CT Why did Obi-Wan choose to appear to Luke after he had almost become Wampa lunch?

Don't know how I chimed in before without seeing this - I'll ad my 2 cents to the pile and say I like this explaination as much as my own "luke was close to death" explaination. Kudos.

 

I do believe this topic's name is incorrect. Luke didn't almost become Wampa lunch, he almost became Wampa dinner. Note that it got dark on Hoth shortly after Han arrived.

 

Another possibility is that a person has to be more in-tune with the force to see force ghosts.

Maybe because Luke had just performed his first act of telekinesis he had become strong enough at that point to actually see Obi-Wan instead of just being able to hear him.

 

I still think it had a lot to do with the timing; that Obi-Wan and the Force used Han to rescue Luke (see my earlier posts and the linked thread in them). But EvilQ 's point above this is good too. Cool avatar, too.

 

Interesting topic.
It was convenient for Kenobi to appear when he did, with Han coming from that direction. It worked well in the movie. Perhaps Kenobi predicted that Luke will soon be forced to leave Hoth. But it is still unclear why he waited three years to send Luke to Yoda.

 

In the Rebel Force books, Obi-Wan does not entirely trust Luke at this point- he's worried that Luke will turn out like Anakin- and wants to see Luke's character for himself.

This might be a part of it.

 

Personally, apart from the bog-standard dramatic reasons, I just felt that Obi-Wan was leaving Luke to find his own way and only intervened when he was ready to make his next step to becoming a Jedi. It's similar to the super-powerful beings in LOTR having to let the people of Middle-Earth win on their own, rather than just stomping Sauron & his mob in half an hour - but still giving them a helping hand now & then (the eagles etc).

That works well, too, not unlike this weirdness in the rough draft of ROTJ:

It's not the same thing, but it's certainly along the same lines - the idea that Force Ghosts appear because of some sort of real-world 'trigger', so GL may have been thinking along the same lines while writing ESB.

 

It's quite possible the Wampa works the night shift? Luke lunch then running around at night doing Wampa stuff.

 

Maybe he knew that Luke needed help and some guidance so he was able to appear right at the exact moment

 

Luke had been run through the ringer all day long. He was knocked off his tauntaun and dragged back to the wampa cave only to be hung upside down for who knows how long. By the time he did escape, the weather was dropping rapidly and even with all the cold weather clothes he had on, the cold was killing him. Being out in the middle of nowhere and having no idea which direction to even travel, I think Luke was just about to give up. Obi-Wan sensed this and "guided" Han to where Luke was, at the same time appearing to Luke in order to keep his mind sharp and focused until Han arrived.

 

Good point, never though of that!

Perhaps he had to use the bathroom and couldn't tell him at the right time? (Are there even bathrooms in the Netherlands of the force?)

 

Once you're a ghost, is eating really necessary?

 

If you look closely at the ESB credits you'll notice that Basil Exposition was a story advisor.

 

Which is why I never liked the in-universe 'three-year interval' between ANH and TESB from non-film canon sources. Thankfully, said time interval is not actually in the (OT) films themselves (via dialogue or other narration devices).

 

He waited for a moment where he wouldn't have to put up with Luke's whining.

 

oop, hadn't thought of that one too. Luke was literally near death so Obi-Wan had to push him back from the Netherworld edge and into reality by giving him his quest. It kept him going. Or at least alive enough to yell out for "Ben!"

Most of the answers seem to circle back around to "Luke close to death then close to Obi-Wan" and the "so Han could find him", which I think can both work together.

 

It almost seems as if Luke was really just hallucinating because he was close to death. We (the viewers) obviously know he isn't, but it's almost like Luke isn't really sure. Of course he goes anyway....

 

None of the films, save for AOTC, ever make a reference to how many years pass between films. It started because Alan Dean Foster described Luke as being twenty in the ANH novelization and then Donald F. Gult said that he was twenty three in TESB's novelization. What's not clear is how much that was Gult working on his own and how much it came from Lucas.

 

Not sure if this was already said, but, I always felt that first of all the encounter with the Wampa was a test of sorts. Notice Luke has a hard time focusing enough at first to get his Sabre. He then stops, and refocuses once more and that time he is able to use the force to get his lightsaber. It showed me that he may have been struggling a bit with the Force. Once he had shown he could call upon the force in a tense moment, then he was ready to move on with his training.

Why didn't Ben wait for a better moment to have that little chit-chat? Well I would say because things were a little drastic at that moment, and Ben may have felt the need to reach out to Luke to keep him going.

