One incredibly dark trend inA New Hopeperfectly set up Darth Vader’s plot twist inThe Empire Strikes Back, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before.The Empire Strikes Backchanged Hollywoodin many ways, although chief among them was the incredible twist that Darth Vader was really Luke Skywalker’s father.
This has become a staple of pop culture, and nearly 50 years after the franchise began, this scene still gets quoted in countless shows, movies, and everyday life. Despite the prominence of this plot twist and its importance inStar Warsmovies and TV shows, though,I’d never realized the horrifying trend leading to thisEmpire Strikes Backtwist.
Star Wars (Violently) Cleared A Path For This Darth Vader Reveal
A New Hope, despite its title, is actually full of brutal tragedies. Interestingly,most of the major deaths inA New Hopeare the parents and parental figures of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. Leia’s adoptive parents (who weren’t yet identified as such) were blown up by the Death Star, along with the entire planet of Alderaan, while Leia watched.
In addition to Bail and Breha Organa’s brutal deaths, Luke’s adoptive parents, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, were murdered by stormtroopers, and Luke sadly even happened upon their burnt corpses. Not only did this mean the death of all four adoptive parents in the first movie alone, but also, Obi-Wan Kenobi died as well.
Particularly after Uncle Owen’s death, it was clear that Obi-Wan had become a father figure to Luke, and that was only made all the clearer given Obi-Wan had evidently known and been close with Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. Yet, Obi-Wan was cut down inA New Hopetoo, leaving both Luke and Leia entirely parentless.
In fact, it’s worth noting that theObi-Wan Kenobishow revealed the ways Obi-Wan was a sort of father figure to Leia as well, as the two had an entire adventure together, in which Obi-Wan saved her, that was unknown until that show. The two even pretend Obi-Wan is her father at one point.
However inadvertent it may have been, this meant thatA New Hopecleared the way for Darth Vader to step into the role of Luke and Leia’s fatherinThe Empire Strikes BackandReturn of the Jedi, respectively. What makes this all the more interesting is the fact that, at the time, this wasn’t even known.
The Skywalker Family Plot Twists Were Not The Original Plan
The Skywalker family, as we know it now, did not really exist inA New Hope, nor did it fully exist inThe Empire Strikes Back. At the outset, Darth Vader wasn’t written as secretly being Luke’s father. Instead,A New Hopestates that Anakin was killed by Darth Vader. Nothing is said of Luke’s mother.
Likewise, originally, it wasn’t clear that Leia had been adopted; Bail and Breha (unnamed at the time) seemed to be her biological parents. All these details made both the twist that Darth Vader was Luke’s father and the subsequent twist that Luke and Leia were siblings all the more shocking.
This also makes the dark trend of parent deaths inA New Hopeall the more fascinating, because Luke and Leia’s parents and father figure were all killed off even before the decision had been made to make Darth Vader the father of both of them. It therefore was not even the plan, yet it ended up working so well.
Did Luke And Leia’s Adoptive Parents Really Need To Die?
Ultimately, Luke and Leia losing their parents and parental figures ahead of these plot twists made this story arc more profound in several ways. For one,Leia’s biological father being the one to kill Bail and Breha made this scene so much more traumatic—and it was already plenty traumatic to begin with.
This is also, understandably, something that Leia never forgave Vader/Anakin for. While Leia acknowledged Luke as her brother, she never took the Skywalker name as her own, and it seems clear enough that she didn’t ever forgive her biological father for what he had done.
In Luke’s case, it could be argued that being fatherless drove him to want to save Darth Vader even more, as that clearly became a major focus for him following the reveal inThe Empire Strikes Back. It’s possible that Luke would have wanted to save him anyway, of course, but being orphaned presumably heightened his desperation to do so.
Ultimately, every parent dying likely wasn’t necessary for this plot twist to work, which makes sense given it wasn’t actually the reason behind their deaths in terms ofA New Hope’sstory anyway, but it certainly heightened the experiences Luke and Leia were having, particularly pertaining to what Darth Vader symbolized in their lives.
This incredibly dark trend inA New Hopetherefore did pave the way forThe Empire Strikes Back’snow-famous plot twist and had a major influence onStar Warsmovies and shows moving forward.
