I'll believe it when I see it. So much of the magic and moral of Star Wars is the clear lines between good and evil, and the ultimate triumph of the former over the latter. This, if true, would undermine the whole original series and kill everything that is Star Wars.
I'm not into the Star Wars franchise enough to say this definitively but I do believe that this was the storyline of the first canonical set of comics, way back when I was a teenager. I didn't read them so I'm not positive but a friend did and mentioned offhand the (major plot twist in the OP).
ScootyPuffJunior wrote: I think it is worth noting that Luke wore black an awful lot in Return of the Jedi, which I think hinted at his internal struggle over the Dark Side.
But I'll believe when I see it.
To be fair, he came fairly close to turning to the Dark Side with the killing of his father, so it's likely he's been holding that in.
Needs more lens flare, but broad strokes, you get what's happening.
Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster is pretty epic, and totaly unscripted. They asked him to speak for 5 minutes, and away he went.
I'd actually be surprised and disappointed if the characters didn't change from our expectations of them. They'd have kept the EU if they wanted to be faithful to the source material. All the props I've seen, including Mark Hammill's epic BEARD, seem to capture the spirit and humor of the originals.
Somehow I doubt this is accurate. What we know id that JJA has been developing a movie that keeps to the spirit of the originals, making Luke evil would break with that. Mind you, he might well be a psychocyborg, but evil? doubtful. Also, keep in mind she might be thinking shell meet luke, and instead meets someone else, much like how Han and co thought they were meeting Lando on cloud city only to end up having dinner with one darth vader.
There's definitely something to that (like Luke's mechanical hand), although I think it has more to do with Luke dealing with being Vader's son and symbolically what this ultimately means for Vader.
One of the first things we see Luke do in RotJ is use Force Choke. Now we didn't know it was Force Choke(TM) back then or that it was a Dark Side Power(C)(R) but the only other person we had seen do it was D to the V. When Obi-Wan wanted to slip by some guards, he befuddled their minds. (Don't tell me Gamorrean bouncers are more canny than Storm Troopers.) Luke then proceeds, although not in so many words, to tell Jabba it's either release the crew or get murdered. Heavy stuff man. But it is important that Luke does not actually tell Jabba "I will fething murder you" and that we don't see the Gamorreans die. That would be full Vader. And like Yoda said (i'm paraphrasing), never go full Vader.
Luke is at a pivotal point throughout RotJ: what is his destiny? This is all a matter of the past, or rather the truth about the past and whether or not Luke can deal with it. The T Word is a big deal in RotJ. When Yoda confirms Vader is Luke's dad and says it's unfortunate, Luke immediately objects: "Unfortunate that I know the truth?" Soon after, Obi-Wan lectures Luke that truth is a matter of perspective and Luke is not impressed. Both Yoda and Ben are trying to get Luke to kill his dad here by the way. And they're downplaying truth a lot, which doesn't make them seem very trustworthy. By contrast, Vader continues his straight forward attitude from ESB. Luke calls Vader father after turning himself in on Endor and Vader cautiously concludes "so you have accepted the truth." Luke pointedly retorts, "'I've accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father."
You can almost hear Force Ghost Ben in the background: "Buuuurn." Which would be really insensitive thing for him to say to Vader but I digress.
In this scene, we have the main protagonist and antagonist conversing as father and son. Luke's black clothing not only links him to Vader in this scene but calls to mind the vision from ESB, where it's Luke's face inside of Vader's mask. Interestingly, the dialog does not at all suggest that Luke is in danger of being pulled into the oblivion of the Dark Side but that Vader could be pulled free from it. In other words, the vision from ESB did not warn that Luke would become like Vader, as Yoda and Obi-Wan fear, but rather that Vader was once like Luke -- that there is still a human person in there, despite what Ben and everyone else thinks, that Vader is "twisted and evil, more machine than man now."
"Feelings" is also an important concept in ESB and RotJ. Palpatine advises Vader to "search" his feelings to know the truth about his son and Vader in turn advises Luke to the same to know the truth about his father. Feelings and truth are deeply connected in Star Wars. This is another sign that Yoda and Obi-Wan are acting shady. Yoda goes on and on about Luke controlling his emotions (including letting his friends die) and Ben flat-out tells him to bury them. Luke tells Vader to search his feelings but Vader plays it off and, as a result, Luke concludes, "Then my father is truly dead." Vader later tells Luke his feelings have betrayed both himself and Leia, which really is the absolute worst thing -- emotionally speaking -- Vader does in all three films and what finally pushes Luke over the edge.
