The Last Words Of Every Fallen Star Wars Hero From The Original Trilogy

The original Star Wars trilogy introduced us to an epic universe, filled with fantastic adventures, amazing special effects, and an unforgettable score. By and large, Star Wars is a feel-good adventure series. It has witty dialogue, cute droids, and endearing scenes, like when Chewbacca gives Luke a noogie. But, of course, Star Wars also has its fair share of dark and tragic moments. After all, the entire galaxy is in the midst of violent conflict (hence the name Star Wars), which naturally means we're going to see a lot of casualties. And we're not just talking about bad guys here. Like any realistic story, the good guys must lose people, too.

A critical, memorable part of the death of any hero is the person's final words, which is where this article brings us. Sometimes, those last words are packed with meaning, resolving a character's plot arc or communicating a powerful message to the audience. Other times, a hero's last words are cut off by a sudden and unexpected demise. But whether they're memorable or simple lines, here are the last words of every fallen Star Wars hero from the original trilogy.

Before we dive in, here are two quick notes so that we're all on the same page: One, if a character becomes a Force ghost, we're still counting that as dead. And lastly, you should know that there are spoilers ahead!

You may not recognize him by his name, but every Star Wars fan remembers Raymus Antilles. This is the very first person that Darth Vader kills on-screen in Star Wars: A New Hope. An Imperial star destroyer captures a Rebel ship, looking for the plans to the Death Star that the Rebels stole. Vader boards the ship and finds the first Rebel leader he can, and it just happens to be Antilles. Vader interrogates him, but it turns violent pretty quickly, considering that Vader immediately lifts Antilles off the ground by his throat.

Vader is furious and demands to know where the stolen Death Star plans are, but Antilles tries to play dumb. As he gasps for air, Antilles says, "This is a consular ship. We're on a diplomatic mission," and tries to convince Vader that he has it all wrong — that the Rebels never stole anything and that they're just here for diplomatic issues. But Vader chokes him harder and asks, "If this is a consular ship, then where is the ambassador?" Great question, Vader. Unfortunately, Antilles never has a chance to respond. He breathes his last, and like a good soldier, he never told Vader where the plans were. At the time, of course, they were in the hands of Princess Leia.

The death of Beru Lars was extremely sad. This is the first civilian victim viewers see in Star Wars and demonstrates how evil the Empire truly is. Beru is the adoptive mother of Luke Skywalker. After Luke's biological mother, Padme, died giving birth to Luke, Obi-Wan hid the child. Ultimately, Obi-Wan takes Luke to Tatooine to be raised by Beru and Owen Lars, who are rural space farmers. Not too far away, Obi-Wan settles in a little home and watches Luke grow up, carefully guarding him. The Lars are good folks. They stay out of trouble and want nothing to do with the Empire or the Rebel Alliance. But that doesn't stop the Empire from showing up at their home and killing them.

At the beginning of A New Hope, Stormtroopers are looking for two droids (C-3PO and R2-D2) and track them to Beru's house. At the time, Luke isn't home. In the last scene we scene Beru alive, she's talking with her husband about Luke's chores. She answers a question with, "I think so." Luke later returns home to see Beru's charred body. It's at that moment that Luke resolves to fight the Empire, to become a Jedi, and to leave home because he has nothing on Tatooine anymore. It is essentially the big moment that triggers Luke's overall character arc.

Along with Beru's last words are Owen Lars' final words as well. Owen is Anakin Skywalker's step-brother. One day, Obi-Wan Kenobi showed up at Owen's door and asked him to raise Luke as an adoptive father. Honestly, Owen and Beru Lars are heroes in their own right for doing that. Good for them. Tragically, the Empire kills Owen along with his wife Beru on the same day. Owen's last words on-screen are a conversation with his wife Beru about Luke's responsibilities. Previously, Luke left home with the two droids they just bought. Owen says, with a little heat, that Luke "better have those droids in the south range by midday or there'll be hell to pay."

Owen may have been a loving foster father, but that doesn't mean he wasn't serious about pushing Luke to do his chores. It's unfortunate that his final words are somewhat bitter toward Luke. Shortly after, Owen is killed by Stormtroopers looking for the two droids that Lars recently purchased. Owen's death prompts Luke to leave Tatooine, become a Jedi, and fight the Empire.

