Two years ago, we were celebrating 40 years of Return of the Jedi and I wrote a piece about how that film contains, I believe, the saga’s defining moment. It’s the moment in the third act when Palpatine offers Luke the chance to overthrow his father and join the Emperor as his apprentice in the Dark Side.
Luke, of course, says no. He’s willing to sacrifice himself to not only save his friends, the galaxy but also his father’s soul. Luke leans towards the light for no other reason than he can. It’s the right thing to do and Luke Skywalker loves his father and believes there’s good in him.
Now, this brings us to Revenge of the Sith in 2005. In a beautiful full-circle moment of poetic rhyming, as George was so prone to favour, we learn that Luke’s father was offered the same choice by Palpatine a generation before and he chose, to borrow the words from a certain Templar of the Last Crusade, poorly.
Now, Anakin’s descent into the dark side was so carefully done and plotted out over the course of the prequel trilogy, and not forgetting The Clone Wars and countless novels, that by the time Anakin does make his choice to choose the darkness it’s done in such a believable way that we buy it completely.
Palpatine had been grooming Anakin for years and planted seeds so carefully in the troubled young man that even though he was confident Anakin could be seduced to the Dark Side, as a viewer we still sympathise with The Chosen One because the deal he makes with the devil, George even used these words back in the day, was done so because he was so scared of losing Padmé, and he acted out of fear of losing love.
As audiences back in 2005 we were presented with the notion that our hero was making the wrong decision and, though trying in a way to do the right thing, he did it out of selfishness. Luke acted out selflessness but his father, when presented with the same choice that Luke was, did so because he only thought of what could benefit him. Luke was the complete opposite.
The fact that Anakin made this choice was not only brilliant storytelling from a master visionary, but it also adds a multitude of layers to Luke’s defining moment in Return of the Jedi and doesn’t lessen it in anyway.
It also adds a new dimension to Palpatine. His hubris and shortsightedness allow him to believe that Luke will follow the same path as his father when offered the same choice…when offered the easy way out.
We can’t forget Vader in all this too. Vader is no doubt feeling bitterly wounded that his Master, Palpatine, no longer wants the wounded dog that Vader has become but now wants his son. As Luke throws away his lightsaber and tells the Emperor that he’ll never turn to the Dark Side, the cogs will be turning in Vader’s head that his son is everything that he wasn’t when he joined Palpatine. Luke reawakens in Vader that selfless little boy on Tatooine who gives without any thought of reward and the galaxy is a better place for it.