Disney is announcing a flurry of new Star Wars live-action TV projects this afternoon, among them an Obi-Wan Kenobi spin-off series starring Ewan McGregor. But the legendary Jedi was upstaged at his own press conference, as McGregor revealed that he won’t be the only actor reprising his role from the prequels: Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith, will play Darth Vader on the show, which picks up 10 years after Revenge Of The Sith. “The most beautiful thing of all,” is how McGregor describes the return of his character’s old frenemy. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy adds that “this will be the rematch of the century,” which, sure.
Christensen, who was an unknown when he took on the role, dropped off the Hollywood map for a while after winning a Razzie for his performance in Revenge Of The Sith. He returned to Star Wars last year to voice Anakin/Vader in The Rise Of Skywalker. He also has a farm in Ontario, which seems nice.
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I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Surely you can’t be serious? Oops, that’s wrong.
I’m willing to blame a lot of the problems with the Prequels with Lucas not being an actor’s director and more of an idea guy than an actual screenwriter. So hopefully this could actually try to show how Anakin become so willing to murder Younglings by RotS
I’m happy for Christensen. C’mon, my dude. Prove yourself now that you’re free of Lucas’ writing. I think you can do it.
He was good in Shattered Glass.
“I don’t like shattered glass. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.”
I mean, if you shatter glass so it’s sufficiently granular, it is, after all……sand.
but not life as a house
If I were him I’d be thrilled. It’s a chance to rewrite history by convincing us all that he wasn’t solely responsible for that performance. Not many people get a second chance like that.
Prove yourself now that you’re free of Lucas’ writing. “What about the other Jedi spread out across the galaxy?”I’m not a fan of Lucas’ prequel dialogue, but it still deserved better than Christiansen’s flat monotone.
I’ve seen that attributed to Lucas’ directing. Seemed only Irish actors were allowed to emote.
Yeah, but the directing was pretty clearly an issue too. Natalie Portman is a fantastic actress but she also sucked in the prequels so clearly there was more going on than just bad writing.
They need to adjust the costume, too. The Vader proportions were off. I don’t fault him as an actor. Think of all the excellent actors made flat by Lucas.
some actors are naturally flat, others have flatness thrust upon them
We all thought things were gonna be fine after Lucas was removed from the picture, and then that last batch of Star Wars movies happened.
How?!
Right? Darth Vader is in the armor at the end of ROTS, and Christensen is just over 6′ tall, so… he’s doing what? Wearing Gene Simmons KISS-style boots? Just the voice, instead of James Earl Jones or a soundalike? He’s going to do a JEJ impression? I don’t get it. Am I missing something?
I’m gonna assume there’s an extended scene, or series of scenes in which he removes his helmet, presumably to reveal to Obi-Wan who he is. That, or some flashbacks.
I mean, I for one am extremely hopeful that he removes the helmet for Obi-Wan revealing himself in Sebastian Shaw style makeup. Is there anyone who DOESN’T want that??
Hayden Christiansen was at least better than Natalie Portman in Revenge of the Sith. Not that that’s saying much.
Seriously, people throw Hayden under the bus all the time, but neither Natalie Portman nor Samuel L. Jackson (an Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee, respectively) could wrap their mouths around that dialogue.
“A Sith. LORD?!”
I don’t like sand. It’s all coarse, and rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere
I still maintain that the only two actors who were able to conquer the bad dialogue given to them were Neeson and McGregor. Okay, maybe also McDiarmid too. Everyone else, who were shown to be great in their other films, just crashed and burned into the cardboard acting netherverse. Lucas was just phoning in his director duties. Jesus.
In my opinion Lucas’ directing got worse with each episode. The fight between Palpatine and the few jedi who come to arrest him is the sloppiest looking scene in any Star Wars movie.
Christopher Lee was not lesser than Christopher Lee in this film. Indominable.
Nuh uh, McDiarmid had it down better than anyone. He was hired to play the most evil, cackling bastard on the planet and he succeeded. ROTS was a hot mess script-wise, but bringing him back to ham it up one more time was a smart move.
“A Sith? LORD!”
