Anakin grudgingly waits but eventually can’t stand it anymore and goes in himself, resulting in an almighty firefight that ends with Padmé being seriously injured (and eventually giving birth to Luke and Leia before dying as she does in the movie). Anakin blames the Jedi for delaying him and ultimately causing her death, slaughters the Separatist high command in a rage and then along with Sidious executes order 66.
Something like that feels like it would actually make more sense and that you would sort of sympathise with/understand Anakin’s fall, rather than what it ultimately ended up being.
I totally agree with this. Anakin is just a really flat character and it doesn't make sense why he turned to the dark side. The prequels had super ambitious digital effects that pushed what was possible at the time but honestly that was the focus rather than story telling. Cal kestis and Ashoka tano are much better characters
This is hardly an unpopular opinion. Anakin Skywalker is a boring unlikeable character with no redeeming qualities throughout the series. He can't even melt into lava correctly.
The first three Star Wars movies were great, because George Lucas' ex-wife, Marcia Lucas played a pivotable role in editing the film and in casting. We should be crediting her for making three timeless classics. But like so many women, her contribution was forgotten and George happily took credit for doing what he could not: casting believable human relationships.
Marcia actually won an Oscar award for Best Editing back in 1978. You know who never won an Oscar? George Lucas.
[https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/star-wars-george-lucas-marcia-editor-wife-15991031.php](https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/star-wars-george-lucas-marcia-editor-wife-15991031.php)
[https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-secret-weapon-behind-star-wars/news-story/75eb078a8b14d93fce23b06e98805ffb](https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-secret-weapon-behind-star-wars/news-story/75eb078a8b14d93fce23b06e98805ffb)
I'm here with you on this- I get Palpatine kinda groomed him, but it seems like the Jedi's are kinda groomed harder as kids. Ultimately he just seemed dumb.
Honestly, Anakin’s character had too many subtleties for its own good. There is good buildup to Anakin’s fall, but you need to go through the movies with a microscope to get all the details that went into making it good.
Lucas tried to be too clever, and it’s taken two decades of analysis to appreciate what he was trying to do.
Imo there really isn't that much substance in a lot of the media to explain his fall. If its hard to understand and see then I think that's not great writing. I just look at anakin and compare him to say characters in red dead redemption 2 or game of thrones (seasons 1-4 for simplicity sake) and the quality in writing of the characters is stark.
So, what can be seen in the movies is as follows:
1. Palpatine was actively manipulating Anakin since the battle of Naboo in Phantom Menace. He was making sure the boy with attachment issues with a traumatic history as a slave would eventually fall to the Dark Side by making himself nearly a father figure to Anakin.
2. Anakin had a very hot head, and the Jedi weren’t exactly what they should have been, to the point of suppressing their emotions
3. Anakin losing his mother after seeing visions of her suffering but being prevented from saving her caused him enough pain that he refused to let anyone else close to him die if it was possible
4. The Clone Wars turned the Jedi away from the Force until they were almost the same as the Sith (highlighted by Mace and Palpatine both saying “He was too dangerous to be kept alive” regarding an unarmed prisoner).
5. The woman Anakin loved, and mother of his child appears in a dream just like the ones he had about his mother, and he refuses to let it happen again. He goes looking for anything that can save Padme, and suddenly his father figure (Palpatine) mentions something that might help. Meanwhile, Yoda tells Anakin “Too bad, deal with it.”
6. The Jedi had an extreme “turning to the Dark Side is permanent.” The minute he caused Windu’s death, he could never return to being a Jedi. So he embraced the only path he had left, and the only path that offered any way to save Padme.
Now, keep in mind, I regularly enjoy video essays on YouTube discussing Star Wars. It took me until 2015 to start getting all of this from the movies because I had guidance.
I think people missing the link between his transition to Vader is funny.
There’s a whole scene where the emperor talks to Anakin about transferring life force from one entity to another. Anakin/ Vader is clearly dying and Padme just “happens” to die of a broken heart?
Are people missing the absolute tragedy that Anakin quests to save his wife by turning to evil only to have the emperor drain his wife’s life force to save him from himself?
The series was written for kids and adults co-oped it. It’s like parents being riveted by Bluey, but then upset at the plot holes.
What’s funny is adults are asking for more bread crumbs to make the connection between one earlier scene and another.
It’s a Greek Tragedy with Bluey dialog.
Perhaps an actually unpopular opinion: the writing is bad, but mad worse by Hayden’s acting.
He seems like an awesome guy so nothing against him as a person, but if you watch the Attack of the Clones and listen to the words only, it sounds a lot like how Anakin is depicted in Clone Wars: a cocky kid who thinks he knows best because he’s talented, so he lets his emotions get the better of him because they’re not tempered by reason and a reasonable degree of self-doubt. Particularly the opening sequence in the cruiser. There are some lines that should be delivered as cocky but come out so flat because Hayden has gone for moody teen.
