George Lucas’ original plan for Anakin Skywalker made him an evil secret Jedi Assassin

The fall of Anakin Skywalker on the dark side is one of the great tragedies of Star WarsA brilliant hero full of hope slowly corrupted by fear, love and manipulation. At least, this is the version we got in the prequel trilogy.

But at the beginning, George Lucas He imagined something darker, much colder and much more disturbing than we ended up seeing on the screen.

In 1981, when Lucas was preparing ideas for Return of the Jedi And thinking through Anakin’s background, he invented a version of the fall that was not about fear and desperate love … but for the calculated murder.

Imagine a version of Anakin who, while smiling and shaking his hand with his Jedi companions, was quietly planning their death. This was the original idea.

Here’s how Lucas explained it:

“During his missions through the galaxies, Anakin went out and did his Jedi and many Jedi were killed – and it’s because they turn his back and he knocks them down.”

Whoa … Anakin should not have taken one day, he would have to secretly hunt his friends over time, killing them one by one while still pretended to be the good boy.

It is so dark and much more personal and heartbreaking than the massacre of 66 orders in which we saw in the end Revenge of Sith. In the final film, Anakin’s betrayal is horrible, but arrives at the end of a long internal struggle, manipulated by Palpatine and led by a desperate need to save Padmé. It is fast, brutal and framed as a tragic, not premeditated.

Lucas’ original idea strikes different. Anakin paints as already disappeared, already seriously broken inside, long before they kneel before Palpatine. If he had secretly reduced Jedi during the missions, this would mean that he lived a double life for years: a fellow trusted during the day, a Jedi butcher hidden at night.

He would also make his betrayal of Padmé still cruel, because it would not be just a moment of weakness; It would be a sign that he had lied to everyone, who has always been.

This concept raises some questions such as how the Jedi Council would ask, presumably some of the most powerful users of the strength of the galaxy, not noting what was happening? Were there signs they had lost? Palpatine’s manipulation of Anakin was happening much earlier and more subtly The ghost threat OR Clone attack Have you ever shown?

In this version, Anakin’s evil is not an accident or a tragedy. It is a slow and methodical rot. It would not be just the chosen one who fell. It would have been the cancer that grew within the Jedi order, feeding on their trust.

In the end, Lucas returned from that initial vision, guiding Anakin’s story towards something more understanding. Yes, it’s probably for the best. As painful as it is to look anakin fall Revenge of SithLeave space to redemption.

The Anakin Lucas originally dreamed, the secret serial killer who hid in Jedi clothes, would have been much more difficult to report from the edge.

However, it is chilling to think about how Star Wars The story could have been much darkest … if George Lucas had decided to lean until evil.