INT. NABOO RETREAT – LAKESIDE BALCONY – NIGHT

PADMÉ gazes across the moonlit waters. ANAKIN stands beside her, cloaked not just in robes, but in deep philosophical unrest. The Force trembles in his voice—not with anger, but sorrow.

ANAKIN:
He should’ve done the right thing, Padmé.
George… he should’ve kept Jake.
He was the Chosen One. He was me.

PADMÉ:
Jake Lloyd? The boy who played you as a child?

ANAKIN:
No. Not played me—was me. That boy gave his heart. His innocence.
And George… he fed him to the wolves.

PADMÉ (softly):
You mean the media?

ANAKIN:
The Empire of Expectations.
Lucas greenlit Jake as the Chosen One… then gaslit him when he didn’t fulfill the prophecy.
Psalm 45—they wanted a warrior-prince, handsome above the sons of men.
But Jake wasn’t a prophecy. He was a child. A real one.

PADMÉ:
So why do you think George changed course?

ANAKIN:
Because he listened to Mammon, not God.
He thought fans wouldn’t accept Jake growing into power.
He cast someone else. Someone more marketable.
It’s like L. Ron Hubbard said—if you’re going to build a religion, you have to control the narrative.
And George… rewrote the gospel.

PADMÉ:
You think it broke Jake?

ANAKIN:
It didn’t just break him—it shattered him.
Like what happened to Hitler after the Vienna art schools rejected him.
When you tell someone they’re chosen, and then reject their becoming—
you twist the Force into something dark.
You summon a storm of resentment, so vast…
millions drown in it.

PADMÉ:
That’s a dangerous comparison, Anakin…

ANAKIN:
So is playing God with casting.
Jake didn’t fail. We failed him.
The same way this galaxy failed me.

Padmé places a gentle hand on Anakin’s mechanical one. Her voice trembles like a single leaf in a storm.

PADMÉ:
Then don’t let the story repeat.
Save him—before you become the reason another star falls.

ANAKIN (whispering):
Maybe it’s already too late.

Lightning flashes over the lake, and Anakin’s face briefly reflects both the boy who once dreamed of podracing… and the man destined to fall.