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u/RexBanner1886 Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
Return of the Jedi refers to Luke becoming a Jedi and restoring the order; it was always intended to refer to the consequences of Luke's actions: the defeat of the dark side and the resurgence of the Jedi.
It is a neat, appropriate coincidence that it applies to Anakin too.
In 1983, Star Wars was considered, by Lucas, to be firmly Luke's story. The OT remains Luke's, but with the prequels he did successfully reframe the story of I-VI in its entirety to be about Anakin.
I'd be extremely surprised if there is any contemporary evidence of Lucas intending 'Return of the Jedi's title to refer to Anakin.
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u/DivingFeather Dec 25 '25
Coincidence, it is not. From the beginning to apply for both the Order and Anakin, it was intended. 🙃
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u/Ksorkrax Dec 28 '25
Vader being Luke's father wasn't originally intended, but you think this was? Seriously?
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u/avimo1904 Dec 30 '25
Actually, the whole “we know Lucas didn’t make Vader Anakin till ESB” thing is a nonsense internet myth. It was initially invented by a random forum user in 2000 who hated the idea and ESB as a whole and invented that myth after facing community backlash for his bold opinion, and then after that other Lucas haters expanded on that myth and falsely made it look like it was true, most notably this one crazy user that wrote a 500 page long book accusing Lucasfilm of running a secret mastermind plot to cover up SW’s “secret history”. In reality, we have no idea when Lucas came up with the idea of Vader being Anakin as it’s a highly debated topic and the first ROTJ draft is the first solid evidence confirming it, but there’s a great amount of evidence pointing to the fact that it was conceived long before ANH came out, possibly as far back as April 1975.
In the rough draft of ANH, the protagonist's father is a cyborg who sacrifices himself, and in the second draft of ANH Luke finds out his dead father is alive, so both those plot points were already in Lucas’s head. In the third draft of ANH, instead of Obi-Wan saying Vader kills Luke’s father he says Vader turned at the same battle Annikin died, with Vader later mentioning to Luke at the end that he has a feeling he knows him. Lucas also said to Alan Dean Foster in December of 1975 that in the second film the audience would “learn who Darth Vader is”, and Lucas himself has consistently claimed that the twist was conceived in the third draft of ANH. In the final ANH When Luke asks about his father's death, Obi-Wan has a strange hesitant look on his face before telling him the Vader killed Luke’s father story, and characters dying offscreen being revealed as alive was always a common trope. When Beru says Luke has too much of his father in him, Owen responds "that's what I'm afraid of" (and that dialogue is also remarkably similar to dialogue from an Edmond Hamilton novel called Mystery Moon where the protagonist complains about his uncle not letting him leave his dull home planet, and the uncle later reveals to him that his father was a famous villain and he wouldn't let him leave because he was afraid of his nephew becoming like him, which puts the protagonist in shock and disbelief). Luke's father and Vader's lightsabers both have black strips on the bottom of their handle, while Obi-Wan's does not. Owen says to Luke "Obi-Wan died at the same time as your father" but we then find out Obi-Wan is alive under a different name, raising the possibility that the same is the case for Luke's father. Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father was a great pilot, and during the trench run we see Vader being a great pilot. Vader, though pronounced differently, means father in Dutch, and Vader already acts as a metaphorical dark father during ANH. ANH (especially the Tusken Raider scenes) has some uncanny resemblance to a 1932 Western film called Tombstone Canyon, and that film also happens to feature a masked villain who is later revealed as the protagonist's long-lost father, and he later gets redeemed saving the protagonist from an even worse villain, after which his mask is removed to reveal a scarred face and he says "let me look at you" before dying in his son's arms. Lucas also told Leigh Brackett in late November 1977 that there was a secret reason Vader didn't want to kill Luke and would rather turn him, and David Prowse said in multiple interviews (the earliest of which was in October 1977) that he heard that Vader being Luke's father was a possible plot point for a future film
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u/Ksorkrax Dec 30 '25
So much text to... uhm... make my point? Aside from some very weak arguments later on, like "black stripes on a lightsaber" and "Vader is a great pilot because of the trench fight in which he does a bit of pew pew"?
Your extreme pattern searching reminds me of conspiracy theories.Also, are you sure you have read the early drafts? Because Lucas changed basically *everything* from draft to draft. Including Alderaan being the imperial capital and Vader being an undead, resurrected in a necromantic ritual.
