Young Jake Lloyd did the best he could in the role, and it’s easy to see what George Lucas was trying to do. The Phantom Menace was setting the stage for Anakin’s tragic downfall by revealing that he was once a kind-hearted boy dedicated to helping others. Star Wars had featured young protagonists before (Luke is 19 years old during the events of A New Hope), but some found the choice to skew so much younger with Anakin to be a confusing creative decision. If Lucas had stuck to his original instinct and kept Anakin slightly older, it would have fixed some of the prequel trilogy’s biggest problems.
Making Anakin a Teenager Would Have Improved The Phantom Menace (and the Prequels)
Image Courtesy of Lucasfilm
At one point during development of The Phantom Menace, Lucas considered making Anakin 12 years old. He ultimately lowered the character’s age to 9 because he felt it enhanced the plot point of Anakin leaving his mother Shmi on Tatooine. The rationale was that since Anakin was the age of an elementary school child when he left home, Shmi’s absence would have a greater impact on his development. In some respects, an argument can be made in favor of the change; the scene where Anakin is tested by the Jedi Council taps into his fears about losing his mother. However, that alone is not a strong enough justification. Even as a teenager, Anakin would have had a strong bond with Shmi considering everything they went through as slaves.
A teenage Anakin would have improved some of The Phantom Menace‘s plot points. For starters, his burgeoning romance with Padmé would have seemed much more natural. Rather than making Anakin seem like a little boy with a crush (something Padmé would tease him about in Attack of the Clones), the love story would have been able to tap into young-adult sensibilities by bringing two peers together. Their interactions would have been painted in an entirely new light; Padmé would likely have appreciated having someone close to her age (she’s 14 in The Phantom Menace) that she could confide in, laying the foundation for a key aspect of the trilogy’s emotional arc. The age difference between Anakin and Padmé wasn’t a big deal in the subsequent prequels, but 9 and 14 makes for a pretty jarring gap.
An unintended consequence of a 9-year-old Anakin being deemed “too old” to begin Jedi training is the horrifying truth it revealed about the Order. If a young child no older than a third-grader was too old, it meant the Jedi started younglings very young. They take babies away from their families (in canon, Obi-Wan can’t remember for sure if he has a brother) and then indoctrinates them in the ways of their religion. It’s an unsettling way to look at the people who are ostensibly the “good guys” in the story, and while one of the main points of the prequels is highlighting the many shortcomings of the Jedi, it arguably wasn’t necessary to suggest they raise apprentices from the cradle. The “too old” storyline would have made more sense if Anakin was a teenager, and it wouldn’t have had any impact on Lucas’ ideas about the Jedi’s hubris.
Making Anakin even slightly older would have also allowed the character to have a greater sense of agency in the story — especially once the action shifts away from Tatooine and the main ensemble arrives on Coruscant to kick off the third act. After winning the podrace, Anakin frankly doesn’t have much to do until he accidentally becomes part of the space battle. Even though The Phantom Menace is ostensibly supposed to be the first step of Anakin’s journey, the character feels very tacked on because he’s so young. As the Battle of Naboo heats up, Qui-Gon tells him to find a safe place to hide because it’ll be too dangerous for him. If a 14-year-old Padmé can negotiate peace with the Gungans and lead her people to victory, a teenage Anakin could have made his own contributions, laying the foundation for him becoming a powerful and smart leader in the Clone Wars.
How a Teenage Anakin Would Have Changed Star Wars Canon
Image Courtesy of Lucasfilm
Obviously, making Anakin older in The Phantom Menace would have had a domino effect on the rest of Star Wars canon, but the impact is arguably negligible. The biggest change would be altering the time jump between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Anakin is 19 years old in the second prequel film, so instead of 10 years (which is how things stand on the official franchise timeline), there would likely be a gap of about 5 or 6 years (assuming Anakin is 13 or 14). The actual plot of Attack of the Clones could remain the same since the only story beat that’s really reliant on the time jump is Anakin and Padmé reconnecting after years apart. Whether they were separated for a full decade or a handful of years doesn’t matter.
The more fascinating question to ponder is how this might have impacted casting. With Jake Lloyd too young to play a teenager, an older actor would have to portray Anakin in The Phantom Menace. Of course, Anakin was recast for Attack of the Clones, with Hayden Christensen taking on the role. There’s a possibility that if Anakin had been a teenager in The Phantom Menace, the same actor could have played the character across all three films. Natalie Portman was 16 years old when The Phantom Menace started filming and reprised Padmé in each installment. Lucas could have found a 16-year-old boy who would play slightly younger in Episode I and then return for the next films, which means no Christensen in the prequels.
These days, Christensen is such a fan favorite that it’s impossible to envision the Star Wars prequels without him. However, there’s a case to be made that having one actor as Anakin for the whole trilogy would have improved things in one respect. By the time Attack of the Clones picks up, Anakin is so much older that it’s like the audience is meeting a new character for the first time. Unlike Mark Hamill’s Luke or Daisy Ridley’s Rey, there wasn’t as strong a sense of an organic continuation. If the same actor played Anakin in all three films, it might have felt like a more natural character arc, allowing fans to go on an incredible journey with the performer over the course of many years.
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