From the moment that Luke Skywalker rescued Leia Organa from her holding cell on the Death Star to their celebration on the forest moon of Endor, the two built a really close bond — one that developed into a Force bond. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher shared terrific on-screen chemistry in the roles.
There are a lot of jokes about the incest in the Star Wars saga, as Leia kissed Luke before George Lucas decided that the characters were twins, but that ignores the heartwarming friendship shared by the two characters. This relationship is exemplified in a handful of iconic scenes.
“Aren’t You A Little Short For A Stormtrooper?”
Princess Leia can always be counted on for a biting insult. When Luke first breaks open her holding cell on the Death Star and, disguised as a Stormtrooper, heads in there to save her, she asks, “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”
At this point, she’d been held captive by the Empire for a while. She was subjected to torture and still didn’t give away the information Darth Vader wanted. This comment shows she wasn’t even beginning to crack.
Swinging Across The Chasm
During their escape from the Death Star, Luke and Leia find themselves on a small ledge above a deep chasm. The door behind them closes and Stormtroopers on surrounding ledges are shooting at them. Thinking fast, Luke takes out a grappling hook and uses it to swing himself and Leia across the chasm.
There are many theories about why Luke had the grappling hook in the first place, with the leading one being that he took it from the Stormtrooper armor he was wearing earlier.
Leia Consoles Luke After Ben’s Death
Right before escaping from the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon, Luke watches his old mentor Ben Kenobi get killed at the hands of Darth Vader. When they’re clear of the TIE fighters tailing them, Leia consoles a grieving Luke.
It’s a testament to Leia’s kindness that, even though she was just forced to watch her home planet and everyone she ever loved get blown up in the blink of an eye, she consoled Luke over the death of one guy.
Leia Gives Luke A Medal
After Luke uses the Force to send a torpedo down the thermal exhaust port on top of the Death Star to blow it up, Leia rewards him with a medal at a lavish ceremony.
Han and Chewie are also honored at the ceremony, with Han being given his own medal and Chewie being recognized without a medal, because they're meaningless in Wookiee culture.
Leia Senses Luke Is In Trouble
When Luke is defeated in lightsaber combat by Darth Vader and faced with a choice between joining the dark side and jumping to an uncertain fate, he goes with the second option and ends up dangling from a metal pole beneath Cloud City.
He reaches out to Leia via the Force, and as she leaves Bespin with Lando, Chewie, and the droids on the Millennium Falcon, she senses that he’s in trouble and takes the ship back to save him.
Swinging Off Jabba’s Barge
In the opening set piece of Return of the Jedi, the battle on Jabba’s barge above the Sarlacc Pit, there’s a neat callback to Luke and Leia swinging across the chasm on the Death Star.
As the barge explodes, the pair swings onto the skiff that the Rebels are using to escape from the Hutt crime lord who managed to capture them all.
Luke Tells Leia She’s His Sister
When Yoda dies on Dagobah, he informs Luke that there’s another Force-sensitive Skywalker out there, and Luke deduces that it’s Leia. So when he gets a moment on Endor, he takes her outside and tells her.
Enjoying this scene requires the audience to forget that the duo kissed a couple of times in the earlier movies when Lucas hadn’t decided they were siblings, because Leia says she’s “always known.”
Luke Trains Leia To Be A Jedi
It was revealed in The Rise of Skywalker that between the original and sequel trilogies, Luke began training Leia in the ways of the Jedi. However, she cut her training short when the Force told her it could only lead to her son’s death.
There was a lot of CGI in the flashback to Luke’s training of Leia, as Mark Hamill needed to be de-aged and Carrie Fisher needed to be recreated from scratch, but it was a fun moment exploring the timeline gap that the sequel trilogy had skimmed over.
“I Changed My Hair.”
When the Resistance is backed into a corner, hiding out in a cave on Crait with the full might of the First Order waiting to blow them to kingdom come, Luke arrives (albeit as a Force projection) to triumphantly sacrifice himself to save them.
Before going out to take on Kylo Ren’s empire alone, Luke shares one last moment with Leia after being apart for years. Leia dryly says, “I know what you’re gonna say. I changed my hair.” Luke says, “It’s nice that way.”
Becoming One With The Force
The final scene of The Rise of Skywalker felt forced and out of the blue, as Rey is asked by a stranger for her last name (in a universe with many one-named characters: Yoda, Chewbacca, Greedo, Qi’ra etc.) and she’s inspired by the Force ghosts of Luke and Leia to declare herself “Rey Skywalker.”
While the scene as a whole didn’t work, it was nice to see that Luke and Leia both became one with the Force and reunited beyond the grave to watch over Rey’s continuing journey.