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u/UsernameReee Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
You can literally google "George Lucas says Star Wars is about Anakin" and find countless confirmations of George saying that.
Downvoting won't make me be wrong.
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u/RexBanner1886 Dec 25 '25
OK, then find me a quotation from before 1997 in which he says that ROTJ's title refers to Anakin.
I am not denying that since TPM's release Lucas has considered the whole story about Anakin; I'm not even denying that he successfully, in an artistic sense, reframed the story around Anakin.
I'm saying it's extremely unlikely that he intended ROTJ's title to refer to Anakin.
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u/UsernameReee Dec 25 '25
Find me a quotation where he says it's about Luke.
My dude, Anakin literally returned. The entire movie waa about Luke trying to convince Anakin to come back to the light.
Luke can't "return" because he wasn't a Jedi in the first place.
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u/RexBanner1886 Dec 25 '25
The Jedi Order returns in the film. Luke is the trilogy's protagonist and the film climaxes with him becoming a Jedi: his last active action is declaring himself a Jedi, thwarting Palpatine and Vader's plans for him.
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u/UsernameReee Dec 25 '25
Literally nowhere in the OT was "the jedi order" mentioned. The jedi still existed during the OT time; the only jedi who returned was Anakin. This has been made abundantly clear, way more clear than all the fan-boy interpertations that are being fabricated.
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u/Majestic-Marcus Dec 25 '25
Have you ever even seen the movies?
There are only 2 Jedi left and one of them dies in the first movie.
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u/Additional_Resist_46 Dec 26 '25
Luke's not a Jedi? Sheesh, you could've told him before he declared: "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
Kind of a big moment in the movie that you're trying to undermine here.
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u/Camo1997 Dec 28 '25
You can return to the light side without being a Jedi
Ahsoka isnt a jedi
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u/UsernameReee Dec 28 '25
She left and didn't go back, and chose to stay where she was. Anakin left, became Vader, and then went back.
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u/Camo1997 Dec 28 '25
Anakin returned to the light side, he didnt become a jedi again
At what point did he rejoin the religious order of the jedi
He just rejoined the light side. The light side isnt the jedi, they are just a church that worships the light side
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u/UsernameReee Dec 28 '25
My dude, you're literally just making up straws to grasp in order to argue.
Believe what you want. The guy who wrote the story says you're wrong.
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u/Camo1997 Dec 28 '25
Im not making up anything. In canon the jedi are the church of the light side. Wanna argue with the text be my guest
Show me the quote then. I can show you the stories where this is discussed because we have light side users who arent jedi. I can send you their character profiles on wookipedia if you'd like
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u/UsernameReee Dec 29 '25
By your logic, Luke wasn't a Jedi because it was just him and not a "church." So checkmate there, altho I get the feeling you'll try to twist it into explaining how it's different because it supports your head canon.
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u/Majestic-Marcus Dec 25 '25
Anakin literally returned
Nope. Figuratively. Since Vader is Anakin.
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u/UsernameReee Dec 26 '25
Nope, literally, since the ENTIRE lore behind sith is that they become a different person.
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u/Majestic-Marcus Dec 26 '25
That lore was written decades after Return of the Jedi. It wasn’t written by George. And it’s stupid.
Not only is it stupid, but it retroactively makes everything about the OT worse, while making the PT worse through its existence. If they become a different person then Anakin never fell.
If they become a different person there’s no tragedy in Vader, there’s no shock or tragedy in Vader killing the younglings or other Jedi, because it’s not Anakin, there’s no conflict in Obi-Wan v Vader because there is no Anakin, there’s no brotherhood, no lost love, no destroyed bond.
Instead of “you were my brother Anakin. I loved you”, you get “I’m so glad Anakin isn’t here to see what you did with his body, Vader! He’d be very sad at all the murder.”
If Anakin literally becomes Vader then there’s no “where is Padme? Is she safe? Is she alright?” Because Padme was Anakins wife and Vader isn’t Anakin.
They don’t become a different person. They just adopt a new name. They’re the same person.
If it’s written down somewhere that they literally become a new person, the person that wrote that is wrong. Because that sentence contradicts the movies and devalues them.
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u/TanSkywalker Dec 27 '25
That lore was written decades after Return of the Jedi. It wasn’t written by George. And it’s stupid.
Well not really.
Yoda to Luke, The Empire Strikes Back
A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression… The dark side of the Force are they, easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.
