Watching Star Wars as I was growing up, I always thought it was a journey of discovery for one Luke Skywalker, from his humble beginnings as a farmboy with aspirations of interstellar travel, to a Jedi Master who restored the Order to its former glory. Having seen the first three parts of the series, however, one's point of view is now switched. The story is no longer about Luke primarily. It's about his father. Hence one would expect the character of Anakin/Darth Vader/all-round badass to be more developed in the first trilogy, as it was not explored as a primary character as such in the second trilogy.
Having seen the first three episodes now, I will attempt to summarise the development of the character Anakin in as few lines as possible.
Episode 1 (The Phantom Menace): "I'm gonna visit all the stars in the galaxy and save my mom from slavery!"
Episode 2 (Attack of the Clones): "I'm impatient... Grrr... I'm angry... grrr... oh no! Mommy's dead! Sob!... Hey hey, who's the hot chick?"
Episode 3 (The Revenge of the Sith): "I'm still impatient... Grrrrrrrr..... I'm still angry...... Grrrrrr... but now I'm conflicted as well.... GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR... but hey hey! I've got cool new lightsaber skills too!... And now, I'm Darth Vader, the most powerful tool of the Dark Side (but still, nonetheless, a tool. Tool. Tooooooooool. And just in case you didn't get that, TOOOOOOOOOOOOOL)
Hey.... hang on a minute. That wasn't so difficult. Oh yeah, that's because there's not much character development in the first place. Much of the so called 'character scenes' consist of Anakin looking like a guy standing in front of the Burger King cashier and considering whether he should get the curly fries or the regular fries. In short, a person with a very difficult decision on his hands (hey, it IS a difficult decision, okay?)
Sigh. Hayden Whatshisname was good especially towards the end, but some of his scenes really made me cringe with embarassment. This guy either has no capacity to express any other emotion apart from teenage angst or the script was really, really, abysmally at some points, bad. But then again, he delivered a sterling performance towards the end, so I guess it evens out to a fair rating. Also, I must admit that when the Darth Vader theme first played (the infamous "jeng jeng jeng jeng je-jeng jeng je-jeng".. I think it sounded better in my head), the geek in me cheered a bit *cough* HELL YEAH!!! *cough* *cough*.
Overall: 3.5 lightsabres out of 5.
Oh, and in other news, I've got an informal offer to work at Deutsche Bank KL. Yay!!!
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