Ya know…I just watched the prequels with my son this last weekend. He’d seen Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones but not ROTS.And this is my takeaway being that I hadn’t seen them in a long time: Phantom Menace deserves the disparage. It’s borderline terrible except for the Duel of the Fates. The first half of Attack of the Clones is slightly better than PM but not by much. But the second half is surprisingly much better, especially better than I remembered. And ROTS is one of my favorite episodes of the whole nineogy.
In ROTS, the acting is far better and much looser. The dialogue is still bad but it’s not delivered so deadpan. There’s some life in there. McGregor especially, when Anakin is trying to pull himself out of the lava is really, really good. And over the course of the three movies, the technology obviously got better as it went along but again, ROTS is miles ahead in the FX dept vs. Phantom Menace.
Christensen did not deserve a Razzie for RotS. Clones, yes. But not Sith.
And even then, the Duel of the Fates is fun to watch, but in the larger context of the movie it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. Like, Darth Maul has nothing more effective he could be doing with his time, skills, and magic powers than just having a video game boss fight with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan?
In the larger context you’re right, but I’m not talking about that. It’s the scene itself; the pacing, the fighting, the music especially. Besides the main themes, what other piece of music did John Williams create that is more recognizable and identifiable than this? Maybe the Cantina music…but. And even though it felt like they could’ve done a lot more with Darth Maul, taken within the context of the scene itself, he’s pretty badass. Had their been some character development before the fight, it would’ve been even better.
Oh, that’s more than fair. The construction of the sequence is amazing. Of course, one could argue it’s not a coincidence that the best part of the movie also has the least amount of dialogue. But yes, the ‘Duel of the Fates’ fight is probably one of the high points of the franchise. In the recently-released final season of Clone Wars, there’s a fight scene with Maul where they got Ray Park to do the motion capture and that really highlights just how much his athleticism brings to the action.
Ha, I never thought about the lack of dialogue making the scene better but you’re 100% correct!
Thank you. I saw Revenge of the Sith when it came out because it was the one where Anakin turns into Darth Vader and therefore told 100% of the prequel story I wanted to see. It’s perfectly fine. I like how the Jamaican robot-bug has asthma (I know there’s an explanation in the cartoon, but I prefer it as a weird non-sequitur), and I like choreography in the final lightsaber duel. I finally caught up with Attack of the Clones a few years ago after finding a cheap DVD copy, and I enjoyed it. It has a weird tone and a sloppy plot, but it does something a little different, and it actually gets a bit compelling toward the end. And then I finally saw the Phantom Menace. You know what that movie needed? Another half-hour of pod racing and 50 more reaction shots from CGI characters. Not nearly enough of those things.
It was pretty amazing to see Lucas get all these credible actors and actresses, and then proceed to suck the life out of their acting prowess, causing them to either live a life of shame and seclusion, or work really hard to rebound and pretend the prequels never existed.
I’d like to see Stephen Glass in the Star Wars universe.
He’s a bard that tells increasingly improbable stories.
I want Vader to keep asking Palpatine “Are you mad at me?” in a whiny voice.
Woody Allen IS Darth Mieskeit!
Wait: 10 year after Sith, meaning Christensen’s going to be in the helmet the entire time? If so, who cares that he’s in there? I care more whether James Earl Jones is going to be the voice.Also, it’s not like Obi Wan and Vader are gonna be paling around at that point. This is more of a prequel to New Hope, it would seem. Will it overlap with Rogue one?
To be fair, this show couldn’t possibly be worse than the prequels.Or could it?
Rise of Skywalker managed
I thought so too at first, but we just did a watch of all 11 movies and RoS is less bad than the prequels. It is worse than all 6 non-prequels and a terrible note to go out on, but it is better than TPM, AotC, and RotS.
It possessed the singular sin of being boring.
Eps 1 and 2 were bad, but they get points for effort. Ep 9 was fixated on pandering to the worst, loudest fans.Also, lukewarm take but Ep3 was a middling entry with a lot to like.
At least the prequels had some fun parts (duel of the fates, podracing, uhhh others too probably). I’ve seen RoS twice now and I still can’t remember anything fun at all.
Spoiler Alert: Darth Vader dies in the end.
Also he probably killed a lot of dads, but not Luke’s dad.
So is he gonna just be in the suit David Prowse-style, or is he doing the dialogue too? Because…James Earl Jones?
