Why didn't Palpatine just ambush Luke at Jabba's Palace?

He wanted Luke, right? And he knew where Han Solo was stored, right? And there were no guarantees Luke would be part of the Endor brigade, right? (?My son is with them.? ?Are you sure??)

So why didn't he just ensnare the kid when he launched the inevitable rescue mission? Capture him and his friends, and keep them hostage for the big battle? Heck, with Leia, Han and Lando in his clutches, Palps could have turned Luke to the Dark Side in five minutes flat.

Am I missing something, here?

 

Funnily enough, that's exactly what happens in the original drafts of ROTJ, if I remember correctly. As the gang are walking to the Falcon there is a sandstorm, and in the confusion a bunch of mercenaries abduct Luke and knock him out and when he awakens he is in a ship being brought to see the Emperor. They cut that part out, but left the sandstorm-walking-to-Falcon part in the final draft, though it was cut.

 

Hm. I suppose that would make a lot of sense.
I assume that Palpatine was confident enough that Luke would seek Vader out and that Vader would bring Luke to him, though.





Palpatine - he is confident
/LM

 

I think there's something to be said for the fact that Luke seeks out the Sith voluntarily. He comes to his father, and thus the Emperor, of his own free will. That sounds like Palpatine's preference to me, as it gives him a whole different set of possible mindgames to play on Luke.

 

Maybe he wanted to see just how strong Luke was: if Luke were to get captured or killed, then he wasn't worth the trouble after all.

Mopping up almost all of Jabba's court must have left a strong impression on both Vader and Palpatine.

 

IIRC, in the RotJ audio drama, Imperial forces blockaded Tatooine, but Luke and the others ran the blockade.

 

Good point. Just remember the disappointment in Vader's voice when Luke falls into the freezing chamber on Cloud City during their duel: "All too easy. Maybe you are not as strong as the Emperor thought."

 

Maybe he wanted to play with the father/son emotions. Plus he suspected Vader of no longer being faithful to him and getting soft because of his son. It was probably a way to test Vader as well instead of just storming Jabba's palace and capturing Luke

Course according to the EU, Mara was supposed to kill Luke there. But strictly movie-wise, i think that's what it was

 

Good points there too. Palpatine sends his guards away when Vader and Luke arrive. This showdown is a strictly boys only voluntary thing. Which plays on both Vader and Luke's emotions to greatest possible effect.

 

Mara Jade was there to intercept and kill Luke, but due to Jabba refusing to let her aboard the sail barge, that didn't happen.

 

Killer plan, then!

 

Luke already managed to escape from the innards of the Death Star, destroy it, and survive a sword duel with a Sith Lord. Set against this, the Hutt crime family wouldn't be much of a trial.

 

which he did by trying to fall to his death. No wonder he thought being sentenced for execution by Jabba was a brilliant idea.

 

Or you could spin that differently and say Luke is just so awesome that it's impossible for him to die by something as lame as falling.

 

To quote the Wicked Witch Of The West, 'These things must be handled delicately.'

Also, if that is not practical enough for you, go get Luke and Leia and Solo and Lando in the middle of lap of the biggest gangster in the galaxy and word will spread. Palaptine does not want to scare off the Rebels from their attack on the DS2.

 

There could also be political issues with the Empire stepping on a Hutt's toes (no pun intended ) like that. I'm not sure the Hutts are really under the control of the Empire. They could be separate spheres of power uneasily coexisting in that part of the galaxy, one as the official government and the other as the actual government.

 

Yes, because the Hutts would have a chance against Darth Vader.


Palpatine probably lets them keep their chunk of the galaxy because they make the Dark Side more powerful by treating people like garbage.

 

I would have like to have seen that on film. Did he escape?

 

It would have been interesting, but by that point, mercs getting the drop on Luke would have been redundant and they would have died like Jabba's mercs.

 

No, that's how he ends up in the Emperor's throne room.

 

Luke was supposed to be captured on Bespin. Boba was allowed to take Han away before it became apparent that Luke was going to escape Vader's trap. Vader knew that Boba was going to take Han to Jabba but did Luke know? Isn't there a year or so between ESB and ROTJ? And Lando tells Luke at the end of ESB that he'll contact look when they locate "that Bounty Hunter."

On top of that, when Luke shows up at Jabba's Palace, it doesn't seem as though the Emperor forewarned Jabba that he should expect Luke to come looking for Han. If the Emperor was willing to compensate Boba Fett in the event that Han died, you'd think that he would try to set up an arrangement with Jabba too. The Emperor's willing to compensate Boba for Han who is serving as little more than bait, but he doesn't arrange some kind of mutually beneficial deal with Jabba to capture Luke, with Luke being the real prize?

