[Sagacity]

For the past two weeks or so, I've been valiantly trying to wrap my brain around Anakin's turn. No matter how I look at it, it makes absolutely no sense. What I've been desperately seeking is the true root to his turn, what's really driving his actions. I've been asking over and over where his need for power, his anger, hatred, etc. is coming from, and I get "he wants power", "he's greedy", "he's selfish", yada, yada, yada. Well, what's driving all of that? I want to get to the root of it all, the simple truth that has nothing to do with the stuff around him and nothing to do with anyone but him. I would hate to think that GL never got that deep onto Anakin's character. But it's really showing that he didn't.

[Lord Aquaman]

For the past two weeks or so, I've been valiantly trying to wrap my brain around Anakin's turn. No matter how I look at it, it makes absolutely no sense. What I've been desperately seeking is the true root to his turn, what's really driving his actions. I've been asking over and over where his need for power, his anger, hatred, etc. is coming from, and I get "he wants power", "he's greedy", "he's selfish", yada, yada, yada. Well, what's driving all of that? I want to get to the root of it all, the simple truth that has nothing to do with the stuff around him and nothing to do with anyone but him. I would hate to think that GL never got that deep onto Anakin's character. But it's really showing that he didn't.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I guess we're supposed to believe that Anakin's drive is that his mum got beaten to a pulp by the Sand People, but that was his own damn fault because he waited ten years before going back for her.

[Sagacity]

I guess we're supposed to believe that Anakin's drive is that his mum got beaten to a pulp by the Sand People, but that was his own damn fault because he waited ten years before going back for her.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's a whole other can of worms.

[Just another wretched fan]

ykno, if i were an evil all-powerful sith apprentice. The first thing i would have done was pay special attention to my home planet and massacre the sand people who killed my beloved mommy.

Why are the sand people still alive in ANH?

[Despondent]

Because it made more sense to start the films in the middle of the action.

[barend]

yoda is a dim wit...

light sides ability to use the force is diminished...
(this is probably why midichlorines were invented, so that they can say someone poisoned the water supply with midichloricide)

they are totally useless...

i would easily join the dark side

[Helena]

For the past two weeks or so, I've been valiantly trying to wrap my brain around Anakin's turn. No matter how I look at it, it makes absolutely no sense. What I've been desperately seeking is the true root to his turn, what's really driving his actions. I've been asking over and over where his need for power, his anger, hatred, etc. is coming from, and I get "he wants power", "he's greedy", "he's selfish", yada, yada, yada. Well, what's driving all of that? I want to get to the root of it all, the simple truth that has nothing to do with the stuff around him and nothing to do with anyone but him. I would hate to think that GL never got that deep onto Anakin's character. But it's really showing that he didn't.

The only thing that's driving Anakin's actions is his own deeply unpleasant personality. Yes, he's stupid, selfish, childish, possessive and incredibly arrogant - but since we never see him acting any other way, we can only conclude that there's no particular reason for this; it's just the type of person he happens to be. This is the 'simple truth' you're looking for: Lucas doesn't have the skill to write a flawed but sympathetic character, so instead he gives us someone who never really had any good qualities to start with. So much for Vader's 'redemption' in RotJ...

[CowboyCurtis]

You know, I complain about how the fall of Anakin should happen, and I'm writing my rewrites, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I don't know how to make it subtle, yet powerful. The more and more I think about "Darth Vader" and how he was originally a person rather than an alter ego, the more I think how Lucas screwed up the first Trilogy already. There were ways it could've worked that Vader was a person and that he did INDEED "betrayed and killed" Anakin Skywalker, and he still could've claimed to be Luke's mother because Vader and Anakin loved the same woman.

Luke still could sense good in Vader since, after he was once a good friend to Anakin. Vader finally sees himself redeeming his actions for killing his best friend, he sees that Luke is just like Anakin, and he decides to make amends. Wouldn't it be something that all this time Vader was haunted by Anakin's ghost?

Yep, now I'm thinking more about rewriting ROTJ, and then move onto the prequel rewrites.... but there are things I need to mention, I'll mention in another thread...

[Sagacity]

This is the 'simple truth' you're looking for: Lucas doesn't have the skill to write a flawed but sympathetic character, so instead he gives us someone who never really had any good qualities to start with.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I already knew that.

Finding that "simple truth", to me, seems to be quite important in this situation. That's where the sympathy would come in that GL has said is so necessary. If somehow it had surfaced that Anakin didn't want to feel afraid or helpless, or was afraid of being alone, or was afraid of his own power or potential power, that I could understand on a fundamental level. When you distill it like that, that's where people can say "okay, I've felt like that, I understand". If you look at it solely based on his actions, you might miss that, or, worse, draw the wrong conclusions. When you see someone who's a shopaholic, for example, when you get right down to it, what's really going on inside this person rarely has anything to do with shopping.

[ernesttomlinson]

The most credible (and interesting) villains think they're doing good. I can imagine an Anakin Skywalker who (just to name one hypothetical scenario) was talked into believing that it was necessary, for a short time anyway, to assume far-ranging and even dictatorial powers in order to save the Republic. Look at the story of Cincinnatus, for example. Sulla and other Roman dictators called themselves dictator legibus scribundis et rei publicae constituendae: "dictator for the purpose of writing laws and consolidating the Republic." The idea was that once they got the Republic back on its feet they'd quit. Sulla did quit but eventually there came along one, Octavian, who decided not to quit. And thus the Republic became the Empire. Anakin wouldn't do this out of malice or jealousy or vindictiveness - at least, not consciously; he'd do it because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Necessary to this scenario is the assumption that Anakin has had at least a few years to build up a career as an honourable soldier. This is one reason why I think that the Anakin who "turns" should be middle-aged, not a youngster scarcely out of adolescence.

