Whether you love battles, romance, or political intrigue, there's a Star War for everybody, but with so many movies, trilogies, and spin-offs clogging this canon, you'd be forgiven for forgetting how some of these movies resolve. With more Star Wars entries slated for the coming years, let's take the time to review the endings of these various films. The timeline has been established out-of-order, after all, so reviewing the last few minutes of these movies can help with our grasp of timeline chronology. We'll even cover more obscure entries and holiday specials. Strap in! This is the ending of every Star Wars movie explained.
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00:00Why was the Star Wars holiday special a disaster? What possessed Lucasfilm to
00:05make an Ewok movie filled with death and murder? Keep watching to find out.
00:11Blowing up the Death Star at the end of 1977's A New Hope wasn't just about saving the galaxy.
00:16It was about our two main characters fulfilling their arcs. Han Solo had spent his life living
00:21up to his last name. He was in it for himself and had no interest in anybody who wasn't paying him.
00:27But after meeting Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and helping them reach the Rebel base,
00:31he found he couldn't keep looking the other way. He returned at the perfect moment,
00:35taking Darth Vader out of the fight and giving Skywalker the chance he needed to save the day.
00:40Luke, meanwhile, had to learn to embrace the spiritual world of the Force and ease his ties
00:44to the physical world he's known all his life. And once he did that, he was able to make the
00:49impossible shot and destroy the Death Star. Han Solo's daring return showed that this scoundrel
00:55could become a hero, and Luke proved that he had what it took to become a Jedi someday.
01:01Released in 1978, the Star Wars Holiday Special was many fans' first chance to return to a galaxy
01:08far, far away, and it was a doozy. A two-hour made-for-television variety special,
01:14the film followed Chewbacca as he and Han Solo try to make it home in time for Life Day.
01:18Most of the special follows the various ways Chewbacca's furry family passes the time waiting
01:23for Chewie's return, and most of its cameos from other Star Wars characters come from the
01:27Wookiee's wife, Mala, as she calls her husband's friends and asks about his whereabouts. They all
01:31assure her that he's on his way there. Unfortunately, the Empire is convinced of the very
01:36same thing and hopes to use the holiday to capture Han and Chewbacca. Imperial stormtroopers search
01:41the Wookiee's house and leave a soldier to wait for the Rebel's arrival, but with the help of a
01:45local trader sympathetic to the Rebel cause, they manage to kill the soldier. With the Imperial
01:49soldiers out of the way, the Wookiee family takes crystal orbs that sort of look like snow globes,
01:54lift them over their heads, and somehow use them to spiritually connect with the main cast and
01:59many other Wookiees. They stand around the Tree of Life in red robes while Leia sings a strange,
02:05strange song. Then, everybody leaves, and the special finally ends. The 70s were weird, you guys.
02:12No matter how different we appear, we're all the same in our struggle against the
02:16powers of evil and darkness."
02:19With a new hope built up, 1980's The Empire Strikes Back would seemingly change forever.
02:24But the climactic battle on Bespin was less about the Empire and more about Luke finding his path.
02:29While training with Yoda, Luke once again is urged to embrace his growing connection to the Force and
02:34let go of his attachments. This time, however, the attachments that Luke has to discard are his
02:39friends, who have been captured by Imperials in Cloud City. Luke refuses to abandon them,
02:43but ultimately, his decision nearly gets them all killed, which would have also doomed the
02:48entire galaxy. Luke paid a heavy price for his decision. He discovered that Vader was his father,
02:54lost his hand, his lightsaber, and even his best friend. He also placed all of his friends in the
03:00very danger he had hoped to save them from. By the time the credits roll, the heroes are on the run,
03:05and things look bleak indeed.
03:07While The Empire Strikes Back may have been the Rebellion's darkest period,
03:121983's Return of the Jedi proved to be one of its brightest. After freeing Han Solo from Jabba
03:17the Hutt, Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance discover two things. Leia Organa is his sister,
03:23and the Empire created a second Death Star above the forest moon of Endor.
03:27Our heroes race to save the galaxy again, but there's just one problem.
03:32It's a trap!
