The Shadow of Luke Skywalker

*Spoiler Alert – This post contains spoiler information regarding Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you have not seen the film then I advise you to make the jump to lightspeed and find a safe port to hide in until you have seen the film. Be sure to add this location to your navigational charts so that you can return here once you have seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens.*

The first words of the opening crawl for Star Wars: The Force Awakens are “Luke Skywalker has vanished.”  The whereabouts of Luke Skywalker was one of the biggest mysteries going into the film. This was mostly in regards to why he was not featured in any of the trailers or promotional materials, despite knowing that he would be in the film. In an earlier post, I wrote called Where is Luke Skywalker I mentioned that I had seen Mark Hamill everywhere, but hadn’t seen Luke Skywalker anywhere. Now that the film is out we now know why Luke was withheld from the marketing materials. He’s only in the film for a few powerful seconds.

If you’ve seen the film then you know the basis of the entire plot is the search to find Luke. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Screenwriter, Michael Arndt explained how they decided to go the route of letting Luke sit this one out. Arndt told EW that,

“Early on I tried to write versions of the story where [Rey] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass. It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012. It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over. Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.’”

Luke was kept out of the picture to give the new heroes a chance to shine, but would Luke really have taken over? Han Solo was given a huge part in the story, and while you could argue he stole the show, he didn’t carry the movie, and the new characters had ample moments to shine and enter our hearts. Luke is not Han. He was the central figure of the original trilogy and he had the power of the force.

When you consider the fact that Rey was able to give Kylo Ren a beat down with the most nascent of force abilities, then yes, having Luke as part of the main story is problematic. Put him alongside Rey, Fin, Han and Chewie, on the Starkiller base and it’s hard to think the Luke would not have made short work of the shield and Kylo Ren. He probably would have had time to hop in the Millennium Falcon and destroy the base as well. I agree, it would have been difficult to insert him into the main plot and not expect him take over and save the day. Omitting him as a participant in the main action is not without consequences. Luke’s vanishing is a self-imposed exile. The result of suffering a great personal tragedy.

Tasked with rebuilding the Jedi Order, Luke loses his prize student to the Dark Side. It’s not just a random force user, but his nephew. The son of his sister and closest friend. His own flesh and blood who is named Ben – the nickname of Luke’s mentor and father figure.

Ben doesn’t just turn to the Dark Side, but he succeeds in destroying everything that Luke has built. It’s Revenge of the Sith but on a much smaller scale and on a more personal level. While it was only explained verbally in the film, if you think about what transpired you can understand why these traumatic events had the effect on our heroes that they did.

Because Luke casts a long shadow and threatened to upstage every other character, he was left out. At the end of the film, the Jedi returns and is poised to play a larger part in Star Wars: Episode VIII. The question is are Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo now big enough to get out from under Luke’s shadow? I believe the answer is yes, but for the record, as Rey finishes her ascent to the top of the temple, and the hooded figure turns to reveal himself, I did find myself sitting there thinking, oh f–k, it’s Luke Skywalker, what is he going to do?

 

The Cantina Cast

The wretched hive your Jedi Master warned you about!

You can find Ted on Twitter  and check out his other contributions  & thebrewhall.com