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Luke Skywalker and his company have arrived on Tatooine in attempt to rescue the frozen Han Solo

Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, and his closest friends initiate a plan to rescue the frozen Han Solo from the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. The carbonite coffin is hanging on the wall at Jabba's palace, and heavily guarded. First Lando Calrissian infiltrates Jabba's palace on Tatooine in disguise, joining Jabba's court. Then R2-D2 and C-3PO arrive with a holographic message from Skywalker pleading Jabba to release Solo, but they end up as his servants. Princess Leia Organa (in the guise of bounty hunter Boushh) arrives with "prisoner" Chewbacca seemingly to collect the wookie's bounty from Jabba, but in fact to rescue Han. Jabba then sends Chewbacca to the prisons. That night, Leia releases Solo from the carbonite, but she was overseen by Jabba and his minions, who let her to finish the process for a reason, and only after Solo was rendered, he have them both captured. Solo is put in the prison with Chewbacca while Jabba takes Leia as his personal slave girl, replacing Oola, his previous slave. Luke arrives the next morning, tells his offer, but Jabba rejects it, and traps Luke who falls into the Rancor pit. Luke successfully kills the rancor by crushing it with the gate, then allows himself to be captured. The furious Jabba sentenced the three of them to death, except Leia, commanding his men to have Luke and his friends to be eaten by the Sarlacc. Next morning the hostages were lead out from their prison cells, and escorted into Jabba's sail barges, which will transport them above the Great Pit of Carkoon. When Luke was forced to jump in the pit, he jumps high in the air, and with the help of R2-D2, he retrieves his lightsaber and frees his friends. A sailbarge nearby opens fire at them, so jumps there, and starts battling his captors. Boba Fett attacks them, but all of his gadgets proves to be little to stop Luke, until Solo, by this time blinded from the after-effects of carbonization, accidentally activates the jetpack of bounty hunter who flies out of control, crashing and falling in the pit of the Sarlacc. Leia, meanwhile, with her chains, strangles Jabba to death. The droids are then set free, and jump off the sail barge, landing in the Tatooinian sand. Luke then rescues Leia, and destroys Jabba's Sail Barge. Luke and his company escape with an other sail barge, and in the deleted scene, gets in a desert storm, but survives that, too.

Preparations to confront the Empire

All of the crew (except for Luke) depart Tatooine for the rendezvous point near Sullust where the Rebel Alliance is assembling, while Luke and R2-D2 head for Dagobah to fulfil a promise made for Yoda, to come back and finish his training. But Yoda is very ill, and declares no further training is required, then reveals that Vader is indeed Luke's father before he dies. Minutes later the spirit form of Kenobi confirms that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, and reveals that Luke has a twin sister, hidden from the Emperor, who is actually Princess Leia. While near Sullust, the Rebel Alliance gathers and plans to attack the Death Star. As part of the plans interpreted by Mon Mothma and admiral Ackbar, Leia, Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and a strike team must penetrate the shield generator on the fourth moon of Endor in order to deactivate the shield in order to the Rebel fleet could attack the "incomplete" Second Death Star. Returning from Dagobah, Luke joins the strike team. Han gives his ship to Lando, so his friend could lead the space strike team with the Falcon, but after he thought twice, he asked Lando to take care of his old ship. The Endor strike team uses a captured Imperial shuttle to get to Endor. However, because they use an old code to gain passage, plus because Darth Vader senses his son, he knows they're Rebels, but lets them through anyway so that they will be ambushed by the Imperial forces expecting them on Endor. Also, Vader does not obey the Emperor's order to stay near Sullust in cover until the Rebels make the first move, instead Vader travels to Endor, to meet his son, and to try to turn him to the Dark Side of the Force.

