50 Most Iconic Star Wars Costumes

13. Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight

Instead of immediately going into analysis, I’ll recommend that you look at the above still from ROTJ, then read the following from Mark Hamill in Dressing a Galaxy:

“In Return of the Jedi, I told George that my costume was very Vader-ish, but he said, ‘It’s supposed to be’” (9).

Behold, you’ve just absorbed the entire point to this costume. Previously, I discussed briefly what Luke dresses like in TESB, where he’s encountered shades of gray in the Force personally. Here, he’s about to have his most direct confrontation yet and his strongest temptations to join the dark side.

One wonders if Luke intentionally started dressing in black to try and mirror his father in order to worm his way in and attempt to bring Anakin back. It does seem to work, though, because Vader actually starts calling him “son” in ROTJ.

In a call forward for us but a callback in terms of the Star Wars timeline, Luke wears a black leather glove over his mechanical hand, and Anakin does the same with his mechanical hand in the prequel trilogy. Both of them also lose their right hands.

However, at least Luke doesn’t go so far as to employ leather for his “tempted by the dark side” outfit, as Anakin does in ROTS.

The point remains, though: Anakin and Luke are not so different in a lot of ways, and their costumes reflect that.