Details on Luke Being a Broken Warrior in STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Due To His Mistake With Kylo Ren
We are going to see some big changes with Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. We knew that was coming when he said in the first trailer, "I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi to end…" In regards to that statement, Hamill had this to say in an interview with EW:
"I mean, that’s a pretty amazing statement for someone who was the symbol of hope and optimism in the original films.”
“When I first read it, my jaw dropped. What would make someone that alienated from his original convictions? That’s not something that you can just make up in an afternoon, and I really struggled with this thing.”
Turns out, Luke has become a broken warrior. Through a series of events and mistakes, he was led to the island where he resides which is where Rey finds him. When talking about why Luke is on the island, director Rian Johnson says:
“The very first step in the writing of this was figuring out why he’s on that island. We know that he is not a coward. He’s not just hiding because he’s scared. But we also know that he must know his friends are in danger. He must know the galaxy needs him. And he’s sitting on this island in the middle of nowhere. There had to be an answer. It had to be something where Luke Skywalker believes he’s doing the right thing – and the process of figuring out what that is and unpacking it is the journey for Rey.”
As you know, his friend Han Solo was killed at the hand of his own son, Ben a.k.a. Kylo Ren, who turned to the dark side. Well, it turns out that at one point, Luke thought that Ben was the chosen one. Hamill explains that he took Ben under his wing and put everything into him only to have him turn to the dark side. This mistake is one of the main reasons why Luke is in the place that he's in.
“[Luke] made a huge mistake in thinking that his nephew was the chosen one, so he invested everything he had in Kylo, much like Obi-Wan did with my character. And he is betrayed, with tragic consequences. Luke feels responsible for that. That’s the primary obstacle he has to rejoining the world and his place in the Jedi hierarchy, you know? It’s that guilt, that feeling that it’s his fault, that he didn’t detect the darkness in him until it was too late.”
So he went from being hopeful to being consumed by regret. Hamill goes on to explain that not everything will be explained in the films. A lot of it is feft to the imagination:
“There’s massive amounts of backstory that is left to your imagination and I couldn’t do my job without figuring out what that was. Since it’s not really important to the main story as a whole a lot of it is just for my own process. I talked with Rian about it and went into this elaborate scenario of what happened to Luke after the end of the Return of the Jedi."
He goes on to talk about how Luke is feeling during this time and how this conflict will bring drama to the next chapter of the story:
“I think he probably looks out on the horizon and wishes that he could be more effective, could be what Obi-Wan wanted him to be,” Hamill says. “But life is imperfect and without conflict there is no drama. Believe me, you’re going to see a lot of conflict in The Last Jedi. That is for sure.”
I just want to watch this movie already! At least we don't have to wait for long as it comes out on Decembner 15th.