One of my absolute favorite moments in The Phantom Menace is when Anakin & Qui-Gon share a moment after their long day fixing up Anakin’s podracer. Qui-Gon is cleaning up Anakin’s scrapes (as well as taking his Midichlorian count) and Anakin simply asks him: “There are so many! Do they all have a system of planets?” and continues, “Has anyone been to them all?”
It’s a quiet moment, and brings us down a bit from the full grandeur of Star Wars. It’s separate from the battles and the Jedi, politics and world building, and instead asks us to focus on a singular boy’s wonder: how big is the galaxy? It reminds us of Anakin’s youthful innocence and ultimately dark reminder of what’s to become of him.
Little Ani Skywalker when we first meet him is a slave. His entire life is dictated by others – primarily Watto. Despite his lack of freedom to control external factors in his life, he still chooses optimism. He has friends, young and old, he loves to podrace & fix-up droids, and he above all sees the good in people. People care for him, and he cares back, even Qui-Gon & Padmé could see this upon meeting him for the first time. He has the internal optimism to look at the stars and wonder what it’s like elsewhere, despite the inability to truly leave and “visit them all”.
In his wonder, he also is not concerned with the limitations of reality – It’s a dream, something he wishes he could even have a little taste of. In reality, just the idea of leaving Tatooine is enough to satisfy him. In his daydream of wanting more than the life he currently has, he declares that he’s going to be the first one to visit them all & see all the galaxy has to offer.
By the end of the film, we know Qui-Gon wins Anakin’s freedom and he’s taken to Coruscant to train as a Jedi. And throughout the years, Anakin goes on many missions with Obi-Wan before fully becoming a Jedi Knight & General during the Clone Wars, traveling to exponentially more planets than one could have ever believed possible. The legend of Skywalker and Kenobi spread too, affecting planets and their people, inspiring hope that everything would be alright in the end…
But what ultimately comes to pass is the fall of the Republic & the Jedi, and in it’s place rises the Empire, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. A shadow that spread across the galaxy, effecting every star system even if Vader himself never physically stepped foot on the planet.
…and that’s when one realizes that Anakin eventually did become the first one to visit every planet. The effect caused by Anakin choosing the Dark Side rippled throughout the galaxy, harming every system, sometimes to the point of udder destruction, and changed people’s lives for the worse. The effects of the Empire reached every corner of the galaxy, and Darth Vader, Anakin, was at the center of it all.
Jakku Journal 