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It struck me that the average movie viewer (upon hearing the famous "No, I am your father" line) might have disbelieved it and it's not until Return of the Jedi, three years later, that we see Yoda confirming that Vader was telling the truth.

Before then, was it commonly accepted as fact that Vader was Luke's father? Or was it more a sense of "I can't wait until the sequel so that we can find out if Vader was telling the truth or not!" Or a more dismissive "Wow, I can't believe Vader lied like that to try and fool Luke"?

Obviously different moviegoers will have had different reactions, but was there any clear intention revealed by the creators or studio that confirms that Vader was really Luke's father, as opposed to simply Vader saying that he was Luke's father?

Valorum
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GendoIkari
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  • Your question in the last paragraph differs significantly from the question posed in the title; which are you asking? – DavidW Sep 06 '19 at 20:45
  • @DavidW Hmm, the idea of the last paragraph was to try and think of ways to determine what was "generally accepted" or not; as the title by itself is loosely defined. The question in the title is what I am really asking; the third paragraph was just intended to be possible suggestions as to how one could arrive at an answer. – GendoIkari Sep 06 '19 at 20:56
  • Had I asked this question in 1980; it would have been worded as "Was that movie intending to state as fact that Vader is really Luke's father; or are we meant to be unsure if it is true or not?" – GendoIkari Sep 06 '19 at 20:57
  • @GendoIkari - I've done a pretty big edit to try to get your question to make a little more sense. If you feel I've gone too far, you can easily edit it into something more to your liking – Valorum Sep 06 '19 at 21:00
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    Valorum has given a complete answer. I’d like to suggest a one-word answer based on my clear recollection and how I felt at the time: No. Kids at school talked and argued about whether Vader was lying up until Jedi came out. – Todd Wilcox Sep 07 '19 at 04:30
  • possible duplicates: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/146336/why-did-luke-accept-it-so-easily, https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/20760/is-vader-sincere-with-luke-in-esb, https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/111157/when-and-how-does-the-emperor-learn-that-luke-is-vaders-son – NKCampbell Sep 07 '19 at 17:08

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Lucas claimed (in an interview published in Empire Magazine Issue #156 (June 2002) that he intended for the audience to be unaware whether Vader was telling the truth until they watched the third film.

Lucas claims he had the notion in mind from the start, but the idea didn't appear until the second draft of Empire, and in the first there is the contradictory appearance of a different father (a ghostly presence like Kenobi). Lucas also wrestled with the idea of keeping schtum on Luke's parentage until the end of the third film, but eventually found the perfect moment. "I conceived it so that you would not know if Vader was lying or telling the truth," Lucas said. "You have to have an escape hatch for kids psychologically so they can deny it."

Note also that Luke, in the film's official novelisation (published in 1980) has much the same concerns to begin with, that Vader might be lying. By the end of the book/film he's pretty much accepted that Vader is his father and is more concerned with why Ben didn't tell him.

Luke’s mind whirled with those words. Everything was finally beginning to coalesce in his brain. Or was it? He wondered if Vader were telling him the truth—if the training of Yoda, the teaching of saintly old Ben, his own strivings for good and his abhorrence of evil, if everything he had fought for were no more than a lie.

He didn’t want to believe Vader, tried convincing himself that it was Vader who lied to him — but somehow he could feel the truth in the Dark Lord’s words. But, if Darth Vader did speak the truth, why, he wondered, had Ben Kenobi lied to him? Why? His mind screamed louder than any wind the Dark Lord could ever summon against him.

Valorum
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  • This is weird, because Luke accepted it as true when Vader contacted him via the Force in the last scene of The Empire Strikes Back. – Spencer Sep 06 '19 at 22:03
  • Even with that final confirmation at the end of Empire, I chose not to believe it until Yoda confirmed it in Jedi. I was young and just wasn’t ready for nuanced evil. – Todd Wilcox Sep 07 '19 at 04:29