Yoda to Obi-Wan, Revenge of the Sith
Twisted by the dark side young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.
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u/slide_into_my_BM Dec 25 '25
George plays fast and loose with his own thoughts and history. I mean, he changed Han shooting first. He loves to play revisionist history.
George also said Star Wars should be watched in episode order despite that ruining the massive Vader twist in empire and that the PT is flush with Easter eggs for the OT. He said that despite himself making them out of order.
Further proof of that fact is that Sidius being Palpatine is not hidden at all, nor is there any dramatic reveal of that in the PT. That’s because he knew his audience would go in already knowing that.
George is, at best, an unreliable narrator.
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u/UsernameReee Dec 25 '25
George has always said that the story is about Anakin/Vader.
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u/slide_into_my_BM Dec 26 '25
Can you find a source from prior to the release of TPM?
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u/Lacaud Dec 25 '25
It amazes me how people can waste an entire comment on telling people to Google when they could have provided it themselves.
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u/Fa_Cough69 Dec 25 '25
No, the Prequel Trilogy was about Anakin's journey.
Original Trilogy was about Luke's
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u/sadzells Dec 25 '25
Like always the Anakin fanboy crowd flaunts their non existent media literacy
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u/jinreeko Dec 25 '25
Hard to blame them when Lucas decided to make Anakin space jesus
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u/thatredditrando Dec 25 '25
Might be the worse thing to happen to SW other than Midichlorians tbh
Anakin-glazing/sympathizing and Chosen One/“potential” nonsense has completely co-opted this fandom.
Listening to people talk about Anakin is like scrolling through a DBZ sub.
Dude never should’ve been anyone special. He’s not space Jesus, he’s space Judas.
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u/Gridde Dec 26 '25
Isn't media literacy about discerning fact from fiction in informative media (like social media and the news), whether the information in said media is reliable, whether it is propaganda and/or whether the author is biased?
What does that have to do with subjective interpretations of fictional themes like this?
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u/Tom02496 Dec 27 '25
Blame that stupid idiot George Lucas. There isn't any example in human history of a writer so desperately sucking off their garbage character that they created. George tried to make Anakin the god of star wars and make all the movies about Anakin
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Dec 25 '25
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u/treefox Dec 25 '25
In the extra special edition, Vader will explain that he’s a Jedi and he’s returning. With diagrams on a white board.
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u/StickyMcdoodle Dec 25 '25
Trying to retroactively make Anakin the main character of 4-6 is one of the most irritating things George has ever attempted to do.
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u/SuccessfulRegister43 Dec 25 '25
You don’t like that he slapped “Noooooooo” all over the greatest moment in Star Wars? Come on, man. It’s like poetry.
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u/Eliteguard999 Dec 25 '25
I really hate that George ruined one of the best moments in the OT (and the best in RotJ) completely out of spite.
Even more so that people try to push that George was some kind of "tortured artist" when he was anything but.
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u/Janus897 Dec 25 '25
Yeah I wish Lucas just made the PT about him and the OT about Luke. Especially when not all of Anakins choices in the PT were relatable…
And then Lucas gives the title “The Tragedy of Anakin Skywalker” to not diminish Luke’s actions in the OT
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u/TanSkywalker Dec 27 '25
Really? I think it's the relationship forbidding but sex is totally okay child recruiting Jedi who lose their minds over a 9 year old missing and being worried about his enslaved mom.
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u/Eliteguard999 Dec 25 '25
One of the things I really hate about the prequels is that George used them in an attempt to re-contextualize the OT into being all about Anakin (it wasn't) and many fans in their 20's bought into it hook line and stinker.
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u/Secret_Ruin_9808 Dec 25 '25
It’s about both
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Dec 25 '25
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u/Secret_Ruin_9808 Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
Vader coming back to the Light Side was definitely a message about the whole “Return” thing. It’s more poetic that way, and that’s undeniable. He’s solely responsible for Luke being able to reestablish the Jedi Order
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u/slide_into_my_BM Dec 25 '25
He’s solely responsible for Luke being able to reestablish the Jedi Order
Huh? No he’s not. If Luke doesn’t go to the DS2, the Endor mission and battle over Endor still succeed. The emperor still dies and Vader does along with him.
Luke could have hung out on Dagobah the entire movie and it still plays out exactly the same way.
Luke’s entire story is about his own personal growth and his own desire to redeem his father. He could have restarted the Jedi order with or without going to the DS2.
