We barely know anything about Star Wars: The Last Jedi so far, but we were recently treated to two full minutes of incredible footage in a trailer shown at Star Wars Celebration 2017.
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding The Last Jedi is what Luke Skywalker’s role is going to be. We were expecting to see him in The Force Awakens, only to have his appearance saved for the poignant closing moment of the film.
So based on this, and based on the quick shots we see in the new trailer, Rey will spend some time training with Luke Skywalker on an island in the middle of nowhere.
Wait. A fledgling Jedi whose power has just awoken travels to some faraway place to train with a fabled Jedi master no one’s heard from in quite some time? This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s exactly what happened in The Empire Strikes Back, only the fledgling Jedi was Luke and the master was Yoda.
When we’re first introduced to Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, he’s a lovable little muppet who toddles around and relentlessly trolls Luke. Eventually, we’re shown a being who, although once a powerful Jedi master, has been worn down by decades of perpetual self-doubt. Clearly, Luke Skywalker is in a similar place when we’re introduced to him in The Last Jedi, as his failure in properly training Ben Solo is one of the reasons he’d fled, according to The Force Awakens.
However, it seems Luke may have taken things a step further than Yoda, as the final foreboding line of the trailer has Luke saying:
I only know one truth: it’s time for the Jedi to end.
What?
This line was certainly used in the trailer to cause speculation, because it’s so vague yet has so much potential. There are three ways I can see this going:
- Luke Skywalker is basically The Last Jedi‘s Yoda. He’ll be reluctant to train Rey, but a Force ghost (perhaps even that of Yoda) will talk him into it. The phrase uttered in the trailer is during his refusal phase, but he’ll come around.
- Luke Skywalker is being seduced to the Dark Side. Perhaps the weight of his failure has weakened his resolve to the point where the Dark Side’s pull is beginning to overpower him. Could he follow in his father’s footsteps and become the villain of this trilogy?
- Luke knows something about the Force that we don’t. He realizes that everything he thought he knew was a lie, and he can no longer carry on. This is the possibility I’m most intrigued by, as a more ambiguous portrayal of the Force could open up far more possibilities than the binary version we’ve grown used to.
No matter how this plays out, it’s fascinating to see an older, more world-weary Luke struggling with the same demons that his masters — Yoda and Obi Wan both — had battled in the original Star Wars trilogy. It’s a new side of Luke that I can’t wait to see explored on the big screen.
For Star Wars fans, Christmas can’t come soon enough.
