A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, one Star Wars character went up against Luke Skywalker and was immediately defeated – without being touched.
The ‘Force Kick’ in Return of the Jedi as Luke Skywalker attacked Jabba’s skiff went down in pop culture folklore; an infamous goof that demands replay after replay – and is up there with various other Star Wars mistakes, including Jeans Guy and whatever Zip-gate was.
Now, a new Star Wars book has not only given that character a name – Sion – but has revealed what really happened on that fateful day.
Return of the Jedi: From a Certain Point of View highlights the end of the original trilogy via the perspective of various overlooked and secondary characters. Among them is Sion, who has a very, very bad day (H/T Inverse) after cornering Luke on the skiff.
"He had him. There was no space to parry and no space to swing, and — and he hadn’t accounted for the kick, not at this distance," the story reveals.
“Force kick” dude in Return of the Jedi. (Technically a foreground extra, but the focus of the shot is Boba flying out of control so I’m counting it.) pic.twitter.com/CTYeGkRdMzAugust 22, 2020
The implication being, then, that Luke didn’t touch Sion – and actually Force-kicked him into the Sarlacc pit and to his likely death. After all these years, we can now rewatch Return of the Jedi safe in the knowledge that, no, that wasn’t a mistake. Instead, it was actually the Jedi pulling out a technique that no one has used before or since. Honest.
Ahsoka is currently airing on Disney Plus. For more from the Star Wars spin-off, check out our guides on:
- Who is Ahsoka Tano?
- Who is Grand Admiral Thrawn?
- Who is Hera Syndulla?
- Who is Sabine Wren?
- Who is Ezra Bridger?
- Everything you need to know about Star Wars Rebels
- What to watch before Ahsoka
- How to watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars in order
- The Ahsoka timeline
- Ahsoka release schedule
- The purrgil explained
