@SlowRain This was *especially* the case with young Annakin (sorry Jake Lloyd, it's not your fault, but you were painful to watch). Hayden Christensen was also miscast, Ewan McGregor would have made a better Annakin. Liam Neeson was tragically wasted as Qui Gon, and would have made a great young Obiwan.

@SlowRain . I would have had Ewan play Annakin in Ep 1 too, but making him look as young as possible with costume, make-up, and lighting. Maybe present him as early teens (13-15?) in Ep 1, then about 18-20 in Ep 2, so about the same 5 year gap, but with no jarring boy>man leap between Ep1-2

@strypey
I agree the gap between Ep. 1 & 2. But I'm not sure about Ewan McGregor playing a teenager. Not even sure we needed to see Anakin as a boy/teenager. Starting in his 20s would've been fine.

@SlowRain Ewan McGregor totally looks like a teenager with his rats tail in Ep 1. Some people actually think it's a different actor (because one doesn't have a beard and one does?). But sure, the key point is that we didn't need to see Luke as a boy to see his innocence and gee whiz naivety, and we didn't need to see Obiwan as a boy (or Qui Gon). The same is true of Annakin

@SlowRain you missed the most imporant part of Luke's arc, for me, which is that he finds out that evil personified is actually his Dad, and that one day it could be him. Defeating the #DarkSide stops being about killing Vader, and becomes about Luke facing his own dark side, and the moral greyness of adult life, and in the process, giving Annakin an opening to redeem himself.

@SlowRain as I said, I think 1-3 was really Obiwan's prequel story, because Ep 4 is about Obiwan's attempts to redeem himself (and to a lesser extent Yoda's), by doing a better job of guiding Luke than he did with his father. Ep 1-3 might have also been better if Annakin had become a cyborg more gradually, with only the helmet as the final reveal at the end of 3. No cape yet either, leave that as a symbol of the status he's gained in the Empire by the opening of Ep 4.

@SlowRain if Annakin started to depend on tech provided by #Palpatine in Ep 2, and then more so early in Ep 3, his gradual seduction to the dark side could be seen as a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. His increasing dependence weakens his resolve, and his ability to think critically about anything Palpatine says to him. I agree this seduction was crucial to the arc of 1-3 and was handled clumsily in the films as they stand.