Lucas's Anakin, though, burns with jealousy and envy right from the start. As many others have said here he never displays any admirable traits at all. He's pretty, I guess (I don't think Hayden Christiansen is that attractive but there's no accounting for taste) and he's hot stuff with a lightsabre (but Dooku takes him down in two minutes anyway) but that's it. There's no balance here. Where's the "good friend" whom Obi-Wan describes in Star Wars? I wouldn't want young Anakin of Episode II within ten feet of me; fat-lipped pouters and whiners do not make good friends.

In the end, though, I think CowboyCurtis has it right. There's no reason why Anakin and Darth Vader couldn't be different persons. The story would work better that way and we'd be spared the problematical scene where Obi-Wan explains that he wasn't lying really from "a certain point of view" (I agree with Luke's disbelieving response, "From a certain point of view??" Hamill gets the tone of that response just right, I think.)

(Addition:) Ooh, ooh, and I just had a crazy idea. The general assumption seems to be that once Anakin Skywalker dons the Vader outfit - black clothes and black mask covering his head - he's officially EE-VVIIL. But what if he isn't? What if Anakin is severely injured in the war, requires a bit of mechanical rebuilding to save his life, and ends up looking like Darth Vader - but he hasn't turned at all? He'd still be Anakin Skywalker, war hero or whatever, even though he now looked like the villain of Star Wars. It wouldn't be until later that he became corrupted.

This post has been edited by ernesttomlinson: 13 April 2005 - 02:34 PM

[Mnesymone]

The evil anakin of the prequels is already evil - his fall isn't convincing because his turn to the dark side is just him acknowledging his evil.

I had always thought of making him extraordinarily idealistic and giving him a sense of duty beyond his sense to question his masters...

He's described as being "a Jedi Knight" - not a bitchy padawan, by Obi-Wan in ANH - I had the idea that Jedi would be assigned roles - Obi-Wan as General Kenobi should have been a military advisor to Alderaan, Anakin should have been assigned as Palpatine's Jedi aide - and his loyalty to his master and to the job blinded him to Palpatine's evil until - as for his fall, with the "quick and easy way as Vader did" I thought that under the strain of the war he drew upon the power of the Dark Side in a moment of need - and continued to use once he began, not for his own evil, but to grant him the strength to fight the Sith and the Clonemasters - rather like Boromir and the ring - desiring the power the thing grants rather than the thing itself - I think GL's current prequel anakin is confusing cause and effect - he has it as "turn evil, so turn to the dark side" rather than "draw on the power of the dark side with good intentions. become enslaved to its power and then become evil."

I remember after I saw Ep I - I was thinking of Vader's turn to darkness as a success story rather than a sorrowful one. That was reinforced by Ep II - where Anakin is a cocky, unpleasant, moody stalker creep - more unpleasant than Vader, and much less of a together kind of guy.

[barend]

anikan doesn't become evil... he just chooses the side he should have been on to start with...

after all the emporers is his probably his father...
or maybe dooku...

either way it will DEFINATLEY be one of them...

[Mnesymone]

I thought the bastard was supposed to be conceived by pool chemicals?

If Sidious or Dooku is Anakins father then I will really curse GL's fridge - and his fruit basket too...

[Lord Aquaman]

In the end, though, I think CowboyCurtis has it right.  There's no reason why Anakin and Darth Vader couldn't be different persons.  The story would work better that way and we'd be spared the problematical scene where Obi-Wan explains that he wasn't lying really from "a certain point of view" (I agree with Luke's disbelieving response, "From a certain point of view??"  Hamill gets the tone of that response just right, I think.)

(Addition:)  Ooh, ooh, and I just had a crazy idea.  The general assumption seems to be that once Anakin Skywalker dons the Vader outfit - black clothes and black mask covering his head - he's officially EE-VVIIL.  But what if he isn't?  What if Anakin is severely injured in the war, requires a bit of mechanical rebuilding to save his life, and ends up looking like Darth Vader - but he hasn't turned at all?  He'd still be Anakin Skywalker, war hero or whatever, even though he now looked like the villain of Star Wars.  It wouldn't be until later that he became corrupted.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anakin & Vader as two different persons (which I think was the original idea from the drafts) is an interesting notion, but I was always under the impression that part of what made Vader one of cinema's great villains (which the PT ruined) was his position as the father of the hero, that his "I Am Your Father" scene in ESB added another layer to him that made him more than just a big guy in a black suit with a deep voice.

But I fully support the idea of Anakin not being completely evil once he's in the Vader gear (oh wait, the PT ruined that possibility too).

This post has been edited by Lord Aquaman: 14 April 2005 - 07:29 AM

[Helena]

I really don't think making Vader and Anakin seperate people would work, since all of RotJ and a good part of ESB work on the assumption that Vader is Luke's father. Luke's attempt to come to terms with this knowledge - that the father he always idolised is actually the evil Darth Vader - is a hugely important part of the OT. Making them different people would completely wreck this aspect of the story, and the climatic moment of ESB ("Search your feelings; you know it to be true")would make no sense. Why would Luke 'feel' that Vader was his father if this wasn't actually the case?

Having said that, the other ideas people suggested are pretty good. I still believe it should be perfectly possible to write Anakin's fall convincingly, and I used some of these elements in my own story about a Jedi who's gradually falling to the Dark Side. I never claimed to be a great writer, so if I can manage this, why is it so impossible for someone who's supposed to be a professional screenwriter?