That's when we come back to the mechanical hand visual metaphor and Luke realizes, as a matter of pure faith, that his love for his father is more powerful than the Dark Side. And as Vader ultimately tells Luke, "You were right, you were right about me." In that moment, we again have the image of two men in black except now both are unmasked. The dying man is old and scarred but a human, capable of regret and love. He dies with tears in his eyes. Visually, we understand that the redeemed father will live on in the redeeming son.
All of this, I hope, will also stand in as an argument why Luke turning out to be evil would be ludicrously bad. Search your feels, bro. You know it to be true.
Manchu wrote: Luke then proceeds, although not in so many words, to tell Jabba it's either release the crew or get murdered. Heavy stuff man. But it is important that Luke does not actually tell Jabba "I will fething murder you" and that we don't see the Gamorreans die. That would be full Vader. And like Yoda said (i'm paraphrasing), never go full Vader.
Luke does tell Jabba directly that he will kill him though. On the skiff plank, right before the Weequay pushes him off, Luke says, "Jabba! This is your last chance. Free us, or die."
Hordini wrote: Luke does tell Jabba directly that he will kill him though. On the skiff plank, right before the Weequay pushes him off, Luke says, "Jabba! This is your last chance. Free us, or die."
Does that seem like something Darth Vader would say? How would Vader have handled strolling up into Jabba's palace?
Hordini wrote: Luke does tell Jabba directly that he will kill him though. On the skiff plank, right before the Weequay pushes him off, Luke says, "Jabba! This is your last chance. Free us, or die."
Does that seem like something Darth Vader would say? How would Vader have handled strolling up into Jabba's palace?
He probably would have rolled deep with Stormtroopers and said something like, "Commander, tear this place apart until you've found Han. And bring me Jabba and his crew. I want them alive!" Then he would have proceeded to torture them for any further information he was after.
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Breotan wrote: "Evil Luke" has already been done in the novels.
That doesn't mean they can't do it in the new movie.
Hordini wrote: He probably would have rolled deep with Stormtroopers and said something like, "Commander, tear this place apart until you've found Han. And bring me Jabba and his crew. I want them alive!" Then he would have proceeded to torture them for any further information he was after.
However, if we're talking about comparing Luke to Vader, perhaps we should also consider a comparison of Luke and Anakin. I could see Anakin approaching the situation similar to how Luke did in RotJ.
Manchu wrote: Well that gets back to my point about Luke's vision on Dagobah.
I agree with your interpretation, but I think one could also interpret it to imply, not that Luke would become like Vader, but that Luke could become like Vader. That is, that there is a real danger of that happening.
No doubt. That is the purpose of the scene in ESB. It not only relates to what Yoda is teaching Luke but also foreshadows the big moment on Bespin. My point is, when we think back to the vision while watching Luke and Vader talk and later fight in RotJ, now the meaning is different for us and for Luke: it is the conviction that there is a person inside of all that fear, anger, and aggression.
In one way, never go M. Night Shyamalan. A twist for the sake of a twist isn't intelligent script writing.
In another, I recall the words of Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent. "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." How does a man put a republic back together? And what would be the cost to that man to do so? This years revolutionary is next years despot.
Time will tell if this is A. true and B. effective as a plot.
Manchu wrote: No doubt. That is the purpose of the scene in ESB. It not only relates to what Yoda is teaching Luke but also foreshadows the big moment on Bespin. My point is, when we think back to the vision while watching Luke and Vader talk and later fight in RotJ, now the meaning is different for us and for Luke: it is the conviction that there is a person inside of all that fear, anger, and aggression.
But which person is it? Vader? That's certainly the implication. But could it be Luke? Could it be both? I think the new film could add a new layer of potential interpretations to Luke's vision in the cave.
I think it would make the most sense to see that an older Luke has withdrawn from public life, is disaffected from the New Republic and may have even lost control of the New Jedi Order. Luke's journey would not leave him a cynic and it is really difficult to imagine him falling to the Dark Side. After all, his idealism proved correct in the end. There were probably other, less idealistic voices in the Alliance (like Borsk Fey'lya in the now defunct EU).
I'm perfectly okay with Luke turning to the dark side in the new movies, if he can be redeemed without being killed by the end. He has definitely tip-toed the line to the dark side. I'm interested to see how this plays out. But it has happened before.
Raven911 wrote: Luke isn't evil. A pussy, yes, but evil, no. Hell, in every movie he had to be carried by someone else.
In Star Wars, Han keeps Vader from shooting him out of the trench before he can fire the torpedo.
In Empire Strikes Back, Vader hands him his ass (and cuts off his hand) and once again he has to be saved by Leia and Chewy.
In Return of the Jedi, the Emporer is kicking his ass and daddy has to save him.
