Finding another Anakin

With the DVD due out Tuesday, my thoughts wander back to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

I have previously written that after writing episodes 1-3, George Lucas made at least two irretrievable errors: choosing the director of Episode I, and casting the older version of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Actually, perhaps the error was choosing the director for all three episodes, and perhaps Hayden Christensen could have handled the character with a better director than Lucas, but for the sake of this discussion let's assume it was a casting problem.

I've recently had a chance to view the extremely terrific movies Equilibrium and Batman Begins, and I think I've found the guy who should have played Anakin Skywalker: Christian Bale.

The thought clicked as I watched Bale, as Bruce Wayne, being trained in the ninja arts by Liam Neeson, in a scene ("Mind your surroundings") that was very reminiscent of Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It was easy to imagine Bale as the impatient Jedi padawan of Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bale also did well handling the evolution of Bruce Wayne into the Batman, just as he had handled the man with a secret in Equilibrium.

I could see Christian Bale as the tormented teenager who becomes the confident but conflicted Jedi warrior descending toward the dark side. Christensen got the teenage angst down all right, but he never sold me as the confident warrior. Again, maybe that's Lucas the director, but maybe a different actor could have sold the character better.

Episode III is still in the same league as Episodes IV and V, but not as good as those earlier films. I still think hiring someone like Spielberg to direct Episode I and child actor Jake Lloyd would have gotten the second trilogy off to a much better start. And maybe Christian Bale as Anakin Skywalker could have rescued Episode II and propelled Revenge of the Sith to the very top of the list, where the climax of a six-film arc belongs.

Between Sith and Serenity, though, it's been a great year for science-fiction films with liberty as a theme. And that's a gorram fact.