10 Star Wars Characters SAVED By The Expanded Universe
5. Anakin Skywalker
Between Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen, the live action portrayal of Anakin Skywalker was very limp, wooden and many fans refused to accept that the rise of the fearsome Darth Vader could have happened through such seemingly meaningless tragedy.
Yes. The death of a person's mother takes it toll on even the strongest of people but Anakin had an immense support network when you think about it. His Jedi Master loved him like a brother, his incredibly tolerant wife ignored his mass murder of the Sand People and he even reconciled with his lost apprentice in the EU itself - so really it was just the dreams that drove him to the Dark Side.
Once again, The Clone Wars series came to the rescue and painted a very different picture of Anakin Skywalker. He was confident, tactically brilliant and a fearsome combatant in the field, but he also possessed an air of calm cunning, compassion and the underlying darkness the character always needed to display.
The highlight of Anakin's character rescue has to be the superb, albeit short, Mortis arc of The Clone Wars, which showed a glimpse of what Vader could have been had it not been for his defeat on Mustafar - something fans had been desperate to see for at least a decade.