Return of the Jedi Deleted Scene Almost Redeemed Obi-Wan's Lies To Luke
Obi-Wan’s lies to Luke Skywalker throughout the original Star Wars trilogy are revealed in Return of the Jedi - but deleted Yoda dialogue would have redeemed Kenobi. Darth Vader’s revelation that he is Anakin Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back is perhaps the greatest plot twist in the Star Wars franchise, though it also reveals that Obi-Wan (Alec Guinness) and Yoda (Frank Oz) had been lying to Luke (Mark Hamill) about his father. Yoda’s lines in the scrapped Return of the Jedi footage soften the blow quite a bit, however, adding nuance to both of the Jedi's decades-long deception.
In A New Hope, Luke is told by Obi-Wan that Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi hero who Darth Vader betrayed and killed. The original Star Wars trilogy wasn’t fully mapped out at this point, so while George Lucas had considered making Darth Vader secretly Luke’s father, he wouldn’t truly canonize it until reworking Leigh Brackett’s story treatment for Empire. At the behest of Richard Marquand, who had consulted a psychologist on the matter, Lucas allowed Return of the Jedi to include an additional scene on Dagobah, in which Yoda and Obi-Wan reveal the whole truth of their plan to defeat the Sith to Luke.
Related: Empire Strikes Back: Yoda & Obi-Wan's Advice To Luke Was Terrible
Unused footage of Yoda’s death scene in Return of the Jedi would have added an additional layer to his and Obi-Wan’s lies. Yoda admits to Luke, “Obi-Wan would have told you long ago, had I let him,” indicating that neither Jedi wanted to keep Luke in the dark but did because they believed it was the best course of action to do so defeat Darth Vader and The Emperor. With this added context, Obi-Wan and Yoda’s deceit, while still morally questionable (considering that they were
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