There are so many questions about Luke Skywalker as we head to Star Wars Episode 8 which is just weeks away from a worldwide release. There is both excitement and doubt ahead of the release of eighth episode of Star Wars saga. It is very clear now that Luke Skywalker’s character will be entering into uncharted territory in the next installment. Daisy Ridley described one of the themes of ‘The Last Jedi’ is “Never meet your heroes”. Moreover, Mark Hamill himself expressed skepticism and doubt about Luke’s character arc in the past.
This sowed the seed of doubt in the minds of Star Wars fans, some of them think that the Luke Skywalker of ‘The ‘New Hope’ may fall to the dark side. On this, Mark Hamill set the record straight and said:
“In ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’ Luke has lost confidence in his ability to make good choices. It haunts him to the core. But he hasn’t gone to the dark side. This isn’t an evil version of him. But it’s still an incarnation of the character I never expected. It has pulled me out of my comfort zone. It’s a real challenge.”
Let’s try to understand the journey of Luke Skywalker:
When the Empire got defeated, Luke dedicated himself towards restoring the Jedi order but he was not a willing participant. He started a quest to seek secrets of Jedi spread across the galaxy. He broadened his search and found other force cults. It has been eloquently put in Ken Liu’s novel titled ‘The Legend of Luke Skywalker’ which goes like this:
“There are a thousand names for the truth. It doesn’t matter what we call it, only that it is true.”
He got exposed to the balance of the force. He learned about the prophecy of the Chosen One, the one who would restore the balance. He managed to bring some reform to ‘The Jedi order’ and kept track of the Chosen One. He concluded Ben was the Chosen one and as a result, he focused on training Han and Leia’s son. But he was oblivious to the influence of dark side on Ben once he found out that Darth Vader was his Grand-father. This led Ben to the dark path and he became Kylo Ren (we still don’t know how that happened).
Luke has not given up on his fight for restoring balance, fight evil etc. but he just has a new way of going about it. It has been eloquently put in Ken Liu’s novel titled ‘The Legend of Luke Skywalker’ which goes like this:
“There are more ways to serve good than by fighting and confronting evil. You also serve the good by standing guard and maintaining pools of tranquility and peace; you also rebuke evil by showing that there is another way than death and violence. We are all connected through the Force, and there’s a time and place to rest, as well as a time and place to act.”
The last time we saw Luke Skywalker use light-saber on big screen was in 1983. The new batch of Star Wars merchandise has confirmed that Luke will be igniting his light-saber one more time in “The Last Jedi”.
The Alamo Drafthouse has access to Mondo pint glasses that fans can buy along with movie tickets. The one side of the glass has made its way online where Luke is clearly wielding his original blue light-saber and it is also ignited. It is significant for two reasons – Firstly, it is part of the official merchandise so it basically confirms that Luke will use his light-saber at some point in the movie.
Secondly, he may very well use it to train Rey for advanced Jedi skills or he may actually fight to take down bad guys when they come under attack from Knights of Ren. Another interesting thing here is that he won’t be using his green lightsaber from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi which he used to take down Palpatine and Darth Vader.
Millions of Star Wars fans are waiting for the next episode after the successful run of Star Wars: Force awakens at the global box-office. After the horrible prequels, we really wanted to see an extremely well- directed Star Wars movie onscreen. The Force Awakens had the feel and the tone we wanted, it embraced the magic of original Star Wars movies which made us fell in love with the universe in the first place.
The hype around the movie is enormous, spoilers are all around and almost every Star Wars fan had become a detective keeping eyes on anything that comes into the public domain. The trailer was released earlier which did not give away much but recently behind-the-scenes footage rocked the internet and may have revealed something big.