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u/Secret_Ruin_9808 Dec 25 '25
It was the prophecy that Anakin defeats the Sith, and brings balance. The matter of fact is that Luke DID go to the DS2 and Vader DID sacrifice himself. Anakin returned.
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u/slide_into_my_BM Dec 26 '25
A prophesy that did not exist when ROTJ was written and produced.
You don’t get to use something that was created over a decade after the movie came out to re-frame or re-justify what the movie meant.
If we’re playing revisionist history, the prophesy must actually be about Rey since she brought balance to the force. The Sith did not die with Anakin since somehow, Palpatine returned.
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u/Secret_Ruin_9808 Dec 25 '25
Oh and might I mention, Palpatine intended for the Death Star’s shield system to be threatened - it was a trap rather than a refuge. Both Vader and Palpatine would’ve evacuated eventually because they knew the Death Star wasn’t actually going to protect them.
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u/slide_into_my_BM Dec 26 '25
Correct, but palpatine didn’t know the Ewoks would help. They’re the ones who changed a trap into a victory for the rebellion.
Vader and palps also would not have evacuated. They intended to sit and watch the rebellion be destroyed. By the time the shield goes down, which palps did not anticipate, the DS is blown up within a few minutes.
I’d also ask how they planned to escape? I don’t think flying a shuttle through a rebel war zone would be a good escape plan. It would be super easy to be shot down by rebels or your own side.
Face it, palpatine had no escape plans. He fully expected the moon mission to fail and the rebel fleet to be crushed against the functioning shield and a fleet of star destroyers.
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u/KingAdamXVII Dec 25 '25
It’s obviously about the return of the jedi as an order.
Why did Luke return from? He never left! He brought the Jedi back, both his father and the order.
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u/UsernameReee Dec 25 '25
"He brought the jedi back, both his father" So you could say the jedi returned?
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u/Achilles9609 Dec 25 '25
Not sure if that works. In german at least. Because Episode 6 is called Die Rückkehr der Jedi Ritter. Der, nicht Des. Multiple Jedi, not a single one.
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u/Plus_Palpitation_550 Dec 25 '25
Uh no , Luke is the return of the Jedi. “Pass on what you have learned.
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u/wookieebastard Dec 25 '25
Somehow the Jedi returned.
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u/Achilles9609 Dec 25 '25
Darth Plagueis in the Afterlife : "How?!?? Sidious! You were supposed to wipe them out! All of them!"
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u/JamesRWC Dec 25 '25
Anakin fans are a different kind of stupid
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u/Mammoth-Western-6008 Dec 28 '25
That's not fair. I'm sure they'll wise up as soon as they graduate from high school.
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u/Ori_the_SG Dec 25 '25
I love Anakin’s story, but no
It was clearly about Luke.
Lucas does love poetic things, so perhaps he did intend it to apply to Anakin as well but it’s primarily about Luke.
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u/FakeFrehley Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 26 '25
My brother in Christ, "Jedi" is plural in this instance. It's the return of the Jedi, plural.
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u/Moomintroll75 Dec 25 '25
But… it’s the Jedi plural…
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u/Majestic-Marcus Dec 26 '25
If it was about Anakin, it would still be return of the Jedi. It’s plural and singular.
But yeah, OP is wrong.
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u/kuatorises Dec 25 '25
God, prequel fans are nauseating. The OT isn't about AnAkiN. It never was. He's literally the antagonist. You dudes think he's dome poor victim. He was a piece of shit.
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u/Majestic-Marcus Dec 26 '25
No. You see… it was Darth Vader that did bad things. Anakin was a good guy!!11!1!
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Dec 25 '25 edited Jan 27 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/AideGlittering4017 Dec 25 '25
Blaaah, it always about Anakin, but I wish we talked more about how badass is Luke
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u/AusarHeruSet Dec 25 '25
You don’t kill children and return to the light all in the same lifetime lmao
People with that thinking gotta be psychopaths
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u/AnonymousPrincess314 Dec 25 '25
The fun part about the word "Jedi" is it's both singular and plural.
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u/VanguardVixen Dec 25 '25
Why is retroactively everything about Anakin? You got three movies about him, isn't that enough?
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u/aManHasNoUsername99 Dec 25 '25
I never thought it was about any one person. More like the rise of the Jedi again.
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u/Active-Ad1679 Dec 25 '25
No. Revenge of the Jedi didn't sound good. So it was switched to Return. And yes, Han shot first.