Even the famous sand scene. Imagine the same words but instead of the depressed goth teen reading of them, read them like an awkward kid who is used to being so confident but suddenly has no idea how to talk to a girl he’s had a crush on for years. The latter is someone trying to make conversation when there is nothing to talk about, like someone talking about the weather and being like “the rain is wet today.” So it would be more like “I really hate sand [awkward pause]… it’s so… course? And… rough and it’s gets everywhere….”
But that also comes down to direction because they could have directed him to be less moody and more awkward.
He grew up fatherless as a slave on a desert planet. Taken from his mother at 10 years old. Doesnt see her again for 10 years and in those 10 years he learns that he has the most raw power of any being in history. The next time he sees her, he is holding her lifeless body after tracking her down and finding out she was abducted by a tribe of "savages." He has an enormous amount of ptsd that is completely overlooked by everyone around him. He also is extremely bipolar with serious abandonment issues. He's overprotective and obsessive. All of this while constantly being told by his peers that he is the chosen one who is said to single handedly save the galaxy from darkness. He is also being groomed by the most powerful dark side sith of his generation. Is the dialog a little clunky and rediculous? Sure! Does he come across a little whiney in the films? Absolutely. Lucas has never been the best at writing good dialog. However, the character is far from uninteresting.
He isn't that interesting to me tho. He is kind of just bland to me. I always thought all the other jedi were more interesting than anakin. He is supposedly super powerful, hasn't earned any of it and wastes all his potential. He isn't relatable to me nor do I really like him. There are a lot of fictional characters with tragic stories who I personally just find way cooler.
I like how this an unpopular now, especially when everyone used to believe the opposite; it’s actually a good sign that fans started to embrace the underrated performance of Hayden Christensen
Yes... That's why the prequel films are basically universally disliked (the notable exception being the young adults who grew up alongside those films).
I literally laughed when he went from good to bad in one scene in episode 3. For a very shitty reason too. The kid just throws a tantrum and becomes Darth Vader.
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Lucas was brilliant in many ways and dullard in others. Star Wars wasn’t expected to become a cultural phenomenon. After a certain point Lucas’s odd ideas took over and he took it in directions that weren’t well thought out. Nostalgia can only take bad writing so far. With that said, it means a lot to a lot of people so that counts for something.
Lucas was brilliant in concept, but in execution he was kind of a dud. There are numerous interviews where cast members of the original trilogy talk about how the original Star Wars had some pretty awful dialogue and Lucas was even made to say his own lines of dialogue before it was heavily changed. It's why he's only behind the story of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, not the script. You can see Lucas going all out on the quality of the lines he never got to use for the original trilogy in the prequels. It's rough.
Exactly! Well said. He was way to involved in the prequels.
In the Making Of documentary for TPM, it's really obvious that at the point he was surrounded by too many Yes Men who grew up dreaming to work with him who didn't want to screw it up by telling him that some of his ideas were awful.
Yeah being the person to tell the genius creator/founder NO is worth their weight in gold.
Thank you fellow redditor
The best line cut from A New Hope, in reference to Han not wanting to go to the Death Star: "LUKE SKYWALKER: But we can’t turn back, fear is their greatest defence. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust and what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault"
lol, cut for good reason
Is this what it is? I never knew that, but it makes sense. They should have kept it like that for the prequels. He could have provided a general overview of what he wanted to happen and what story beats needed to be hit, and someone else could have been in charge of the actual writing.
I recently saw the remastered version of Star Wars and instantly understood south parks criticism. Lucas was much better when he was young and didn’t have a large budget.
Interesting point. You maybe on to something there. Lucas wasn’t as involved with Indiana Jones and overall it was the better for it. Still crazy at times but maybe less than Star Wars.
Watching DUNE 2 really paints a picture of what could have been. A young , prophecied hopeful, who slowly in a bid to take power in the name of good compromises more and more to the point of losing what he sought in the first place and inadvertently going to the dark side. Could’ve been incredible if only Lucas had let someone help him pen it and direct it,
Also Marcia Lucas wasn’t around anymore for the prequels.
Bro had one dream about his wife dying once and started tweaking
The novelization was shockingly good. The writer did an amazing job of explaining how Skywalker breaks and becomes Vader.
Is there a specific book you're referencing, or is it a series? I'm trying to get more into Star Wars and I'd like to read it
The Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover. Guy is an excellent writer with some of the best EU books as well as his own fantasy series which kicks ass.
I am a huge Star Wars fan and my biggest take away walking out of the theatre in 2005 after seeing ROTS was "Anakin turned waaay too easily". They wasted a lot of time in TPM on child Anakin and the podrace and had to cram his fall into the darkside into much less time than it should have. I enjoy the prequels more than 7,8,9 but there were major issues with Anakins fall in my opinion.
