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Luke Skywalker goes full Jedi
Star Wars: Episode VI—The Return of the Jedi
Writers: Lawrence Kasdan & George Lucas
Director: Richard Marquand
Luke Skywalker stood on the plank extending from the Skiff over the mouth of the Sarlacc Pit. Everyone on Jabba’s sail barge was watching and waiting for the demise of this man dressed in black claiming to be a Jedi. As he stepped to the very edge, his doom a footstep away, Skywalker and his friends were asked by Jabba’s pressganged translator C-3PO if they wanted to beg for mercy. Skywalker confidently proclaimed, “Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us or die.”
Everyone laughed.
Then everyone died.
Several times weekly as it turns out, because my friends and I reenacted this sequence again and again on the playground, Monday through Friday, like clockwork, for what seemed like years. We’d plop down at the lunch table, race through our juice boxes, apple wedges, and crustless sandwiches so we could run out to this big wooden contraption in the middle of the playground. About six feet off the ground at its peak, it was a long rectangle made of old wood and a metal slide. It was a monstrosity and perfect to be used as one of Jabba’s Skiffs. This was the 1980s, of course, so there was little concern about students of the world getting branch-sized splinters or rust-induced infections. Just play nice.
And play nice we did. If nice included slaughtering Jabba and his henchmen like our heroes Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, and Lando (no one agreed to play Artoo!). We assigned the parts (“Today you get to be Luke, I’ll be Han.”). We got set in position. And then we relived the entire Sarlacc Pit sequence until the recess bell rang. If you were struck by an imaginary lightsaber, you leaped down six feet to the sand below. If you were playing the part of Lando, you crawled around below while the kids playing Han and Chewie literally dangled over the playset, trying to rescue you. What fun. What memories. What injuries we all nearly suffered. But we were kids, and this was Star Wars.
Yes, Star Wars is for kids. It is that universal lesson in morality designed to enlighten kids everywhere. There is good and there is evil, and your choices often dictate which direction you head to. But like the proverbial spoon full of sugar making the medicine go down, these big lessons are wrapped in the spellbinding actions of our heroes.
We didn’t know that we were acting out the choices of a good guy saving his friends, repaying a debt to Han, and taking down a giant in the criminal underworld. We didn’t focus on whether or not Luke’s actions were born of protection or aggression and which one was the true Jedi way. We were just mesmerized by what we saw.
And as we should be. The escape from Jabba’s evil clutches had everything we had been waiting for since Luke first got handed a lightsaber. Crazy, Force-fueled leaps, kicks and punches, deflected laser blasts, and that magnificent green lightsaber serving as a beacon of all that is good with our hero. It is a video game sequence in motion. And while the concept of what it means to be a Jedi is layered and deep, you can never escape our desire for the Jedi to be Errol Flynn-like swashbucklers leaping from ship to ship and sending the villains to their doom.
And Luke wasn’t alone! Princess Leia becomes the actual Huttslayer, Artoo zaps Salacious B Crumb, and Han, Chewie, and Lando engage in a tension-filled rescue over the hungry monster buried within the Dune Sea. Everywhere you look, there is the kind of Star Wars action tailor-made for the unbridled excitement of youth. This is Luke Skywalker going full Jedi like never before and, in some ways, never again.
Which is why this sequence matters so much to the young fan in all of us. Luke eventually runs off to face Vader and the Emperor on the Death Star and, in the process, becomes an actual Jedi. That’s the more important moment for the life and times of Luke Skywalker. One that connects with Lucas’ take on the Jedi losing their way in the prequel era and on up to the choices Luke makes at the end of his life. However, the throne room sequence and the themes emerging from there are darker, more nuanced, and, at times, somber, whereas the momentum and action presented here above the Sarlacc Pit is easier to digest, understand, and translate into youthful joy.
This is the legacy of the Sarlacc Pit sequence. It is Star Wars displaying its 1930s’ serial adventure story DNA in full vibrant color and atmosphere. It’s not an academic look at our hero, it’s our hero in action. And that is what inspires countless generations over and over. We watched that Luke Skywalker on screen and took him to the playgrounds and backyards of our youth. We bravely made the choice to save our friends and save the day just like Luke, and then, as George Lucas planned, we took those lessons with us throughout the rest of our lives.