It's no secret that there are Star Wars fans who dislike Hayden Christensen's performance as Anakin Skywalker and think he did an awful job. As the title of this entry suggests, I disagree with the opinion that Hayden Christensen's performance as Anakin Skywalker was awful. He did a great job!
Here's why.
Star Wars is character-driven as well as plot-driven. In order to drive the plot, characters need internal conflict, which consists of three things: desire, fear, and misbelief. The desire is what the character wants. The fear is the thing that holds the character back from getting what they want. The misbelief is the untrue thing the character believes about himself or herself or the world. In the prequel trilogy, Anakin has a lot of internal conflict. The first six Star Wars movies are dependent on the idea that Anakin is conflicted inside and Anakin's fall to the dark side. The prequel trilogy sets up the storyline for the original trilogy.
Hayden Christensen conveyed Anakin's internal conflict effectively.
