Hayden Christensen was supposed to be in The Force Awakens
Love him or hate him, Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker played a huge role in the Star Wars Cinematic Universe, as well as the animated series, The Clone Wars. He was supposed to reprise that role in The Force Awakens…
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During the filming and post-production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, many a rumor began to pick up steam, that said actor Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the Prequel Trilogy) was going to appear in The Force Awakens as a Force Ghost to either Kylo Ren, or Luke Skywalker. Well, thanks to the Art of the Force Awakens, we now know what he was going to look like.
Artist Ian McCaig explained the idea:
"“When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.’ That inspired me to propose, for the first time, that Anakin’s ghost could come back. If we see Anakin Skywalker, because he does flow back and forth between Darth Vader and Anakin, let’s see him as a character with a dark and light side. The reason Luke is this whole new entity is because he was the first to acknowledge his own dark side — that it was not separate from him.”"
There is also concept art of Anakin looking over Luke’s shoulder. According to screenwriter Michael Arndt, Luke was to have a much larger role in The Force Awakens, but they decided to go another way:
"“Early on I tried to write versions of the story where [Rey] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass. It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012. It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over. Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.”"
As you can see from that art, Luke has a much darker look to him. Hopefully, Hayden Christensen will reprise his role in Star Wars: Episode VIII, which won’t be out for another year and a half. There are rumors that the morphing version of the Anakin/Vader Force Ghost will appear to Kylo Ren, and will represent Kylo’s battle to suppress the Light, while being pulled to the Dark.
For now, we can only speculate, but it seems as if Hayden was replaced with the burned out shell of Vader’s helmet. We saw this when Kylo conversed with Vader’s helmet, as if the former Sith Lord had in fact appeared to the tormented youth.
What do you think? Would you like to see Hayden Christensen get another shot at being Anakin/Vader? Or, would you rather he remain in the prequels? Let us know in the comments or on social media.