03:33Yes, Emperor Palpatine set the whole thing up to both destroy the Rebellion and seduce Luke to the
03:40Dark Side all at once. But he was wrong to believe that he could convince Luke Skywalker to join the
03:45Dark Side of the Force. Instead, Luke, having learned his lesson at last, restrains his emotions,
03:50lets go of his anger, and spares his father. This leads to Vader's redemption,
03:55the Emperor's death, and, with a little help from some furry new friends, the salvation of
04:00the galaxy. Never underestimate a Jedi. Or an Ewok.
04:05Speaking of Ewoks, in 1984, George Lucas experimented with television once more and
04:10released a made-for-television movie called Caravan of Courage, an Ewok Adventure, on ABC.
04:15Starring the recognizable Ewoks of Endor, the story follows the Humantuani family after they
04:20crash-land on the forest moon and attempt to survive. The parents end up kidnapped by the
04:24Goraks, forcing their children, Sindel and Mace, to work together with Wicket and the Ewoks to
04:29rescue them. After a long journey across deserts, acid pools, and giant mountains,
04:34the children overcome their fear, reach the Goraks' fortress, fight giant spiders,
04:40and, with the help of the fairy-like Wisties, free their parents. Ultimately,
04:44Goraks is defeated in the ensuing battle by essentially tripping him into a giant chasm,
04:48and the victorious heroes return to the Ewok village to celebrate their victory
04:52and mourn those they lost. It seems like a happy ending, but about that...
04:57In 1985, fans got their third Star Wars film in just as many years when another spin-off,
05:03named Ewoks! The Battle for Endor, aired on ABC, and it was strangely horrific.
05:08In a twist beginning more suited to the Alien franchise than Star Wars, before the Tuani family
05:13can fix their ship and go home, space marauders led by a Nightsister of Dathomir kill them all — well,
05:19except Sindel, who manages to escape with Wicket and hide with an old hermit.
05:23After the Nightsister kidnaps Sindel, the hermit, Noah, and Wicket manage to infiltrate the castle,
05:28free the Ewoks, steal the parts, and use them to repair Noah's ships and defeat
05:33the marauders with its defenses. With the Ewoks free and the threat finally over,
05:38Sindel goes with Noah so that she can return to the galaxy at large, as Endor is not her true home.
05:43So what does it all mean? Endor sucks, that's what.
05:48When it finally hit theaters in 1999, The Phantom Menace was the first Star Wars film
05:53in over a decade. Armed with state-of-the-art CGI that was simply impossible when he finished
05:59the last film, George Lucas sought to finally finish his six-part saga by revealing the story
06:04of Anakin Skywalker and the Clone Wars that he had teased all the way back in 1977. The entire film
06:10boils down to Palpatine engineering an attack on his own planet of Naboo so he can convince Naboo's
06:15ruler, Queen Amidala, to declare a vote of no confidence in the Republic's current Supreme
06:20Chancellor, allowing Palpatine to replace him. Everything else that happens in the movie is
06:24essentially a distraction that allows him to succeed, even the impressive duel of the fates
06:28between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul. If Qui-Gon survived, his experience and outlook as
06:34both a Jedi and a Teacher may have been enough to keep Anakin from falling to the dark side later
06:38on. But because Maul struck him down before being defeated himself, Obi-Wan is forced to train and,
06:44as we will see, ultimately fail the young boy.
06:482002's Attack of the Clones was the moment that many fans had been waiting for since 1977,
06:54when the Clone Wars were first mentioned in A New Hope. Once again, the plot is about Palpatine
06:58manufacturing a crisis in order to gain power. His Sith apprentice, Count Dooku, leads a war of
07:04secession from the Republic, which allows Palpatine to create his own clone army in response, as the
07:09Senate gives him ever more power to combat the supposed threat. If that wasn't enough,
07:14Palpatine had also recognized the incredible power within Anakin and begun grooming him to
07:19be his future apprentice and most powerful weapon. He became the boy's friend in the
07:24decade between the two films and used that connection to subtly encourage Skywalker
07:28to embrace the dark side and act on it as he does with the Tusken Raiders.
07:32It's an incredible, sinister feat of political engineering that would prove very successful.
07:38And, oh yeah, there was also a bunch of lightsaber fights, a secret marriage,
07:41the first battle of some war, and the birth of a future bounty hunter named
07:45Boba Fett. Yoda apparently turned into CGI and jumped around a lot, too.
07:50Those things were fine, but the politics are really where it's at.
