CT Did Palpatine truly intend to kill Luke?

After trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side for about one hour, Palpatine gives up and says he's going to kill him. I find this odd seeing how valuable Luke is as a commodity to him. I mean, he spent about 10 years trying to turn Anakin, when did he suddenly become so impatient? Yes, it may take more than a few minutes to turn him to the dark side, but the reward would be worth the wait. Of course at this point in his rule he may want to simply crush any threat to himself immediately, thoughts?

 

Yeah, I think he was willing to kill him. Luke isn't really all that valuable, Palpatine doesn't actually need him, he's just another toy for amusement.

There's really not much reason for Palpatine to test his own patience there. Been there, done that.

Killing the threat Luke Skywalker poses is reason enough to forgo the patient approach.

Palpatine is in a position to indulge his whims, he's in a position where he doesn't have to suffer anything he doesn't feel like suffering.

Of course, if Luke suddenly changes his mind before the end, Palpatine would probably be willing to entertain it. Or not, he may have tired of the game.

 

The real question is why Emperor was so willing to have Luke kill him. Or then trying to have him kill Vader. I think the movies' character motivations in general make little sense if you start thinking about them

 

According to the novelization which was based on the script, Palpatine's plan in the moment was to slowly torture Luke until he died, then have Vader throw his corpse into the Death Star's core
He was obviously wrong about who would be the one thrown down

 

Presumably, Luke presented the greatest threat to his power in nearly 20 years. He didn't have time to string Luke around like he did Anakin. Luke did not answer to a Jedi Council and was not held back by Obi-Wan any longer (as far as Palpatine knew). He could act on his own by either continuing the Rebel cause or finding a way to take out both Vader and the Emperor.

 

Luke would never have been able to kill Palpatine, even if Vader hadn't gotten in the way. Had Vader not blocked him, he would have done what Yoda did here.

 

Yes, I believe he did. If he can't turn a pawn eliminate it.

I don't think Luke was very pro-killing in the films which I applause. I think it's in error to consider death the only means of thwarting an enemy.

 

I'd say that in Palpatine's eyes, someone with Luke's power needs to be either turned or eliminated. When he decided the former wasn't going to happen, he decided on the latter. The difference between Luke and Anakin was ... that the PT hadn't been made yet!

 

Which novelisation's that? The original James Kahn one doesn't have it as far as I can tell.

Luke appears to have no problem killing stormtroopers on the Death Star, enemy TIE fighters, the entire crew of the Death Star, AT-AT pilots, Jabba's guards on the sail barge, etc.

 

Remember what Luke told him just before that? "I'm a Jedi, like my father before me." He basically told Palpatine, "I am the very thing you hate, your #1 enemy. I am going to do to you what the Jedi weren't able to do." From Palpatine's perspective, Luke went from a potential Sith to a very dangerous, real threat and reacted accordingly. He was going to kill Luke, but not before he got amusement in watching Luke scream first.

 

Scream for help?

 

I always thought he would have Vader and Luke fight, and keep whoever wins.

 

The Jedi Code expressively forbids screaming for help. But yeah, tossing aside his only means of defending himself wasn't exactly a good idea. Really, he's lucky Vader wanted to change at all, otherwise he would've been toasted (pun maybe intended here).

 

Would it really have made much of a difference? Didn't Palpatine eventually manage to blast Yoda's lightsaber out of his hand? And at this point Luke is much less experienced than Yoda, and has never faced Force lightning before.

 

Pretty sure he was. Join me? Great, kill your crippled father and become my new apprentice until I do the same thing to you in around 30 to 40 years. Don't wanna join? Too bad, galaxy's full of powerful Force users. *zap*

 

Yes, Palpatine was going to kill Luke. Now that he has learned the truth of the dark side, he has rejected Palpatine and aligned himself as a Jedi. Palpatine knows now that he has lost and thus he must destroy the last Jedi Knight.

Uh, did you not watch the films? Anakin killed Dooku in cold blood, out of anger and hate which brought him closer to the dark side. Palpatine tells Anakin that using his anger gives him focus and makes him even stronger. Luke using his emotions allows him to use the dark side and thus he will want to kill Palpatine and Vader. Just as Anakin was told to go and kill the Jedi in the Temple and the Confederacy leaders on Mustafar, using the dark side which makes him more and more evil. Palpatine wants Vader dead because there can only be two Sith at a time. A Master and an Apprentice. Any more than that and there will be chaos. The Sith will turn on each other for power.

The Sith are the natural enemy of the Jedi. As George Lucas describes it, the Sith were once in control of the galaxy 1000 years in the past. Unfortunately, the Sith's hunger for conquest got the better of them-so many Sith lords were vying for ultimate control that it led to infighting among their ranks. Such internecine struggles were exploited by the Jedi Knights of the era, and they were able to turn the tide and defeat the Sith.

As Ki-Adi-Mundi states in Episode I, the Sith have been extinct for a millenium; however, not all were wiped out. A surviving Sith Lord sought to rebuild the order, to retake the galaxy, and to take revenge. This Sith Lord realized the dangers of having too many in the order, so he kept his existence a secret. It would be a long time coming, but he carefully plotted revenge. There would be only two Sith Lords at a time, a master and an apprentice, working in secret, planting the seeds for their eventual rise.

