For the longest time, people thought that the desert planet in The Force Awakens was in fact Tatooine. It wasn’t until Star Wars Celebration this past summer that we found out that it wasn’t Tatooine, but was “Jakku”, a planet then unknown to Star Wars fans. We have a few scraps of information about this planet, so let’s explore them now.
First off with the name. “Jakku”. I don’t know if this has been stated before by anyone, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m willing to bet this name was invented by the very same people that announced its name: JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy. Why? Their initials are in it:
JJ Abrams + Kathleen Kennedy = JAKK
And the “U”? It could refer to you, the fans, or could be just as simple as needing another vowel to round out the name. All the other vowels sound weird. Jakko would sound too much like MJ’s nickname, Jacko, and so on.
As far as we can tell, Jakku is the scavenger planet. It is like a Mad Max planet. A dystopian post-apocalyptic wasteland of a planet, full of military hardware left by the Empire. For example, astute fans have pointed out that Rey’s goggles are made from Stormtrooper visors. Here is an image courtesy of Reddit user chriswrightmusic
There is also this armored beast-of-burden seen in some recent Entertainment Weekly photos. It’s head gear looks just like a walker from the Rebel’s TV show. Here is a comparison made by Darin1138 on Reddit:
So it definitely looks like there is nothing on this planet other than the wreckage of various Imperial vehicles and equipment that people have cobbled together for various purposes. It is possible that almost everyone on the planet was at one point working for the Empire, and was left there after the battle of Jakku. So why did Luke’s lightsaber end up orbiting this wasteland planet and why did Rey end up there in the first place?
The answer may come from another reddit user, starwarsobsessed, has posted a theory that Luke Skywalker will be on Jakku at some point. It is possible that this is all in the flashback. Check out the following image.
Take another look. That is a hooded robe behind R2 in the second shot. Here we have two images, one from starwars7news.com, showing some on location sets in Abu Dhabi with a certain hut structure present, and the same hut structure seen near R2D2, with possibly Luke crouching behind him. It looks like the same costume and possibly the same location that many people believe to be Luke from the trailer seen here:
Could it be that Luke is on Jakku at some point, possibly in the flashback? One theory would be that the original Jedi academy was on Jakku to begin with. This shot above where Luke is consoling R2 looks like it could be on the desert planet right after the destruction of the new Jedi Academy, as part of the flashback scene. If this is after the destruction of the Jedi Academy, then a lot of things fall into place. It makes the fact that Luke’s saber was floating above Jakku of all places make a little more sense. If Rey was once an Jedi padawan as some have speculated, then it would make more sense why she is on Jakku in the first place. All of this is pure speculation, but it can’t hurt to at least entertain this kinds of ideas.
But we’ve got one more crazy theory to toss around. What if Jakku really is Tatooine? Bear with me here…We have reports of a First Order base called “StarKiller”, and early reports suggested that they had a weapon that could blow up stars. I guess they are trying to one-up the Death Star? At any rate, we all know that Tatooine has two suns, but Jakku has only one, so maybe, just maybe…the StarKiller base blew up one of them? OK, so I don’t really take this theory too seriously, as reports suggest that the playable level in Battlefront is the battle of Jakku, which takes place a year after the battle of Endor, so unless they blew up the star right after that, it wouldn’t make sense. I thought I would share this one with you all the same.