haydenchristiansen xlarge1 Hayden Christensen was originally supposed to be in The Force Awakens

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has done a great job at using George Lucas' original trilogy as a reference point, bypassing any acknowledgement of the prequels — except for the Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) voice over in Rey's vision which has him saying, "Rey, these are your first steps."

According to ScreenCrush, there's word now that the original plan was to bring Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) back for a cameo on the new film. In the new book, "Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens," concept artist Iain McCaig explains how Anakin would've appeared:

'When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.' That inspired me to propose, for the first time, that Anakin's ghost could come back […] If we see Anakin Skywalker, because he does flow back and forth between Darth Vader and Anakin, let's see him as a character with a dark and light side. The reason Luke is this whole new entity is because he was the first to acknowledge his own dark side — that it was not separate from him.

So, it's possible Anakin would have appeared in some manner as a ghost in JJ Abrams movie? It seems that way but the concept art below paints a few different ideas.

anakin force awakens pic 1v2 Hayden Christensen was originally supposed to be in The Force Awakens

anakin force awakens pic 2v2 Hayden Christensen was originally supposed to be in The Force Awakens

From the looks of things, there were multiple versions of what Anakin would have looked like in "The Force Awakens." On the one side, there's an Anakin taking the form of a ghost similar to the ones that appeared in "Return of the Jedi." But on the other side, a different iteration looks like an Anakin that is half human and half Darth Vader.

While it's difficult to figure which version would've appeared as this concept ended up on the cutting room floor before. It's possible if he were to appear in the film as part of Rey's vision, that the story would allude to firmly that she was indeed a Skywalker (which is all speculation at this point).

It's uncertain if audiences will ever get to see Christensen reprise the role of Anakin Skywalker but there's plenty of time for Rian Johnson to figure out these specifics and "Star Wars: Episode VIII" won't be hitting theaters until May 26, 2017.