‘Star Wars: Episode 8’ Will Feature Hayden Christensen, According to a Rumor That’s Awfully Hard to Believe

Being a Star Wars fan in 2015 requires you to sort through various piles of rumors and spoilers with the eye of a trained professional. Like an art expert examining a painting to see if it’s a forgery, you’ve got to develop a sixth sense for when things seem too good or too terrible to be true. You have to fine tune your B.S. radar. So please note that our B.S. radar is going totally nuts when we share the rumor that Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker will supposedly play a role in Star Wars: Episode 8.

The rumor comes to us from Making Star Wars, whose reports have been on the money in the past … but even they admit that this one sounds like a stretch. This wacky story was shared because it’s been a little while since any major Star Wars news hit the internet and let’s face it – we’re all a little thirsty.

Here’s how Making Star Wars quoted the source who sent this rumor their way:

A team in the U.K. are soon heading to the U.S. to begin training Hayden Christensen for a Star Wars: Episode VIII appearance of some sort.

There are a few things wrong with this right off the bat. First off, what kind of training would he require? Anakin/Darth Vader has been dead for decades by the time Star Wars: Episode 8 rolls around, so it’s not like he’s going to be in a big action scene. He could maybe, possibly show up as a Force Ghost, but that would be a simple cameo involving a day in front of a green screen.

However, the more telling evidence that this is entirely untrue is every single thing we’ve seen surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Although Lucasfilm hasn’t wiped the prequel trilogy out of continuity, they have gone very far out of their way to avoid bringing it up. Every little detail about the new movies has revolved around their connection to the original trilogy. The new movie hasn’t even hit theaters yet and fan goodwill is at a high point. J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy have gone out of their way to focus on how these new movies won’t be like the prequels.

So why would Star Wars: Episode 8, and a director as sharp as Rian Johnson, bring in one of the most hated aspects of the prequel trilogy to contaminate the new movies? Christensen’s painfully wooden Anakin Skywalker is third only to Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd’s painfully wooden young Anakin Skywalker as the most hated aspect of the prequels. Even if Johnson could direct Christensen into a good performance (he’s been perfectly fine in other non-Star Wars projects), it would only directly remind fans of the three movies they totally despise.

So there you have it. Making Star Wars also has an even more vague rumor about Darth Vader’s involvement in Star Wars: Rogue One (the short version: no one knows anything), but let’s go ahead and file this Christensen rumor away in the “probably not” file for the time being.