For a long time, there was some doubt concerning the filming of Luke and Vader making their way to the Emperor's throne room in RETURN OF THE JEDI. There is a passage in the novelization briefly describing this prisoner transfer but was it ever filmed? Photo evidence has since then appeared and it's looking like the scene was in fact filmed. Here's the excerpt from the RETURN OF THE JEDI novelization:

Vader's shuttle settled onto the docking bay of the Death Star, like a black, wingless carrion-eating bird; like a nightmare insect. Luke and the Dark Lord emerged from the snout of the beast with a small escort of stormtroopers, and walked rapidly across the cavernous main bay to the Emperor's tower elevator.

Royal guards awaited them there, flanking the shaft, bathed in a carmine glow. They opened the elevator door. Luke stepped forward.

The passage goes on to talk about Luke's feeling and thoughts as he's in the elevator shaft but you get the general idea here. The main point is that it looks like this small piece of connecting footage was shot and exists somewhere.

There's another noticeable cut scene involving Vader and his son near the end of the film. This one was always painfully obvious to me and although I don't have a decent picture, I made a small video clip from JEDI which contains some evidence that the shots were in fact filmed - or at least they tried.

You may have noticed that in the JEDI novelization, when Luke is hiding from Vader near the end of the film, Luke gives up his lightsaber after falling down into that dark area under the stairs. When he attacks Vader again, he uses the Force to retrieve his lightsaber... from Vader. Here are some excerpts from that scene in the novel:

Vader threw his scintillating blade - it sliced through the supports holding up the gantry on which Luke was perched, then swept around and flew back into Vader's hand. Luke tumbled to the ground, then rolled down another level, under the tilting platform. In the shadow of the darkened overhang, he was out of sight. Vader paced the area like a cat, seeking the boy; but he wouldn't enter the shadows of the overhang.

"You cannot hide forever, Luke."

"You'll have to come in and get me," replied the disembodied voice.

"I will not give you the advantage that easily." Vader felt his intentions increasingly ambiguous in this conflict; the purity of his evil was being compromised. The boy was clever indeed - Vader knew he must move with extreme caution now.

"I wish no advantage, father. I will not fight you. Here...take my weapon." Luke knew full well this might be the end, but so be it. He would not use Darkness to fight Darkness. Perhaps it would be left to Leia, after all, to carry on the struggle, without him. Perhaps she would know a way he didn't know; perhaps she could find a path. For now, though, he could see only two paths, and one was into Darkness; and one was not.

Luke put his lightsaber on the ground, and rolled it along the floor toward Vader. It stopped halfway between them, in the middle of the low overhead area. The Dark Lord reached out his hand - Luke's lightsaber jumped into it. He hooked it to his belt and, with grave uncertainty, entered the shadowy overhang.

After this and some taunting from Vader, Luke then snatches his saber from Vader's belt with the Force and proceeds to kick some Dark Side booty. I don't think we really know why this scene was cut but we can speculate, can't we? Personally, I've always had a little trouble with part of this scene. I've always had the impression while viewing the film that Vader was looking for Luke down there, but was really having a hard time locating him. The book, however, gives me another impression: that Vader refuses to look at first but then heads in later on sort of knowing where Luke is hiding. The problem with this scene in the film for me is - shouldn't Vader have been able to "feel" where Luke was with the Force? Not to mention that the little area down there was not that cavernous. Then there's the fact that when Luke does strike out he is practically next to Vader - within earshot of breathing at least. I don't know why that's always bothered me, but it has - unless you take into account the fact that Vader really was just stalling and didn't want to find Luke right away. Maybe he thought this was his moment to really talk some sense into that crazy kid of his.

Another question: Why did they leave in such a long clip (see below) of Vader holding Luke's saber? Did they just think that no one would notice? Download the clip and you'll see it is roughly eight seconds which can seem quite long on screen. Look very closely at Vader's hand and you will see he is in fact holding Luke's lightsaber in it. Perhaps they did film the entire sequence because according to the novel, Vader acquires the saber before entering the dark area under the gantry. It fits, and it makes sense as to why the shot is where it is in the film. I guess they just didn't have an alternate take to use without Vader holding the saber and no time to go back for pickups.

Maybe Lucas wasn't happy with the whole idea of Luke rolling his saber out into the open like that and practically giving up. You'll notice that in the novel, Luke does not make as many attempts to avoid fighting Vader. Perhaps Lucas added these moments to the film to make up for the scene later where Luke gives up his saber. Maybe Luke throwing away his saber twice was too repetitive. Maybe they just didn't like how the scenes looked during editing. Who knows.

To add some fuel to the fire, Starwars.com released an old script page from this scene on their site in the pay area. I can't reproduce that image for you here, unfortunately, or they'll send me nasty lawyer letters. But I can tell you what's on it -and it's quite interesting and matches the dialogue from the novel a little better.

Vader says, "You cannot hide forever, Luke," to which Luke replies, "You will have to come in and get me." Vader replies, "I will not give you the advantage that easily." Luke replies, "I wish no advantage Father... I will not fight you... Take my weapon." Then it reads: Luke's laser handle rolls into Vader's P.O.V. Vader collects it and places it on his belt moves on. Luke is hiding." Then it's business as usual.

The interesting part is that "places it on his belt" is crossed out. Well, it's interesting to us cut scene fans, right? All it really means is that they were going to have him hook it to his belt but changed their minds. So Vader was holding it instead and then Luke snatched it away - but we never really do see any of this stuff in the film, do we? Luke just sort of jumps up and has the saber in his hand so we're supposed to assume he had it the whole time, I guess? Who knows.

Thanks to Fernando Rendon for the split-comparison image below. Thanks also to longtime friend of the site, Scott Weller, who sent in the first image you see below which can be found in an issue of the UK Star Wars Fact Files magazine. The other images come from The Star Wars Trilogy DVD. The image of Luke in that funky pose below is a weird one and must be some sort of outtake from the duel with Vader. Perhaps at some point, Vader used the force to cause Luke to end up in this strange position. I don't know the details, but The Star Wars Trilogy DVD says that Luke is reacting to an "unseen attack." Looks like Jedi ballet to me.

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