ChePebeta

Illustration that my wife @erenunten made, which I then animated.

Attack of the Clones | Behind the Seams | Padmé’s Wedding Dress (P-20)

George Lucas wanted Padmé’s wedding dress to be a simple but beautiful gown in an amazing fabric and it took Trisha Biggar quite a long time to fulfil his vision. She decided to give it a pre-Raphaelite feel and thought of lace as the main material but couldn’t find the right fabric until finally her buyer in Australia stumbled onto a century-old Italian lace bedspread from the Edwardian era in a thrift store. However, the cream-colored bed cover wasn’t big enough for the Lucas-authorized design, so the costume designer devised an option with shorter sleeves to fit the amount of material and master embroiders in Sydney made over 300 yards of French-knit braid to blend the vintage elements together with the modern handiwork. 

The gown and head piece are studded with hundreds of vintage pearls and the veil itself is made from Maltese lace and includes Edwardian wax flowers and tiny beaded pearls. Each pearl was actually hand sewn because the night before the wedding scene was to be filmed, Biggar decided the gown needed a little something “extra”. So she pulled an all-nighter and pearled Padmé’s wedding dress herself.

Ohayou Gomasu Gozaimasu - Hayden Christensen’s adorable attempts at pronouncing “good morning” in Japanese

Revenge of the Sith | Behind the Scenes | Becoming the Chosen One

The concepts regarding Anakin’s appearance ran the gamut from a harsh Mohawk to a long pirate-like ponytail, before deciding on the final longer-hair version. The Hair Department had made a long haired wig with a ponytail which looked great but it just wasn’t strong enough for Anakin. Having a long ponytail would have been a little bit too swashbuckling. So it gradually got shorter and shorter. The final look just evolved from conversations with George Lucas and from him playing with it, and combing Hayden’s fringe. Plus Hayden Christensen was very definite about how he wanted his hair to sit. According to Nikki Gooley it was the right decision because it made him look strong and it gave him a great jaw.

THE HOPE THAT NEVER DIED

@resacon1990 asked:” Why would Anakin stay with Sidious after the reason he joined him died? Was he so twisted by that stage?”

The reason why he joined Sidious was truly gone, but unfortunately for Anakin, he was still alive. His body survived, in a way, and his mind and soul were more tormented than ever before, now bearing the sins he committed. You often read that Anakin died at Mustafar and Darth Vader was born on that operating table just as Padmé took her last breath, but I think that the man lying there was still Anakin Skywalker. It is ANAKIN’S eyes that are so frightened when the helmet is being put on his face, it is ANAKIN who is being literally locked into a prison of his own making, it is ANAKIN, the loving man, who despite the excruciating pain he feels thinks only about the woman he loves and asks about her, it is ANAKIN who goes mad with grief and heartbreak, it is ANAKIN’S agony and self-blame which destroy the whole facility (because destruction is the only thing he is capable of now) and which give him the supernatural strength to free himself from his restrains, yet the shackles are fittingly still attached to his limbs, making him a slave again in every sense of that word, and his tragedy is complete. It’s only after then when he truly becomes Darth Vader, because with Padmé and their child died the very reason Anakin Skywalker lived. It’s actually in that moment, when he learns about their death, the death he tried to prevent so hard and at such a huge cost of so many lives and his own soul, that the good man that is Anakin dies and Vader is born. His final tragedy is that he cannot even revenge them because now he is not powerful enough, he never will be. Because he has been incapacitated so much by his injuries and armor that he will never reach his full potential, which is something Sidious welcomes since he doesn’t need to worry about him being someone who could overthrow him (a fatal mistake on his part) — in his quest to become all-powerful he becomes powerless. He is empty and the only emotions that he is capabe of and which can fill the emptiness that was left after his heart shattered into million pieces are anger, hatred and power hunger. He said it himself, didn’t he?

“I will do whatever you ask. Just help me save Padme’s life. I can’t live without her. If she dies, I don’t know what I will do.”

She has always been his anchor and lifeline and he always knew that when she was gone he would be lost without her.

It’s interesting, really, because after that the focus of the story shifts towards the new hope - his children - and the love of his son which redeems Anakin and resurrects him in the end, barely anyone seems to remember  the old hope - the Chosen One  - which never truly died and the love of a brother which made it live on. 

One of the most defining moments of the entire saga for me is when Obi-wan’s love for Anakin prevents him from killing the one person who he loved more than anyone or anything in the entire world (more than Qui-Gon Jin, more than the Jedi and more than his duty and vows). It’s that one fateful moment of compassion, the very emotion Anakin considered to be the greatest love, which ultimately starts the journey to his redemptions. And hasn’t it always been a moment of compassion which defeated the darkness and kindled hope when everyone thought there was none in Star Wars? If Obi-Wan killed him then all hope, even the new one, would have died with him forever. I choose to believe that there was a little piece of Obi-Wan’s shattered heart that for a split, fateful second managed to see a glimpse of Anakin, hiding behind those red, burning eyes full of darkness and hatred. Just like Padmé did and her son after her. 

No, it was not, though, it did look completely natural, right? I mean if I didn’t follow the filming of ROTS week by week I wouldn’t know. Annette Miles and Nikki Gooley spent so much time and effort to get Anakin’s hair right and George and Hayden both had a huge say on the matter, particularly Hayden, who wanted his hair to sit right and feel completely natural. They used natural hair and combined it with Hayden’s hair. I love the hairstyle very much and it’s very iconic. I’m pretty sure that the resemblance between Anakin’s hairstyle in ROTS and Kylo Ren’s in TFA was no coincidence and was fully intended. 

This is how Hayden looked during the ROTS filming without his Anakin hairstyle:

For several reasons, I guess. First, time constraints -  the concept designers began to work on the concept art in 2002 and the filming was scheduled for 2003. But most importanly, Anakin’s hairstyle wasn’t supposed to look the way it does in ROTS. Originally, George Lucas chose a concept with much longer hair which was bound into a ponytail. He wanted to make it similar to Qui-Gon’s from TPM to emphasize Anakin’s independence, his rebellion against the Council and also, to make him look dashing.

So you see, there was no chance Hayden could have grown 20 cm of hair in less than 12 months. However, when they tried the hairstyle prior to principal photography, both Hayden and George felt that the long hair made Anakin look too pretty, so in order to make him look more rugged they decided to shorten it until Hayden felt comfortable.