For all its divisiveness, Star Wars: The Last Jedi succeeds in making Return of the Jedi an even better movie, but not because it’s bad. The Last Jedi is considered by some to be one of the worst Star Wars movies in the Skywalker saga, but I couldn’t disagree more. The Last Jedi is a fantastic addition to the Star Wars timeline, partly because it builds off the best moment in Return of the Jedi and the franchise as a whole. Watching it gave me a deeper appreciation of the original trilogy, and particularly Luke Skywalker’s journey.

Luke has been a figurehead of the entire Star Wars franchise since it first began, and for good reason. He’s a paragon of what a Jedi should be, and all the terrible things that happened to Luke, and the fact that he overcame them, make him incredibly compelling. Those struggles are precisely why I think The Last Jedi connects so perfectly to Return of the Jedi. The best way to illustrate that is to look at the greatest moment in Return of the Jedi, and see how The Last Jedi reinterprets it for the better.

Luke Skywalker’s Mercy For Darth Vader Is The Best Moment In Star Wars

Return of the Jedi is not a perfect movie, but it does feature the best moment in all of Star Wars, which borders on perfection. The scene in question comes during the sequence set in Emperor Palpatine’s throne room on the second Death Star, as Luke defeats Darth Vader in a lightsaber duel and ultimately shows him mercy. This scene, when Luke has defeated his greatest enemy and stands teetering over the edge of the dark side, encapsulates Star Wars. It’s a study on Luke’s character, the role of the Jedi, the nature of the Force, compassion, and more that takes place in the span of minutes.

Return Of The Jedi’s Throne Room Scene Is Extremely Emotional & Well-Acted

Part of what makes it so great is Mark Hamill’s superb acting. All the emotional turmoil Luke was experiencing at that moment plays out in Hamill’s eyes. His eyes widen at Vader’s mention of Leia, his face contorts with hatred as he wildly hammers away at his lightsaber, rage gushing from every blow. Luke is, at this moment, a creature of pure anger, and Hamill superbly illustrates that this duel isn’t about Leia, or the Galactic Civil War, it’s not even about Luke’s own survival: it’s about Luke killing his father. Those emotions boil over as Luke lands one last blow to Vader’s arm, cleaving it off.

Then, Hamill shows a quiet, desperate contemplation as Luke considers what he’s just done, who he is becoming. The realization dawns on him with shaky breaths as the Emperor tries to seduce him, as he gazes at his mechanical fist, the remnants of what Vader took from him on Bespin, and compares it to Vader’s mechanical hand that he’s just taken as retribution. At that moment, Luke was his father. He was making the same mistakes that led Anakin to the dark side. He was becoming the thing he hated most, the person who caused him and his friends so much suffering and pain.

Finally, in a beautiful moment, Luke decides that he doesn’t want to walk this path, and he casts his lightsaber aside. He chooses to do the unthinkable: to forgive the second-worst man in the entire galaxy, a man who is, by all accounts, utterly unforgivable. His father, the man he’s wanted to kill since he slew Obi-Wan Kenobi, was at his mercy, and Luke chose compassion. He chose to look beyond Vader’s mask to see Anakin. All of that drips through the film without so much as a word from Luke. Mark Hamill should have won an Oscar for that scene alone.

The Throne Room Scene In Return Of The Jedi Is Beautifully Symbolic

Luke’s final duel with Vader is also filled to the brim with rich, deeply meaningful symbolism. Luke’s cybernetic hand, the thing that links him to Vader most, the whole reason he’s so close to the dark side, is exactly what brings him back from the edge. Then, in what should have been a moment of triumph, Luke casts away his lightsaber. He discards the very icon of his power, the weapon he used to defeat Vader, and yet, throwing it away was the only way he could have won.

Leaving those temptations and shrugging off the dark side’s calls left Luke vulnerable to the Emperor’s Force lightning, but it also granted him power Palpatine could never hope to achieve. Luke won that fight through the power of love, not with anything the Jedi could teach him. It was his humanity, not his Force powers or lightsaber, that won the day. Luke won because he was the son of the Chosen One, but the important part of that statement is not “Chosen One,” it’s “son.” For all the fantasy of Star Wars, the entire franchise is really about humanity, and nothing illustrates that better than the throne room scene.

The Last Jedi Makes Luke’s Mercy In Return Of The Jedi Even More Special

The throne room scene in Return of the Jedi is nearly perfect on its own, but Luke’s story in The Last Jedi manages to make it even better. It was revealed in The Last Jedi that Luke saw a great darkness in one of his students, his own nephew, Ben Solo. In a moment of weakness, Luke considered killing Ben, and even drew his lightsaber over his sleeping body. That was enough to destroy their relationship entirely, and it caused Luke to go into hiding long before Star Wars: The Force Awakens while simultaneously creating Kylo Ren, the main villain of the sequel trilogy.