I think the reason that no trap was set for Luke on Tatooine was because as far as Vader knew, Luke had no reason to go there. It was a premonition of the suffering of Luke's friends on Bespin that lured him there. Han sitting as a frozen slab on a wall probably didn't give Luke much to sense. And again, it seems like Lando had to do a lot of searching between the films to actually track Han down to Jabba's Palace.

Also, despite what Lucas says in retrospect about Palpatine being disappointed with Vader and wanting Luke to replace him, you have to remember that the Emperor's initial reaction, when becoming aware of Luke, was to kill him. It was Vader that proposed the idea to turn him and he was the one obsessively searching for Luke, whereas the Emperor had little to do with it. In Palpatine's mind, if Luke could be turned, great. But if he was killed, then Palpatine would have lost nothing. When Palpatine arrives on the Death Star, he senses that Vader wishes to resume the search for Luke. It doesn't come across as though Palpatine is nearly as motivated as Vader in taking Luke alive. He seemed intrigued about the prospect of turning Luke, and if Vader could bring Luke in alive, Palpatine would try to turn Luke, but he wasn't overly concerned if Luke were killed.

Contrast that with Anakin where Palpatine put forth much more effort into grooming Anakin to becoming a Sith Lord, and raced out to Mustafar to save him when he was in danger of dying. With Luke, Palpatine seemed more like he was humoring Vader in giving him a chance to try and turn Luke. And when Vader was able to sense Luke on the forest moon while Palpatine could not, that seemed to raise suspicion that Vader's ability to sense Luke might be arising out of his emotional attachment, and Palpatine did not want that attachment to interfere with Vader's task of turning Luke over to the Emperor.

 

Also Jabba was a criminal underground figure. If Palpatine sent a fleet of star destroyers and a legion of troops, Jabba would likely have pulled a fade and fled to some other rathole until the heat blew over.

 

I agree completely, I think it had far more to do with the idea of replacing Vader with Luke, in Palpatine's mind coming along quite quickly. From what I understand, the Empire had nothing to do with the Hutts. Sure they might have brokered a few deals, but surely not enough to bother the Emperor with.

As for Vader, Palpatine had already granted him the time and resources to hunt Luke down. These efforts became the situation at Bespin. Vader failed to turn Luke then, or even capture him, so he lost his chance at that, he also payed for it. Vader was re-asigned back to his original job, being the Supreme Commander of the Navy, who's objective it was to hunt down the Alliance base, along with targeting their trade supplies and all of that sort of Galactic Warfare stuff.

Apart from being related, Vader and Luke were virtual strangers to each other, they likely had no idea what the other was up to at any given time, and by the time of ROTJ, I think Vader was very aware of this. And remember, Luke was on Tatoonie, then Dagobah for the larger part of that gap before the mission against DSII. Vader probably had no clue of where he was. All Vader probably got was a telegram on his desk saying 'Han Solo confirmed to be back in Rebel hands.' Palpatine knew obviously, because of Mara. He obviously didn't trust Vader anymore to do his Sithly duties properly, so I think there's definitely a test for Vader in there too.

It looks like Palpatine gave Luke a chance to be turned at Bespin, then contemplated it for a bit and figured he would be better off dead, hence sending Mara to assasinate him. That didn't go too well, so Palpatine had to come up with something else. He fast-tracked everything with Luke, forgetting that Luke had not been raised by Jedi and seperated from any of his loved ones by the Jedi. Where Anakin had wounds caused by the Jedi, Luke had wounds caused by the Sith, and Palpatine should have taken the time to rectify that. Whereas he spent 10+ years with Anakin in the slow cooker. Either Palpatine got arrogant, careless or just plain rushed, he broke all his tried and true rules. Silly man.

So, Why didn't Palpatine just ambush Luke at Jabba's Palace?

Short answer- Because for pretty much 80% of the time, Palpatine's agenda was to kill him off, simply because he was a Jedi. The Skywalker factor made his death even more urgent, but then Palpatine got to thinking "Hang on..." and looked at Vader over in the corner taking his old-man pills and thought Luke might be a worthy upgrade.

 

I laughed out loud so hard at that.

 

If I recall, didn't Darth Sidious send Mara Jade to Jabba's Palace to waylay Skywalker? Even if she tried to take down Luke, she wouldn't have succeeded. He was too strong in the Force for her.