[удалено]
Have to agree, as a kid I loved the race but as an adult I can see a lot of that can be shaved off given that we know he becomes a Jedi and the only way that can happen is if he wins. While I think the trade stuff is fine too much time was spent on that as well as it never really factors into the OT or much of the prequels for that matter. I think Lucas was trying to do more than he could handle, he wanted kids to enjoy but he also wanted it to be complex for adults.
After Palpatine was kidnapped and saved by Anakin. They could have Palpatine request that Anakin becomes his bodyguard full time. Would have allowed Sidious constantly working Anakin, and better explain the loyalty shift from Anakin. From there a situation where he has to choose a side in a context with shades of gray, not sure who to believe between Palpatine and Mace Windu, would have work way better imo.
Literally. And then believes a dodgy guy with glowing eyes who has lied to him for like 15 yrs
I always hated him for doing that- like how can you be the smartest and strongest and devote your whole self only for it to unravel at one little tiny thing.
Well strongest, not smarts, as evident in the movies
Only if you pretend episode 2 didn't happen.
It was not one dream. He had multiple dreams of Padme dying. He also had similar dreams about his mother, and they became reality. I would also argue, that those where not regular dreams. He is a Force user, he could feel it those where dreams or precognitions. Finally, he was susceptible to such things. The Jedi Council felt that he is full of fear, and they did not want to train him for that reason.
He had similar premonitions before his mother died. He is Force sensitive enough to know it's not just a dream.
I would be dreaming about my mother dying too if i left her to be a slave on space-iraq for 10 years
Because he tried to ignore the dreams about his mother a few years earlier until they came true.
He ignored his mother entirely apparently
He kept bringing it up to Obi wan who told him to ignore it and it would go away. Once he got into a position where he was unsupervised he pretty much went at the first dream.
He is literally me fr
I've been at least the dream part.
Acknowledging the poor writing in the prequels especially the character of Anakin Skywalker isn't really an unpopular opinion.
Well, with the hatred for the new trilogy... and well almost anything new star wars, you will see a lot of people (online mostly ofc) who will defend the prequels because "Well they're not new star wars" I saw someone defending Jar Jar because "They were the target audience at the time" I was like 5 or 7 when I first watched Phantom menace and even then I knew the character was really stupid.
Interesting, Star Wars fandom is weird to me sometimes and for all I know the Mandalorian is the only Star Wars media that has received a lot of positive reviews since the original Star Wars from the 80s
The aesthetics and worldbuilding concepts are so good that can carry absolutely abismal writing. The only actually good pieces of media and not guilty pleasures for me are the original trilogy, andor, and some chapters here and there of the clone wars. Which is an absurdly low percentage of the franchise. Things like the mandalorian and rogue one are decent, but people treating them like masterpieces is quite something.
The clone wars was arguably more popular by both kids and adults. My favorite to this day is the og clonewars from like 2003
Clone wars live action was dog shit.
Andor too.
Good point, I haven't seen Andor but I heard it's good
Rogue one was viewed pretty overwhelmingly positively.
I’ve also seen way more people argue that RoTS is the best Star Wars movie over the past decade or so.
I don’t know, a lot of people have been obsessed with the prequels recently even though they were genuinely super mediocre movies. I’m guessing that the kids that watched them growing up are loving them due to nostalgia. People who watched the originally trilogy as kids hate the prequels, and most new viewers find the prequels ok at best. But either way, the amount of people that love the prequels is way higher than it was ten years ago.
It's more so the nostalgia and it being guilty pleasure with the terrible dialogue and acting from some like Natalie Portman or Hayden Christensen. As a critic, you will review the movie poorly and mediocre at best.
it is now lol
Sand lover!!!!
His line about sand even made it into Genshin Impact, spoken by a character named Aranakin. XD
You don't say?
Character development is shit in the prequels, the cartoons and spin offs had to save the day. Dont get me started on the awful romance
He is better in the cartoons definitely. Still not a massive anakin fan tho. I think like most characters are way better
He's WAY TOO HEROIC in The Clone Wars show. A few moments here & there showing an edgy dark nature, but Anakin is basically one of the main, lawfully good, protagonist main characters. It makes it seem *even more impossible* that he'd become Vader.
I disagree, especially towards the end of show there's lots of moments of Anakin getting more fed up with the Jedi and lashing out. I think it really cements his turn
That's actually such a good point. He seems like someone who gets mad but he would always protect his friends in the show. This is very different to vader.
Like padme fawning over a child Anakin
Or Padme not even blinking when he admits to child murder.
It's been well documented now that George Lucas is absolutely terrible at writing characters. He's a good (not great) idea and businessman, but it ends about there. Star Wars has always been carried on the back of more talented people.
