Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 10 Deleted Scenes Which Would've Made It Perfect

4. The Return Of Anakin Skywalker

There have been a lot of rumours about Hayden Christensen returning as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, but we now know that that was indeed the plan at one point. In fact, Anakin would have returned as a Force Ghost interacting with Luke when he had a much greater presence in the movie (as a result, while this may have been dropped from The Force Awakens, don't be surprised to see it come into play in Episode VIII). What's interesting about this though is that Vader would have been constantly shifting between looking like Anakin and Vader, a sign that while he may have redeemed himself at the end of his life by saving his son, his soul was still torn between the Dark side and the Light. That actually makes a lot more sense than George Lucas' apparent happy ending for Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi when he joined Obi-Wan and Yoda! Unfortunately, while there has been talk of Christensen preparing to make a return as Vader, these scenes were never shot and didn't make it past the concept art stage. That's a massive let down, because no matter how divisive the prequels were, they're part of Star Wars history now whether we like it or not, and linking to them in this way would have been a really effective way of acknowledging them. Throw in the fact that Vader appearing like this would have been an interesting parallel to what Kylo Ren was going through, and it's fair to say that dropping this from The Force Awakens was a real missed opportunity on Abrams' part.