The Honest Trailer guys took on Star Wars: A New Hope, pointing out all the awkward things about the beloved classic. They also managed to justify Hayden Christensen’s acting choices.
The uncomfortable parallels between Anakin Skywalker and his son Luke (uh, spoiler alert?) have been pointed out before.
But never have the similarities between the two characters — and more importantly, their actors — been as obvious as in the Honest Trailer for Star Wars. (The first one. Which they refuse to call A New Hope, because #nerdreasons.)
Looking at the “whiny space brat,” Luke, in the first movie, suddenly Hayden Christensen’s oft-mocked acting in the Star Wars prequels makes sense! It seems like he really was trying to emulate Mark Hamill’s original performance, for better or worse.
With all the rumors and theories that Luke might have turned evil by Episode VII (are we allowed to call this one The Force Awakens, Screen Junkies?), the Anakin/Luke parallels are more relevant than ever.
After all, it’s been pointed out how violent and destructive Luke Skywalker really was in the original trilogy: Mr. Sunday Movies’ supercut of the Star Wars saga reveals that Luke killed almost 370,000 souls (largely because he destroyed the Death Star):
That’s pretty brutal for a supposedly good guy Jedi.
The Honest Trailer also points out some of the other hilarious (but lovable) aspects of the original Star Wars, including the “army of clumsy idiots” also known as Stormtroopers, and the fact that there are only two female characters in the movie.
All in all, the Screen Junkies conclude that Star Wars was a near-perfect movie… that George Lucas “made progressively worse with each special edition.” Activate totally justified neeeerdddd raaaage!