07:55From the moment the prequel trilogy was originally announced, fans of the original films knew how it
08:00had to end. Of course, with the status quo we see at the start of A New Hope and 2005's Revenge of
08:06the Sith is the tragic moment where it all comes together. Having used the Clone Wars to slowly but
08:11surely grant him near-total control of the entire Republic, Palpatine finally decides that he's
08:15ready to finish his master plan. With Anakin now on his side, he eliminates Count Dooku and
08:20defeats the Separatist Army, then executes Order 66, forcing every clone to rebel against their
08:26Jedi Generals and kill them. Obi-Wan and Yoda are among the only survivors. Obi-Wan confronts Anakin
08:32and defeats him, but this traumatic event simply finishes the transition of Anakin into Darth
08:37Vader. Darkness falls across the galaxy as it waits for the arrival of A New Hope.
08:44The prequel trilogy would find its own spinoff film in the 2008 animated film Star Wars The Clone
08:49Wars. Set in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, this theatrically released
08:54film was essentially the pilot project for the television series and helped fill in the gaps
08:58between the two movies. The plot involves Jabba's son being abducted in a ploy to keep him from
09:03allying with the Republic against the Separatist Army. In the end, this ploy fails, but the real
09:08meaning behind the events of The Clone Wars was the introduction of Anakin's apprentice, Ahsoka
09:12Tano. Her arc, which would be explored in the Clone Wars series, was a mirror of Anakin's own
09:17journey, allowing us to see through her eyes what may have happened if he had chosen a different
09:22path — the path she herself ended up choosing. That is merely hinted at in the film, of course,
09:27but the seeds are planted here.
09:30A decade after the prequel trilogy concluded, Disney released Star Wars Episode VII The Force
09:36Awakens in 2015 after purchasing the franchise from George Lucas for $4 billion. At the film's
09:43climax, the mysterious newcomer Rey gets captured by Kylo Ren, Leia and Han's mostly evil son,
09:49and held on Starkiller Base, the newest iteration of the Death Star. Han, Chewie, and Finn fly to
09:54the base and attempt to rescue her before General Leia Organa, and the Resistance can destroy the
09:59base with them still on it. After rescuing Rey, Han tries to reach his son one last time, but,
10:04determined to follow the path of his grandfather, Darth Vader, Kylo rejects his father's plea and
10:10murders him. Kylo Ren's story is a mirror image of the arc of his mentor, Luke Skywalker. When Luke
10:15had the chance to kill his father, Darth Vader, he spared him rather than turn to the dark side.
10:20But Kylo Ren decided to kill his father and embrace the dark side,
10:24setting up the central conflict at the heart of the new trilogy.
10:29The ending of the 2016 New Hope prequel, Rogue One, probably needs less explanation than any of
10:34the others because the entire movie was retrofitted to make sure it ended exactly where A New Hope
10:39begins. Recall that, in A New Hope, Luke is able to destroy the Death Star because secret
10:44schematics smuggled out by rebellion spies showed a design flaw that made the Death Star vulnerable.
10:49Rogue One was built to explain how such a glaring design flaw existed in the first place,
10:54and how the rebel spies got the information. It turns out that the Death Star designer,
10:58Galen Erso, intentionally built in the weak spot as part of his revenge against the Empire,
11:03and his daughter, Jyn Erso, was the one who delivered it to the rebellion at the cost
11:07of her own life. The film ends with those plans being delivered to Princess Leia,
11:14whose ship is attacked by Darth Vader, exactly as the opening sequence of A New Hope
11:19showed four decades earlier.
11:21If J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens was a re-establishing of what fans had always
11:26remembered Star Wars to be, then Rian Johnson's 2017 sequel, The Last Jedi,
11:30was an examination of the franchise that seemingly attempted to deconstruct its tropes and storytelling.
11:35After Kylo Ren fails to turn Rey to the dark side, she flees to a nearby planet where the
11:40last remnants of the rebellion are being hunted down by the First Order. It all seems doomed,
11:44until Luke Skywalker unexpectedly shows up. After abandoning his Jedi ways following the
11:50loss of his student, Kylo Ren, to the dark side, Luke has seen the error of his ways
11:53thanks to Rey's devotion to her friends. It's no coincidence that the middle film
11:58of the new trilogy culminates in the same decision as the middle film of the original trilogy.
