The prime of anakin skywalker

According to Obi Wan : Anakin was the best starpilot in the galaxy, exceptionally strong with the force, a cunning warrior, and a good friend.

According to Yoda : Anakin was a "powerful jedi" ( ESB )

In ANH, in the scene where the rebel pilots are preparing to take off to attack the approaching death star, one of the senior fighters tells Luke, that if he is half as good as his Father, he will do all right.

So what I'm wondering is .... just when are we going to see all this ? Because, from whatever we know of Ep.2 we aren't really going to see the prime of anakin skywalker before his fall from grace ... we will probably see him do some cool stuff in the chase on Coruscant ... but leaving that aside, hardly anything else ... in fact what we ARE going to see is him getting shellacked by Count Dooku.

And obviously, a large portion of Ep.3 will be devoted to showing the actual fall of anakin and from what I know, Darth Vader is going to return ( with James Earl Jones doing the vo's and all ).

So I don't know just WHERE and WHEN we will see Anakin, the best pilot in the galaxy, powerful jedi, cunning warrior, good friend etc.etc.... i.e. the prime of anakin skywalker.

or for that matter even IF .... because another important issue that will have to be resolved in Ep.3, is, how did Yoda and Obi Wan manage to survive the jedi purge, and evade Darth Vader, with Darth Sidious and the imperial army behind him. And between Anakin's fall and the afore mentioned loose end ( and also other important things ), i fail to see where there is time to show anakin as a powerful jedi knight and the best pilot ... as of now, at the end of Ep.2 he is still very much a padawan ... and a rather badly defeated one at that.

Right time is indeed a big problem; in the end all we can do is see what they can fit into ep.iii (with Vader only playing an absolutely tiny role if he does appear).

best starpilot? well i guess we´ll get to see that in episode III
but we already know he is a very good pilot : podrace, coruscant chase.

exceptionally strong with the force? mmm highest midichlorian count remember, and we´ve seen how strong with the force he is in the podrace and at the end of tpm, we´ll probably see more in AOTC and episode III.

a cunning warrior? well, i hope we see that in AOTC in the geonisian battle and we´ll probably see a lot of that in episode 3 before, while and after turning to the darkside.

a good friend? well we know his feelings towards obi wan: "you´ve been like a father to me" in AOTC, and they´re very good friends coz anakin went to geonisis to "save" him remember? and we´ll probably see more of their friendship in episode III. I HOPE.

anakin skywalker probably was very famous after being the only human and being a 9 year old who won the podrace on TANTOOINE, so thats why he would be famous. and he probably make himself famous as a pilot during the clonewars.
im pretty positive we´ll see anakin fight as a pilot in episode III.

All that is fair enough, but I do understand Harmax's basic point; from Obi-Wan's basic description of Anakin we might have expected to see rather a lot more of these skills than it seems will happen.

Hey hey hey. You're all forgetting that Anakin destroyed the droid control ship. That definetly made everybody think his a great pilot even more than just the podrace.

And there is a ten years time between ep I and II and we don't know what has happened during that time. Ani and Ob1 can be good friends but we don't see that kind of stuff on the films.

Exacxtly, I'm sure after the battle of naboo Anakin became well known for destorying the droid control ship, plus the podrace and in EPII we see the chase through Coruscant. And from what we know of his fight at the end is that Obi-Wan gets his stuff handed to him as well and Anakin doesnt die against one of the greatest wielders of the lightsaber in the galaxy and he's only a padawan, so thats something. Obviously the Jedi Council thinks enough of his ability by assigning him to protect Padme.

All that's well and good ...

All I'm saying is, in the OT, by Yoda's and Obi Wan's description, Anakin was made out to be an exceptionally brilliant jedi before his fall to the dark side ...

Upto now, ( and that includes AOTC ), what we've seen is a potentially brilliant jedi, and an exceptional padawan - the pod race, the exploit of blowing up the droid control ship, the chase through coruscant -

but what we havent' seen in TPM ( obviously ), and what we are NOT going to see in AOTC ( by the looks of it so far ) is an exceptionally brilliant jedi ... in fact I think in AOTC, the emphasis is going to be more on Anakin's weaknesses, emotional as well as in his abilities as a jedi, rather than on his brilliance ...

which is fine ... nothing wrong with that ...

but, i just thought it might be nice, or, in fact neccessary to also show his greatness, in action, as well ... not just by words, by telling us that he's got the highest midiclorean count, and he's the chosen one etc.etc. - which hasn't come out so far, either in TPM, which doesn't count because that's the movie with him as a really young boy - or, in AOTC, from whatever we know of the spoilers ... just to justify the way he's been built up in the OT.

Which leaves Ep.3 - and that's going to be all about his fall mainly -

thus we come to my point = we haven't seen the prime of anakin skywalker, "powerful jedi" in the words of yoda - and by the looks of it, we might never ...

Just because we don't see his brilliantness doesn't mean that he isn't great. GL has to show his youth and his fall, he can't show everything in between.

We are still seeing less than we might have expected to, though, that's the thing. And I am VERY surprised than Anakin does not do any star fighting in this film. After being so clearly referred to as the greatest star pilot in the galaxy and everything...

In Episode one he accidentally destroyed the DCS, not the thing legends are made of.

But did Anakin ever tell anybody that is what an accident that he destroyed the DCS?

That's not really the point; we have to eqaute on-screen to what we hear in ANH and ROTJ, and it is simply surprising that we will have to wait until episode three to see his famous starfighter talents in action.

Doesn't podracing and the chase scene count? Remember, other humans can fly ships in space, but Anakin is the ONLY human who can podrace. I thought that was the whole point of putting that in TPM.

He was called a STAR pilot; the whole podracing thing showed he was precocious but it is hardly the same, by a long shot.

Look, he hasn't shot down a single enemy fighter! When someone has a legend as being the greatest star pilot ever you expect to see him kicking some butt in space!

I say we all wait until Aotc and then decide if we get to see Mr. Chosen one at his best😉

Err... let;s just say we have good reason to beleive he does no starfighting in AOTC; he's impressive but still a Padawan.

Exactly my point ...

I never meant to say, that just because we haven't seen his greatness in action, he's not great ... of course he's great and exceptional. That's his character !

But what I meant to say was, since he WAS built up to be this great jedi DUDE and all that, and that was reinforced in TPM with things like the highest midichlorean count and the chosen one and all that ... it would have been opportune perhaps to have brought that out in ep.2 = to actually show Anakin kick some serious ass - especially as a star pilot warrior, because he is the " best star pilot in the galaxy ", also that rebel warrior telling luke in ANH that if he did half as well as his father, he should do ok.

And pod racing like Ush says, shows the potential genius of a young boy prodigy - ditto the blowing up of the droid control ship, in which their WAS some degree of luck involved.

I agree that TPM did not emphasize Anakin's greatness, but just as you said...he was a little boy then...this is 10 yrs later.

No starfighting in AotC for Anakin...so sad.....🙁

Yeah - especially considering his status as the best starpilot in the galaxy !

True........Luke was supposed to be good too.....and we don't see him making that many kills....perhaps Anakin get his share of kills and fancy flying in EpIII?

Well, I would assume so. Which brings it back around to Harmax's basic point, that we don't actually see Anakin at his prime for very long!

Which is a shame.