chris@rand-unix@sri-unix.UUCP (08/05/83)
Ben states clearly that he believes Luke is the only hope in both movies. In ESB, the line, spoken to Yoda, is "That boy is our only hope", to which Yoda replies, "No, there is another". Yoda never tells Luke that there is another hope; he tells Luke "There is another Skywalker". After that death scene, when Luke is waiting outside for the lights to die out in Yoda's hut, he tells R2D2 "I can't go on alone", to which Ben, appearing from the mists, replies "You must. You are our only hope". Since Ben then goes on to explain how Luke's sister was hidden away, he does not associate her with Yoda's "other hope", regardless of what Yoda thought (and Yoda never comes out and says Leia is the other hope). This leaves the question ambiguous. Since Luke believes that Leia could carry on (in the Ewok village, when she says "We can't afford to lose you. I can't do it", he replies, " Yes, you could") but has never heard that Yoda believes in "another hope", he cannot confirm that Leia is the object of Yoda's reference. And since Yoda insists over and over again that "Once you start down the Dark Side of the Force, forever it will dominate your destiny", he does not seem to believe that Vadar is redeemable. The facts in the movie do not support either hypothesis to the exclusion of the other. However, I believe that in an interview given after ESB came out, Lucas stated that the "other" was somebody we had not seen, but whose existence we could infer. This could be interpreted to mean Anakin Skywalker, whom we had hitherto never seen as Anakin, but only as Darth Vader, and a remnant of whose lingering goodness still existed in Vader, as Luke proved.