Rescued a princess, helped deliver the DS plans to the rebels. He did blow up the first Death Star. Got a medal for it too. If he never did another thing after that, he would be a legend.
The shield generator mission might have not succeeded without Han being there, or Luke making the Ewoks into allies.
I’m sure 30 years on, the stories about Luke have been retold over and over to the point that they only bear passing resemblance to what actually happened.
Yeah, but I’m talking specifically about ROTJ’s climax. The whole build-up throughout the OT was about Luke being the last hope, the only hope, not abandoning his training, not giving in to the quick and easy path etc etc etc. “Only a fully trained Jedi Knight will conquer Vader and his Emperor”. Even Lucas said that Luke’s actions on Death Star II led to the Emperor’s defeat and saving the universe. But that’s just not true. Luke was irrelevant at that point.
Luke was not strong enough to defeat the Emperor on his own. He knew the only way he could do it was to turn Vader. He was willing to sacrifice his life by laying down his weapon and refusing to kill his father in hopes that he would join him in defeating the Emperor. It worked.
Not sure where the confusion is. Did you want Luke to become a superhero and physically defeat 2 full realized Sith despite receiving minimal training?
There is nothing to suggest Luke had any desire to defeat the Emperor at all. Quite the contrary, he threw his weapon aside and declared “I am a Jedi, like my father before me”. There’s no way the broken Darth Vader was in any position to help take down the Emperor at this point. Luke’s only concern in this entire process was a) getting out of the way so as not to endanger the Endor mission and b) turning Anakin to the ‘good side’. In fact he spent the entire process making sure he didn’t fight anybody, and only gave in to battling Vader when he was goaded (which apparently is wrong by Jedi standards).
So, just to recap, Luke didn’t want to fight anyone at all (rendering him entirely useless while an actual battle raged outside), was only concerned about Anakin’s spiritual welfare (again not helpful to the rebellion/battle in any way), and his only tangible contribution to this entire scenario was inadvertently (ie not purposefully because he was only concerned with his Dad’s well-being) preventing Palpatine’s possible escape from the exploding Death Star.
Which is fine (and he recruited the Ewoks as a previous poster mentioned) but none of this grants a shred of credence to the 3-film buildup that suggested Luke was the hope of the Galaxy or that Jedi themselves are a remotely good idea in this universe. If Jedi aren’t allowed to fight, turn irreversibly evil at the drop of a hat, and get cosmically forgiven for ghastly war-crimes if they selfishly save their own flesh and blood at the last minute, then I’m not so sure we want Luke to ‘pass on what he has learned’.
Even more ironically, Vader got his cosmic pardon by brutally killing the Emperor! So apparently trying to kill the Emperor because he’s slaughtering thousands of rebels is a path to the Dark Side, but killing the guy in defence of your own son is infinitely more noble and a path to the ‘good side’?
What are you talking about? The line before what you are clinging to is about how he won’t be turned to the dark side.
Furthermore, he wasn’t useless. As he says (again) he was willing to be blown up on DSII to ensure that the Emperor was onboard while the Rebels destroyed it. His part of the mission was the occupy the two most powerful beings in the galaxy.His destiny as the Jedi saw it was to kill his father and the Emperor.
His destiny as the Sith saw it was to kill his father and join the Emperor by giving into his anger.
Luke chose a 3rd path. Turn his father to the light and defeat the Emperor.
He was willing to die rather than give into either of the two destinies the two sides saw for him. He brought balance to the Force.Vader didn’t “brutally kill” the Emperor. He heard his son begging for ‘help’ as he was having the life shocked out of him and he threw the Emperor over a railing.
I feel like perhaps we saw two different versions of the film.
None of the ‘destiny’ stuff had any bearing on the war’s outcome whatsoever. There was no ‘balance to the Force’ in '83, but even if there was - so what? Do you really think the families of all the dead rebel pilots would be thrilled to hear Luke say “hey guys, I brought balance to the Force!”? How did Vader’s killing Palpatine 5 minutes before he would’ve been blown up anyway have any tangible effect other than fulfilling Luke and Anakin’s religious desires?
As for distracting the Emperor, there is NOTHING in the movie that suggests this was Luke’s ‘plan’. Luke’s “soon I’ll be dead, and you with me” line was him being cocky in the belief that Palpatine wasn’t privy to the rebels’ plan. And distracting from what exactly? The plan was going great. Han and Leia were captured, rebel ships were being picked off by the Death Star. What benefit was there to Luke hiding under a staircase and saying “I will not fight you”?
The things that saved the rebellion were the intervention of the Ewoks (which as another poster mentioned was thanks to Luke) and Chewie’s hijacking a Scout Walker. Luke’s battle with Vader/Palpatine was completely irrelevant to this process. The only benefit from Luke’s actions was that he accidentally created circumstances that prevented Palpatine’s possible escape from the exploding battle station.
Look, I think that ROTJ (like the prequels) is a great story told badly. I think it would have been better if Luke and the bad guys had at least been at another location - say the bridge of the Executor (without the big crash into the Death Star). I also wish he’d been proactive throughout the battle - never laying down his weapon or hiding under the stairs - but actively defying Palpatine’s actions rather than just trying to keep his Zen cool at all costs. That way you could legitimately say - irrespective of the details concerning Anakin - that Luke Skywalker destroyed the Emperor outright. This is a legend worthy of future admiration and a new Jedi Order. As it stands Luke’s actions come off as a kind of private religious trip with results that have a negligible effect on the actual battle’s outcome.