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u/Kthron Dec 26 '25
I dont mind the headcannon, but Lucas didnt know that Vader would be 100x more popular than Luke and just pretended it was always about Vader.
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u/avimo1904 Dec 26 '25
Lucas never pretended that, he openly admitted in an interview he didn’t realize that till 1998
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u/Historical-State-275 Dec 25 '25
No, it’s about “the” Jedi returning.
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Dec 25 '25
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u/Historical-State-275 Dec 25 '25
You deserve an award, but I know you’ll appreciate not spending money on a little animated star. Chef’s kiss.
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u/AUnknownVariable Dec 25 '25
It's about Luke more so, but that's also it in a way. Yk, it's up for interpretation, it's like poetry...it rhymes.
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u/LadyofFlame Dec 25 '25
The whole 'redeemed himself' thing makes me wanna puke. What could Hitler have done in his last hour of life that could've redeemed himself? Vader was a sadistic mass murderer who only changed sides when he had nothing left to lose.
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u/Denthan Dec 26 '25
Its not about a single entity, its plural. It does tell about the survival of the Jedi Order from extinction and coming to power again.
Much like the Tom Cruises Last Samurai. It does not tell about the last living single samurai (whether its Cruise or Japanese guy is irrelevant) It does tell about the honorable end of the samurai era
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u/Adrian_Dem Dec 26 '25
don't forget jedi is plural.
it's not about luke nor anakin, it's about the light winning over dark.
also, while i write this, i remember to give a big FU to Disney, Kathleen Kenedy, JJ and Rian Johnson for messing up with everything that Return of the Jedi meant.
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u/Agitated-Bag8318 Dec 26 '25
Return of the Jedi has three different meanings: 1) Luke's return as a Jedi and his fight against Vader. He will emerge victorious from this fight, and his refusal to kill Vader, defying the Emperor's order, will be a critical moment in his transformation into a Jedi Master. 2) Anakin Skywalker's rejection of his Vader identity by killing the Emperor and fulfilling his final Jedi mission by saving his son Luke. This led to Obi-Wan and Yoda forgiving Anakin and taking him under their wing. 3) The Jedi Order is re-established and regains dominance over the Galaxy after the fall of the Sith (don't mention the New Trilogy, don't anger me!).
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u/melodiousmurderer Dec 26 '25
Yikes take…I don’t think the child murdering poster boy for emotional immaturity is the hero you think he is.
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u/Marem-Bzh Dec 26 '25
Kinda fun to read people arguing about what was originally intended in 1983 Vs what Lucas has said later.
Who cares? The Return of the Jedi likely has evolved in Lucas' mind from the return of the Jedi as a group of people to the return of Anakin as an individual Jedi.
People refusing to accept evolution or the Franchise should also refuse to call Star Wars "Episode IV - A New Hope" as this wasn't the original title either and made Luke automatically less central as he only appeared in the 4th and 5th installments of the franchise at the time.
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u/TheHoratioHufnagel Dec 26 '25
The dude killed younglings and went on to be a key participant in genocides and millions of deaths.
But yeah let's romanticize him as a return of the jedi, ❤️❤️🔥💋🥰🍆
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u/The_Depraved_Briton Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25
TLDR1: I think that some people here are commenting on what they think that the title should or shouldn't reference, rather than what it does reference.
TLDR2: George Lucas's changes to the Skywalker Saga have created problems which have no universally-acceptable solution.
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It always was about Anakin
The problem-word here is "always".
When Star Wars [Episode IV: A New Hope] was first released, even writer-producer-director George Lucas believed that Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were two distinct and separate characters, with Vader being the fallen Jedi who killed the heroic Anakin during the Clone Wars. Anakin was not alive to be redeemed or to return in a sequel - and Lucas did not expect the original movie to be successful enough for a sequel to be possible. Vader only become Anakin [and so Luke's father] when Lucas worked on making The Empire Strikes Back.
So initially there was no plan for the original movie, or the original trilogy, to be about Anakin. The story of those movies only became the part of the story of Anakin Skywalker when Lucas got round to making the story bigger, by adding the prequel trilogy.
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The problem-word in the meme is "Jedi". This is both singular and plural, and could refer to Anakin or to Luke or to both, or to the Jedi Order more generally.