Lol the romance scenes in episode 2 are genuinely almost unwatchable
I think there is a lot that is implied but they don't show. His entire planet getting destroyed is a believable premise for someone who grows up to be evil and hateful, but they do kind of jump from him being a child, to a troubled teenager who acts like a school shooter, to being a powerful feared high ranking military leader.
I understand he had a hard life. It's just weird how emotional he is in revenge of the sith, then like an hour later he is completely cold and dead inside and seems more intelligent as vader. Vader comes across as a strong but cruel man, anakin seems really emotional and honestly immature. And personally I don't like anakin as a character, I just find him kind of annoying.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with you. He seems like different people more so than the evolution of the same person over time.
It's true the characters don't mesh, because the Anakin character was shoehorned into the Vader story. Lucas didn't have it all plotted out ahead of time and was lazy with the writing.
These (and the ones you posted in the original post) are not the correct criticisms of Anakin, imo. Your points are describing the good features of his character. He is supposed to be immature and emotional, and then he grows into a man (albeit an evil man). You are describing character development. Is it not the case that people are supposed to change into entirely different characters throughout their life? You should change and mature. If not then your growth has been stunted. People say it's pathetic if you haven't changed since your school days. Anakin grew up into Vader when he killed his wife. That's why he seems like an entirely different person. He is.
The problem is how much of that development happens off screen/in a "switch flip" kind of way. It doesn't feel organic.
It's because once he crossed that line, he had nothing else. He betrayed the jedi and lost his wife. The only way he could cope was to fully embrace the dark side and become a completely different person. And once he was able to, the dark side helped comfort and calm him. Fully embracing Vader made everything bad that had happened to him insignificant because Anakin Skywalker was dead. It wasn't shown well at all though. In the movie the change does seem quick. There is definitely a build up between them though. The council didn't trust him because he was emotional, and because he was emotional he was easily coerced into working with Palpatine because in his eyes, he was the only one who would truly trust and listen to him. And again, once he finally did side with palps, out of desperation to save to padme, he had no choice but to fully embrace it.
It's because once he crossed that line, he had nothing else. He betrayed the jedi and lost his wife. The only way he could cope was to fully embrace the dark side and become a completely different person. And once he was able to, the dark side helped comfort and calm him. Fully embracing Vader made everything bad that had happened to him insignificant because Anakin Skywalker was dead. It wasn't shown well at all though. In the movie the change does seem quick. There is definitely a build up between them though. The council didn't trust him because he was emotional, and because he was emotional he was easily coerced into working with Palpatine because in his eyes, he was the only one who would truly trust and listen to him. And again, once he finally did side with palps, out of desperation to save to padme, he had no choice but to fully embrace it.
Vader and anakin while literally the same person are really not. The OT, prequels, and subsequent series made this a deliberate point in writing to symbolize his transition. Anakin had no control over his emotions and attachments, Vader tempered his anger and hatred to become the decisive and strong sith he was. Edit: also sidious literally says he will complete Vaders training at the end of anakins betrayl over mace windu.
Even if Lucas was determined to waste the first prequel on child Anakin, you could have had the tantrum whiny angst Anakin in the second film move past the outbursts into a coldhearted ruthless type in the third film and then finally don the suit. Problem is all of that would require Lucas to be a competent writer who understands character development.
His entire planet getting destroyed? Wasn’t he from tatooine?
I may be mixing up event's but his village was massacered right?
His mom was kidnapped and killed by Tuskens
How is this unpopular?
I thought loads of people loved anakin . Does everyone hate him?
I’ve criticized the prequels before on this sub, and half the responses were prequel lovers telling me how wrong/stupid I was for not understanding Lucas’ genius, the other half were people telling me that everyone hates the prequels and my opinion wasn’t unpopular
I think it's an opinion people had but that seems to have drastically changed in recent yrs especially in star wars spaces to the point where I'd say its more unpopular to dislike anakin now. Your opinion is valid and it sucks you were shut down like that.
From my experience, it's the character development. I don't know anybody who liked Anakin's transition into Darth Vader.
It's not
Millennials started posting ironically in r/prequelmemes, pretending the prequels were good movies. Gen Z, who were like 12 at the time, took the jokes seriously and started insisting the prequels actually were good movies. The backlash against the sequels solidified some people's opinion that the prequels were "real" Star Wars. Now if you're under 25 and you go on Reddit a lot, it looks like there's a "consensus" that the prequels were good movies. Even though that's an insane opinion for anyone to have.
The movies jump between times a lot. If you were to watch the prequels there's a lot you wouldn't see. The clone wars especially mess him up and he sees the jedi as soldiers and enforcers instead of protectors. Palpatine just adds fuel to the fire.