Of all the quotes on this list, this one might be the most famous. Obi-Wan Kenobi and his group of friends are trying to escape from the Death Star. During the process, Kenobi crosses paths with Darth Vader, and the two have one last lightsaber duel. It's an extremely tense moment since these two characters have a ton of history together. Kenobi trained Anakin (aka Darth Vader) to become a Jedi, but Anakin then betrayed Kenobi and the Jedi. It probably didn't help that during a previous lightsaber duel, Kenobi chopped off three out of four of Vader's limbs and left him in a volcano to catch on fire, which is the reason Vader must now wear his black suit. Anywho, during the duel with Vader, Kenobi insists, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

While fighting Vader, Kenobi locks eyes with Luke Skywalker in the distance. Right then, Kenobi stops putting up a fight and allows Darth Vader to kill him. Strangely enough, Kenobi's body disappears after he dies. Later on, we learn that Kenobi can visit people from the afterlife as a Force ghost. Obviously, Kenobi continues talking after this line, but it's still the last thing he says before he dies, or becomes one with the Force, or whatever.

In A New Hope, the climax of the movie takes place outside the Death Star. The Empire has learned that the secret base for the Rebel Alliance is on Yavin 4, so they slowly drive the Death Star there to blow up the Rebels once and for all. When the Rebels learn about this, they send a fleet of fighters to destroy it, having recently learned about a small weakness in the Death Star. It's an epic fight, but as you can imagine, there were many casualties.

The first death for the Rebels is Jek Porkins, aka Red Six. We'll just ignore the fact that George Lucas named an overweight character "Porkins." Anyway, one of the Rebel leaders orders the destruction of a turret that is giving the Rebels a lot of problems. Porkins is on it. But after taking out the cannon, Porkins' ship hits debris which damages his X-wing, forcing him to fly through crossfire. A fellow fighter named Biggs Darklighter insists that Porkins get out of that dangerous area, but Porkins stubbornly says over the headset, "No, I'm alright..." But he gets cut off because at that moment, he's shot down by lasers.

We're still at the Battle of Yavin (the one in A New Hope when they're destroying the Death Star). Our next fallen hero is John D. Branon, better known by his call sign, Red Four. Once the Rebel fighters fly close to the Death Star, the Empire unleashes its firepower but quickly realizes that it's impossible to shoot down the Rebels. As one Imperial higher-up points out, the Rebel ships are just too close to their turrets. So Darth Vader instructs his underlings to man their own short-range attack craft, called TIE fighters, and take out the Rebel fighters one at a time.

The first wave of TIE fighters find a victim all too soon — John Branon. The Rebel fighters can communicate with one another through a shared intercom, and one of them notes that the turrets mysteriously stopped shooting. The reason is soon discovered as the TIE fighters start blasting Branon's ship. His final words over the radio are "I'm hit!" and then he blows up.

Tiree is another Rebel Alliance fighter who died during the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope. We rarely remember the names of these fighters because one, they're on-screen for a short time, and two, the characters refer to one another by their fighter designations. In this case, Tiree is Gold Two. While attacking the Death Star, a batch of TIE fighters start shooting back, but the Rebels eliminate that first wave of TIE fighters pretty quickly. It probably helped that Luke Skywalker was kicking some tail that day.

Seemingly, everything is clear for the Rebels to start their attack run to destroy the Death Star, so Gold Squadron begins their descent and starts flying through the trench of the Death Star. Huge laser cannons start shooting at Gold Squadron, but then they mysteriously cease fire. That's when Tiree says, "The guns ... they've stopped" over the intercom. Well, surprise, there's another batch of TIE fighters, and this time Darth Vader himself is leading the pack. Vader blasts the first Rebel craft in his sights, and it just happens to be Tiree's.

Not long after Tiree dies, Jon Vander also perishes. Vander goes by his nickname "Dutch," and during the Battle of Yavin, he also goes by "Gold Leader." Tiree and Vander were flying through the Death Star's trench, closing in on a small ventilation shaft into which they intend to fire proton torpedoes in order to destroy the space station. Behind them, a trio of TIE fighters appears, once of one which is a special TIE manned by Darth Vader.

After Vader blasts Tiree, he begins shooting at Vander. In those few seconds, Vander argues with Davish Krail over the intercom. Davish is flying right next to him, and Davish insists that they continue their attack run, simply repeating the line, "Stay on target." But Vander wants to pull up because they're in danger of dying by enemy fire. Vander keeps trying to persuade Davish, with his last words being, "Loosen up!" It's not clear if Vander was saying, "Let's back off this attack run" or "You need to relax your position on this" to his fellow Rebel fighter. But we'll never get an answer, because right after that, Vader shoots Jon Vander into pieces. It looks like Vander was right — they should've pulled out of the trench, dealt with the TIE fighters first, and then resumed their attack run.

