The Chosen One

For those who think George Lucas never tells his actors what's going through their characters mind, this short documentary shows him directing and motivating Hayden Chrstensen (but not Natalie Portman, who is also in the scene). Footage from several different interviews in shot on varying locations (and in the case of Hayden, ever changing haircuts) are combined with footage from all six Star Wars movies to give a succinct summary of the live and times of Darth Vader. Once more they feel the need to point out that the entire saga is all about Annie, who is really a sad and lonely victim, only redeemed in the end by his son.

Hayden is nice enough to explain every single emotion Annie felt during Episode II, and smack in the middle of this, unannounced and without a fanfare, there is Yoda's "Fear leads to anger" quote from the Phantom Menace. Only this time, rubber Yoda has been replaced by a pixelized version. Apparently all of Frank Oz's puppetry from the first Episode were reanimated by Rob Coleman and co in preparation for episode III, but since nobody bothers to mention that here, you can be pretty sure this new version's going to be inserted on the next DVD release.

There is some nice footage of Hayden trying on the burned Anakin make up (with trendy blue-screen socks) and George keeps repeating that all the movies should be watched in numerical order and that Anakin is indeed the chosen one (that should settle some IMDb message board arguments, or not). One thing I don't understand is that if no one starts out evil at birth, how come Palpatine is referred to as the devil incarnate? Do I sense another pre-prequel trilogy coming up? Featuring young Palp, the innocent lad who built R2D2, who met young Dooku (while flying the Millennium Falcon) and bumped into clumsy Gungan Boss Nass before turning to evil when not allowed to adopt an infant Lando Calrissian.

8 out of 10

This features a fairly efficient and concise depiction of the transformation and characteristics of Darth Vader. Brief interview bits, clips from the movies and behind the scenes footage is cut tightly to aid in this, and Christensen kindly details every single emotion his character felt in the second movie of the prequel trilogy, oddly inter-cut with Yoda from Episode I, who has now been digitized... poor Frank Oz. This also shows us Lucas directing Hayden, which, if nothing else, proves that he actually does that, tells his actors what they're feeling and supplies them with motivation. Lucas says that the movies should be watched in the order they take place(maybe the decline in the sharpness of the effects in such a viewing order will be outweighed by the considerable increase in the overall quality of the films?), as well as saying(again) that Anakin is the main character in the whole shebang, and that he is, in fact, the chosen one. I don't know if that will actually settle all the debates regarding that, but oh well. The guy who did the physical effects for the last few scenes of the film briefly describes his work, and we see it some. All in all, a good little featurette. Well paced and definitely not too long, informative and interesting. I recommend this to any fans of the movies, and especially anyone who likes the character of Vader. Yup, that's a whole lotta people. 7/10

This was a really good documentary about Anakin Skywalker and his turn to the dark side of the force and becoming Darth Vader yes I always enjoyed watching this one.