Really? I thought in 'return of the jedi' he pretty much came to Hans's and leia's rescue after they almost died and to be fair the only reason why the emperor was beating him so badly is because he wouldn't kill his father and possibly not the emperor either. Sure daddy saved him but he kicked dad's *ss beforehand and flipped off the emperor with his morality. Not only that but he saved his dad in the moral department in a sense.
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I more have problems with the character of darth vader. Does anybody know just how many officers he force choked to death? Seriously it's become a thing. I've complained about it before and i will here as well. Your leadership is going to take a serious hit if you kill off your own leaders more than assassins ever could. At the very least he could reward good service and punish bad service or even freaking torture them in an unspecified way. If you kill them it leaves the leadership with somebody less experienced with facing the current opponent. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some rookies that never faced the rebellion thrust into the position of command before being killed and being replaced by an even more inept leader. My problem is that experience is something you learn from (even with losses). You learn tactics and you get smarter. In vader's plans you need a 100% success rate or you get 'force choked' to death. Not an 80 or 90 percent success rate but 100%. If the imperial leadership was ever poor it was probably due to vader without him even meaning it.
Also even despite manipulation the baddies prove if you're going to be a jerk to people and they believe the opposing side will offer more and has a chance at winning then they'll probably switch to the nicer side. It's why using bombs (or a freaking death star planet destroyer) probably creates a lot more enemies than if you were more precise with who you killed and kept bystanders out of the line of fire.
I thought the big spoiler would be that Han came out as a Furry, divorces Leia and runs off with Chewie. Meanwhile, R2 and 3PO adopt a droid despite being a same sex droid couple.
Which is all the more impressive when you consider that Anakin was supposedly one of the best lightsabre duelists around, while Luke's training largely consisted of a week running around in a swamp with an ancient mogwai on his back...
Which is all the more impressive when you consider that Anakin was supposedly one of the best lightsabre duelists around, while Luke's training largely consisted of a week running around in a swamp with an ancient mogwai on his back...
Which is all the more impressive when you consider that Anakin was supposedly one of the best lightsabre duelists around, while Luke's training largely consisted of a week running around in a swamp with an ancient mogwai on his back...
I looked through it and all I can say is... AWESOME!
Some stuff that stood out to me:
Spoiler:
To me, the coolest pieces are the ones of Tatooine. It appears to have become a boneyard due to years of fighting and the surface is littered with destroyed Imperial equipment, including an base in the body of an AT-AT!
The ones of the the figures know as "The Grave Robber" and "The Dark Knight" lend some credence to the rumor that Luke has become somewhat of a cyborg and is evil. It also appears more or less obvious that Daisy Ridley is playing the daughter of Han and Leia, which is totally awesome!
Sining wrote: ....I hope it isn't Luke too. And didn't they burn the helmet of Darthvader along with the rest of his armor
Yes, which is why the helmet is damaged. I know the prop was made of plastic (ABS I believe), but the "real" armor isn't so there is a good chance that most of it would survive a fire.
Automatically Appended Next Post: This is my favorite picture so far:
Which is all the more impressive when you consider that Anakin was supposedly one of the best lightsabre duelists around, while Luke's training largely consisted of a week running around in a swamp with an ancient mogwai on his back...
Vader's lightsaber and Force prowess was severely limited by his life support armor.
Knight wrote: It says "cybernetic trooper" and "knight trooper". I wonder if they'll have relevance to Dark Troopers?
I'd say most likely not.
I'd venture to guess that it something original to the new movie.
This stuff does look great, very Ralph McQuarrie in places. I think we all know this film will be visually stunning, so if the feel of the Original Trilogy comes through in writing as well, we could be in for a treat!
Manchu wrote: Nice! There's some cool stuff there. I changed the threat title to reflect this find.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Gosh I hope this isn't Luke:
I tend to think that if it walks and quacks like a duck...
Then again, we know how the director is about his movies. Some of these leaks could be "leaks" and misdirection on his part. That character could be a Vader groupie of sorts, even to the point of replacing his hand.
See, I'm ok with Luke turning evil; A person may be good at heart, and they may triumph over evil, but little by little, bit by bit, evil wears away at your soul thing until the good person is eroded into a hollow shell of a man/woman.
The short answer is that the EU is no more. The makers stated this awhile back when the film was announced but you still see people jump to EU connections right away anytime it comes up. They want a clean slate to make a movie.
-Post Endor the Empire is fragmented, the Rebellion is on fire, and trying to clean up.
-Decades later the New Republic (or whatever it will be called) has stagnated and is unable to right the remaining cells of the Empire. Bureaucrats have crippled the ability to fight the empire and the people are tired of a fighting against the remains of an old empire without a visible leader.
