Obviously he didnt deserve the harassment he got regardless. Like even if he was dogshit he wouldnt have deserved that. But I just rewatched Phantom Menace for the first time in awhile. Young friend of mine are going through the star wars movies because she was a sheltered homeschooled kid and hadnt seen them. Already did the OT, starting on the prequels.
Other than the obvious “oh wow, the racial stereotypes of literally three different alien species in this movie is insane”, the main takeaway my rewatch gave me is “wow ok, Jake LLoyd is average at worst”. He was just like, a regular kid actor? Nothing to write home about like say, young Maise Williams or something. But absolutely fine?
His performance isn’t good but neither are most of the performances in the film, even by talented, well-established actors. The writing and direction is really to blame here. It’s hard to be a good actor when you’re delivering terrible lines in front of a green screen, talking to a tennis ball on a stick.
As a side note they really should have aged up Anakin to around 13 or 14 instead of like 9. It would have allowed them to find a more charismatic child actor, and removed the weirdness of the Padme age gap.
There were multiple academy award winners and multiple future winners throughout the trilogy. They all had shite performances. Samuel L. Jackson played the most bland dude possible who’s only interesting feature was having a purple lightsaber. That’s a colossal fuck up all on its own.