I recently bought a BluRay version of the Star Wars episodes 4, 5 and 6. After watching them I have this to say; I don’t appreciate rewriting film history.

I’m referring to the final scene in episode 6 where the force-ghosts of Yoda, Obi-wan and Anakin are appearing to Luke in the celebration on Endor. Yoda is Yoda, Obi-wan is Sir Alec Guinness and Anakin is … Hayden Christensen?!? What happened to Sebastian Shaw? Who is he? The actual actor you see in the same movie when Luke removed the helmet of Vader and was originally the force-ghost of Anakin Skywalker.

I don’t know why they did that, although George Lucas did offer an explanation (from this link)

In the DVD commentary Lucas elaborates somewhat, “as [Anakin] joins The Force, he is able to retain his original identity,” Lucas said, “it’s because of Obi-Wan and Yoda, who learn how to do that — how to join The Force at will and then retain your identity.”

Lucas closes on the subject stating: “That was his identity as he was as he died.”

I’m not buying it, plain and simple. Vader was redeemed and thus should have kept the form in which he died at that time, as did Yoda and Obi-wan. Why did they not change Sir Alec Guinness with Ewan McGregor? Identities do not age, the force-ghost is not the matter they were but the essence of their being given form, if anything Yoda has said so himself, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter”. So either keep them all young as this reasoning going, replacing Sir Alec Guinness with Ewan McGregor or keep them all as they were when they died bringing back Sebastian Shaw.