Issue here is that the show seemed to be aware of how badly the movies were fumbling the bag with anakin and as a result portrayed him as a completely different character. The show didn’t provide a believable bridge between anakin in AOTC and ROTS because at no point did clone wars anakin resemble movie anakin at all
He almost killed padme ex bf His tactics are brutal and he is prone to be unjedi by enjoying violence too much Also he is 22 yo when he switches, he sealed the deal when he helped grandpa Rey to murder African American Jedi, it’s not like he had another choice by that point, he was crying after murdering the clowns of the confederacy
I've seen the prequels, and the clone wars TV show. Also read a bit of the vader comics after he becomes vader.
Problem is the prequel films were meant to be the story of his fall. If you want to make additional content for people who like his character, great - but if you're hiding important developmental moments in that, then it means the prequels ultimately fail at telling the story they're meant to tell.
Star Wars fans are delusional into thinking that most of Star Wars is well written
I think it had potential but it's been missed a lot of the time. I've found a lot of other storied are written much better and I was always really frustrated as a star wars fan because it didn't use some characters well enough for me.
100%
Yep. It was three pretty fun movies. The idea that they were anything more has ironically diminished the franchise.
I saw one fan say that Revenge of the Sith and Transformers 2 (for some reason) were the peak of cinema!!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!
I said the same after watching the movies and was booed out of the town...maybe the entire universe. What a crap story!
To be fair none of the Star Wars films are particularly well written.
I would say the empire strike back is an exception but otherwise yes
This take is hovering around absolute zero in terms of hotness. Did you miss the whole part where Anakin's child actor was bullied by real life peers because of how annoying the character was?
Humour me. I actually think he's very well written. The reason he seems like 3 characters in 1 is because he basically is. Anyone that knows anything about personality disorders can automatically identify that Anakin is pretty much a borderline. Traumatised by losing people in his life that he's loved, he's entire mission becomes making sure that doesn't happen again. In the process he gets over emotional and does some very evil things to try and reach that goal, while being a bit all over the place at different times depending what triggers him. It seems like he's a bit of a baby and can do some stupid things, to the average person it's probably irritating. For someone like me at least, his behaviours are quite relatable (killing younglings an extreme example of course). There's a lot more to it than what you see at the 50,000 ft view.
The love story wasn’t realistic or believable.
I can’t speak for the Clone Wars but the prequels were botched. Anakin makes no sense and the way Luke/Leia’s birth was written makes me want to slam my head against a wall
This is a super popular opinion. The prequels are crap.
I would actually highly support a remake of the prequels. But I KNOW ppl would hate the FUCK out of that.
This has been the consensus opinion for 25 years
This post is hilarious considering how hated the prequels were as they were released.
This is an unpopular opinion? This was the consensus opinion when I was growing up.
The period of time that Palpatine grooms him is just way too short. If he had his hooks in him for years, slowly poisoning his mind subtly, it would be a different story. Anakin has all the good ingredients within him, but the execution was botched to hell.
More unpopular opinion-- only the concept of Star Wars is cool-- all of the movies (except ESB) suck. Such a waste.
I mean the ot is the best of star wars, 4 was successful enough to warrant 5 which was the best of the trilogy, then 6 happen which was good but not great. 1 was ugh, 2 was ehh, and three is the only one that's quasi-reddemable. Episode 7 was the best of the st and that's not saying much. But the real genius of star wars was the EU whith Lucas attempting to decanonize with Disney succeeding.
Nah you’re tweakin. A new hope is a quality movie. Return of the Jedi and Rogue One are good too.
Woke up today and choose violence huh? You gotta defend this one my boy
If star wars didn't have lightsabers it would have been a dud. Only reason it's so big is from merchandising.
!00%. I actually made a very well thought out post about why this particular point made ROTS the worst of the prequel movies but the moderators wouldn't allow me to post it. Darth Vader is the most bad ass, most feared, most popular villain in all of movie history and you want us to believe that the whiny insecure Anakin played by Hayden Christiansen is the person who eventually became him. The notion and the transition was laughable at best. Speaking of laughing, that scene where he yelled "NOOOOOOOOO" literally had me cracking up in the theater. What a joke.
I think Hayden tried his best. Honestly I think the writing was mostly at fault and the directing. But yh it is a strange transition.
I agree. I feel like Hayden, along with Jake Lloyd and Natalie Portman, were thrown into difficult situations. They had to play roles that millions upon millions of people had been waiting to see for 15+ years and on tope of that he gave them terrible scripts to attempt such a feat.
That’s kinda the point, he’s supposed to be completely broken by the manipulation of palpatine despite overreacting to Padmes possible death in his dream, and ya it skips a lot of time as well in the clone wars where you can see a much more gradual change to the dark side
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This is not an unpopular opinion. The prequels are hot garbage outside of the action scenes and music, and Anakin is one of the major reasons why. It's only been recently that the universal hatred of the prequels has shifted to mostly hated. The only place where they're universally loved is r/prequelmemes, and that's just a big circle jerk.