12:03Just as in Empire Strikes Back, the student — in this case, Rey — chooses to leave training to
12:08save her friends, against the direction of the Jedi Master. This time, it's Luke who pays the
12:13price rather than Han, but once again the surviving heroes escape on the Millennium Falcon to fight
12:18another day.
12:202018's Solo A Star Wars Story was, in a way, the first Star Wars origin story. It showed fans how
12:26Han got his last name, escaped his home planet of Corellia, trained as a stormtrooper, met Chewbacca
12:32for the first time, and won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian in a game of sabacc by
12:37keeping the man from cheating. The story is self-contained and clever, but it introduced
12:42a lot of plot threads that still haven't been picked up on to this day, most notably the
12:47big-screen return of Darth Maul to the Land of the Living as a crime lord. The ending was designed to
12:52set up more sequels — or prequels, depending on how you look at it — but because of poor box office
12:57returns, none of those plot threads have yet been picked up since.
13:01Just as the original trilogy was fundamentally about Luke Skywalker's journey, the new trilogy
13:06was about Kylo Ren's battle against his own dark nature, so it was fitting that the climax of 2019's
13:12Star Wars Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, concluded with the end of his story. More
13:16conflicted than ever about his dark side decisions after sensing his mother's death, being healed by
13:21Rey, and imagining a conversation with his father, Han Solo, Kylo Ren finally gives in to the light
13:27side of the Force and becomes Ben Solo once again. This is echoed by Rey's discovery that she is a
13:33descendant of the evil Emperor Palpatine. But rather than continue the age-old battle between
13:38their two families, Kylo Ren chooses to sacrifice his life to help Rey defeat the reborn Palpatine.
13:44The threat ended, Rey returned to Tatooine, and buried Luke and Leia's lightsabers before
13:48officially taking on their name to honor them. In many ways, Star Wars Episode IX,
13:53The Rise of Skywalker, ended in the same place that Return of the Jedi left its heroes — with
13:57the Emperor's death reigniting hope for a new democratic government and a reborn Jedi Order,
14:03led by a powerful hero with her own original lightsaber.
14:07Like the original trilogy had the Ewok Adventures and the prequels had the Clone Wars,
14:12the sequel trilogy has received its own official, specially-made spinoffs in the form of 2020's
14:17The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special. The feature focuses on Rey Skywalker's attempt to train
14:22Finn in the ways of the Jedi, though both are struggling with the prospect. In an attempt to
14:26gain guidance, she travels to a temple on Kordoku to observe a special life-day ritual that ultimately
14:32allows her to travel throughout time and meet Star Wars characters from multiple different eras,
14:37including Luke, Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Vader,
14:42who once again turns to the light at the end.
14:44"...Hey, what's with the sweater?"
14:48After nearly breaking time by giving Vader and Kylo Ren access to the Green Crystal that she
14:53was using to traverse the time stream, Rey sets everything right with the help of several
14:57versions of Luke Skywalker and learns her lesson — life-day is about spending time with friends
15:03and family.
15:04The second of Lego's made-for-Disney-plus original specials, 2021's Lego Star Wars
15:09Terrifying Tales, follows Poe Dameron as he crash-lands at Vader's castle, which has been
15:14turned into the first all-inclusive, Sith-inspired luxury resort. It's run by Grabala the Hutt,
15:20whose creepy caretaker, Vinay, begins telling Poe stories in an effort to trick him and a young boy
15:26named Dean into retrieving one of Vader's holocrons. As they go, Dean and Poe bond over
15:31their shared rough childhoods, but Vinay retrieves the holocron and uses it to form and power a
15:36massive exoskeleton. Dean uses Poe's X-wing to get it back, but Vinay captures Poe and holds him
15:42over a cliff in order to deliver his ultimatum — hand over the artifact, or watch Poe die.
15:48Though the boy is almost overcome with fear, Dean finds his courage and throws the holocron
15:53over Vinay's head and into the lava below. Vinay catches the device but falls to his death in the
15:58fire below, while BB-8 successfully catches Poe and saves him from the same fate. Afterward, Poe
16:04forces the Hutt to close his hotel, putting Dean out of a job so that Poe can take him to Rey to
16:08train in the ways of the Force. However, as they all leave, a mysterious hand and a laugh reach
16:13out from the lava, showing that Vinay has survived. To be continued? Who knows what the next Star Wars
16:20movie will bring us?