By Episode III, the Sith are ready to reveal themselves. There's no more need for subterfuge, no more need for skulking in the shadows. Darth Sidious, the Sith mastermind, will make good on a 1000-year plot to finally avenge the fallen order, destroy the Jedi Knights, and retake command of the galaxy.

--Star Wars Insider, issue 78; page 60

"Palpatine has told Dooku. 'I have somebody who I think will be a great Sith Lord and I think we can get him to join us. But we need to test him. So we're going to setup a situation where you fight him. If he gets the best of you, then I'll stop the fight and he'll have passed the test. If you get the best of him, then we'll let him go, and we'll let him stew for a few more years until he's ready.' But behind it, obviously, is Palpatine's real intention: If Anakin is good enough, Anakin can kill Dooku and become Palpatine's new apprentice. But he didn't tell Dooku that."

--George Lucas, The Making Of ROTS; Page 41.

"After Darth Sidious' first apprentice is killed, he has to come up with a new apprentice, and rather than coming up with some baby that he trains from birth, which is what he should have done--well, he shouldn't have gotten himself in a position of getting his apprentice killed anyways--he's decided to make his move, so he needs somebody that was already trained. The point is to set up that he turned this one Jedi, so that he could turn another Jedi. It has to be set up that way."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"At this point, Vader’s plan really, now that he knows he’s his son, is to convince him to come with him. Join the Dark Side and together they’re going to overthrow the Emperor, which is the thematic devices used through the whole movies in terms of the Sith, which is Sith Lords are usually no more than two because if there are three, then two of them will gang up on one to try to become the dominate Sith. Anakin would have been able to do it if he hadn’t been debilitated and now he’s half machine and half man, so he’s lost a lot of the power of the Force, and he’s lost a lot of his ability to be more powerful then the Emperor. But Luke hasn’t. Luke is Vader’s hope. His motives at this point are purely evil. He simply wants to continue on what he was doing before which is get rid of the Emperor and make himself Emperor. He only sees his son as a mechanism for the ambition. His mad lust of power."

--George Lucas, TESB DVD Commentary.

"And when he finds out Luke is his son, his first impulse is to figure out a way of getting him to join him to kill the Emperor. That's what Siths do! He tries it with anybody he thinks might be more powerful, which is what the Emperor was looking for in the first place: somebody who would be more powerful than he was and could help him rule the universe. But Obi-Wan screwed that up by cutting off his arms and legs and burning him up. From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor -- he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku. He wasn't what he was supposed to become. But the son could become that."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stones Interview, 2005.

"The Emperor wants Luke to kill Vader so that he will have a new young Jedi. Lets face it Vader is half mechanical and he is not half as good as he could be. He is not nearly as good as he was hoping Anakin would become because Anakin ends up in the suit. He is hoping he gets a new better apprentice in Luke. If he kills his father then he would take his place as an apprentice; which actually there is something that in the next film is how Anakin becomes his apprentice. There are a lot of things repeated in these movies. Fathers vs Sons."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary.

"Most of this sequence with Luke really had to do with making him angry and to try to tempt him to become angry and Luke fighting that temptation. Which obviously eventually he does and eventually again he doesn’t. But that’s the real tension in this whole scene is “Will he become angry enough to try to attack the Emperor?” I mean what the Emperor wants basically is from him to kill his father so he can take his place, which is the same thing his father is trying to get him to do is kill the Emperor so Vader can take the Emperor’s place."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004

"The key issue in these movies is for a Jedi not to use anger when he’s fighting. So the final confrontation here is primarily about trying to make Luke become angry, so that when he fights his father he’s fighting in anger, therefore begins to use the dark side of the Force, and therefore sort of succumbs to the dark side of the Force. In The Empire Strikes Back we had them confront each other and fight together. But in this film Luke has become more mature so that now he knows he shouldn’t be fighting him—that is the path to the dark side. So it’s basically a confrontation between two people and one of them doesn’t want to fight, and the other one keeps trying to push him into it. And then in the end when he gives up and they really do fight, what’s happening there is that ultimately Luke is turning to the dark side, and all is going to be lost."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004

 

Im not reading all that

 

Well, Palpatine could have definitely killed Luke faster, but using his lightning seemed to be more for putting on a show. He already had Luke cornered, and was going to kill him in a slow and painful way. So yes, Palpatine was aiming to kill Luke, but not before causing him as much pain as possible.

 

I was just thinking of a quote from ROTS and it made me chuckle a little.

Ha.

 

Luke Skywalker: "Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
Darth Sidious: "So be it... Jedi!"
Darth Vader: "Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's it? He says no and you just give up!?"
Darth Sidious: "Of course. Where would we be if we didn't have free will? I'm not bound to some stupid prophecy."

 

He would have killed him if vader did not save him. He clearly say : And now Young Skywalker. you will die. So yes to answear Your question.

 

Like Palpatine has never lied before..

Remember the time he said he loved democracy?

 

He wasn't lying about that. He loved democracy as he was able to con the people into making him Emperor, rather than taking it by force.

 

"I love democracy..I love the Republic. The power you give me I will lay down when this crisis has been abated."

Something tells me he wasn't being 100% truthful there.

 

"This crisis" is one of those things that can mean whatever Palpatine wants it to mean