Star Wars: 10 Reasons Return Of The Jedi Isn't As Perfect As You Remember

6. Wait, Luke And Leia Are WHAT?

Star Wars loves its big surprises, and while it’s now common knowledge that Luke and Leia were brother and sister, back when the film was released in the early 80s, no-one would have put money on it.

Maybe that’s because there was so little foreshadowing, maybe it’s because Luke and Leia famously snogged in Empire, or maybe it’s because Lucas didn’t really know what he was doing and chose to shoehorn in a surprise twist. Reminds us of a more recent film ...

Like the Luke-Vader reveal, we think that Luke and Leia being siblings has positively contributed to the Star Wars saga, and cemented its status as a family franchise. Except, well, most families don’t get up to the things they did pre-Jedi.

The Sequel trilogy gets a lot of slack for not having a roadmap laid out before filming, but Kathleen Kennedy and the rest of the Disney team were just following the yes, and improv precedent set out by George Lucas decades earlier. The random reveal of Luke and Leia being brother and sister was so out of the blue

and necessitated a number of awkward retcons in future films, like Leia being adopted by Bail Organa because he ‘always wanted a baby girl’. Right.

And no matter what sleights of hands Lucas tried to pull to make you believe that Luka and Leia were always supposed to be siblings, the fact that Leia ‘in away, always knew’ makes us question that kiss even more.