Soon after Jon Vander ("Dutch") dies in battle, Davish "Pops" Krail also falls. Krail, aka Gold Five, is the dude who keeps saying "Stay on target" when Gold Squadron tries to take out the Death Star. Krail is aware of the TIE fighters that are on his tail because he just watched his two friends get destroyed by enemy fire. Krail is still flying through the trench at this point, but he's alone, and Darth Vader is following close behind in his TIE fghter. He's not sure what to do, so he reports to the rest of the Rebels that, "We lost Tiree. We lost Dutch."

Then Krail says his very last words over the intercom, stating that "they came from behind," referring to the shots from the enemy TIE fighters. Maybe Krail was going to ask the others to take out the enemies before they could shoot him down. But unfortunately, Krail dies right then and there. Vader, who's now three and zero, shoots down yet another Rebel fighter.

We tend to remember Vader killing people with his lightsaber or by Force-choking them, but he also killed quite a few individuals from the cockpit of his personal TIE fighter. And one of the victims of Vader's TIE fighter guns is Theron Nett, who goes by Red Ten. At this point during the battle over the Death Star, the enemy TIE fighters seem to have disappeared. The Rebel fighters decide that's their chance to go down into the trench and fire on a small target that will destroy the Death Star.

Garven Dreis (Red Leader) is super focused on getting to that target. His face is glued to the monitor, and he says, "Almost there." Meanwhile, his fellow Rebels are trying to cover him. Right then, Vader shows up in his TIE fighter. Nett tries to hold them off, but basically, he only buys his friend a few seconds because Vader shoots him down really fast. Over the intercom, Nett's last words are, "I can't hold them!"

Garven Dreis, better known as Red Leader, was almost the hero of A New Hope. Dreis is the Rebel fighter who fires at the small shaft in the Death Star, nearly hitting his mark. Unfortunately, the torpedoes don't go in and it only hit the surface of the Death Star, which was pretty disappointing for the Rebels. Dreis pulls up from the Death Star, only to learn that his starboard engine is cooked. He's a little nervous, especially because he doesn't know where those blasted TIE fighters got to, but the mission must go on. 

Dreis tells the others to "get set up for your attack run," realizing that his ship is in no condition to try and take out the Death Star now. He's essentially passing on the responsibility to the others. Maybe Dreis was going to try to provide cover fire while his friends descended into the Death Star trench, but we'll never know. Right after that, Darth Vader shoots Dreis' X-wing, causing it to crash into the surface of the Death Star, and that's the end of Red Leader.

With so many casualties and time running out, the Rebel fighters decide it's time for another run at destroying the Death Star. A group of Rebel X-wing fighters descends into the trench, with Luke leading the way. It's a tense moment. Luke is giving commands to R2-D2 to fix his ship while dodging turret fire. The Death Star is almost in position to destroy the Rebel base. And one fighter named Biggs Darklighter is covering for Luke.

Darklighter, or Red Three, is tasked with protecting Luke from the TIE fighters. His goal is to give Luke enough time to destroy the Death Star, but the TIE fighters are right on his tail. Darklighter begs Luke to hurry up, saying over the intercom, "Hurry up, Luke! Quick! Quick!" He probably knew right then that his time was up. Darth Vader, cool and calm as ever, shoots Darklighter down. His ship blows up against the sides of the Death Star trench.

Dak Ralter is the first hero to die in The Empire Strikes Back. Dak was a close friend of Luke Skywalker and a fellow fighter for the Rebel Alliance. Luke had to watch many of his close friends die in the fight against the Empire, and Dak was yet another one. At the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader is hunting for the secret location of the new Rebel base. Finally, Vader finds it hidden on the planet Hoth and begins an assault on the frozen world.

Dak and Luke, among other fighters, must defend the base to buy time for the others to escape and relocate to a new home. The two even man the same snowspeeder, with Luke piloting and Dak shooting in the back. While flying around during a massive fight, Dak intended to fix some damage to the snowspeeder, saying, "I'll have to cut in the auxiliary." Soon after, Dak is shot to death. The worse part is that Luke had to keep flying around with Dak dead in back. After crash-landing, Luke barely escapes the snowspeeder when a gigantic AT-AT steps on it, crushing Dak's body inside.

