Umm, I don’t think Luke wanted to go to the “Rebel Academy.” I’m picturing an ivy covered, red brick campus with courses in X Wing piloting and breaking into Imperial strongholds. I always figured he wanted to go to the IMPERIAL academy, as they would be the most likely source for a program training fighter pilots. Luke seemed pretty apolitical until the Stormtroopers offed his folks.
There was a cut scene from Star Wars where his friend Biggs explained to him how he had left the Imperial Academy to join the Rebellion.
People seem to forget that the Rebellion refers to the underground movement orchestrated to undermine and derail the Empire. It’s not just the opposing force, it’s the resistance against an evil dictatorship government, and therefore clandestine in its operations.
Well, who’s to say that Empire was actually evil? Like the guys in Clerks said, most of the population of the Death Star consisted of government contractors who were killed when these left-wing liberals came blasting out of hyperspace. I’m sure most of the population of the empire consists of ordinary men, women, children, droids, and other just going about their day to day business.
The only time we see the Imperial forces in action they are:
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Pursuing an armed ship containing known pirates/smugglers, spies suspected of espionage and a droid containing top secret govt plans to a new space station (The Millenium Falcon)
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Conducting peacekeeping opperations in the Star Wars equivalent of a 3rd world nation (Tatooine)
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Guarding Imperial facilities from terrorist attack.
“But they used the Death Star to blow up Alderan” you will exclaim. Alderan was the source of a violent revolt against the established galactic government. I’m sure Grand Moff Tarkin agonized over that decision as much as Truman deciding to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima.
By the way, what do you think happened to the Ewoks after a space station the size of a small moon exploded in their sky? Ever see Armageddon/Deep Impact? All Luke, Leia and the rest of their left-wing, anti-establishment rebellion cared about was re-establishing their monarchy.
as long as we’ve quite established the christian connection in the star wars story…
theoretically, if hitler had repented and pledged his soul to jesus before offing himself in the bunker (well, the suicides-go-to-hell factor is there, but let’s ignore that temporarily), he would have been saved. same with vader–luke basically was in the position of priest giving last rites. we may not want to forgive vader or hitler, but we’re evidently playing by god’s rules here.
The part of “Jedi” that doesn’t make any sense is the “If you kill the Emperor you’ll turn to the dark side”. Hello? Luke killed hundreds of stormtroopers, including chucking them off speeders into trees with his bare hands. He whacked Jabba the Hutt, using all kinds of force tricks. Howcome he didn’t turn to the dark side using the force to rescue everybody from Jabba?
Luke could have just said, “I don’t hate you. I’m gonna calmly kill you in cold blood. Nope. No anger here. I’m just saving the galaxy.”
And then VADER kills the emperor, the exact same way Luke could have. But saves Vader, when it was supposed to doom Luke. Huh? If it would turn Luke to the dark side, why didn’t it seal Vader to the dark side? Vader redeems himself by throwing the emperor down the shaft, but it would have been wrong for Luke to do the same thing?
It would be one thing if the whole “you can’t kill the emperor” thing was consistent with the rest of the series. But Luke kills lots of people without a second thought…and does it in anger when Ben is killed! It makes no sense!
I have always liked Obi-Wans point of view that Vader and Anniken were two different people. When he tosses Gollum er I mean the Emperor he stops being Vader and goes back to being Annie.
BTW I think being a boy with the nick name of Annie would drive anyone to the dark side.
Okay first, does nobody even watch these movies any more? Leia killed Jabba. With a chain. While wearing the gold bikini. . .
. . .
. . . Mmmmm
. . .Anyway, I think the whole debate comes down to a question of how you interpret the light side/dark side mechanic. I’ve always assumed that Luke killing the Emporer would be an act of, if not outright revenge, then at least selfishness. Ergo, dark side. Vader killing big daddy Palp to save his son, on the other hand, is an unselfish action, especially since Vader knows that he’s going to die in the process.
With Jabba, btw, again you have a situation where Luke tries every possible method to avoid having to fight the big slug. Finally, only when Jabba is about to chuck him into the sarlaac pit does Luke bust out the whuppin’ stick. And even so, the only action he takes that is really directed at Jabba (as opposed to the guys trying to throw him into the pit) is when he turns the deck cannon on the sail barge (which does blow it up, but then again I’m gonna guess that Luke never really had much training in Hutt military hardware ;)).
Obi-Wan gets killed, Luke goes a little nuts. Shoots some people up (who did just kill his mentor). Yup a bad deal for Luke all around. But remember here he wasn’t a Jedi yet. When he does finally head off to become a Jedi, Yoda is initially reluctant to train him because of all the anger in him.
