Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is widely regarded as the best Star Wars movie of all time for its dark tone, masterful worldbuilding, and iconic twist ending. In film, its heroes reach their lowest points, as when Luke fails to save his friends from Darth Vader and the Dark Lord humiliates and literally disarms the Jedi in a duel while revealing himself to be Luke’s father. It has a grim ending when Han Solo is captured and frozen in carbonite and the other heroes are forced to retreat to live and fight another day. However, in Marvel Comics‘ Star Wars #9, Leia avoids making the same mistake her brother made that led to his defeat.
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Set after the events of the original film trilogy and the fall of the Galactic Empire, Marvel’s Star Wars comic series finds its heroes defending the fledgling New Republic. Their latest threat is a nefarious plot by the evil witch Reyna Oskure. The witch plans to manipulate and use the people of the planet Nagi and the Fenril Sector to declare war on the New Republic. While Luke and Han are on Nagi fighting for their lives against Reyna and her goons, Leia is left to make a seemingly impossible decision: stay on Chandrila, the capital of the New Republic, or go to help her brother and husband. The scene where she makes her decision is very reminiscent of Luke’s dilemma during The Empire Strikes Back.
Leia Avoided Recreating One of Luke’s Greatest Failures
After viewing a message from Han when he’s on the run from Reyna’s soldiers, Leia plans to get on a ship and fly to Nagi to save her husband and Luke. However, before Leia is ready to leave on her daring rescue mission, she’s stopped by one of her most trusted advisors and friends. Mon Mothma, the former leader of the Rebel Alliance and first Chancellor of the New Republic, urges Leia not to go. When Leia argues that Luke and Han need her, Mon replies that the New Republic needs her more. Leia is a politician to whom people look for leadership. By trying to save one life, Leia is putting herself and the stability of the New Republic at risk.
This scene of a Skywalker planning to risk everything to save their friends is very reminiscent of a significant moment in The Empire Strikes Back. While Luke is on Dagobah training under Yoda, the young Jedi begins having visions of his friends being captured and tortured by Darth Vader in Cloud City on the planet Bespin. Despite not having completed his training, Luke prepares to leave and save his friends. Yoda and a Force ghost Obi-Wan, desperately try to convince Luke not to go because it’s too dangerous. He simply wasn’t ready. As the last Jedi, Luke was the last hope to defeat the Sith. If he were captured, killed, or turned to the Dark Side when he confronted Vader, all would be lost.
The scenes differ by how Leia and Luke respond to these warnings. Luke recklessly decides to go boldly to save his friends despite his master’s warnings. Predictably, not only did Luke fall right into Vader’s trap, but the young Jedi didn’t have any impact on the fate of his captured friends. Han was already frozen and taken by Boba Fett. Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO had been taken off Cloud City and freed by Lando Calrissian. The only impact Luke made was nearly getting himself killed. In contrast, Leia wisely heeds Mon’s words and decides against leaving to rescue Han and Luke. Instead, Leia uses her political power to order a fleet of New Republic ships to fly to Nagi and demand the planet’s peaceful surrender before war breaks out.
Star Wars #9 Shows the Main Difference Between Leia and Luke.
The moment Leia decides to put the needs of her people above Han and Luke, she expresses one of the most critical lessons Luke failed to learn from Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back: patience. Luke allowed his feelings to cloud his judgment, and he recklessly put the fate of the galaxy on the line without a thought-out plan on how to save his friends. Leia, in contrast, recognizes that her presence would do little to alter the course of events on Nagi. Instead of charging headfirst into danger without a plan, she uses her political influence to enforce a coordinated maneuver with the New Republic fleet to hopefully prevent war with Nagi while simultaneously offering stand-by support for Luke and Han if things get too dangerous.
A significant reason the Skywalker twins made their different decisions in these scenarios is their different upbringings after being separated at birth. Stuck on a farm on Tatooine his whole life, Luke always dreamed of exploring the galaxy and hated feeling trapped. In the first two films, Luke is shown to be someone who’s very impatient and reckless, constantly swooping into danger headfirst for the sake of others. While his bravery is admirable, his defeat at the hands of Vader was a harsh lesson in the risks of blindly charging into battle. Luckily, by The Return of the Jedi, Luke learned from his mistakes and became a more focused and strategic Jedi who still cared about his friends. This evolution enabled Luke to save Han and the galaxy.
In contrast to Luke’s boring and impoverished life on the farm, Leia grew up as a princess on the peaceful planet of Alderan. However, Leia was raised by Senator Bail Organa, one of the secret founders of the Rebel Alliance, to think dispassionately and strategically. When Leia discovered her adoptive father’s hidden operations, she quickly joined the fight by becoming a secret ally of the Rebels. As shown in Star Wars: Rebels, Leia was participating in secret missions that required her to remain under the radar of the Empire’s prying eyes when she was only 16 years old. By the time Luke joined the war effort, Leia already had years of experience using her espionage and political skills to help the Rebels behind the scenes.
Leia didn’t need to learn Luke’s lesson of patience and foresight in Star Wars #9 because she had already spent most of her life having those messages drilled into her so that she could stay alive. Leia shows that fighting in epic battles isn’t the only component to winning a war. It takes political maneuvering, patience, forward-thinking, and a cool head in times of crisis. Additionally, Leia commences her plan for Nagi without putting the safety of the New Republic and everything they had fought for at risk. Thankfully, Luke learned this lesson after his failure on Cloud City, making a more skilled and successful Jedi. As Yoda once said, “The greatest teacher, failure is.”
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