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Star Wars fans divided over controversial Anakin Skywalker recasting

Home> News> TV and Film

Published 23:00 7 May 2025 GMT+1

Star Wars fans divided over controversial Anakin Skywalker recasting

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Sam Cawley

Sam Cawley

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Featured Image Credit: 20th Century Studios

Topics: Lucasfilm, Star Wars, TV And Film, Disney

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Star Wars fans are mixed on the franchise’s most infamous recast, with some thinking it makes perfect sense and others wishing it’d stayed the way it was.

When the Star Wars prequel films came out, they weren’t received very well, but that’s changed over the years.

Personally I’d call Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith my favourite Star Wars film.

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There’s a newfound respect for how ambitious the trilogy was, especially when it came to its visual effects, which at the time were astounding and many still hold up today.

However, something I think almost all Star Wars fans can agree on is these effects should have never been retroactively forced into the original trilogy, as the films were re-released with various CGI monstrosities slipped in.

One change that doesn’t get too much hate though is in Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi when the force ghost Anakin that appears at the end is Hayden Christensen, not Sebastian Shaw who was the original iteration.

“Do you prefer the original or updated Anakin force ghost at the end of ROTJ?” asked Reddit user Grogurt6248, “I can see either way because metaphorically the last time he was Anakin was before he became Darth Vader, because that's when Anakin died, but technically he was redeemed at the end of ROTJ as Anakin again.”

“I dunno. It's good seeing Hayden, but seeing Young Anakin and old Obi together looked odd to me,” argued one fan.

Another added, “I'm at the point where I'm fine with both. I like Shaw because I prefer any version of RotJ that doesn't include 'Jedi Rocks,' but Ahsoka has brought me around to Christensen's Force Ghost.”

Personally, I’ve always been fine with it being Hayden’s version of Anakin as that’s the one you tend to think about the most, but there’s definitely an argument for both sides.

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