It’s hard to set up a discussion about that point where, in watching the Star Wars movies in order, we truly see Hayden Christensen break bad. Even if you didn’t have the headline above to go by, you’d almost certainly know that phrase is invoking Anakin Skywalker’s slaughter of innocent younglings in Revenge of the Sith.
Apparently it took a lot of effort to get the desired effect from the child actors, something thar Christensen has actually apologized for after the fact. As part of Empire’s big Star Wars issue, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first prequel The Phantom Menace, the stories have been coming out in force.
So any interviewer worth their credits that has Hayden Christensen on their docket kind of has to talk about “that scene.” As it turns out, the legacy of that chilling moment hasn’t phased children too much, as Hayden revealed through these remarks:
Kids seem to forget about that scene when they meet me! There's not any fear or intimidation. They're just excited to meet Anakin. There was a lot of talk about us doing that scene, and I love that George [Lucas] did it. It was a bold move. And it's shocking.
“Shocking” is putting it mildly, as writer/director George Lucas pulled one hell of a rug pull on Star Wars fans. While we all knew that Anakin was heading to the Dark Side and completing his transformation into Darth Vader, his wholesale murder of children wasn’t expected in the slightest.
You have to remember, we sat through The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones in theaters, which had only mere hints of the darkness ahead. When Revenge of the Sith played this card, it hurt so bad, it’s probably one of the reasons the Star Wars prequels are better than the Sequel Trilogy entries.
In fact, it still hurts, while at the same time being a vindication of Hayden Christensen’s Star Wars performance. So if you’re particularly Force sensitive to even the overt suggestion of child death, you’ve been warned to skip this next video:
It’s a damned gut punch every single time, a fact that’s further undermined by the process the Star Wars prequel’s shoot had to take on to get just the right reaction. Sure enough, actor Ross Beadman, a.k.a. the only Youngling with a speaking part in the scene above, confirmed Christensen had to scare him on set.
Which takes us to the second part of this Hayden Christensen story, where he names the various ways he tried to get that reaction, and the apology he would eventually give young Ross:
When we were filming that, we were having a hard time getting the reaction that we wanted from the kid. And so I shouted, or growled at him, because we needed a genuine moment of him being startled. It got the response that we needed, and it makes that scene work really well ... I saw him years later. I said, 'Sorry about how that went.’
All's well that ends well, I suppose. So while Star Wars still has its ebbs and flows of happiness for all Disney+ subscription holders to see, at least the real life story has a more humorous and cheerful ending. Though good luck trying to pull a moment like this in any upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows, as there really hasn’t been anything this dark in a while. Although, we do have The Acolyte to look forward to, and that could be our next best hope for something truly dark in that galaxy far, far away!