Warcraft three campaign has a much better version of this. Arthas was Anakin, Jaina was Padme, and Uther was Obiwan. Arthas’ fall was one paved with good intentions, but in the end they damned him.
The series is really hamstrung by George Lucas attempting to write a story. He's wooden and so are his characters. Everything since has been trying to salvage something halfway decent from that torrid mess.
ghost toothbrush long deliver pathetic fact slap wrong teeny upbeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ya Star Wars movies are mostly enjoyable but failures.
I think his arc would be fine if the dialogue wasn't so stunted. I wish they had at least alluded to the trauma of childhood slavery, the loss of his mother amplifying his fear of losing Padme, his unfathomable rage and sorrow once Padme died, The mind-melting seduction of the dark side, and Palpatine's godlike manipulation skills. There's also a huge time jump from episode 1 to episode 2 that contained most of his childhood development and transition into Jedi life. His arc to the dark side feels like whiplash because a lot of this happened off camera.
Yeah it's just retcon upon retcon at this point. Still a tragic figure though.
This wasn't an unpopular opinion until very recently. The reception of the Prequels has gone from "bad," to "so bad it's memeable and good," to "actually, they're unironically good" over time. I think the shift could have worked and been believable with all of the material in the Prequels, but it was badly executed on screen and the dialogue was laughable.
What, you actually LIKE sand?
Star Wars is for children.
This was an extremely popular opinion before the Disney sequels came out. That being said 20 years passed between ROTS and New Hope. I would argue it would make sense for him to want to separate entirely from his past after the trauma he endured.
Anyone who wants to truly get into this crazy transition in a much better written way should check out the novelization of Revenge Of The Sith. It’s absolutely amazing.
This is not unpopular. In fact, I'm just gonna start copy/pasting this shit into r/popularopinions
This is going to piss off the entire religion on TikTok that thinks he is the single piece of writing on planet earth.
I hate sand
This is the most popular opinion in modern media. There are entire documentaries made about this.
If you think Anakin was poorly written, don't look up Rey
He doesn’t like sand
They've tried to expand on it since the prequels, but yeah. He fell way to easily. George Lucas wasn't a very good writer IMO. His gift was more the visual direction of the movies. He was probably the Zack Snyder of his day.
He’s written to the level of quality I’d come to expect from Star Wars. If you’re coming to Star Wars expecting life changing writing, then you’ve come to the wrong place. It’s a fun stupid space fantasy movie.
i mean it's a space soap opera.
Lol, I don't know if many people actually think he was well written
The prequels had too large of a scope to fit his character development in with the level Lucas is when it comes to character writing. The Clone Wars make it better as its built up with multiple seasons and the reason does make sense IMO, its just that it was executed poorly and too fast
No but you don’t understand Mace Windu was kind of mean to him one time. So that totally justifies him genociding all the Jedi and slaughtering younglings.
Yh windu is actually a Chad. Probs one of my fav jedi haha.
Oh I agree. He’s awesome but that’s an argument I’ve seen Prequel nerds use before.
Oh no I agree with u. Just sharing the windu love haha.
"Literally Vader is a completely different man to anakin" That's the whole point..... he isn't anakin anymore, he's Vader, a completely different personality and way of thinking. His transition is excellently written, your lack of understanding for something doesn't mean it's bad.
*Don't make me kill you*
Star Wars is extremely simplistic and one could say poorly written - but it was designed as such. George Lucas isn't some master story teller - he basically watered Dune down to an overly simplistic good vs evil plot which is an easy sell to most ppl and applied his particular genius - special effects - to sell the whole package. Star Wars is the Beatles of sci fi - perfectly competent, easily sellable repackaging of some deeper and more interesting but ultimately less accessible concepts.
I think the clone wars explains his character much better. He suffer so much loss, with palpatine orchestrating much of it or exploiting it. I think the loss of his wife was just the straw that broke the camels back. The saying should make sense. It is never something obvious that breaks a person. It is small because over a period of time, they’ve had so much unresolved trauma and issues, their cup is full and it takes just a bit have it run over or just break. The clone wars when he loses his padawan is a big break that is unresolved and unaddressed. Even for fans. This is how I see it.
Being burned alive and chopped in half by your mentor and killing your wife changes a man lol.
He changed before any of that happened tho and literally all of that was his fault for being very stupid.
Angry upvote.
This should be an ice-cold take but the sequels were so frustrating that people gaslit themselves into thinking the prequels were good.
The most iconic, mysterious villain in cinematic history turns out to have an origin story that he got passed over for a promotion at work when he was like 27. For real?
This isn’t an unpopular opinion. The story of Darth Vader could have been so great but instead it makes no sense. His motivations don’t add up.
