Star Words: Episode VI, Part 26

[matril]

I am, of course, very fond of the sequence in which Luke secretly aids Threepio in his impersonation of a deity, thereby winning the Ewoks' complete respect and loyalty. With that, the droid who was once not very good at telling stories proceeds to give a thrilling account of the Rebellion's fight against the Empire. There are several delightful lines, from the bewildered Threepio's I never knew I had it in me to the various phrases of Ewok-ese that I quote with ridiculous frequency, to Han's sarcastic response to becoming honorary members of the tribe. But after all this merriment, it's time to shift into a serious tone.

At last we have that postponed conversation between Luke and Leia. Imagine how Luke must struggle to find the right words. Just found out my dad is the second-biggest bad guy in the galaxy. Oh, and he's your dad too. Surprise!

He takes a somewhat gentler route, asking if Leia remembers her mother. This is the very first mention we've ever had of "Mrs. Vader," and I was completely obsessed with it from my earliest memories of Episode VI. Of course we know Lucas's conception of her backstory was somewhat different back in 1983, and we could drive ourselves crazy wondering how Leia could possibly remember her mother when she didn't survive more than five minutes past Leia's birth. I'm not going down that path. How Leia describes it is so evocative, it rings true. Just images, really...feelings. It's not a pragmatic, tangible memory. It's a mystical, ineffable sensation, almost beyond the reach of conscious thought.

Luke urges her to tell whatever she can. You can hear the longing in his voice, as perhaps for the first time he has been reflecting on the tragedy of his unknown mother.

"She was very beautiful...and kind...but sad."

A description that holds true throughout the prequels. Yes, Padmé was beautiful, but I think Leia is recalling something different from physical loveliness. The beauty that baby Leia would have sensed is deeper than a pretty smile -- a part of that kindness, her determination and goodness. The boundless love that ultimately brought her boundless sadness.

Then Luke's reply. "I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her." Oh, but you do. Not in literal memories, but in the determination and goodness that she passed along to you. When he asserts his belief that there is still good in Vader, he speaks with his mother's voice.

I am certainly reading way more into this than was ever intended when the film first came out, but whatever. Luke and Leia miss their mother, yet she lives on through them, and I want to give all of them great big hugs.

Next, more feeeelings.....

Comments

[krpalmer]

I had been wondering about the Ewok village scenes you described to start off, but jumping a bit further ahead's all right for me. While I have to suppose the Return of the Jedi novelization set assumptions for what "Mrs. Skywalker's" fate would have been, my personal dodge of sorts has been to think "would a 'Mrs. Skywalker' who'd survived for a few years have been someone who'd given up on any thought of saving her husband, thus implying Luke needed psychic powers to start thinking his father could be saved and diminishing 'general resonance in the real world?'" At the same time, I can also dwell on recent comments from someone insisting Leia's "real mother" was the woman on Alderaan at the end of Revenge of the Sith, implied to have died a few years later, which only makes me think about "missing the point for the sake of less suspension of disbelief"... Anyway, I did mention a while ago of connecting the line you discussed in this post to a specific moment in RotS.