It could very well be the case that the movie may feature a scene where Rey and Luke Skywalker fight each other to the death and it end up in master Jedi’s death. Since the release of the first teaser trailer, the Star Wars fans have been worried about Luke Skywalker’s imminent death as he may have turned to the dark side. Moreover, the recent poster and Mark Hamill’s comments that he was shocked to read the script have almost confirmed that it is the case. He said:
“I only know one thing. It’s time for the Jedi to end.”
According to Comicbookmovie, they have details of a very important scene between Rey and Luke. If the movie actually contains the scene, it will change everything about the Star Wars universe. [Spoilers ahead] Below is an extract from the scene:
“In the scene Luke tells Rey that the Jedi Council became “arrogant” and that they were hiding a “secret,” which led to their demise. The old Jedi Master takes Rey’s hand and shows her a glimpse into the past. They see two children playing near a tree on an alien planet. The boy noticed that he had greater strength and intuition when he was closer to this tree. The girl noticed that the tree also made her brother increasingly angry. One day an argument breaks out between the children, and the boy kills the girl. The boy touches the tree and is “transformed”. He kills his parents and leaves the planet. Meanwhile the girl is revealed to be alive, transformed by the tree as well, using her power to start the first Jedi Order.”
The director J.J. Abrams managed to reinvent Star Wars franchise and create an enormous amount of buzz for the next installment of the Skywalker saga. He is coming back for Star Wars 9 with a lot of big ideas with screenwriter Chris Terrio who is working on a screenplay.
He is promising fans that the conclusive installment will be unlike anything they have seen before. He intends to avoid repetitions and bring in many new elements onto the big screen. One of the biggest complaints of ‘The Force Awakens’ was that it seemed a rehash of ‘New Hope’ with latest computer graphics. Here’s what he said:
“Well, it’s certainly something that I’m aware of now working on Episode IX – coming back into this world after having done Episode VII. I feel like we need to approach this with the same excitement that we had when we were kids, loving what these movies were. And at the same time, we have to take them places that they haven’t gone, and that’s sort of our responsibility.”
According to a Reddit user who happened to meet Terrio and Abrams, posted his conversation on social media:
“They said that they’re going to be brave and there will be big surprises. I got the impression that JJ felt like he had to refresh previous Star Wars moments for a modern audience in TFA, and now it feels like they have free reign to do what they want. Apparently they’ve had no interference from Kathleen or Pablo or the Lucasfilm Story Group. 9 is also the film which unites all three trilogies and brings everything together. That’s all they would tell me.”
We have to take everything with a grain of salt if it’s the opinion of a random Reddit user but he did post an image of him with Abrams-Terrio duo who are working on ninth episode script. According to Terrio, the movie will make it amply clear that prequels are also “happening in the same universe” as new movies. He added:
“I worry a little bit that the questions I was asking were too leading. I was speaking to Chris and he was talking about the OT. I said about how I grew up with the PT and the prequels were my entry point into Star Wars. I asked about elements of the PT coming into 9 and Chris said about how 9 unites all of it. He said 9 definitely makes it feel like they’re all happening in the same universe, and there would be PT elements in 9. They could be visual or thematic, he didn’t overtly say that there would be returning planets or characters from the PT or anything.”
There is a whole new generation of movie-goers who don’t hate the prequels as much as people above 30 age group. The new Star Wars movies are for all generations so it makes perfect sense to give a reference to so-called “prequels”. Here’s what J.J. Abrams said to BBC in an interview:
“Well, it’s certainly something that I’m aware of now working on Episode IX, coming back into this world after having done Episode VII. I feel like we need to approach this with the same excitement that we had when we were kids, loving what these movies were. And at the same time, we have to take them places that they haven’t gone, and that’s sort of our responsibility. It’s a strange thing, Michael’s worked on things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek and Star Wars, and these are the things of dreams. Yet we can’t just revel in that; we have to go elsewhere.”
He has assured the fans that Star Wars 9 will be truly different and satisfying. He feels if they can manage to tie in all the three trilogies, it would be a big accomplishment. The movie is set to be released on May 24, 2019.
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