this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wasn't Star Wars his first big role, though? Portman and MacGregor were both fairly established at that point.

They may also be better actors, or at least more free-thinking. Better able to create the characters themselves.

They also weren't trying to portray the kind of character Anakin needed to be. They had much more stable, much more relatable personalities. Not the kind character that goes from saving children to slaughtering them.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Right, so maybe he wasn't the right voice for that role.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Maybe. He wasn't the casting director, as far as I'm aware, nor director or producer. So laying all blame on his shoulders seems a bit singlemindedly petty to me.

Its easy to say in hindsight that we were wrong in any action from the past. The problem is that its the past, and changing it is currently beyond us.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I forgot that everybody has to take any role offered to them, especially if they'll do a poor job of it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No you're right, if you are a young actor handed the lead role of a huge franchise that could jumpstart your career and set you up for life you should DEFINITELY turn it down, after all you wouldn't want to do a poor job of it right?/s

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago

Then it would seem only fair that we can criticize an objectively poor performance.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I dunno, I think he did well at portraying the character. He made me dislike the character. We aren't supposed to like Anakin; he's this deeply flawed, messed up person that follows the bait of the dark side like he had no mind at all.

That's what the character was written as.

But he managed to do that believably. The way he delivered lines, his body language, it really read like this damaged kid that got thrown into being some kind of savior and went batshit over time.

If anything, I would say that Ewan did a little too much over-acting in the prequels. He's a really solid actor, but he leaned hard into emoting heavy as a way to denote that obi-wan is normally trying hard to not emote. It worked with the way things are written, but it's a fairly obvious choice that doesn't scan as well as most of Hayden's scenes where he's pushing.

Then again, it's all a matter of opinion, and yours is valid :)