The Empire Strikes Back was going to have a dark Luke moment, but Lucas decided against it, eventually repurposing it for Anakin in the prequels.
A dark moment for Luke Skywalker was planned for The Empire Strikes Back, but it was ultimately repurposed for Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. As Luke grew in strength throughout the original trilogy, he was repeatedly tempted by the dark side of the Force, which was nearly expressed through a violent scene in Empire Strikes Back’s third act. The moment was never included in the final film, but a similar one was used to express Anakin Skywalker’s gradual fall to the dark side in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
As revealed in The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker would have encountered a group of Stormtroopers in Cloud City while attempting to rescue his friends. Using his lightsaber, Luke would have cut down the Stormtroopers in a moment that the book described as a “massacre.” The scene’s intention was to shock viewers and make them fear that Luke is beginning to fall to the dark side.
George Lucas eventually decided against including this scene, preferring to showcase Luke’s struggle with the dark side in the following film, Return of the Jedi, instead. No such scene ended up in the 1983 film, however, as Luke’s battle against Jabba the Hutt’s enforcers was framed as a heroic moment while Luke’s struggle with the dark side was shown in other scenes. Ultimately, the closest thing that the Star Wars saga got to this rejected Empire Strikes Back moment was Anakin’s massacre of the Tusken Raiders in Attack of the Clones, which made far better use of the Empire Strikes Back concept.
Why Luke’s Empire Strikes Back Massacre Scene Was Cut
The problem with trying to frame Luke cutting down Stormtroopers with his lightsaber as a “massacre” is that the Stormtroopers are enemy combatants on the opposing side of Luke’s faction in a full-scale war. It’d be strange to frame Luke cutting down a squad of Stormtroopers who are actively trying to kill him in a negative light, especially when he’s shown fighting against them throughout the rest of the original Star Wars trilogy with no such angle. The Empire Strikes Back novelization includes a brief moment in Cloud City where Luke blasts two Stormtroopers with his blaster, which the book makes no attempt to frame in a negative light.
When Luke unveils his new green-bladed lightsaber in Return of the Jedi and fights Jabba’s henchmen, the action sequence is overtly framed as a heroic, swashbuckling, and triumphant moment in which Luke makes full use of his Jedi training to rescue his friends. Luke and his allies had already made several attempts to rescue Han Solo from Jabba with little to no bloodshed and the crime lord was making his second attempt to execute Luke. With their non-violent options expended and their lives in immediate jeopardy, Luke and his allies battle Jabba and his ruthless enforcers to escape his clutches and rejoin the Rebellion with Han Solo.
Return of the Jedi did an excellent job of showing Luke’s struggle with the dark side elsewhere, especially in its third act, but the concept of having a Jedi-in-training tap into the dark side via a brutal massacre was put to better use in Attack of the Clones. Anakin’s grief was more than justified, watching his mother die in his arms as she succumbed to brutal torture, but he retaliated by killing every Tusken Raider in the tribe, not just those who brutalized her. Unlike Luke, who was tempted by the dark side in The Empire Strikes Back, Anakin was beginning his path towards Sith Lordship, and his dark action scene in Attack of the Clones made better use of the rejected Cloud City sequence.
