The question that convinced J.J. Abrams to direct The Force Awakens was none other than “Who is Luke Skywalker?”. It makes me wonder what answer he found. Based on prevailing rumors Luke is more McGuffin than character in The Force Awakens, so will we know who Luke Skywalker is at the end of this movie? Does anyone in the movie really know who he is? Is that maybe the real question that J.J. was wanting to answer? Let’s see if we can figure it out based on who he was when we last saw him and what we know so far.
Lets look at who he was when we last saw him. When we first met Luke he was nothing more than a whiny farm boy. From what we could tell he had only his Uncle and Aunt for company and maybe some “friends” in Toshi station. In short he was nothing special. Through ANH we saw him begin to trust the Force would guide him and accept it was his path. By the time we met him again in ESB he had grown in his abilities but is not in wisdom. He learned from master Yoda and increased his skills but took a step back in willingness to follow the Force and truly submit to it like he did during his trench run in ANH. He is cocky and reckless, then he is humbled by his father Darth Vader. Finally Luke completes his journey to becoming Jedi. In RotJ Luke is confident calm and in control of himself he has become Jedi his father should have been.
He was given a mandate by Yoda to pass on what he learned and so he did. He had a spot picked out on Devaron based on the book Weapon of a Jedi to open his Jedi Academy. Presumably, he did set up an Academy. If he did, where are the Jedi he trained? From the rumors and the footage we have seen there are no Jedi. In fact we can say there are only three force users not on side of the First Order, Leia, Maz and Rey. No rumors or leaks conclusively say Finn has the ability to use the force so even though he uses the Luke/Anakin lightsaber I am reluctant to add him. Now I suspect Maz was trained by Luke and it appears she not only knows Han but also Leia and possibly the Luke/Anakin lightsaber. But that is all we have information about so where are the others Luke trained?
We know there is a Force vision flashback scene that is lead by Maz. Here is where our first look at Luke Skywalker in the movie comes from. We have glimpsed a part of it in the trailer I believe that this is the aftermath of the attack on Luke’s Academy all of his apprentices are dead or presumed so as are the Jedi he had trained thus far. Based on reports from both StarWars7news.com and MSW we know this flashback takes place approximately 10 years before the start of TFA. The First Order or the Knights of Ren(or both!) are responsible for the death of the Jedi and based on differing translations of the lines from the Kylo Ren toy Kylo and Snoke believe Luke is the last of the Jedi alive (3 translation use singular Jedi the German translation uses plural).
This tells us after the destruction of the Jedi Luke went into hiding. The question is why would he do so, did he believe that by training Jedi he was forcing the Force to create darkside users? Or was it for his safety and/or others? I have a pet theory that the First Order has the ability to find someone using the force which is why they show up at Maz’s castle. Perhaps Luke figured this out and needed to hide or the Jedi would die. I suspect its a combination of needing to hide and guilt over the death of those he feels he could have or should have been able to save. Most importantly his Nephew(Kylo) and niece or daughter(Rey). I don’t see his hiding as far fetched as both his masters Yoda and Obi-wan hid when they had to.
We did get a leaked photo of Luke during some sort of dress rehearsal, promotional photo or 3D scan for a toy (Most likey). We won’t post it here because there have been “cease-and-desist” orders sent to other sites to take it down. It isn’t hard to find it online with a google search. It’s interesting that his robe lacks sleeves and looks more like this old robe in RotJ, rather than the prequel era Jedi, but this makes sense given this comes right after. His robe is a lighter color. Usually in Star Wars the outfits have symbolic meaning. Characters like Darth Vader and the Emperor wore all black, and in general usually extreme colors signify evil. Whereas the Rebels wore earth tones such as greens, browns, tans, etc, the bad guys wore mostly gleaming white (Storm Troopers), jet black (Vader, Emperor), or blood red (Imperial guards). In RotJ, Luke was skating a little close to the edge, Force-choked Jabba’s guards, and wore this Emperor-like robe:
So it appears with the new costume, Luke is going more earth tones, and lighter, softer shades for his robes. I think that with the new Luke outfit, we are reassured that he is with the light side of the Force. The symbolic significance of character’s wardrobes in Star Wars was perhaps why this image was a pretty serious leak because of what it reveals about which side Luke is on in a sense, hence why they issued take-down orders to many of the sites. It’s crazy to think that a year ago, a lot of people thought Luke would be a cyborg villain. Amazing in hindsight how little we knew back then. So safe to say that Luke is still a good guy.
Star Wars has always been a story of the Skywalker family. It is a little bit hard to imagine a Star Wars that isn’t a story of the Skywalkers in a way. Maybe they can pull it off and expand the galaxy as it were. But the story at its core has been a story of family, in particular the Skywalker family. If there is a character in TFA that is an offspring of Skywalker, it would have to be Rey and/or Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren has been heavily hinted at being Han and Leia’s child in various rumors as has Rey. Technically both would be Skywalkers but named Solo… something tells me the last name is important. Why else would you hide Luke as a baby but let him keep the last name that was known across the galaxy.
I’d say if Rey isn’t Han and Leia’s daughter, they certainly are heavily implying it to fool us. But they wouldn’t do something like that would they? would the makers of the movie ever make elaborate attempts to save the ultimate twist for opening night of a movie? Of course they would. Because this is 2015, and information goes at the speed of light. With the internet today, it isn’t like the days of Empire Strikes Back, when a secret could be kept. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense that they would deliberately imply misinformation to save a few juicy twists. After all, Star Wars is known for having twists based on familial relationships, and maybe this is the only way to make it happen in 2015. So we have to think that if Luke is in hiding he’d have to have had a very compelling reason. I think the loss of his Daughter would be more than enough reason to shut himself off from the rest of Galaxy no matter what is going on. Therefore, regarding whether or not Luke has children, definitely don’t write this one off just yet in fact I lean towards counting on it.
According to the plot synopsis from MSW, we have only one scene with Luke during the TFA time frame, receiving the lightsaber from Rey at the end of the movie. R2, C3PO and BB-8 decode where Luke is and Chewie Rey and BB-8 go to find him. StarWars7news.com has reported there may be a third Luke scene most likely from a recording so the decoded message may be what they are referring to. So will the final scene be Rey handing Luke the lightsaber, doubtful however no matter what this is the only current Luke Skywalker scene we should expect unless SW7N was correct here
Here’s my interpretation of what we will see and hear in Luke and Rey’s final scene.
Rey climbs the outside of a ruined temple and then enters the massive door.
Luke: How did you find me, who are yo- (sharp intake of breathe) I thought you died.
Rey: I ran when we were attacked. Sarco found me and took me away to keep me safe, taught me how to survive and defend myself.
Luke: I didn’t know.
Rey: Its not your fault. This is yours I believe.
Rey hands him the lightsaber.
Luke looks it over and ignites it and smiles.
Rey: I’ve come to complete my training.
Luke: You will be Jedi. Like your father.
Luke hands the lightsaber back to Rey. Scene cuts away to two figures outside the temple fighting one with a blue lightsaber the other with green.
Credits
There you have it everything we know about Luke and how it fits. Let us know what you think in the comments below!