The ever-wise Yoda lived to the ripe old age of 900 years old. He raised up tons of Jedi Knights, imparted wisdom on the Jedi Council, and personally trained Luke Skywalker. He's a bit kooky and talks funny, but that just makes us love him all the more. And don't let his age deceive you. The dude can Force-lift an X-wing out of a swamp and go berserk with a lightsaber, as he proved in Attack of the Clones when he faced Count Dooku.

But even strong, wise, altruistic heroes can die of old age. In Return of the Jedi, Luke visits Yoda seeking counsel. But Yoda is ready to pass away due to old age, so he lies down on his bed. Yoda's dying words are to Luke, saying, "Luke, there is another Sky- Skywalker..." Yoda is referring to Leia Organa, Luke's twin sister, who may also bring hope to the galaxy if Luke should fail. Then Yoda dies, disappearing into the afterlife and becoming a Force ghost.

We have arrived at the Battle of Endor, which is the climax of The Return of the Jedi and the entire original trilogy. Han Solo is trying to disable a shield generator on the moon Endor. Meanwhile, in orbit, the Rebel Alliance is assaulting the second Death Star. In the famous words of Admiral Ackbar, "It's a trap!" The Empire anticipated the Rebel attack and prepared an ambush, which killed a lot of Rebel fighters.

Among them is Grizz Frix. While the Rebel army waits for the Death Star shield to be disabled, they decide to do something crazy — attack the massive fleet of star destroyers that is nearby. Their logic is that they might as well make use of time as they wait for the Death Star shield to go down, and they decide to take out a few Star Destroys in the meantime. Frix shoots up a star destroyer and realizes that it's about to explode. He shouts, "She's gonna blow!" to warn his fellow fighters, but he gets caught in the blast.

It's no surprise that these words would be the last line of a fallen Star Wars hero. After all, Star Wars is about, well, star wars. Immediately after an explosion kills Grizz Frix, another Rebel pilot named Ekelarc Yong perishes in the fight. It's unclear if the same explosion that took out Frix also hit Yong's ship or if Yong was simply hit by enemy fire.

We don't see exactly what causes his demise, and that's natural for a massive, chaotic fight like the Battle of Endor. The scene cuts to Yong in his cockpit, and he just yells, "I'm hit!" The initial damage doesn't kill him, but it causes him to lose control of his ship. Unable to direct his Y-wing, Yong makes the (relative) best of the situation and heads straight into a gigantic star destroyer and dies on impact, with his ship exploding into smithereens.

If you're a Star Wars fan, you may not recognize these final words right away, but you'll remember them soon enough because of the scene that immediately follows them. During this point in the Battle of Endor, several Rebels fighters are inside the Death Star while Admiral Akbar remains outside with the fleet holding off the Empire's star destroyers. Akbar decides that they need to do something to buy more time for the fighters, so he tells all his warriors to concentrate their fire on the biggest enemy ship.

Soon after, the super star destroyer loses its deflector shield, and that's when Admiral Piett panics and orders the forward batteries to increase their rate of fire because he "[doesn't] want anything to get through." Well, something does get through — Arvel Crynyd. Crynyd's A-wing gets clipped by enemy fire, and he loses control of his ship. He cries out, "AAHH!" as his ship flies right into the spot where Piett is standing, ending both his and Piett's life. The resulting explosion destroys the super star destroyer's bridge, and the massive ship crashes into the Death Star, which is a huge victory for the Rebels. But alas, they lost Crynyd in the process.

Don't even tell us you didn't cry when you saw this scene. This was the moment the entire Star Wars fan base looked forward to during the original trilogy — the death of Darth Vader and the lingering question of whether or not he would convert back to the good side. After Darth Vader repents and throws the Emperor down a shaft, he tries to escape with his son Luke. But Vader, now redeemed as Anakin Skywalker, has sustained heavy injuries and can't go on. Beyond this, Anakin is simply emotionally tired. He's committed atrocities for decades now and is saddened by the whole state of things — here's his son, who brought him back to the good side, even after all that he did.

It's a deep moment between a father and son — a father who is proud of his son and a son who doesn't want to see his newly redeemed father die. Before dying, Anakin says, "Tell your sister, you were right," meaning Anakin wants Luke to tell Leia about his change of heart. And he's also confessing that he was wrong about himself all this time — there was good inside of him all along. For his last-minute conversion, we list Anakin Skywalker as a hero.