That sequence from The Last Jedi couldn’t be more thematically different from the throne room scene, which caused much of the movie’s divisiveness, but it’s also precisely why I think it works so well. Just at face value, Luke’s moment of weakness with Ben makes his forgiveness of Vader even more miraculous. Luke was given the same chance to show mercy again, and his weakness with Ben shows just how close he really was to the dark side in Return of the Jedi. One wrong move would have cost Luke his life, and the galaxy would still be under Palpatine’s control.

Additionally, on a deeper level, The Last Jedi makes Return of the Jedi even more tragic. The reason Luke had his moment of weakness with Ben is because he feared that Ben could become another Vader, that another one of his family members could terrorize the galaxy and cause untold suffering and pain. Luke was trying to protect himself from having to experience the same pain he felt in Return of the Jedi, which makes the throne room scene so much deeper. Even 30 years later, Luke was still feeling the effects of the Galactic Civil War, and if he could keep it from happening again, he would.

Luke’s Characterization In The Last Jedi Perfectly Fits With Return Of The Jedi

Luke’s humanity is the core of his character, and while the original trilogy did a fantastic job of making that clear, The Last Jedi took it an extra mile. The reason he’s such a compelling character is that while he may be one of the most powerful Jedi ever, his true strength comes from the fact that he’s just a regular person. Where other Jedi were taught to suppress their humanity, Luke let his shine, separating him from the failures of the Order. It gave him tremendous strength, but it also gave him a deep complexity.

The problem with centering a character around humanity is that humanity is often contradictory. At its best, humanity makes people kind, compassionate, and caring. At its worst, humanity makes people cruel, selfish, and hateful. Return of the Jedi did a fantastic job of showing Luke’s humanity at its best, but it only told half the story of his character. The Last Jedi completed his character arc by also showing Luke at his worst. It showed that Luke wasn’t some saintly figure who could do no wrong, he had to choose to be good, and he could have easily chosen wrong with Vader.

While The Last Jedi showed Luke at his worst, that doesn’t mean it undermined the things that made him so great in the first place. By the end of the movie, Luke had seen the errors of his ways and made a tremendous effort to correct his mistakes. When the chips were down and the galaxy hung in the balance yet again, Luke proved that he was still capable of doing the right thing. He made a deliberate choice to be a better person than he had been, which I find to be a much more compelling way to portray him than as simply an inherently good man.

Luke’s characterization in The Last Jedi also fits perfectly with the throne room scene in Return of the Jedi. They’re essentially the same scene, as they were both moments where Luke was incredibly close to falling to the dark side, but they played out very differently. In both scenes, Luke eventually realized how close he was to becoming what he hated, and he pulled himself back. The main difference is that Vader saw the mercy Luke showed at the end, but Ben saw the hatred he showed at the beginning. That’s perfectly in keeping with the character development Luke experienced in Return of the Jedi.

The idea that Luke Skywalker, one of the most important and prominent figures in one of the most popular franchises in media, could be flawed, is an important and effective perspective to me. I, like everyone else in this world, have made mistakes and choices I am not proud of. Luke’s depiction in The Last Jedi proves that even if your best days have passed, you can still choose to do the right thing, and you can still make up for your failures. I find that to be an extremely powerful message, and I’m exceptionally glad the next generation of Star Wars fans get to grow up learning it.

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  Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

  In the second installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, General Leia Organa leads the Resistance forces against the First Order. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker struggles to come to terms with his past failures, while Rey urges him to train her in the Force and join the resistance. Culminating in a massive battle between the two armies, The Last Jedi raises the stakes of this intergalactic war, and sees the final fight of one beloved character.

  Director

  Rian Johnson

  Release Date

  
  December 15, 2017
  

  Cast

  Daisy Ridley
  , Oscar Isaac
  , Mark Hamill
  , Carrie Fisher
  , John Boyega
  , Adam Driver
  , Andy Serkis
  , Lupita Nyong’o
  , Anthony Daniels
  , Gwendoline Christie
  , Kelly Marie Tran
  , Laura Dern

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  Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi

  The third film released and the sixth film chronologically in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi is a sci-fi epic adventure film that continues the adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, and friends as they battle against the Empire. After a narrow escape but crushing defeat at the hands of the empire, the rebel alliance learns that a new Death Star has been constructed above the moon of Endor. With the war reaching its conclusion, the heroes will team with the forest planet’s inhabitants and prepare themselves for one final showdown with Darth Vander and the Galactic Empire.

  Director

  Richard Marquand

  Release Date

  
  May 25, 1983
  

  Cast

  Mark Hamill
  , Carrie Fisher
  , Harrison Ford
  , James Earl Jones
  , Billy Dee Williams
  , Ian McDiarmid
  , Peter Mayhew
  , Anthony Daniels
  , Kenny Baker
  , David Prowse
  , Frank Oz
  , Sebastian Shaw
  , Alec Guinness