The Return of Anakin’s Force Ghost: Conceptual or Actual?

“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.” – Iain McCaig (concept artist for The Force Awakens)

As you already know, this imagery was cut from The Force Awakens, but its concept still exists. That being said, Lucasfilm never throws an idea away, not entirely. In a way, they are the original recyclers.

Getting back on track, the original designs for the return of ‘Anakin’s Force Ghost’ were pushed aside when Luke’s character role was cutback – approximately only 30 seconds of screen time. Had Luke come into the fold early on, opening the doors for the return of ‘Anakin’s Force Ghost’ under the connotation that he can phase back-and-forth between the light and the dark side, symbolizing that Luke Skywalker admits to having a dark side and not dismissing it, but embracing it. Thusly, a new Luke: by resolving the gray through refined Jedi sight. – Journal of the Whills, 7:477

Gotta say, I, for one, would have LOVED to have seen this play-out on the big screen! Talk about Epic moments, in my opinion, this would’ve been one of them. After all, I am the Anakin Apologist. Oh, I’m sure some of you are shaking your heads at me as you read this, but I do think having Anakin Skywalker appear in either episode VIII or IX is poignant to the storyline. And yes, this would mean Hayden Christensen coming back to reprise his role as ‘The Chosen One.’ Well, as a Force Ghost or at the very least, his voice encased in those twinkly lights we have seen in Star Wars Rebels (Yoda) and in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Qui-Gon Jinn).

So yes, Hayden Christensen, for me it’s essential that he follows through with picking-up where he and this character left off. After all, it is his image we see at the end of Return of the Jedi, not Sebastian Shaw as per George Lucas – it meant Anakin became one with the Force before he turned into Darth Vader. It’s quite poetic and the symbolism matches up to what George Lucas had been creating all along; cyclical themes and paralleled imagery.

That being said, this is a chance to not only bridge the gap between the prequels and the originals, but to bring closure to both Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, respectively. Why is this necessary?

Well, for starters, we now know that Luke has been desperately searching for knowledge that has been missing (in a sense) for ages, the man has been a self-taught Jedi for decades and quite honestly, is in need of guidance. Who better to instruct him and support him on his quest for hidden knowledge than his father, Anakin Skywalker? One more little tidbit in relation to the son of suns, if I may dabble a bit into creative thinking, we see a tree on Ahch-To and yes, there is a new (whacky, in my opinion) fan theory relating to trees and the Force, but I’m not going to go there. So yes, a tree and there is also a very similar tree in the Mortis Arc of The Clone Wars. We see the father stand in front of it as he generates his own force powers while Anakin Skywalker transfers the daughter’s light source to Ahsoka Tano and thusly, saving her life. Perhaps, the tree on Ahch-To is a spiritual conduit for the soul, a.k.a. Force Ghost, of Anakin Skywalker.

But again, Luke isn’t the only Skywalker in need of closure, no, there is another. Leia, after reading Bloodline it is painfully obvious that she has yet to forgive Darth Vader, her birth father. Throughout the novel she goes back, in her personal thoughts, recanting the atrocities he has committed, not just to the galaxy at large, but to her personally. Unlike Luke, she has never seen the light in him that is Anakin Skywalker; the good man. At some point this has to happen, otherwise, how will her son, Ben Solo, find the path to redemption? Wouldn’t it make sense for Anakin to come before her in this time of need? Not just for guiding support, but for him to save her and her son from replicating the same demise he himself endured. The ultimate sacrifice; giving up his light source for that of another and in turn, righting the wrongs and saving the galaxy from darkness.

Had it been like that for her father? She could never know. But for the first time in a very long while, she had some sense of who Anakin Skywalker might have been before his fall, and the goodness that must have survived in him through all the darkness, all the years. – Leia Organa from Star Wars: Bloodline

The Cantina Cast

The wretched hive your Jedi Master warned you about!

 

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