SPOILERS


My two cents....


I argue that it's actually quite subversive to do it this way. Keeping him alive after pulling off such a gangster ass mind-fuck would be a bit too Hollywood. I think making him show out as The Legend to give that jolt of hope- and, in effect, life- to the resistance in that way holds far greater weight if it's done at the expense of his life.

Otherwise it's just a plain old magic trick that, IMO, is far less impressive if it doesn't come with such a great cost.

That cost has far more impact as the climax of a story that made such a point of upending tropes in critical moments. You can throw so many curve balls that people begin to relax and expect those curves as the new normal, and throwing it straight down the middle suddenly becomes the curve ball.

In the end, quite literally, they made the correct choice to subvert the sort of expectation they spent the rest of the film building.