The first two trilogies in the mainline only to discover along the way that Vader is his corrupted father, Anakin. Then, the prequels told the story of how wayward Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker was corrupted by the Sith and became Darth Vader.
Luke was a cockeyed optimist, while Anakin was a dictator’s puppet. Here are five ways that Anakin was an intriguing protagonist, and five reasons Luke is still a better character.
Anakin Was Interesting: His Fate Was Inevitable
The nature of prequels means that we know where all the characters are going to end up. Better Call Saul is a terrific example of a prequel using the inevitably of fate as a dramatic tool. Going into the Star Wars prequel trilogy, we knew that, no matter what happened, Anakin was going to turn over to the dark side and rule the galaxy with an iron fist.
A lot of Star Wars fans were furious with George Lucas’ decision to cast Jake Lloyd to play Darth Vader as an adorable nine-year-old kid in The Phantom Menace. But you know that that adorable nine-year-old kid is going to grow up to become Darth Vader. This idea alone is gripping.
Luke Is Still Better: He Saw The Good In Darth Vader
After being defeated in a duel by Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi. He threw down his lightsaber, because he could still see the good in his father.
They did end up fighting because the good in Vader took a while to rise to the surface, but Luke didn’t judge his father by his worst mistakes; his love brought Anakin back to the light side.
Anakin Was Interesting: He’s Emotionally Complex
As a freed slave who fell in love with his future wife when he was nine and is plagued by murderous thoughts, Anakin Skywalker is very emotionally complex. Hayden Christensen received a lot of backlash for the perceived woodenness of his performance as Anakin (one of the many things the prequel trilogy was criticized for), but prequel apologists will argue that Christensen did a great job of playing Anakin; it’s just that Anakin is awkward and introverted.
So the supposed “woodenness” of Christensen’s performance lends itself to that aspect of his characterization. He’s not a traditional, confident hero who gets the girl. He’s a disturbing antihero who the girl should probably avoid, like Travis Bickle.
Luke Is Still Better: He’s Not Afraid To it Failure
A common criticism levied at the sequel trilogy’s hero, Rey, is that she’s inexplicably great at everything. She can fly, she can use a lightsaber, she’s mastered the Force — and the movies never explain how she came to be so amazing at all this stuff, so she never really has to deal with failure.
Luke, on the other hand, failed to lift his X-wing out of the water, instead necessitating Yoda to do it. Luke faced Darth Vader early in his training and found himself hopelessly outmatched. Luke isn’t afraid to it his shortcomings, or accept his limitations. He constantly doubts himself, but he continues to get back up, and there’s a poignant relatability in that.
Anakin Was Interesting: His Relationship With Obi-Wan Gave The Original Trilogy New Context
When we first met an aging Obi-Wan in the original 1977 Star Wars movie, he told Luke about how he fought alongside his father in the Clone Wars. Then, he was killed by Darth Vader, and in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke found out that Vader was his father, who once fought alongside Obi-Wan.
One of the prequel trilogy’s greatest feats was building a real relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, with Anakin feeling patronized by his master (leading him into Palpatine’s arms), and Obi-Wan genuinely loving Anakin like a younger brother. Hayden Christensen’s friendly back-and-forth with Ewan McGregor went a long way toward selling this dynamic.
Luke Is Still Better: He’s A Universal Symbol Of Heroism
Luke Skywalker is an archetypal hero in the best way. He’s not just blindly characterized as a good guy; he goes on a Joseph Campbell-style “hero’s journey,” like Bilbo Baggins or Harry Potter, and proves himself to be a hero along the way.
Like Spider-Man, Luke proves that with great power comes great responsibility, and he takes that responsibility seriously. Luke is the first word in discussions of fictional heroes.
Anakin Was Interesting: He Had A Shakespearean Arc
It might sound silly to compare the Star Wars prequel trilogy to Shakespeare, but Anakin’s arc is similar to that of a Shakespearean figure. It’s reminiscent of Sam Wanamaker’s insistence in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that Rick Dalton’s character Caleb is a western-era Hamlet.
Anakin is saved from slavery, rises through the ranks of a bureaucratic religious organization, enters into a forbidden marriage with a senator, and gets manipulated by a charming dictator into helping him destroy democracy and build an evil empire.
Luke Is Still Better: He Resurrected The Jedi Order
Although Anakin Skywalker was introduced as the Jedi’s last hope, he turned out to be its worst nightmare. Colluding with Palpatine, Anakin brought the Jedi Order to its knees, slaughtering them to the brink of extinction.
Anakin’s son Luke was the Jedi’s true last hope. He brought the Jedi Order back from the dead, questioned its teachings, and restored peace to the galaxy.
Anakin Was Interesting: He’s A Tragic Hero
Anakin was supposed to be the prophesized “Chosen One,” who would bring peace to the galaxy by wiping out the Sith. However, he ended up empowering the Sith, emerging as the true apprentice of Darth Sidious and eradicating the Jedi Order.
When we met Anakin in The Phantom Menace, he was just an innocent little kid who dreamed of podracing professionally. By the end of the trilogy, he’s a child murderer who violently paved the way for liberty to die to the sound of thunderous applause. He’s a classical tragic hero.
Luke Is Still Better: He’s A Mythical Figure
There’s a lot of discussion about Star Wars being a modern myth. Rian Johnson’s deconstruction of this idea is what led to a lot of the vicious critique launched at the movie by spiteful fans on Twitter. The deconstruction of the myth took a lot of the fun out of The Last Jedi and made it a little too heady for a Star Wars movie.
But in the original trilogy, the story is the myth. Luke Skywalker is a mythical figure, taking on evil, striving to do the right thing and struggling to balance emotion and reason. He’s a hero we can all relate to, and a hero we can all look up to.
