“Noooo! I’ll never join you!” That’s what Luke Skywalker cried out when Darth Vader asked him to cross over to the Dark Side and rule the galaxy alongside him, and J.J Abrams basically said the same thing to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy when she first reached out to ask if he’d sign on to help launch the first in a new assemblage of Star Wars films.
Kennedy persuaded him to helm the film by asking him one simple question, one with the potential to upend our core beliefs about the galaxy far, far away. “In the context of talking about story and laying out what we were thinking, I said one thing to him,” Kennedy recalls.“‘Who is Luke Skywalker?’”
Abrams, decided he needed to know the answer, even if he had to devise it himself. “He said, ‘Oh my God, I just got the chills. I’m in,’” Kennedy says. “I mean, it really was almost that quickly.”
So what got J.J Abrams so excited about the question “‘Who is Luke Skywalker?’”and more importantly what has he done to answer that question, we haven’t truly seen Luke Skywalker in ‘any’ of the marketing collateral, which leads me to believe his new persona is more than what we originally thought, and even though the footage shown in the teaser trailers provides clues to supplement the other rumors, but as for Luke, all we’ve seen are out of context shots and we still have no official synopsis; and any idea of Skywalker’s whereabouts or his state of wellbeing, which are among the film’s most talked about mysteries at this point. The closest fans have gotten to date is a short glimpse of the actor, sporting an Obi-Wan like beard, discussing the series’ return to practical filmmaking in the behind-the-scenes reel that was shown at San Diego Comic-Con 2015.
Image used under kind permission of Anthony Riordan Photography
The only real place he’s been seen during filming is on Skellig Michael west of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry in Ireland in Kerry, which has long been believed to be the site of some of the last shots of the movie, including what is quite possibly the last shot. I would personally imagine that such a zoom-out scene would involve Luke training his ‘presumed’ daughter Rey, since Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley were the only cast members present – it would also explain why their stunt doubles were brought along, as they could be shot from a distance. If the rumor is true and the scene zooms out, that would be a bit of a departure from the previous six Star Wars films, which have all ended with group shots (unless BB-8 happens to be there or something).
These rumors have started to add a bit credence as they both have just returned to film on Skellig Michael for a few weeks for Star Wars: Episode VIII with director by Rian Johnson.
I also believe we have been thrown a ‘Jedi’ red herring with Finn and ‘that’ LightSabre scene in the snow. He is part of the Resistance. He escapes the First Order after defecting and gets pulled to the other side of the conflict. He’s going to use a lightsaber, which is going to be great and is part of the official marketing, but he’s probably not going to be the protagonist that is the main face of Good for this side of The Force.
The true protagonist is going to be Rey, whose identity has always been something that has been under dispute ever since we were calling her “Kira” based on certain spy photographs from production. There’s been the rumor that she’s a Solo child because of that Japanese interview where Daisy Ridley said her character was “solitary” and her and Kathleen Kennedy then laughed, you feel Kathleen was having a double laugh, and is quietly thinking back to her ‘Who is Luke Skywalker?’” moment with JJ, and that Rey is somehow linked to the family of Skywalker. We’ve also heard rumours that Rey appears in a flashback where we see young Jedi attacked by evil forces, possibly the Knights of Ren, and and Kylo was present. Which has made us assume these attacking forces have assumed that Kylo and Rey are related, potential to the Skywalker bloodline somehow, which brings me back to that question ‘Who is Luke Skywalker?’ …what has Luke been doing in the abyss after Return of the Jedi, built a new Jedi Order that went wrong? started a family?…who knows!! I just hope J.J.Abrams has taken that initial question and turned it into one great Secret Box of answers.
One final bit which might add a bit of proof to the above, check out these recently leaked Topp Trumps cards…Rey the Jedi, so are the news films From the ‘continued’ Adventures of Luke Skywalker …and his Family?? …bring on December the 17th for the real answer.
Geek Carl 