I wish they used this concept for The Force Awakens of Anakin’s Force gghost flickering back and forth between the light and the dark sides. Maybe here?
“F-f-f-f-Force . . .G-g-g-g-g-Ghost?!”
Keepin’ it REAL.
Are you trying to be funny? Oh, no, wait, you’re recognitions. My mistake.
recognitions? now, that’s a name i haven’t heard in a long time.
The lack of self-awareness in this comment
Disturbing do you find it?
It has to be more than just the suit, right? I mean, RIP Prowse and all, but he couldn’t see through the mask half the time and, well, didn’t really emote anything. Why bring back Hayden to don just the garb unless we will see him without the helmet. I just hope it’s not a bunch of flashbacks.
STAR WARS: OLD BEN
Everybody in the Empire knows Obi-Wan Kenobi died during Order 66. What Old Ben presupposes is…maybe he didn’t?
The Jawas and the Sand People scuttled among the nettles of the Sarlacc pit. “Vámonos, Tuskens,” he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose seat of the speeder. And they rode on in the friscalating twin dusklight.
Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
Poor Jake Loyld is crying tonight
Yeah I’m like “What about Jake Lloyd?” You’d need to put him on stilts, but I’m pretty sure that dude is more intimidating than Hayden these days.
You need to put Christensen on stilts too. He’s only six feet tall.
Jake Lloyd is apparently only 5’5″!
He wasn’t really an unknown when he took the part originally. He was getting raves for “Life As a House” on the festival circuit, and had been acting on TV a lot. Hardly a household name, but it wasn’t exactly his first role either.
with Christensen back a whole lot of helmet-less meditation and milk bath scenes. Vader/Obi-Wan rematch between Episode III and Episode IV a bit dicey continuity but I’ll let it slide.
Fuck yeah.
The baddest mammajamma in the galaxy…and his nickname is Annie.
I would like these to be reversed please. I want John Mulaney to play Darth Vader and Hayden Christensen to voice Chip or Dale.
Can the series have Palpatine keep a bunch of pickled Vaders in a jar, and every other episode of the show is Obi-Wan killing another Darth Vader? That’s why Obi-Wan gives up in Star Wars, he’s already killed about 70 Vaders and totally bored.
Finally a fresh take!
Jake Lloyd was busy?
wait, you mean THE Hayden Christiansen from the amazing hit SLEEPER?
YESSSSSS
They can’t canonically meet so that’s gonna be a tease…
I think that at least leaves room for them to communicate with the force.
“When I left you, I was but the learner; [and those other times we crossed paths, I was an intermediate;] now I am the master
We only met last Tuesday, Darth.And I was learning how to do Makrame at that time, but I’ve mastered it now!!!From a certain point of view, maybe…
I appreciate that in the face of The Mandalorian’s success, Disney’s hubris has them going back to a well that didn’t work in the first place. What could possibly go wrong?
But Vader doesn’t look or sound like the guy, so I don’t know why they’re bringing him back. Can someone explain the point to me?
If not flashbacks, I would guess we’re going to spend some time in Vader’s sealed chamber thingie where he doesn’t need the helmet.
The part of Sand will be played by Christopher Plummer.
That guy is a fuckin trooper.
If he’s good, it will be a case study in the value of a good writer/director.
So if Christensen is reprising his role as Vader again, does this mean him and Obi-Wan are going to have constant rematches? I mean if they make Vader more compelling and have stuff to do and not just be a sparring partner for Obi-Wan then cool.
I came around on his performance in the prequels, once I just accepted that Anakin, even before he became Vader, just isn’t supposed to be super likeable. He has traces of a good heart somewhere deep down, but he’s traumatized and insecure, which ends up getting the better of him. And I think Hayden actually kinda nailed that.
Hope he’ll get to show off some of that in the new show, although it’s probably be more likely that he’s basically the new David Prowse (RIP).
Yeah, I think I can wait for this. The Anakin from the Clone Wars was redemption for the prequel calamity. And thankfully, there’s a place I can watch all of those now.
I mean, this has gotta mean we’re getting Hayden in Sebastian Shaw-style makeup right???!?
I wanted that in Rogue One
I’m betting we are going to have scenes of Vader with his mask off so that Hayden can do some proper acting.