Luke Skywalker Is Only Alive Thanks To An Imperial Mistake

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 14 seconds ago

Luke Skywalker does many amazing feats in Star Wars thanks to his mystical abilities, but his most impressive achievement had nothing to do with the Force. We’re talking, of course, about his ability to escape the second Death Star despite the fact that he’s still crawling with Stormtroopers who could have easily been killed while he was toting Darth Vader’s body to the nearest shuttle bay. However, one fan theory may explain how Luke survived: all of the Imperials would simply have left Luke alive because they assumed he had just murdered Vader and Emperor Palpatine.

Luke Skywalker is Terrible

As viewers, we know what happened near the end Return of the Jedi: after nearly giving in to his anger and destroying Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker throws down his lightsaber and surrenders. In turn, Palpatine begins to zap the young Jedi with Force lightning, only to be stopped by Darth Vader throw his boss down the shaft. Vader then dies from the lightning that went through his body, but since none of the Imperials saw either the throne room clash or Vader’s deathbed redemption, they would have concluded that Luke Skywalker is the most terrifying enemy in the galaxy.

Think about it: for the Imperials aboard the Death Star, Luke entered the throne room of Emperor Palpatine, their biggest boss and the most terrifying man they know. The film begins by showing us how the very idea of ​​Palpatine coming to the space station reduced Moff Jerjerrod to a trembling mess of anxiety and fear. The Imperials saw Luke walk into Palpatine’s throne room in chains and come out alive and free… the only reasonable conclusion is that he somehow managed to kill or defeat Palpatine, and there’s no rank-and- Stormtrooper file is going to want to fight against the man who managed to take the Emperor.

At this point, skeptics will point out that not everyone aboard the Death Star knew of Luke Skywalker’s presence; it was, in fact, a carefully guarded secret. Therefore, very few Imperials would clock that the young warrior had done the impossible and escaped the clutches of the most powerful man in the galaxy. It would be impossible to miss one more big detail, though: that Luke Skywalker is dragging what appears to be the dead body of Darth Vader.

Darth Vader’s body

Palpatine was a very abstract threat to most Imperials, but Vader was quite tangible. This is the guy who commands Star Destroyers and visits military bases, instantly killing even the highest ranking officers who annoy him. He was the scourge of the entire Imperial service, the kind anyone aboard the Death Star would be horrified to see. And yet, here’s some young whelp dragging the Sith Lord’s body into the shuttle bay like he’s taking a big trash bag to the trash compactor.

None of this is to denigrate Luke Skywalker’s powers or his many achievements, but the enduring lesson of Star Wars prequels is that all it takes to kill even the most powerful Jedi is enough people detonating explosives all at once . Luke could have easy could be killed at any time on the Death Star, but he survived because everyone thought he had just murdered the most powerful people in the galaxy. He is alive because of a simple misconception, although some would say that this is just proof that the Police work in mysterious ways.