10 Biggest Star Wars Retcons

10. Anakin's Younger Force Ghost

The numerous changes George Lucas has made to his original trilogy over the years have been met with a controversial reception by Star Wars fans, and though a bunch of them are fairly minor and inconsequential - like Darth Vader getting his eyebrows shaved off - others are a lot more questionable.

Speaking of Vader's eyebrows, Return of the Jedi's original ending saw the owner of those bushy eye decorations, Sebastian Shaw, appear before Luke as a Force ghost, a great moment that really solidified Vader's redemption.

However, in the 2004 DVD release of the original trilogy, Lucas decided to swap out old Anakin for his younger counterpart, replacing Shaw's sweet smile with Hayden Christensen's creepy stare in a change that is not only a huge visual retcon, but seemingly contradicts everything we've learned about Force ghosts throughout the franchise.

Force ghosts in other movies (Luke in The Rise of Skywalker, Yoda in The Last Jedi, Obi-Wan in The Empire Strikes Back) look like the characters at the time of their deaths, so for Anakin to de-age a couple of decades felt like nothing more than a cheap way to hype Revenge of the Sith, which was due in cinemas less than a year after the DVD's release.