TENNO
Episode VI: Revenge of the Jedi
/TENNO
TOMOE
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
/TOMOE
Han had come back to the Rebels one year ago. Even as the Rebels lost more and more ground, he became ever more regretful of his foolishness in doubting the wisdom of the cause. (Think of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind—GL has often compared Han to Rhett Butler.)
Upon his return, Han did not woo Leia, for she and Luke had, by common consent, not yet told him about the truth of the Skywalker dynasty. And Han thought that she preferred Luke in her heart.
And, deep down, she did.
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I have related before the overall story of Han Solo and Mina Whitsun. It changes little in this variant of the tale, so therefore I shall omit it for the sake of brevity.
As Han embarked on his journey to Bail Whitsun's hidden palace beneath the waters of Acquis, events went on in the lenticular Galaxy Far Far Away we know so well.
On the Rebel base on the grass planet (let’s call it Ibbana, since that’s the name used for it in The Making of ESB), Ben Kenobi was dying.
Before he died, he told Luke that the Kiber Crystal was in truth no longer needed; it had already served Luke as well as it could, and his continued reliance on such a crutch would now be a hindrance rather than a help.
Then Ben entrusted Luke with the last secret of the Jedi, one wrested at great cost from the Dwarves: how to build his own lightsaber.
TENNO
Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. At Ben’s bidding, he had put in a new color of lightsaber crystal—white—so as to signify that he had at last become a true Jedi Knight.
/TENNO
TOMOE
Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. At Ben’s bidding, he had put in a new color of lightsaber crystal—golden—so as to signify that he had at last become a true Jedi Knight.
/TOMOE
For that was the secret wisdom which Bunden Debannen had whispered in Ben’s ear, years ago: that a true Jedi, a Gray Jedi, goes his own way. He adheres neither to the strictly white nor the strictly black, but simply along the path that is best for the overall Pattern of the Force.
The only true rule of a Gray Jedi is this: “First, do no harm.” Even the Jedi of the Old Republic, in their own way, had forgotten this, and thus fallen into unwisdom.
TENNO
Afterward, Ben entrusted Leia with his own second lightsaber, so Luke in turn could instruct her in the ways of the Force. Leia followed Ben’s advice, and chose her own color of crystal: purple, to signify her independence.
/TENNO
TOMOE
Afterward, Ben entrusted Leia with his own second lightsaber, so Luke in turn could instruct her in the ways of the Force. Leia followed Ben’s advice, and chose her own color of crystal: golden, to signify that she and Luke would never be divided.
/TOMOE
Ben also told Luke the truth about his parentage—about his “aunt” Beru, and their true relationship.
As a last request, Ben asked Luke to take his body to Utapau (Tatooine) and bury him there, for his home on Organa Major (what we now call Alderaan) had been destroyed by the first Death Star.
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Luke traveled to Utapau with Ben’s body, and was shocked by what he found there.
In the 1975 third draft, remember, Luke simply ran away from home. But now, in the third film, Luke would see that in his absence, the Lars homestead had been destroyed by the Empire. Owen and Beru had been slain, and their bodies left for the carrion birds. (This disturbing scene was later bumped up to the first film, likely because GL feared he would never get to make any sequels.)
For the first time in his life, Luke felt sorrow at having left Utapau behind.
He buried his mother and foster-father, and Ben Kenobi, in plots next to his aunt’s grave. He vowed to come back one day, when he had time, to rebuild the family farm better than ever.
Then he returned to the Rebel base on Ibbana, where he heard the message of grave importance relayed from Han.
It was imperative that the Rebels steal the activation codes of the new Death Stars' shields from the central computer on the prison planet of Alderaan. If they failed, the Galaxy would remain under Imperial domination, and the Rebellion would be crushed.
Luke and Leia knew what they had to do.
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Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and “borrowed” Imperial uniforms, they dressed up as officers and infiltrated once more the cloud city of Alderaan, the ancestral seat of Emperor Pestage. (If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s basically a riff on the Padishah Emperor’s planet of Salusa Secundus from Dune, combined with King Vultan’s Sky City from Flash Gordon.)
TENNO
To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. She concealed her long golden hair beneath a uniform cap, and wore gloves to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.
/TENNO
TOMOE
To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male junior officer. Junior because, given her facial features, which our own planet would call Japanese, the racist bureaucracy of the Empire would likely never promote her very highly.
She concealed her long dark hair beneath a uniform cap, and wore gloves to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.
/TOMOE
Leia also wore an eyepatch, to hide her blind eye—that distinctive feature in Rebel propaganda posters.
(She’s essentially dressing up as Claus von Stauffenberg, the chief architect of the July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. But the overall idea of Leia dressing in a German-style military uniform to disguise herself as a man comes from the 1926 silent filmBeverly of Graustark, a comedic riff on The Prisoner of Zenda starring Marion Davies.)
Luke, however, did not have too much difficulty fitting in. He had already grown a beard in order to bolster his disguise on prior reconnaissance missions.
TENNO
Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for their wounds and their familial resemblance were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.
/TENNO
TOMOE
Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for their wounds and their well-known facial features were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.
/TOMOE
A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her right hand, and it was badly burned.
In the end, Luke stayed behind, sacrificing himself to make sure Leia got away with the codes. He was captured, and taken to the prison cells out of which he had rescued Leia years ago. (Luke is actually captured by the Emperor’s troops right after Han’s rescue from Jabba in the revised rough draft of ROTJ.)
Leia returned to the Rebels, where she met up with Han. They exchanged sorrows, and talked of the very possible defeat of the Rebellion in the coming battle. After all, the Rebels’ resources were already stretched thin, and Ibbana could not remain undiscovered forever. They had to strike now, or risk losing all.
Han (along with C-3PO and R2-D2) went to Ton-Muund, heading a secret commando mission, which sought to infiltrate the Imperial Palace from below.
And Leia, who still loved Luke, determined to save his life—by fair means or foul.
She took her lightsaber, and flew off in a starfighter (for she, too, was a good pilot at need).
None of the Rebel generals—not even her favorite general, the warrior priest Grand Mouff Tarkin—knew where Leia meant to go. Nor did they mind overly much, for she was a wise leader in their war councils, and they trusted her.