I know it's a redemption story and balance to force, etc., BUT wouldn't the emperor have died anyway since Lando blew that thing up right after the whole force lightening fight?
shareYes but Vader wouldn't know that at the time
shareOf course it was necessary!
It meant the triumph of love and the Light Side, whereas if Luke had killed the SOB it'd have been a triumph of violence and revenge - Dark Side stuff. How could a fan not understand that!
Isn't killing bad? Why does killing someone automatically negate decades of evil, including killing many innocent people, children included?
shareYes, killing is bad, which is why Lucas had someone other than Luke kill the Emperor! If Luke had done it, that would indeed have been a huge step towards the Dark Side. Because the Emperor did need killing, as long as he was alive he'd be a threat to our heroes, and there's no way a Sith Lord who can levitate would trip and fall to his death like a Disney Villain.
So, Vader killed him, which was a huge ethical step up for him, and he died as a consequence, so nobody got away with murder. And that neatly wrapped everything up, Luke solved the whole galaxy's problem with the Power Of Love, and Vader didn't hang around cramping Luke and Leia's style. Because of Vader's sacrifice, Luke was spared from having to use violence at the finale, and Luke was free to be a Jedi, and Leia was free to run the galaxy.
Yeah, it felt phony and contrived at the time, and it does now. The entire ending was nonsense, slapped on to give the requisite happy ending without any rhyme or reason.
shareExcept it didn't feel contrived, at least not more than anything in my least favorite original film, it was actually how the OT had to end. It was a victory for the Light Side of the Force, a restoration of balance to the Force and the galaxy, a cumulation of everything Lucas was writing about.
And if you wanted Luke to defeat Palpatine in a light saber battle, you hadn't been paying attention.
Who wants to see Luke fight Palpatine in a light saber battle?
Where I think it fails is that Darth Vader was evil for nearly his entire life. We didn't know the prequel backstory at that point (thankfully), but we'd seen him casually order an entire planet be destroyed, and we know he'd done many other terrible things. He had demonstrated no love or care for his son at all to that point, and been an obedient disciple to Palpatine.
Only after he has been defeated by Luke, and hears Palpatine abandon him and ask Luke to replace him does he have a change of heart, and even that feels phony. How many other times has Palpatine committed some horrible act that didn't bother Vader. Because it's his son, and because Palpatine has just kicked him to the curb, he finally decides Palpatine is no good? That in itself is evil and selfish. Kill everyone else's kids? No problem? Kill mine? I'll kill you. Even as a 13-year-old watching Jedi in the theater I was bothered by how easily Vader was redeemed, and how his act of redemption seemed somewhat selfish in and of itself. Suddenly he's up there with Obi-Wan and Yoda? Ridiculous.
And Palpatine's death is too easy. He's the most powerful Force user around, yet has no way to defend himself when being picked up and carried across a room and dropped into a pit?
But being killed by the apprentice you created yourself is the traditional Sith way to die! I mean, who else is gonna kill a Sith, except another Sith?
Because it was shown earlier that Vader was tired of serving Palpatine, and wanted to join forced with Luke and get rid of the old bastard, and rule the galaxy as father and son. And that was *totally* believable, everyone stuck in a long-term subordinate position wants to be the boss.
As for how to end it instead, well... by that point the filmmakers had painted themselves into something of a corner, but if you really want to come up with a way to end the film that makes sense without going back and reshooting the rest of the film, the best you can probably do is to have Vader watch in silence as Palpatine kills Luke, who does not resist. He learned from Obi-Wan in the first film that there is something beyond death, and it can be better to lower your guard and sacrifice yourself than to lash out and kill. He's doing it to buy time for the rebel attack to happen, and not give Palpatine and Vader time to escape.
Once Luke is dead, he, Obi-Wan, and Yoda show up as force ghosts and tell Palpatine “tsk tsk, you shouldn’t ought to have done that,” at which point the rebel attack on the Death Star takes place and Palpatine and Darth Vader are killed. Their uppances have come.
Later, at the Ewok party, Leia can see Luke, Obi-Wan, and Yoda.
Not the best ending, but given the lead-up, about as good as you’re gonna’ get.
That is an interesting idea, but i prefer Lucas's ending.
Because I actually LIKE the idea of the Light Side carrying the day for once!
Aside from the character-driven, thematic reasons you've already cited, yes, there is a plot-based reason for Vader to do this.
1. The Emperor might have escaped, had Vader let him live (any clones notwithstanding...)
2. Barring any Force premonitions, Vader doesn't know that the Death Star will be destroyed in short order, or even at all. The Rebels might just as easily lose the battle. If that's the case, killing the Emperor might actually cause enough political division to give the Rebels a chance to scrape together more forces and/or political support and get back in the fight.
3. Most urgently, Luke is about to die. The Emperor will fry him. He's not going to just let them walk out of the throne room. Vader might be able to provide Luke with cover until he can flee, but why just tank the lightning attack so Luke can run when tanking it and chucking the Emperor down a pit is so much more efficient. This is doubly prudent in hindsight, because the lightning fries Vader and does him in. If he'd just tried to block it and save Luke, he might have dropped faster and been unable to even save his son.
I was thinking exactly the same thing when I saw that scene in ROTJ tonight!
If Luke had died under the lightning, if not falling down the shaft as he nearly did, and the Emperor had tortured Vader into unconsciousness, I actually wonder how the Emperor could've stopped the Rebels from blowing up the Death Star II? That part was never made clear.
I'm actually thinking that Abrams thought of the same issue with TROS, and so cooked up the idea that Palpatine could single-handedly stop the Rebels with a massive amount of Force lightning in ROTJ as he did in TROS!
Who knows, eh?