Love or hate it, there’s no denying that George Lucas’ Star Wars Prequel Trilogy had some truly standout scenes.
Nuanced dialogue has never been a strong point – neither was it ever intended to be, according to Lucas – of the franchise, of course, and while internet memes poking fun at almost every line spoken by Hayden Christensen in Attack of the Clones will forever remain unintentional comedy gold, the actor certainly did the best with what he was given. According to one Revenge of the Sith cast member, in fact, the Jedi-turned-Sith was a dab hand at improvising on set and ultimately contributed to one of the entire series’ darkest sequences.
Shortly following his fall to the dark side of the Force, Anakin, now Darth Vader, journeys to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to destroy whatever remains of the ancient order. There, he finds a group of Younglings hiding in the central chamber and, following a plea for guidance from one child, proceeds to kill the entire group off the screen.
Ross Beadman, who uttered the now iconic line “Master Skywalker, there are too many of them, what are we going to do?”, recently conducted an Ask Me Anything session over on Reddit, a discussion which inevitably led to one fan querying how they managed to pull off such a convincing look of fear. According to Beadman, the facial expression and wary back step at the sight of Anakin’s Lightsaber was actually a result of Christensen’s actions.
“From what I remember Hayden shouted “boo!” and that startled me to add to my fear in the scene,” he recalls.
An inconsequential anecdote it may be, but it’s nonetheless neat trivia that provides previously unheard insight into the making of what’s largely considered to be the Prequel Trilogy’s strongest entry. As for Christensen, it was recently confirmed that the actor will be making his long-awaited return to Star Wars in upcoming Disney Plus show Obi-Wan Kenobi. See here for everything we know so far about the limited series.