Arriving to Endor jungle moon

The strike team lands on Endor and were discovered by scout troopers. A speeder bike chase ensues, Luke and Leia incapacitate the imperials, but Leia was thrown off her speeder and knocked unconscious. As she awakes, she encounters a primitive yet intelligent life form, called Ewok. One ewok helps Leia to defeat the last biker scouts, then escorts her into their village. Luke, Han, C-3PO and R2D2 were searching the Princess in the jungle, when they fall into a net trap set by the Ewoks. The ewoks capture them all, and after first being quite hostile, they mistake C-3PO for a god, so when Luke uses the Force to make C-3PO levitate, the Ewoks free them and form an alliance with them. Later that night, on the wooden corridor of the ewok village, Luke confesses to Leia everything he knows about his relationship to Vader and to her, and that he is leaving to confront Vader one more time, believing that there is still good in him. Luke surrenders to Imperial troops, so that they will bring him to Vader. He is transported to the Endor landing platform with an AT-AT in front of Vader, where they meet again. He then tries to convince Vader to turn from the Dark Side, but Vader says it is too late for him, and refuses his son. Luke turns his head away, and answers then his father is dead, indeed. So Vader takes Luke to the Death Star to meet Emperor Palpatine.

Battle events on Endor

The Rebels needs to get into the shield generator, but they don't know, how. The help comes from a small ewok, called Paploo, who jumps on a speeder bike, and lures the guards deep in the jungle, leaving only a single guard in front of the bunker, who is easily forced to surrender by the rebels, who proudly march into the bunker, only to be taken prisoner by the waiting elite Imperial forces. The attacking rebel fleet emerges from hyperspace for the battle, but discovers the shield is still up, and retreats back a while, but the imperial fleet stands their way, and an intense battle begins. Solo and his company are led out of the bunker by the stormtroopers, but a surprise counterattack by the Ewoks allows the Rebels to fight back, and another intense battle commences with the Rebels and Ewoks on one side, the Empire on another. The ewok alliance proves to be very useful, when the ewoks use their jungle traps, destroying many infantry units, some speeder bikes, and even armored AT-STs. The rebels turn the tide, when 2 ewoks and Chewbacca captures an imperial AT-ST, knocking down its drivers, throwing out the corpses. The AT-ST gave them a large tactical advantage, since other walkers did not expected attack from a "friendly" AT-ST, so the occupied walker destroyed them easily. Additionally, Han got the idea to use the AT-ST's comm channel to gain access to the bunker, finally destroying the shield generator, allowing the Rebel fleet to launch a final assault on the Death Star up there, in the space battle above the moon Endor.

Events in the Death Star

Palpatine reveals to Luke that his allies on Endor, as well as Lando's flight team trying to penetrate the Death Star, are both walking into traps. Palpatine tempts Luke to give in to his anger and join the dark side of the Force. A lightsaber duel between Luke and Vader erupts, during which Vader throws his lightsaber at Luke, who is on a higher platform, and causes the platform to collapse. While searching for Luke, Vader also searches his thoughts and learns that Luke has a sister. When Vader suggests she would turn to the dark side instead, Luke cannot contain his anger and viciously attacks his father, slicing off his hand. However, he comes to his senses and, despite Palpatine's goading, spares his father and declares himself a Jedi. Enraged, Palpatine begins to slowly kill Luke with Force lightning. Unable to bear the sight of his son's torture any longer, Vader repents, becoming Anakin Skywalker once more. He turns on Palpatine and casts him down a reactor shaft to his death, having fulfilled the prophecy that he would be the one to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force, but is mortally wounded by Palpatine's lightning. At his request, Luke removes Anakin's mask to look into the eyes of the pale, withered man that is his father. Despite Luke's promise that he will save his father, Anakin declines, stating that "you already have". Having seen his son with his own eyes for the first, last and only time, Anakin dies, finally at peace. In the space Lando Calrissian leads the remaining ships deep into the station's core and fires at the main reactor, causing it to collapse, which slowly engulfs the Death Star in exploding flames. Luke grabs towards an Imperial shuttle his father's lifeless corps, but nobody cares about him, don't even taking a look at a rebel leader, who is dragging Vader on the floor. They manage to escape before the Death Star explodes. On Endor, Han begins to think that Leia is in love with Luke rather than him, however, Leia tells him that Luke is her brother, relieving Han, and they share a kiss. While the entire galaxy celebrates the fall of the Empire, Luke mourns his returned and lost father, cremating his torso on a funeral pyre. Luke catches sight of the spiritual figures of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and his redeemed father Anakin Skywalker, who watch over them with pride.

Thanks for reading CustomStarWars articles. Special thanks to Darth Stryker, who helped this section with his software dioramas, made by KOTF, illustrating so many scenes of the Star Wars saga, with those we followed the events of the 6 Star Wars episodes!

written and translated by: Norbert Rostas