So I’m watching Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and it’s at the beginning, on the ice planet Hoth–my very favorite part of the movie, and perhaps the whole series. Anyway, I noticed something unintentionally comical for the first time.

See, Luke’s lost and weak out in the ice plains, the wind swirling around him, nearly frozen. Suddenly, good ol’ Ben Kenobi (That’s Obi-Wan, to you and me) appears before him in hallucinatory spirit-form. Now, I understand this scene and appreciate its artfulness–the idea is, Luke is pretty out of it, his mind isn’t right at all, and what with his fragile state, the line between life and death may even be blurring a little bit, perhaps allowing him to communicate with dead people.

This set up was probably meant to be ambiguous–leaving the question open as to whether Luke was hallucinating or Obi-Wan had actually appeared to him–but it’s clear immediately, and confirmed through later contacts, that Obi-Wan is actually appearing to him. And what has Luke’s best friend and mentor crossed universes and temporal dimensions to tell his dying pupil?

“Luke, you must go to the Dagoba system–there you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me”
What?! Luke’s lying there in the desolate tundra on the very brink of death, and Obi-Wan appears for like nine seconds to tell him this relatively trivial piece of forshadowing? I mean, it’s not like he appeared while Luke was sitting around playing monster chess, or flying his X-Wing somewhere, so he could just turn around and go to Dagoba right then. This is a desperate, forsaken Luke here, and we don’t even get a “Hang in there, buddy,” or a “Stay strong, Luke”??I’m just saying, the utter frankness of this spiritual connection is hilarious to me.