 

Yeah, they could go full on PT-era "Jedi Trail" mode so it's more like Ghost Ben and Yoda were, "Eh, he pulled the lightsaber to him. good enough! Guess he's not a youngling anymore!"

 

... Obi-Wan's conspicuous appearance here is expository and, as others have also already mentioned, Obi-Wan--or "Ben," as Luke seems fond of calling the old sage, seems to appear when Luke is at his lowest point... i disagree, however, that Ob-Wan somehow played a physical role in Han's rescue of Luke...isn't it later implied that Obi-wan can't do this? ...when Ob-Wan explains that he will not be able to intervene if Luke faces off against Vader? he meant physically, right? Han's appearing seconds later from the white abyss does leave room for a little ambiguity, but, if anything, Ben probably spotted Han coming and dropped Luke a line... either way, it's definitely the Hero's Call for Luke in TESB...

[/QUOTE]Not sure if this was already said, but, I always felt that first of all the encounter with the Wampa was a test of sorts. Notice Luke has a hard time focusing enough at first to get his Sabre. He then stops, and refocuses once more and that time he is able to use the force to get his lightsaber. It showed me that he may have been struggling a bit with the Force. Once he had shown he could call upon the force in a tense moment, then he was ready to move on with his training.[/QUOTE]

... good point. it's during this scene that we get to see some nice character development for Luke, in this case the kind of progress that he's making with the Force (but who is training him at this point? Ben's ghost? himself?)... i think this is the first time we see Luke pull an object with the Force, right?

... overall, i think the wampa sequence is actually the most vital sequence in the entire movie in that it makes sure that the stakes are clear when Luke later decides to leave Dagobah to go rescue his friends on Bespin: Obi-Wan's urgent message here that Luke must reach Yoda on Dagobah sets up Luke's primary goal--to train as a Jedi with Yoda so that he can eventually destroy Vader and the Emperor... those are stakes... but then, it's Han's actions during the wampa sequence that also set up the emotional stakes in Luke's ultimate decision to abandon his training with Yoda... i mean, wouldn't it have been kind of cold of Luke if had turned his back on Han, the guy who we saw risk life and limb on Hoth to rescue his friend--even after knowing that the rebels would eventually have to close the shield doors back at the base??? ... destiny be damned--Luke had to rescue his friends at that point!

... in this light, i can almost see that, yeah, maybe Obi-Wan's little appearance on Hoth does almost seem intrusive. it's like, 'Hey, Luke, it's nice that Han is rescuing you and all, but don't forget--you have other, higher priorities.'...

 

I always figured it was a combination of all that was posted.

+ Ben wanted to wait until he was sure Luke was ready for his next step to becoming a Jedi. Luke calming himself down and using the Force to get his lightsaber back was that moment. Up to then, Luke probably had little use of the Force and his lightsaber was most likely just an extra weapon he had.

+ Acting as a signal. Han, of course, can't see Ben, but he could see a man lying prone on the frozen ground if the man managed to raise his hand in the air, which is what Luke was doing while yelling, "Ben!" Ben wants Luke to be a Jedi, and he can't really do that if he's a frozen corpse, now can he? Ben knew Han was coming and took some measures to ensure Luke would make some form of motion/make a noise so Han could spot him quicker.

+ The 'what if it were a hallucination' thing. We know Ben isn't a hallucination, but in-story, it works perfectly because here is Luke, near dead, seeing the ghost of a man he once knew, a man he saw be killed three years ago. For all Luke knows, his brain has pretty much died and is firing off its last signals, creating a sort of mirage/hallucination that Ben is suddenly on Hoth in the clothes he died in all those years ago.

 

...true. i can see that...

 

Near death experiences or high moments of peril make your mind more open to the supernatural. Because Luke was in survival mode, he no longer had his mind occupied by tedious things, he was open to the Force and thus Kenobi appeared.

 

The way it happens in the movie works really well storytelling-wise and cinematically. As mentioned it's clear that Obi-Wan led Han to find Luke just in time to save his life.

Also, note that the event that occurs right before all of this is that Luke uses the Force to call his lightsaber into his hand from the snow. It's possible that this is the first time he's been able to perform this trick. I don't think it's any coincidence that the events in this section of the movie unfold in this way and I'm sure that the point is that Ben and Yoda both felt the fluctuation in the Force when Luke accomplishes this, letting then know that Luke is ready for the next step.

It's all really vague and Force-y, but I think the logic is there in the story progression for sure.