The Empire Strikes Back Ending Explained

The biggest, most famous twist “The Empire Strikes Back” delivers is the revelation that Darth Vader (David Prowse) is Luke Skywalker’s father. It’s one of the greatest twists in movie history, but it also seems to conflict with what Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) told Luke in the first “Star Wars” movie: that Vader “betrayed and murdered” his father, Anakin Skywalker.

The third and final film in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, “Return of the Jedi,” helps to explain this apparent contradiction, but since we’re focused on “The Empire Strikes Back” here, it seems unfair to bring in knowledge of its sequel. If you’re just watching “The Empire Strikes Back” in a vacuum, you might think Vader is lying when he says he’s Luke’s father, and in fact, that’s Luke’s first reaction, too. As he clings to the catwalk in Cloud City, Luke says, “That’s not true. That’s impossible!”

Vader, however, voiced by James Earl Jones, quickly counters, “Search your feelings, you know it to be true.” And by the end of “The Empire Strikes Back,” Luke has accepted that this is the truth, not some villainous ploy. He’s already calling Vader “father” and praying to Obi-Wan’s Force ghost, saying, “Ben, why didn’t you tell me?”

The movie leaves that question unanswered until its sequel, but in the short term, it would appear that making Vader Luke’s father was a bit of retroactive continuity. One thing we can say here, without spoiling “Return of the Jedi,” is that not every question raised by “The Empire Strikes Back” would be answered onscreen. There’s also the question, “When and how did Darth Vader learn that Luke was his son?” The trilogy never explicitly answers that question, but a canonical tie-in comic would do it in 2020.