10 Awesome Star Wars Ideas That Nearly Happened

Flirting with the murkier side of The Force in his later appearances as a grizzled, bitter Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, you may be surprised to discover that this wasn't the first time a pitch had been made for the one-time farm boy to take a walk on the more questionable side of morality.

After dispatching The Emperor to save his boy, the few beats between Darth Vader and his son as the former Anakin Skywalker slowly passed on made for one of Return of the Jedi's most moving exchanges.

However, George Lucas once actually jokingly pitched this sequence having a very different conclusion.

As he told his co-writer Lawrence Kasdan when discussing the scene:

"Luke takes his mask off. The mask is the very last thing - and then Luke puts it on and says, 'Now I am Vader'. Surprise! The ultimate twist. 'Now I will go and kill the (Rebel) fleet and I will rule the universe'."

Gleefully, Kasdan actually responded by proclaiming "That's what I think should happen" before Lucas quickly backed off and noted how the film was "for kids".

Skewed towards a younger demographic or not, seeing Luke suddenly opt to turn his back on everything we thought he believed in would've made for arguably the most shocking twist in cinema history - and that's coming after being told the most devious soul in the galaxy was his paps!