Hayden Christensen Gave Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith's Youngling Actor A Real Scare
George Lucas' "Star Wars" Prequel Trilogy is bursting with provocative ideas. It is, in theory, a startlingly downbeat depiction of a slow-rolling fascist government takeover in which the protagonist shuts out his better angels and turns into a vindictive, genocidal monster. He accidentally kills the mother of his children, and nearly melts in volcanic lava after failing to murder his principled mentor. This is, mind you, a kids film.
That this outcome was a foregone conclusion needn't have diminished the awful power of Anakin Skywalker's horrible choice. And this being "Star Wars," no one was expecting nuance. But were we really expecting "Star Wars" to go there – and by "there," I mean dramatize the savage lengths to which a Sith-indoctrinated Anakin would have to go to completely wipe out the Jedi? Because unless all those cute little padawans went lockstep Hitler Youth, they almost certainly met with an ugly fate.
Personally, I was shocked when, in "Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith," Lucas turned the massacre of the younglings into a personal mission for Anakin. It was absolutely the right call because, in the Original Trilogy, the destruction of Alderaan was too bloodless. The magnitude of the atrocity didn't register. You just shook your fist at Darth Vader as if he'd kicked over a kid's sand castle, and felt like order had been restored to the universe when Luke blew the Death Star to smithereens.
People might've died by the bushel in "Star Wars" at Vader's hands, but it was always at a distance. This was obviously on Lucas' mind in "Attack of the Clones" with Anakin's Tusken killing spree. And yet, when it came time for Hayden Christensen's Anakin to murder a bunch of children, no one was feeling the sense of menace – not even the child actors.
How to kill a youngling and make it mean something
In a recent interview with Empire, Christensen shared his thoughts on the Prequel Trilogy's impact 19 years after the release of "Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith." He believes this trilogy has aged well, and, thematically, I agree with him. Fascism is on the rise all over the globe, and, per the rhetoric of republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is ready for its Executive Branch close-up. This is frightening stuff!
You know what's not frightening? The scene where Anakin rolls up on a Padawan and fires up his lightsaber before Lucas cuts us out of the moment (at least he doesn't use a wipe here). This is because Lucas, in his writing and management of tone, has inadequately prepared us for this remorseless bloodletting. Worse, Christensen has failed to register as more than a petulant emo brat. On one hand, that's precisely what Anakin is. But the overall broadness of these movies doesn't make this realization – that a bitter twentysomething could weaponize the government to make the galaxy suffer for his childhood trauma – as terrifying as it should be.
So what do you do when you can't strike mortal fear into a little kid? You scare 'em the old-fashioned way.
A simple Boo! goes a long way
Christensen was thrilled that Lucas chose to shoot this "bold" and "shocking" scene, which carries a particularly cruel charge because, when Anakin finds these kids hiding in the Jedi Council chambers, they believe he's come to save them. Not so much.
To bring the sequence to its awful conclusion, they needed the child actor who walks into the foreground, Ross Beadman, to flinch when Anakin activates his lightsaber. When he couldn't deliver, Christensen went primal. "[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."
The scene may not land, but the reaction certainly does.
A few months ago, Beadman spoke with Star Wars Explained, and remembered that it was mostly a matter of focus.
"Yeah, it took a few takes. It was about four takes before we finally got it right. So in the first few takes I kept looking down at Anakin's lightsaber when he went like that [mimes lightsaber unsheathing]. And they said 'Don't look at it, just look at Anakin, and we'll restart.' And we kept restarting. And yeah, on the last take I got it correct, and after he unsheathed it he shouted 'BOO!' and that falling back from me made it properly natural."
If only Beadman's reaction existed in a better film. Again, given this perilous political moment, the PT is incredibly relevant. But maybe "Star Wars," which helped take the country's mind off the bloody failure of the Vietnam War, was never meant to bear this much weight.