The hypocrisy of Star Wars fans knows no bound since as Kevin Burwick of MovieWeb states it sounds as though the rumor of Hayden Christensen possibly returning to the role of Anakin Skywalker for the Obi-Wan series might be a possibility. No one is saying yea or nay at this point and that’s not a big surprise, but a lot of folks are wondering if this will be revealed at the upcoming Star Wars celebration in August, unless it’s canceled of course. The fact that so many had something to say about Hayden’s appearance in the second and third movie of the prequels however makes it hard to wonder just why anyone would want to see him back in the Star Wars franchise again, or would think that he might actually step into a role that won’t be featured that prominently in a show that’s based on another character. It’s very true that Anakin played a huge part in Obi-Wan’s life and it’s likely that he’ll be tortured with thoughts of his former padawan and friend while in exile on Tatooine, but if Hayden does come back then it’s likely that he’ll be a recurring character at best and at the very least be given a meaningful cameo that will show Obi-Wan’s inner turmoil as he tries to come to grips with everything he had to do during the Clone Wars.
If there was any real gripe about Hayden’s acting in the prequels it had to be the fact that he did sound a little wooden at times, as though he couldn’t get his lines down well enough to just let go and show some real emotion rather than deliver the lines just the way they might have looked on paper. But then if you’re going to rag on his performance when it came to his character then you’d have to get on several others as well since there were times when the dialogue just didn’t make sense and it didn’t flow nearly the way it needed to. In fact this could be said of nearly every Star Wars movie in some cases since the dialogue tends to become halting and even nervous now and again when it has no need to be, as though the writers weren’t certain of just how the characters were meant to interact with each other even if they’d been working with one another for long enough. In such a case it would be the writers that need to take part of the blame while the actors would need to improvise as much as they could in order to make the scenes work. There were several instances when the actors were perfect in their delivery and didn’t feel as though they were rushing, stuttering, or had somehow missed their mark, but when they did it was unfortunately quite noticeable even for those fans that aren’t that discerning. Adrienne Tyler of Screenrant has more to say on this subject.
Hayden didn’t really do much after his stint in Star Wars and for a while a lot of people couldn’t downplay his part enough despite the fact that he played one of the key roles in the franchise. But then a lot of people still love to claim that the prequels in effect ruined Star Wars since the continuity became all screwy, when in truth they went a long way towards connecting the dots that had been laid down long before any of those that showed up for the prequels were even aware that they’d one day be making history. Star Wars fans are absolutely rabid when it comes to nitpicking every little detail of the franchise and in some cases might be able to point out more mistakes and perceived gaffes than George Lucas might even know about at this point, but the problem with this is that they see things that don’t necessarily exist or don’t really cause the problems they complain about. Hayden Christensen wasn’t a perfect actor when he took the role of Anakin Skywalker and he still isn’t to be fair since the movie Jumper was a bit disjointed but could have been great, while Takers was kind of, meh. Had Anakin been given a little more development and better dialogue he likely would have been much better than he was, but it’s still likely that any self-styled critic would have gladly torn his performance apart anyway.
Seeing him show up in the Obi-Wan series might be interesting as a means of seeing how Kenobi comes to adapt to his self-imposed exile and how he continues to push past the memories of what he did to his friend and how he somehow failed Anakin throughout their time together. Many would likely state that Anakin didn’t have a fair draw when it came to life, as he was born Force-sensitive and was doing pretty good as a kid, but upon growing up, losing his mother, and having years of pain and anger to deal with he was always bound to be a powder keg waiting to blow.
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