2005's Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith finally revealed what led to Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader, and the former Jedi marching into the Jedi Temple to kill his old friends remains one of the franchise's most shocking moments. However, it could have been a whole lot darker.
While we see Anakin approach the Jedi Younglings before igniting his lightsaber, it's left up to the viewer to avoid imagining what came next. However, we know he slaughtered the children at the behest of Emperor Palpatine, hence why Obi-Wan Kenobi is left with no other choice but to do what he must to put his former Padawan down.
During a recent interview with Star Wars Theory, prequel trilogy stunt coordinator Nick Gillard revealed that the scene we saw in the hologram watched by Obi-Wan and Yoda was actually shot...and cut by George Lucas for being too brutal!
"It's violent. When we did it, we wanted it to be really violent because it's [Anakin], you know, it's Order 66," he recalls. "I think I parry the first blow straight into the kid's throat, you know, which is awful - it goes straight in his throat. [Anakin] grabs the other girl and chokes her, I think he ends up cutting her as well."
"But when we shot it, we shot it full-figure, and George [Lucas] went, 'Oh dear, that's really violent,' and when I saw it at a movie it was shrunk down."
While we're sure many of you will be disappointed this didn't make it into the movie, Revenge of the Sith was dark enough without showing us what Anakin did in such an explicitly violent manner.
It might have also led to issues with censors, but we do wish the sequence has at least been shared as a deleted scene!
However, with Hayden Christensen set to return in Ahsoka and The Mandalorian season 3 clearly planning to reveal more about the night of Order 66 and Grogu's role in that, we may yet get to see more of what Darth Vader did that fateful night...