There are a ton of questions about Luke Skywalker and his allegiance in Star Wars: The Force Awakens so we break it down….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
One of the biggest questions surrounding the first two full-length trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the mysterious non-appearance of Luke Skywalker.
While virtually every other major character from the original Star Wars trilogy — Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, the droids and even the Millennium Falcon — have been spotted, the one person who still hasn’t been confirmed in any way is Luke Skywalker.
Most theories surrounding Luke have been in a one-shot cutaway where a figure with a dark, black cloak draped over his head reaches out with a robotic hand and places it on R2-D2.
Clearly, Luke had his hand severed in The Empire Strikes Back and R2-D2 was always his co-pilot so in all likelihood that is the last surviving Jedi knight.
But recently a few ideas have popped up that maybe the Luke Skywalker we’re about to meet when Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens on December 18 isn’t the same person who we last spotted in Return of the Jedi.
A few keys lie in the new trailer that debuted this past Monday.
At the 50-second mark we hear the voice of Kylo Ren for the first time as he says ‘nothing will stand in our way — I will finish what you started’ while looking down at a gnarled, burnt mask once belonging to Darth Vader. Now we know from previous interviews that Kylo’s last name isn’t actually Ren but instead he comes from a secret order called the Knights of Ren and his last name is being kept secret for a reason.
Clearly judging by the very next scene where he’s torturing Poe Dameron, Kylo Ren understands the Force and that’s not something he’s just going to pick up from a book.
Is it possible that Kylo Ren is a direct descendant of Luke Skywalker? That his words ‘I will finish what you started’ are actually in reference to turning his own father to the dark side where Anakin failed all those years ago?
Another possible clue to Luke’s whereabouts come in the next part of the trailer where Rey is heard talking about the ‘stories about what happened’ and Han Solo answering back that it’s all true — “The Dark side. A Jedi. They’re real”
Notice, Han doesn’t actually say Luke’s name but instead ‘a Jedi’. Why are the stories about the Rebellion’s victory a scant 30 years ago now only rumors that live in hushed whispers in the deepest parts of the galaxy?
And from the look of things throughout this trailer it certainly doesn’t appear that the Rebel forces that defeated the Emperor and destroyed the Death Star ended up taking over the galaxy in terms of government or democracy. Meanwhile, the First Order — the new version of the Galactic Empire — are facing off against the Resistance, which is the new Rebellion.
Now let’s go back to the first trailer released several months back and this time we hear Luke’s voice over top of the video where he repeats the famous line ‘The Force is strong in my family — my father has it, I have it, my sister has it — you have that power, too.”
Logic says Luke is talking to one of his children or possibly one of Han and Leia’s children but from the trailers it sure doesn’t appear that Rey or Finn qualify as anybody’s kid from a character we already know. Rey is living on a desolate planet called Jakku while it appears Finn is a former TIE fighter pilot who crash landed in the same place before turning from the First Order to the Resistance.
Nowhere in there does it seem like either of them is actually a Skywalker.
So could Luke have turned to the dark side after the events in Return of the Jedi and helped lead the Galactic Empire back to power while raising a son of his own in his father’s image?
Well one final clue that we might be dealing with a much darker Luke Skywalker than when we last left him is an interview Mark Hamill conducted back in 2005 when appearing on the IFC show Dinner for Five where he was at a table with filmmaker Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, Jason Lee and wouldn’t you guess it — JJ Abrams.
“I pitched that to George (Lucas),” Hamill said about turning Luke Skywalker evil. “As an actor that would be more fun to play. I just thought that’s the way it was going from when we finished (Empire Strikes Back) I figured that’s what will be the pivotal moment.
“I’ll have to come back (to the good side) but I’ll have like Han Solo in my crosshairs and I’ll be about to kill him or about to kill the Princess or about to kill somebody that we care about and it’s an old cornball movie. Like World War II movies and stuff.”
Could Luke Skywalker be the catalyst that brought the First Order back to power while handing over the keys to the kingdom to his prodigy Kylo Ren? Obviously, Mark Hamill is rumored to appear in all of the upcoming Star Wars sequels so could his journey from the dark side back to good be a major story arc in these movies?
One more possible theory that’s been floated is that the plot of the movie involves a search for Luke Skywalker after he disappeared following the events in Return of the Jedi. Just recently on his podcast Fatman on Batman, Kevin Smith was talking about the new trailer — which he saw an advanced screening of before the rest of the world after visiting the set during filming thanks to his friendship with Abrams — and he mentioned a possible plot for the upcoming movie.
“They’re going to go looking for Luke Skywalker,” Smith said. “Or whatever the fuck it seems to be.”
Whether he’s good, bad, or just missing the mystery surrounding Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Force Awakens will definitely be a major question on the day the film opens on December 18 and then we will get our answers!
