Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Scene 14 Summary

  • Han comes dashing out of the shield bunker. Then it promptly blows up, and so does the Death Star's defense shield.
  • Admiral Ackbar tells Lando that the shield is down, and Lando tells his fleet to make tracks toward the Death Star's main reactor. Also, he totally knew his friends would come through.
  • On the Death Star, The Emperor tells Luke that if he won't come to the Dark Side, he'll be destroyed. While he delivers a classic villain speech—I'm smarter than you, I'm stronger than you, you must pay, etc.—he repeatedly zaps Luke with Force Lightning from his fingers like an evil wizard.
  • Darth Vader stands behind The Emperor and watches it all unfold. Luke, writhing in pain on the floor, begs his pops to help while The Emperor continues shocking him.
  • All of that Force Lightning was just the appetizer. The Emperor tells Luke that now he's going to die. Then he smirks.
  • The Emperor resumes shocking Luke, and we get a close-up of Darth Vader. He continues watching his son thrash in agony, and then he says nope.
  • Darth Vader picks up The Emperor and carries him toward a nearby reactor shaft; all the while, The Emperor's Force Lightning shocks Vader. We see his skeleton and everything. Undeterred, Vader tosses The Emperor down the shaft.
  • The Emperor falls to his death. Just for good measure, he explodes.
  • Luke cradles Darth Vader in his arms. Papa Skywalker is in bad shape and wheezing even more than usual.
  • Outside, Lando and his Rebel fighters race toward the Death Star's reactor. Admiral Ackbar, meanwhile, issues an attack on an Imperial destroyer in an effort to buy Lando and his guys more time.
  • The destroyer comes down like a ton of intergalactic bricks.
  • Inside the Death Star, it's total chaos. Luke struggles to move Darth Vader and stops. His dad asks him to help take his mask off. "But you'll die," Luke says. Much like a honey badger, Vader don't care. He's going to die anyway, and he wants to look at Luke with his own eyes.
  • Luke takes off Darth Vader's mask and, well, it ain't pretty. Vader—or Anakin, we suppose, now that he's no longer evil—kind of looks like Humpty Dumpty after he falls off the wall. His head is wicked pale, and egg-shaped.
  • Anakin tells Luke he needs to run—in his own, less James Earl Jones-y, no-longer-mask-enhanced voice. Luke wants to stay and save him.
  • Anakin assures his teary-eyed son that it's okay; he's already saved him. Also, he says that Luke was right about him, and he should tell Leia that he was right about him, too.
  • Then Darth Vader dies.