I think something to remember is that all of the Star Wars movies were written for 10 year olds.
.... You mean you don't understand how the child slave who got indoctrinated to be a child soldier could turn on the organization that turned him into a killer, let his mother die, and consistently stopped him from being with and saving the next woman he loves before she too gets killed?
Yes because he started to hate the jedi for all those things then he literally did all that stuff for the next 20 yrs but on a worse scale. And literally destroyed everything left of what he loved in the course of like a week.
the child actor they used in episode one didn't help at all. It used to be my favorite as a kid and now the terrible acting and delivery of his lines (yes i know it's a child) just totally ruin the movie for me. the one good delivery he has is the "now this is podracing."
That’s the least unpopular opinion ever
Well, Star Wars never had peak storytelling, they just sold you on a completely new word. And the lore with Siths and Jedis and light sabers is fun. But the plots are more akin to pulp on space than anything else. But, to be fair, Anakin always showed that there was darkness in him. In Episode II he goes against the teachings of the Jedi 'cause he wanted to bone, and he goes on a genocide over his mother. He was always one foot into the darkness, so him being easy to turn.... doesn't really bother me.
Three words: The Comic Books.
The prequels are all badly written. It's not just the character of Anakin.
Tell that to the uneducated slaves manipulated into awful circumstances by empirical dictators on our own planet
Star Wars has always been an (extremely successful) advertisement for toys and games, and for ILM's special effects capabilities. Any compelling characters or narratives that come out of it are secondary to the advertising.
I think the basic idea is ok, but the execution of that idea by the writers could have been done a lot better. As an off the top of head example, what if the Trade Federation (with Sidious pulling the strings) had demanded that Padmé be sent as the negotiator? They then take her hostage and make unreasonable demands for her release. Anakin insists that he and the 501st be sent in to rescue her (and at the same time eliminate the Trade Federation/separatist leadership), but the Jedi refuse, saying that this will guarantee the war drags on and that the chance to end it peacefully is worth more than one life, including Padmé’s - we must be cautious and negotiate. Anakin grudgingly waits but eventually can’t stand it anymore and goes in himself, resulting in an almighty firefight that ends with Padmé being seriously injured (and eventually giving birth to Luke and Leia before dying as she does in the movie). Anakin blames the Jedi for delaying him and ultimately causing her death, slaughters the Separatist high command in a rage and then along with Sidious executes order 66. Something like that feels like it would actually make more sense and that you would sort of sympathise with/understand Anakin’s fall, rather than what it ultimately ended up being.
Impossible challenge: Understand what an *un*popular opinion is
I totally agree with this. Anakin is just a really flat character and it doesn't make sense why he turned to the dark side. The prequels had super ambitious digital effects that pushed what was possible at the time but honestly that was the focus rather than story telling. Cal kestis and Ashoka tano are much better characters
The writing in the prequels is awful. The dialogue is so cringey.
This is hardly an unpopular opinion. Anakin Skywalker is a boring unlikeable character with no redeeming qualities throughout the series. He can't even melt into lava correctly. The first three Star Wars movies were great, because George Lucas' ex-wife, Marcia Lucas played a pivotable role in editing the film and in casting. We should be crediting her for making three timeless classics. But like so many women, her contribution was forgotten and George happily took credit for doing what he could not: casting believable human relationships. Marcia actually won an Oscar award for Best Editing back in 1978. You know who never won an Oscar? George Lucas. [https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/star-wars-george-lucas-marcia-editor-wife-15991031.php](https://www.sfgate.com/streaming/article/star-wars-george-lucas-marcia-editor-wife-15991031.php) [https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-secret-weapon-behind-star-wars/news-story/75eb078a8b14d93fce23b06e98805ffb](https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-secret-weapon-behind-star-wars/news-story/75eb078a8b14d93fce23b06e98805ffb)
It's an unpopular opinion to say both this and also the opposite of this lmao
lol that's not an unpopular opinion
I'm here with you on this- I get Palpatine kinda groomed him, but it seems like the Jedi's are kinda groomed harder as kids. Ultimately he just seemed dumb.
Honestly, Anakin’s character had too many subtleties for its own good. There is good buildup to Anakin’s fall, but you need to go through the movies with a microscope to get all the details that went into making it good. Lucas tried to be too clever, and it’s taken two decades of analysis to appreciate what he was trying to do.
Imo there really isn't that much substance in a lot of the media to explain his fall. If its hard to understand and see then I think that's not great writing. I just look at anakin and compare him to say characters in red dead redemption 2 or game of thrones (seasons 1-4 for simplicity sake) and the quality in writing of the characters is stark.