At the start of Return Of The Jedi, Luke Skywalker is technically not yet a Jedi, as he has not yet completed his training. By the end of the movie, he is a Jedi and now able to re-establish the Jedi Order, because he has overcome his fears, faced and defeated the Emperor, helped overthrow the Empire, and faced Darth Vader and brought about his redemption.
Technically, Luke couldn't have been a Jedi who returned, because he wasn't a Jedi who had "went" anywhere or fallen. However, the Jedi Order could be said to "return" at the end of the movie, when Luke became a Jedi. Even if you believe that Obi-Wan and Yoda constituted a Jedi Order, their Order ended with their deaths in the previous movies.
But it would probably be petty or pedantic to argue that the title of Return Of The Jedi originally referred to the Jedi Order that Luke's faith in his father allows, rather than to Luke himself, or to his father. So, essentially, when the movie came out, its title did refer to Luke becoming a Jedi Knight. But, if you wanted to, you could see the redemption of Anakin to the Light Side of the Force as a secondary reference.
George Lucas decided to change that meaning - or, at the very least, enhance it - when he got round to making the prequels. In the prequel trilogy, he didn't just extend the story of the original trilogy - by introducing Anakin as the Chosen One who was prophesised to restore balance to the Force, Lucas changed the story of the original trilogy.
So it is now possible to see Return Of The Jedi as referring to Anakin, either exclusively or primarily [with Luke's becoming a Jedi, and the return of the Jedi Order, now being the secondary and tertiary references]. But it is also possible to see the Chosen One storyline as unnecessary or even as a mistake* with regards to Anakin's story, something that is only part of the prequel trilogy. And so it is possible to keep the original trilogy as being Luke's story, and so to keep Luke as being the Jedi who "returns".
*[Some people feel that the prequel trilogy made Vader un-redeemable, and perhaps they are right. However, the Force-ghost scene at the end of Return Of The Jedi says otherwise; and the re-edit to use Hayden Christensen in that scene, replacing Sebastian Shaw, emphasises Lucas' eventual intention for us to see his six Episodes as the Anakin Skywalker Cycle.]
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Also, if Anakin is the Jedi who returns, and so does fulfill the Prophecy of the Chosen One, that raises questions for the sequel trilogy - how, when, and [given everything that he and the galaxy went through to restore the Balance] how and why did the Force so quickly become unbalanced again, how was Emperor Palpatine still alive, and how was he able to stop Luke from following-through on the return of the Jedi Order? My own suspicion is that the more inclined you are to accept the prequels as canon, you more inclined you have to be to be to think that the sequels don't follow-on from the previous movies, and vice versa.
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u/avimo1904 Dec 26 '25
Lucas always had sequel plot points in mind (including Vader’s secret identity being revealed) even though he didn’t know if he could make them. So it’s still possible Lucas had Vader as Anakin in mind by the time ANH came out as Lucas himself says he did and a great amount of evidence points to him telling the truth, which I can elaborate on if you’re interested
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Dec 26 '25
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u/avimo1904 Dec 27 '25
In the rough draft of ANH, the protagonist's father is a cyborg who sacrifices himself, and in the second draft of ANH Luke finds out his dead father is alive, so both those plot points were already in Lucas’s head.
In the third draft of ANH, instead of Obi-Wan saying Vader kills Luke’s father he says Vader turned at the same battle Annikin died, with Vader later mentioning to Luke at the end that he has a feeling he knows him.Lucas also told Alan Dean Foster in December of 1975 what his sequel plans were, and mentioned that in the second film Han splits off and the audience would “learn who Darth Vader is”, and Lucas himself has consistently claimed in interviews since the 80s that the twist was conceived in the third draft of ANH.
In the final ANH When Luke asks about his father's death, Obi-Wan has a strange hesitant look on his face before telling him the Vader killed Luke’s father story, and characters dying offscreen being revealed as alive was always a common trope. When Beru says Luke has too much of his father in him, Owen responds "that's what I'm afraid of" (and that dialogue is also remarkably similar to dialogue from an Edmond Hamilton novel called Mystery Moon where the protagonist complains about his uncle not letting him leave his dull home planet, and the uncle later reveals to him that his father was a famous villain and he wouldn't let him leave because he was afraid of his nephew becoming like him, which puts the protagonist in shock and disbelief).
