Force (Star Wars) - Force Ghost

Force Ghost

The first instance of a dead character communicating with a living character occurs soon after Obi-Wan Kenobi's death in A New Hope, when Luke Skywalker hears Obi-Wan's voice saying, "Run, Luke, run!" Luke hears Obi-Wan's voice again during the Battle of Yavin.

The first visual appearance of a Force Ghost (or Force Spirit) is in The Empire Strikes Back, when Obi-Wan's ghost appears to Luke on Hoth, and again to Luke and Yoda on Dagobah. In Return of the Jedi, Luke converses with the ghost on Dagobah after Yoda's death, then sees their two spirits alongside that of Anakin Skywalker during the celebration on Endor at the end of the film.

While Yoda and Obi-Wan are seen to vanish upon death, leaving behind only their physical clothing, Darth Vader's body does not disappear or dissolve onscreen. Luke Skywalker is later seen burning Vader's armor, including his helmet and faceplate, but it is unclear whether the armor still contains Vader's body, though the novelization to the film says that Vader's body did disappear and that the armor was empty.

Questions arose after the release of The Phantom Menace, when Qui-Gon Jinn's body did not vanish after his death fighting Darth Maul and, perhaps more importantly, none of the other characters expected it to. Qui-Gon's remains were burned on a Jedi funeral pyre on Naboo. In the film's DVD commentary Lucas indicated that this apparent discontinuity was a plot point that would be revisited. It should be noted that Obi-Wan's enigmatic final words to Darth Vader, and the disappearance of his body appear to perplex Vader.

In Revenge of the Sith, it is revealed that the ability to return as a Force Spirit is a recently discovered and complex discipline unknown to most Jedi. Yoda informs Obi-Wan that the late Qui-Gon Jinn discovered "..the path to immortality", the secret of how to retain his identity after death and absorption into the Force, and that his spirit would instruct Obi-Wan in this discipline during his exile on Tatooine. In the Expanded Universe novel Heir to the Empire it is explained by Obi-Wan to Luke that the Force Ghost is an intermediate state between life and afterlife, and one cannot stay in that form forever. Also in the novels following the movie, Luke discovered the discipline of the Force spirit.

George Lucas has since indicated (on the Revenge of the Sith DVD commentary) that the appearance of Vader's former self, Anakin Skywalker, as a Force Spirit at the end of Episode VI is due to a combination of Anakin's own latent Force ability, his achievement of a moment of unconditional compassion at his death and redemption, and Yoda and Obi-Wan's spirits helping him extend his identity out of The Force.