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The kid who is the young Darth Vader in the new Star Wars movie has a longish mop of dark blonde hair. At the end, when he begins his "Jedi training," they give him sort of a punk buzzcut. I was wondering what everyone thinks of this? Will kids follow the earlier longer hair, or will the copy the buzzed shorter hair the kid has at the end of the movie? And what does the haircut imply?
Jake Lloyd's hair is NEVER long in the Phantom Menace. The hairstyle at the end is merely a copy of the one worn by Ewen McGregor who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I noticed the similarity in styles too, but Ithought he (JAke/Anakin) didn't look too happy (with the new style). Jokingly I though that after that hair disaster, it's no wonder that he turned to the 'dark side'.
I could be wrong here, but what I got from the film that the haircut implied a "Jedi-in-training" sort of thing that was a distinguishable trait amongst them. As you will note, Obie was sporting a growing ponytail and Qui-Gong(Sp???) had full length hair. To sum it all up, I felt that hair represented power to them (A Samson thing). The more power and seniority you had, the longer your hair was. Jedi-knights meaning, not the counsel who sported little or no hair. Although many of you may not agree with this, but I think its a kind of cool system when you think about it. You get a buzz cut when you first start out, but your hair grows as does your rank. I'm sure that Liam Neesom's charater's hair meant quite a lot to him as he had to earn it and if I had a cut like that as a student, you could bet I was going to do a damn good job to get my hair back. They could start a system like this in our military. I bet it would make it a hell of a lot more appealing if many of these men knew they could grow their hair back after boot camp.
Chaeya
P.S. Okay, I went on a tangent. That's what I thought about the movie.
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But Chaeya, don't we already have that boot camp earn-your-hair-back situation with the U.S. Marines? It's just that
after "graduation", most keep their hair ultra-short anyway.. perhaps not the buzz cut ... as long as they're on active duty.
OM
You mean the U.S. military actually allows one to earn their hair back? Is this one of those "ask but don't tell" theories? ;o)
Chaeya
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I'm really going by what I've seen of documentaries on Marine boot camp. The recruits enter the camp, are soon shorn of everything but a bit of fuzz, go through training, and, it appears, grow something back on top with the sides shorn to fuzz during that training. Then, it seems, after attaining ever higher rank during their career, their hair-cuts approach the close-cropped "Perry Como" style in vogue from about 1959 to 1964. I have yet to see a marine on active duty with anything longer than that. I see it as a sort of defacto "earning" ones hair back, an unwritten allowance, as it were. So, after boot camp, buzz cuts are not required, but a close-cropped shorn style seems to be enforced by vicarious example, and, if that fails, by "counselling" by one's superior(s).
OM
I don't think so.
After all, in the original Star Wars movie, Obi-Wan Kenobi had SHORT hair. And when Luke Skywalker started Jedi training in the second movie, he didn't get a haircut.
Oh. Maybe they had sort of degenerated by that time and became more lax. Don't laugh at me, but I am actually one of those strange individuals that has never seen ANY of the Original Star Wars triology. Being that Star Wars came out when I was fiercely going through my pubes, my theory on a movie back then was - if there were no men in it that I considered hot, then it didn't get seen. Now, well, I'm sure I'll get around to it.
Chaeya
Well, you have to remember that when Luke was being trained, he was in the middle of war. Obviously, during a crisis like that, ceremony will fall by the wayside in favor of survival. From what I remember, I think Yoda and Obi-Wan were the only Jedi left, and by the last film, Luke was the only bona fide Jedi knight (with Leia having the potential).
I just got back from seeing the movie and I liked Liam Neeson's character's hair, even though I doubt it is real.
Regarding Luke Skywalker, when I saw the movie back in the 1970's, I remember telling myself that if I was in George Lucas' shoes, I would have had Luke with long flowing hair which would have looked pretty impressive when he was in action.
Michael Praed was really good with his "long hair" in the Robin Hood TV series and his swordsmanship was more convincing than Jason Connery's. However, I felt that Jason Connery actually had long hair in his role.
Pity Michael Praed had to "die" and "reincarnate" in one of those soap operas (was it Dallas of Dynasty).
Want to see long hairs in movies, go see an traditional Chinese movie.
Everyone down from the emperor, judge, Mandarin, general and so on have long hair.
Cheers
Charles
According to Neeson, it was a wig.