Concept art for Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith depicts a much more sinister Anakin Skywalker, suggesting that Star Wars considered making the Jedi’s fall to the dark side of the Force and transformation into Darth Vader even darker. Anakin Skywalker is one of Star Wars’ most powerful Jedi, so it’s no surprise that he becomes equally if not more powerful when he embraces the dark side. However, even when he became the newest of Emperor Palpatine’s Sith apprentices, pieces of Anakin lingered, and he was conflicted about what he’d done.
The violence Anakin enacts upon the Jedi Temple, particularly the younglings, during Order 66 is grisly, but he doesn’t seem to take any pride or pleasure in it. While he became much more willing to kill during the Obi-Wan Kenobi show and the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy doesn’t show the same level of commitment to the dark side. Discarded concept art from Revenge of the Sith shows that this characterization wasn’t always the plan.
Star Wars: Every Jedi Who Survived Order 66 (In Canon)
Clone Protocol Order 66 caused once-loyal Clone troopers in Star Wars to wipe out the Jedi, but a handful managed to survive this initial purge.
Anakin Skywalker Concept Art Shows Him Wearing Dooku’s Cape
The image, posted to Reddit by DemiPyramid, shows Anakin Skywalker looking almost ghoulish, draped in the recently murdered Count Dooku’s signature cloak. The fact that Anakin is wearing Count Dooku’s cape is in sharp contrast to Anakin’s feelings about killing Dooku in Revenge of the Sith. In the movie, Anakin is visibly hesitant, debating whether he should do it despite Palpatine’s insistence that he must. After killing him, Anakin still feels that what he did was wrong. Rather than gloating about winning, Anakin says he shouldn’t have done it because it’s not the Jedi way.
This art instead reflects pride in what he’s done, depicting a pompous Anakin willing to proclaim his responsibility for Dooku’s death. This also begs the interesting question of when this would have happened. If Anakin had immediately worn the cloak after killing Dooku, that would have been a much more glaring red flag to the Jedi Council upon his return. Had he held onto it and worn it once he became Darth Vader, this would’ve raised the interesting question of why he’d kept it. Either scenario still means this version of Anakin would have been much darker.
This Is A Much More Sinister Anakin Skywalker
This is a very different version of Anakin than the one seen in Revenge of the Sith. Even after Anakin has turned to the dark side of the Force and been christened Darth Vader, he still seems emotional, conflicted, and pained. His immediate response to helping Palpatine to kill Mace Windu (somewhat inadvertently) is to say “What have I done?” This type of conflict is wholly absent in the concept art, which shows Anakin as unapologetically evil, willing to show off one of his many victims.
This brazen evil is likely why the concept was replaced with the Anakin of Revenge of the Sith. For one, this version of Anakin is a bit too overzealous; it makes for worse writing if a character’s evil is too on-the-nose. For another, while Anakin in the prequel movies was destined to become Darth Vader, his return to the light side of the Force in Return of the Jedi had to be believable. Had Anakin been out-and-out evil in Revenge of the Sith, that final transition would have been harder to swallow.
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
- Release Date
- May 19, 2005
- Director
- George Lucas
- Cast
- Ewan McGregor , Natalie Portman , Hayden Christensen , Ian McDiarmid , Samuel L. Jackson , Christopher Lee , Anthony Daniels , Kenny Baker , Frank Oz , Ahmed Best , Temuera Morrison
- Writers
- George Lucas , John Ostrander , Jan Duursema
- Studio(s)
- Lucasfilm
- Franchise(s)
- Star Wars