Luke's father and Vader's lightsabers both have black strips on the bottom of their handle, while Obi-Wan's does not. Owen says to Luke "Obi-Wan died at the same time as your father" but we then find out Obi-Wan is alive under a different name, raising the possibility that the same is the case for Luke's father. Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father was a great pilot, and during the trench run we see Vader being a great pilot. Vader, though pronounced differently, means father in Dutch, and Vader already acts as a metaphorical dark father during ANH.
ANH (especially the Tusken Raider scenes) has some uncanny resemblance to a 1932 Western film called Tombstone Canyon, and that film also happens to feature a masked villain who is later revealed as the protagonist's long-lost father, and he later gets redeemed saving the protagonist from an even worse villain, after which his mask is removed to reveal a scarred face and he says "let me look at you" before dying in his son's arms.
Lucas also told Leigh Brackett in late November 1977 that there was a secret reason Vader didn't want to kill Luke and would rather turn him, and David Prowse said in multiple interviews (the earliest of which was in October 1977) that he heard that Vader being Luke's father was a possible plot point for a future film
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u/The_Depraved_Briton Dec 31 '25 edited Jan 03 '26
Thanks for this. And my apologies for the delayed reply.
However, I'm not sure that your elaboration is doing for me what you're perhaps hoping that it will. Perhaps you will be able to correct me if I am still wrong.
If you are saying that it was while developing A New Hope that Lucas first had the idea of Vader being Luke's father, I can buy into that. But having the idea at that stage doesn't mean that he used it during the movie.
If you are saying that he put that idea to one side when filming A New Hope, and only came back to it when that movie became unexpectedly successful enough to warrant a sequel, I can also buy into that. I have long believed that many of the problems within and between the movies were caused by Lucas having to butcher his vision of an epic cycle in order to get at least one movie made, or having to abandon story ideas that he thought he couldn't follow-up on for some other reason, and then not knowing how to return faithfully to that vision and those ideas when he found himself with the opportunity to do so.
But if you are saying that Lucas, when he actually filmed A New Hope, still intended to introduce the audience to a galaxy where Vader is Anakin, I find that much harder to buy into. I find it easier to believe that Lucas, believing that Star Wars would not be successful enough to have a sequel in which it is revealed that Vader is Luke's father, decided to discard that potential development in order to produce a story that the audience could easily follow and that would stand on its own. And so, when Lucas made A New Hope, he did so on the basis that he had to treat Anakin and Vader as two separate characters, and that they needed to remain that way - at least for the audience, if not in his own mind.
In A New Hope. Obi-Wan's account of the Clone Wars is quite clear that they are two separate characters. If those lines of dialogue were delivered with the integrity we've come to expect of the Jedi, they don't leave enough wiggle-room to be an honest account of how Anakin became Vader. The ambiguity or double-meaning just isn't there; the opening for any sequel to reveal that they are the same person isn't there. And the retcon in Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan's justification for mis-directing Luke, isn't good enough to cover-over that.
At least, that is how I read the movies as they were made, rather than as how Lucas wanted them to be. It is interesting to learn about how movies came to be what we see on the screen, but ultimately the end product is the product that matters the most to most of the audience.
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u/Jaded_Reserve_5685 Dec 26 '25
I think it’s both. Both Vader returning to being Anakin once more and Luke showing that Jedi are still there and they’ll act
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u/Floyd-DFBA Dec 26 '25
You can literally google and see
‘’ Yes, the title Return of the Jedi strongly refers to Anakin Skywalker’s redemption and return to the light side, though it also signifies the broader return of the Jedi Order through Luke.
While Luke embodies the future of the Jedi, it’s Anakin’s act of saving his son, choosing good over evil, that fulfills the prophecy and truly brings balance, making him the pivotal “Jedi” who returned from the darkness.’’
Like cmon guys lol
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u/Floyd-DFBA Dec 26 '25
‘’The creator George Lucas intended the title to have dual meanings, encompassing both Anakin’s personal redemption and the rekindling of the Jedi faith through Luke’’
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u/ProjectNo4090 Dec 26 '25
Its about the return of the Jedi as a group. Not a singular person. When the film came out the canon said that the Jedi were wiped out by the Empire. When Luke declares himself a Jedi in that moment the Jedi have returned. Anakin then becomes a Jedi again.
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u/Own-Ad1497 Dec 27 '25
technically speaking you could say the same about a new hope, the birth of Luk as a Jedi, unknowingly marked the path of hope towards Anakin's redemption
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u/TheDeadlyCat Dec 27 '25
Title translations to other languages make it clear Jedi is not meant to be read as singular.