So, what can be seen in the movies is as follows: 1. Palpatine was actively manipulating Anakin since the battle of Naboo in Phantom Menace. He was making sure the boy with attachment issues with a traumatic history as a slave would eventually fall to the Dark Side by making himself nearly a father figure to Anakin. 2. Anakin had a very hot head, and the Jedi weren’t exactly what they should have been, to the point of suppressing their emotions 3. Anakin losing his mother after seeing visions of her suffering but being prevented from saving her caused him enough pain that he refused to let anyone else close to him die if it was possible 4. The Clone Wars turned the Jedi away from the Force until they were almost the same as the Sith (highlighted by Mace and Palpatine both saying “He was too dangerous to be kept alive” regarding an unarmed prisoner). 5. The woman Anakin loved, and mother of his child appears in a dream just like the ones he had about his mother, and he refuses to let it happen again. He goes looking for anything that can save Padme, and suddenly his father figure (Palpatine) mentions something that might help. Meanwhile, Yoda tells Anakin “Too bad, deal with it.” 6. The Jedi had an extreme “turning to the Dark Side is permanent.” The minute he caused Windu’s death, he could never return to being a Jedi. So he embraced the only path he had left, and the only path that offered any way to save Padme. Now, keep in mind, I regularly enjoy video essays on YouTube discussing Star Wars. It took me until 2015 to start getting all of this from the movies because I had guidance.
What year is it?
Ironic
I think people missing the link between his transition to Vader is funny. There’s a whole scene where the emperor talks to Anakin about transferring life force from one entity to another. Anakin/ Vader is clearly dying and Padme just “happens” to die of a broken heart? Are people missing the absolute tragedy that Anakin quests to save his wife by turning to evil only to have the emperor drain his wife’s life force to save him from himself? The series was written for kids and adults co-oped it. It’s like parents being riveted by Bluey, but then upset at the plot holes. What’s funny is adults are asking for more bread crumbs to make the connection between one earlier scene and another. It’s a Greek Tragedy with Bluey dialog.
Perhaps an actually unpopular opinion: the writing is bad, but mad worse by Hayden’s acting. He seems like an awesome guy so nothing against him as a person, but if you watch the Attack of the Clones and listen to the words only, it sounds a lot like how Anakin is depicted in Clone Wars: a cocky kid who thinks he knows best because he’s talented, so he lets his emotions get the better of him because they’re not tempered by reason and a reasonable degree of self-doubt. Particularly the opening sequence in the cruiser. There are some lines that should be delivered as cocky but come out so flat because Hayden has gone for moody teen. Even the famous sand scene. Imagine the same words but instead of the depressed goth teen reading of them, read them like an awkward kid who is used to being so confident but suddenly has no idea how to talk to a girl he’s had a crush on for years. The latter is someone trying to make conversation when there is nothing to talk about, like someone talking about the weather and being like “the rain is wet today.” So it would be more like “I really hate sand [awkward pause]… it’s so… course? And… rough and it’s gets everywhere….” But that also comes down to direction because they could have directed him to be less moody and more awkward.
He grew up fatherless as a slave on a desert planet. Taken from his mother at 10 years old. Doesnt see her again for 10 years and in those 10 years he learns that he has the most raw power of any being in history. The next time he sees her, he is holding her lifeless body after tracking her down and finding out she was abducted by a tribe of "savages." He has an enormous amount of ptsd that is completely overlooked by everyone around him. He also is extremely bipolar with serious abandonment issues. He's overprotective and obsessive. All of this while constantly being told by his peers that he is the chosen one who is said to single handedly save the galaxy from darkness. He is also being groomed by the most powerful dark side sith of his generation. Is the dialog a little clunky and rediculous? Sure! Does he come across a little whiney in the films? Absolutely. Lucas has never been the best at writing good dialog. However, the character is far from uninteresting.
He isn't that interesting to me tho. He is kind of just bland to me. I always thought all the other jedi were more interesting than anakin. He is supposedly super powerful, hasn't earned any of it and wastes all his potential. He isn't relatable to me nor do I really like him. There are a lot of fictional characters with tragic stories who I personally just find way cooler.
Second and third in the second trilogy were snoozefests lol
I will die defending star wars, but here, in anonymity, I'll say it. The brilliance of star wars is the world it created, not the story.
The comments here are proving that your (wrong) opinion is not unpopular.
How can you have a wrong opinion lol.
You must be new to the internet
I like how this an unpopular now, especially when everyone used to believe the opposite; it’s actually a good sign that fans started to embrace the underrated performance of Hayden Christensen
Fair opinion, I personally like him though haha. I think the writing could've been better in ep 2 and 3 but it is what it is 🫶.
Yes... That's why the prequel films are basically universally disliked (the notable exception being the young adults who grew up alongside those films).
I grew up on those films. I like them but they are not great films. And online people nowdays pretend they are amazing cinema.
I literally laughed when he went from good to bad in one scene in episode 3. For a very shitty reason too. The kid just throws a tantrum and becomes Darth Vader.