okay a rant since watching the ahsoka featurette
Maybe I'm reading into this too much. Maybe I'm delusional. Maybe it's Maybelline. These are just my thoughts and onions. Who cares lol
So when I first watched the episode, I was struck by how Anakin seemed to sort of ‘age’ within the flashback scenes.
When we first see him, he's Anakin. He looks the same, yet a little different.
This iteration of him then comes back when he appears in the Mandalore scene. But he looks visibly different here. Like he's become younger.
Then, when Vader shows up, there is a change in his face. It almost feels like you see the years show. He's aging into Vader right in front of Ahsoka. And for the last few scenes, he's back to where he was at the beginning. Looking the same, yet a little different. Anakin, at the age he was when he became one with the Force.
This is something which the bts clips of Hayden confirmed for me.
So when they de-age someone, they draw little black dots on their faces. Had this been the intent for the entire episode–to just have young Anakin–they would put Hayden in those dots throughout all the scenes he's in.
He's only wearing the black dots when he's
1) in the clone wars flashbacks
and 2) when he's doing the mandalore scenes
The rest of the time, he can be seen without them
There are also more examples of Hayden fighting in the flashback scenes where he doesn't seem to have the dots on his face. Most likely for far away shots.
And I just love this idea so much. Anakin, as a character, is someone who's frozen in time at the age he was in Episode 3. We never know what he would've looked like had things played out differently. Having Force ghost Anakin physically “be” the same age as Vader when he died is so beautiful because we get to see just that in Hayden's current portrayal of him. He doesn't just return to his younger self but instead becomes the version of himself had things been different.