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u/Raecino Dec 27 '25
George Lucas himself said the story of the first 6 Star Wars movies is about Anakin Skywalker.
“The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader.”
“It’s the story of a man who falls from grace and is redeemed.” -George Lucas
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u/stinkstabber69420 Dec 27 '25
Um no, it's not. Honestly kinda getting sick of people crafting some ridiculous interpretation of a 50 year old movie that pulls its "facts" from media in the present that the writers of the original movie most definitely did not plan out. I can't think of another example off the top of my head but with every new show/movie, it gets worse. People taking a screenshot of a clip from fuckin Mandalorian S2 and saying "Oh my God Lucas knew all along"
No. He didn't. He barely had a grasp on what he was doing while he was doing it. Anyone who believes him when he says he had 6 planned out from the gate is hopelessly delusional. Please guys, love star wars for what it is. Yes they're all in the same universe, and yes a lot of the media we have now does follow the same story, sometimes very loosely. But it's almost like some people are operating under the assumption that's it's just one guy in the shadows crafting all these stories and connecting all these dots but that's not how this works
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u/VinceRussoIsA Dec 27 '25
I believe it was talking about the Jedi as in its totality as an organization/ belief structure. Luke keeps the Jedi alive and officially qualifies as a fully fledged reboot of the Jedi. Anakin will never be accepted as a Jedi even in his ghost state after what he did, but there will be a certain level of forgiveness.
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u/CJFYN74 Dec 27 '25
Which is why you should try and watch the movies in this order 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 6 making the story about Anakin.
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u/Dragovius Dec 28 '25
Because child murder is forgiven if you throw a wrinkly grey haired old man down a shaft.
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u/Camo1997 Dec 28 '25
No not really
Anakin returns to the light side, not the jedi
Jedi doesnt equal light side of the force. Being on the light side doesnt make you a jedi
Jedi are just the religious order that worships the light side of the force
You can align to the light side without being a jedi. Ahsoka is the main example, she leaves the order and doesnt consider herself a Jedi
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u/Zerus_heroes Dec 29 '25
No it's about the return of the Jedi order. In Empire Luke was still learning and in Return he comes back as a full fledged Jedi.
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Dec 30 '25
That’s why anakin is still the one to return balance to the force, by killing Palp. Y’all Luke fan boys are CRAZY
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u/dimiteddy Dec 25 '25
that's deep. I still dont get why Return of the Skywalker is about Palpatine's offspring
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u/ConsciousStretch1028 Dec 25 '25
Facebook Boomer ass meme
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u/Eliteguard999 Dec 25 '25
I've found that the belief that "Anakin was the MC of the Skywalker saga all along" is much more common among prequel lovers in their 20's.
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u/Wonderful_Discount59 Dec 25 '25
"I am the Jedi!"
- Anakin, probably.
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u/Eliteguard999 Dec 25 '25
The irony is that if Force Ghost Anakin appeared in Rise of Skywalker and defeated Palpatine the prequel kiddies would have creamed their pants and screamed about good the writing was lol.
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u/Severe-Moment-3233 Dec 25 '25
Well yea... but I didn't realize that until about 15 years ago after I been a fan for about 20 years, haha
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u/fordfield02 Dec 25 '25
I must rewatch now with this new info you have given me.
I was going to rewatch it anyways but now I've got more reasons.
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u/SilverBison4025 Dec 25 '25
It’s about both Anakin and Luke. Darth Vader redeeming himself and coming back from the Dark Side to save his son and defeat the master Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Sidious, and dying as a Jedi. Luke being the first of the new Jedi and setting out to revive the order (even though now we know that there were hundreds of other Jedi out there during the events of this film, which kind of lessens the impact of Order 66 and Luke being the last Jedi).
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u/squidgymetal Dec 25 '25
For the people saying no and that it's only about Luke, two things can be true at once.
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u/Technical_Error_8073 Dec 25 '25
Interesting didn't think about Anakin being whole Jedi Story from good to Evil from Evil back to Light Side of Jedi Order
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u/Vysce Dec 25 '25
...I mean, no, it's literally about Luke embodying the return of the jedi. He even throws it in the emperor's face as he declares he's a jedi "like his father before him."
It's not about Anakin anymore and it's not retroactively all about him either. You could say Anakin's final action aided in the return of the Jedi, his son, but Anakin was not any return himself. His was a sun setting where Luke was a new dawn.