As a Star Wars aficionado, I’ve always been of the opinion that Luke Skywalker was whiny and annoying, probably the worst possible offspring that the flawless Padme could concieve with fucking Darth Vader. But after reading a “where are they now?” on Star Wars actors, I rethought Luke’s role in the Saga and came to the conclusion that, despite his abundant wimpy qualities, Luke deserves a much better rep than he usually receives.

First, there are several other characters from the other movies that induce a mild hatred for the child half of George Lucas’ mind. Yes, I mean Jar-Jar, but let’s move past cliches for a bit. Take Salacious Crumb, Jabba the Hutt’s monkey/bird/muppet friend who for some unexplained reason likes to hang out with a slimy drug lord and laugh at all of his friends.

Fuck this thing

This little demon had one line in the entirety of Return of the Jedi: a high-pitched cackle that grated the soul. I cannot imagine any reason why Lucas thought this was a good idea, other than to provide a pretext for future (or past?) worthless organisms such as Gungans and Ewoks. And on a side note, those who played the ROTJ game for Super Nintendo with remember Crumb as the indestructible little pest in the already overly difficult Jabba’s Palace level that ended with the fight against an ludicrously strong Bib Fortuna.

I’ll give the aforementioned Gungans and Ewoks a pass for this one, and move to the next point: Luke was actually kind of a bad ass.

Example #1: Sure he sounded like an adolescent for the first two movies, but he also blew up a space station the size of a moon, a task that none of his squadmates with years of experience flying adavanced spacecraft could accomplish. Luke’s experience? Flying oddly shaped speeders around a desert.

Example #2: After his Snowspeeder was shot out of the sky in the Battle of Hoth, he rappelled forty feet up into the belly of an AT-AT and took out the enitre machine with only his lightsaber and a grenade, accomplishing in 45 seconds what it took Wedge and his pseudo-Asian gunner 20 minutes to do. He then free fell into the snow and walked across the battlefield to his X-Wing unscathed.

Lightsaber always beats tow cable

Example #3: When the Rebellion was making its last stand, Luke decided to surrender himself to the Emperor and Darth Vader, essentially sacrificing himself to keep the biggest badass in history from singlehandedly ripping everyone to shreds. Rather than once again saving everyone’s ass with his superior flying ability, he put all of his confidence into a fleet of rebel ships that didn’t carry any weaponry. Dumbledore would’ve been proud.

Honorable Mention: He killed a rancor by shoving a bone in its mouth and crushing it with a giant door. He also killed a Yeti.

Third, it can’t be overlooked that Anakin Skywalker was also unbearable for about 2.5 films. Check that, more like every scene in which he had both lines and a lack of a lightsaber.

Finally, realize that anything that comes from Darth Vader is BA. Every single line he utters is awesome, and his shit undoubtedly doesn’t stink.

So before we call him out for kissing his sister (and enjoying it) or for getting his rump handed to him by one tusken raider, let’s remember why Luke is cool…or at least cooler than Captain Tarpals.