War is hell, buddy. Seriously aside from this incident and the thousands of unknown technicians onboard the Death Star (which, btw, would have been military technicians and thusly fair game in a war) I’m hard pressed to find a situation where Luke or any of the ‘Good Guys’ whack somebody in a situation where they were themselves not in immediate danger.
Vader Killing the Emperor Didn’t Accomplish Anything! The rebel mission to blow up the death star would have succeeded even if the emperor had been standing there gloating over the body of Luke while Vader stood by! The rebel alliance still would have won, even if Vader hadn’t turned back to the (light side?).
Comments?
Here’s my theory:
Using the Force for anything like killing (regardless why) is using the dark side. A little dark side is ok. Too much and you turn into a Vadar.
If Luke really wanted to be all light side of the Force, he could go through the entire movies without killing anyone (once he became a Jedi). If he can lift an X-wing, theres no reason he can’t simply yank the guns out of the stormtroopers hands like Vader in Empire Strikes Back (except that the movies would suck).
Notice when Obi-Wan rescued Luke and R2 from the sandpeople, he didn’t just start slashing about with his lightsaber. He scared them away by making some weird-ass noise.
Luke wasn’t a Jedi until he had the perfect chance to lash out in anger, and every right to do so (by most standards), and yet chose not to. The fact that both he and his father had lost their right hand makes him realize what he will become if he chooses the wrong path.
Then, and only then, is he truly a Jedi.
Previously in the trilogy, he performs very unJedi-like acts; this is, IMHO, what kept him from becomming a Jedi until the end of RotJ.
I side with those who say Darth Vader is more analogous to Himmler than Hitler. Imagine if Himmler, at the height of the Third Reich’s (sp?) power and influence, had rejected his ideology and killed Hitler, bringing the swift downfall of the Nazi party. Yes, he would still be despised for the cruel acts he had performed, but surely he would be seen in a much better light because of his betrayal towards Hitler.
Ok, the morals of the Force are thus–there are three things that make up the dark side, Anger, Hate, and Fear. If those are the reason you summon up the force, that is using the dark side. If you’re killing the most evil being in the SW universe (Exar Kun, for example) out of anger, that’s bad. If you’re defending yourself or others, or the cause of Good, and not out of anger fear or spite, it’s good. The dark side wears away at you, as you can see in the Emperor. He actually had several clones that he would transfer his personality into, since his body wasted away so much.
Need anymore info, I could dredge it up.
Darth Vader himself had wanted for a long time to free himself from the Emperor’s influence, but couldn’t. The implication I got from this was that the Dark Side was necessary for his very survival, and the Emperor was its conduit. Note that despite not being badly injured (well, not much more badly than he already was), he barely had the strength to walk after the Emperor perished.
As far as Luke not killing Vader, it all goes to intent. The man’s lying there, beaten and helpless. There’s nothing to gain by killing him…meaning that doing so would be purely an act of malice. Not quite the same as trading blaster shots with armed, hostile Stormtroopers. This meant , of course, that Luke absolutely could not kill Vader if he wanted to stay on the right side of the tracks. (Someone like Han could probably blast Vader without repercussions, but definitely not Luke.)
The whole point of going to Jabba in the first place was to rescue Han, which I certainly consider pretty admirable. Note too that Luke offered to go easy on him (okay, maybe he didn’t expect Jabba to accept, but the offer definitely was there) and waited until the last possible moment before coming to blows. He might not have been a Jedi just yet, but he was definitely learning. (And c’mon, does anyone actually miss that remorseless slimeball?)
The Empire collapsed because Vader finally did the right thing and eliminated the Emperor…cut off the head and the body dies. Had he and Vader escaped, the loss of the Death Star would have only been a temporary setback. Remember, they still had an entire fleet of Star Destroyers and a powerful Stormtrooper army. Losing the Death Stars only deprived them of a swift victory; they’d still have been pretty heavy favorites in a bloody, grinding war of attrition.
Any way you slice it, Vader turning against and killing his incorrigible master was a tremendous act of courage and selflessness. Maybe not worth total forgiveness, but definitely a lot.
Oh, and I’ve read the entire screenplay for Episode 1 (at Borders) and seen most of the movie. There’s no indication whatsoever that Anakin or anyone else finds the name “Annie” insulting in the least. The kid lived on Tatooine, for crying out loud, without getting teased about his name. So I think we can rule that little hypothesis out.
Everyone repeat after me: It’s a fuckin’ movie!!
You forgot the word ‘good’.
It’s a fuckin’ good movie!!