It seems that a lot of Star Wars fans, including myself, need to read a lot more because we’re missing huge pieces of the puzzle and going off on tangents. In speculation, this is fine, I think, because that’s one of the best parts of being in a fandom. Sitting around talking about what might be is really interesting, and I love to do it on my blog. But there are some things that really do need ironing out, such as the fact that George Lucas was talking about the sequel trilogy on the set of the first Star Wars film!
I honestly didn’t know that. Nor did I know that there was always going to be a plan for Luke Skywalker to age and become this hermit type of character in self-exile. That part really stunned me, but it has been substantiated by excellent sources such as Phil Szostak, whom I follow on Twitter. He has been part of the big LucasArts and LucasFilm machine since the very early days, and he said this:
Many fans on social media ridicule JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson for “ruining Luke Skywalker” and even the entire franchise. In fact, they still do, and I see it daily. I do not like to get into political crap throwing on social media, so I avoid the toxicity as much as possible. But knowing that this IS actually fact paints a very different picture of what JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson did with the sequel movies.
I have been one of those fans that were hurt by what they did with Luke in TLJ. Killing him off was never going to go down well with me because, in my mind, he is the hero, and I just couldn’t get my head around what they did with the character (and neither did Mark Hamill). But as it turns out, none of this original idea was Abrams or Johnson. It was their way before they got involved with the sequels. I am not even sure if Mark Hamill is aware of that even now because he has been quoted as saying he didn’t like what “they” did with Luke Skywalker. He eventually got on-board, of course, for promotional reasons. And perhaps maybe he already knew they were going to do something else with Luke, which may have helped to ease the frustration he was feeling about Luke’s character progression.
Luke Skywalker dying, though – I have yet to find anything substantial that disproves Rian Johnson was responsible for that. So until then, Johnson is absolutely wearing that one.
I thought this post would give some of you some food for thought. Do let me know what you think about this. Did you already know this, or did it blow your mind as much as it did mine?
Sound off in the comments, friends, and I’ll catch you there!
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Hi there Julie, there are so many “headcanons” and theories out there about the route that Star Wars has taken and it’s events it doesn’t surprise me about Lucas’ plans. I say this as I already knew (as many others do) that he made the saga “out of sequence” due to lacking the technology he needed to produce his vision back in the 70’s so he made A New Hope with the tech he had but…He also revealed hints he had bigger plans for his story. The script had the prologue title of “Journal of the Whillls” (or whatever it was called” which suggested we might hear about the Guardians of the Whillls from Rogue One and he (sort of) follows a story structure similar to “The Hero’s Journey” by Joseph Campbell. Maybe Luke became a “Hero” after ROTJ, yes, but he still needed to attain “Legendary” status by overcoming another herculean challenge and/or suffer a setback to be immortalised.
If Luke’s character arc was always on an upward successful trajectory he would be pretty boring and 2 dimensional…..
But I’ll be honest, it’s getting too tiring to try picking apart fact from fiction and fable.
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So true and yes, I agree with what you said about Luke’s story arc too. I mean from the very little writing I have done over the years, I know that the most interesting characters are the ones you can’t figure out, the ones who keep you in the dark until the last minute and the ones you relate to being flawed. So it makes sense that Luke would suffer but here’s the thing, I think he did that in the OT so I don’t know why they had to kill him off. Sure he can come back as a force ghost, and yeah, I guess he was the savior of the resistance at the end of TLJ but did it make sense to kill him? Still looking for answers on that one 🙂 Also MERRY XMAS to you and yours my friend, stay safe out there and enjoy any time off you get 🙂
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This is really interesting indeed! Kind of redeems Rian Johnson and his take on Luke in TLJ. And I agree with For Tyeth that if Luke hadn’t changed so much over the years, if he’d stayed the optimisti hero, yes, it would have been nice, but a bit boring, tbh, lol. It was so different and interesting to see him that way. I think he died because the film makers wanted to make it clear that Luke not only was coming back to save the Resistance, but he was willing to sacrifice his very life to do it–and really, that was the only option he had at the time. He knew the Force projection would take everything out of him. It’s consistent with the sequel trilogy’s treatment of the OT characters: all of them, Leia, Han and Luke, were willing to die, for both the Resistance and Ben Solo. For freedom and love. I think it says a lot about their characters. It’s tragic and depressing, lol, but also inspiring, in a way. It makes you think about what YOU yourself would be willing to die for. Anyway, I’m getting really meta here, but I think the whole Luke controversy is fascinating! I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about TLJ Luke for a while now, maybe it’s time, lol.
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Yes, I am glad I have given everyone something to think about and discuss 🙂 With Han, Harrison Ford wanted Han out of the picture way back when so it wasn’t a surprise to me that his character was killed off. Leia not so sure on her – it made sense to me that she died helping Ben come back to the light because well, she was his mother and the mother of the resistance. I am not surprised about Luke changing over the years but becoming a hermit cut off from the force? That was a little difficult to stomach. If Mark Hamill didn’t agree with it, I certainly don’t 🙂 Killing him off I think was more a contractual thing and a planned event since they were trying to push the Skywalker saga out the door. It just seems like a rushed decision to kill him off in particular. I dunno, I question this and probably always will 😀 But yes, do write a post so I can have a think about it 😀
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I think I was more upset about Han’s death than anyone else’s, lol. It was so abrupt and unexpected and shocking. Ooh, I HATED Kylo for a while after that, lol. But over the course of the movies, I came to understand him a bit more, and I (sort of) forgave him. The scene with him and Han in TROS helped with that. And yeah, I do think their deaths were a kind of “wrap-up” to the Skywalker saga.
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