More Star Wars, or, why it should be Shaw
First, let me point out to those of you who haven't tired of the subject, Dork Tower keeps weaving comics around EpIII that make me laugh out loud. (This latest one contains the line, "You hang up first!" but there are many other gems as well.)
Anyway. I wasn't even aware, until recently, that George had been replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen in the DVD version of RotJ. A controversial decision, it seems, and I suppose I may be preaching to the choir, but...
No. Please, George, no.
On an emotional level, it feels "right" of course. We want to see - well, I want to see - that poor boy be redeemed and smiling once more. But that's not the way it happened.
Yes, Anakin was a young boy when he chose evil. But when he chose good, he was a middle-aged, dying man. By denying that, you're denying his choice, denying that the person who died on the Death Star was, in fact, Anakin Skywalker as well as Darth Vader.
This isn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No demon took up housing in Anakin's dead body. If it had, his scenes with Luke would have been pointless, because he would have told the truth when he said, "There is no conflict." But there was a conflict, there was a choice, and the moment where he killed the emperor wasn't regression, it was maturation.
Don't take that away. Don't say that the person who made that brave, brave decision never really existed, that his experiences didn't form his afterlife, that it was all erased as if it didn't happen.
It was the most triumphant moment of his life, and it was triumphant because he had been a horrid, evil thing. He deserves to keep that triumph.
Anyway. I wasn't even aware, until recently, that George had been replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen in the DVD version of RotJ. A controversial decision, it seems, and I suppose I may be preaching to the choir, but...
No. Please, George, no.
On an emotional level, it feels "right" of course. We want to see - well, I want to see - that poor boy be redeemed and smiling once more. But that's not the way it happened.
Yes, Anakin was a young boy when he chose evil. But when he chose good, he was a middle-aged, dying man. By denying that, you're denying his choice, denying that the person who died on the Death Star was, in fact, Anakin Skywalker as well as Darth Vader.
This isn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No demon took up housing in Anakin's dead body. If it had, his scenes with Luke would have been pointless, because he would have told the truth when he said, "There is no conflict." But there was a conflict, there was a choice, and the moment where he killed the emperor wasn't regression, it was maturation.
Don't take that away. Don't say that the person who made that brave, brave decision never really existed, that his experiences didn't form his afterlife, that it was all erased as if it didn't happen.
It was the most triumphant moment of his life, and it was triumphant because he had been a horrid, evil thing. He deserves to keep that triumph.