-Luke realizes that having a powerful symbol that represents the evil of the Empire gave the rebellion focus and purpose. They knew Vader was evil, and just stopping the empire meant stopping Vader.
-Luke takes the path to become that symbol to give the rebellion renewed focus.
-Vader's helmet = Yorick's skull
-flushes out Sith apprentice in the process
-redeems himself as good at the end like his father before him.
-Post Endor the Empire is fragmented, the Rebellion is on fire, and trying to clean up.
-Decades later the New Republic (or whatever it will be called) has stagnated and is unable to right the remaining cells of the Empire. Bureaucrats have crippled the ability to fight the empire and the people are tired of a fighting against the remains of an old empire without a visible leader.
-Luke realizes that having a powerful symbol that represents the evil of the Empire gave the rebellion focus and purpose. They knew Vader was evil, and just stopping the empire meant stopping Vader.
-Luke takes the path to become that symbol to give the rebellion renewed focus.
-Vader's helmet = Yorick's skull
-flushes out Sith apprentice in the process
-redeems himself as good at the end like his father before him.
That'd work for me. I just don't want luke to die...
-Post Endor the Empire is fragmented, the Rebellion is on fire, and trying to clean up.
-Decades later the New Republic (or whatever it will be called) has stagnated and is unable to right the remaining cells of the Empire. Bureaucrats have crippled the ability to fight the empire and the people are tired of a fighting against the remains of an old empire without a visible leader.
-Luke realizes that having a powerful symbol that represents the evil of the Empire gave the rebellion focus and purpose. They knew Vader was evil, and just stopping the empire meant stopping Vader.
-Luke takes the path to become that symbol to give the rebellion renewed focus.
-Vader's helmet = Yorick's skull
-flushes out Sith apprentice in the process
-redeems himself as good at the end like his father before him.
That'd work for me. I just don't want luke to die...
Don't get your hopes up.
I'm of the opinion that the OT cast is there to pretty much "hand over" the franchise to the new up and comers and I don't expect to see them in any other further movies. So I think there is a pretty good chance that some of them won't be alive at the end of the movie, with Luke being at the top of that list.
The short answer is that the EU is no more. The makers stated this awhile back when the film was announced but you still see people jump to EU connections right away anytime it comes up. They want a clean slate to make a movie.
I was under the impression that that wasn't strictly true. That is, I know they said that they weren't going to be beholden to the EU, but I thought the implication was that they could still use or change parts of it if they wished, just that they weren't going to be locking themselves into following it. Basically that they'd take it or leave it as necessary.
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the Empire lived on in the form of warlords or something vaguely similar to the EU. Even though that is what happened in the EU, it's not a particularly unique concept, and makes sense that remnants of a galaxy-spanning Empire would still exist in some form in a lot of places. Even if destroying the second Death Star and killing the Emperor was essentially the killing blow, the rest of the Empire could be in its death throes for a while.
Hordini wrote: I was under the impression that that wasn't strictly true.
Thus "the short answer". They aren't using story elements from the EU but if there is something they like they may use it, but in a different way. They also got rid of the "tiers" as well as a lot other things. It is both an attempt to clean up the insanity of the EU as well as doing their own thing. I'm just saying that trying to guess what is in the film by what was in the EU probably won't work.
Hordini wrote: I was under the impression that that wasn't strictly true.
Thus "the short answer". They aren't using story elements from the EU but if there is something they like they may use it, but in a different way. They also got rid of the "tiers" as well as a lot other things. It is both an attempt to clean up the insanity of the EU as well as doing their own thing. I'm just saying that trying to guess what is in the film by what was in the EU probably won't work.
Ah, the short answer. My bad! And yes, you're certainly right about trying to guess what is in the film based on previous EU material.
The Ewoks aren't great, but they aren't as horrible as the Gungans.
Maybe he'll be like an Ewok bounty hunter or something. They could make it cool. It wouldn't be easy, but they could do it. As long as they don't go full on Teddy Bear Picnic, it might not be that bad.
I'd imagine the Ewoks are going to be back in the film for the first 10 minutes or so during the "Grave Robbing" scene in which our cybernetic Sith steals Vader's charred Helmet.
-Post Endor the Empire is fragmented, the Rebellion is on fire, and trying to clean up.
-Decades later the New Republic (or whatever it will be called) has stagnated and is unable to right the remaining cells of the Empire. Bureaucrats have crippled the ability to fight the empire and the people are tired of a fighting against the remains of an old empire without a visible leader.
-Luke realizes that having a powerful symbol that represents the evil of the Empire gave the rebellion focus and purpose. They knew Vader was evil, and just stopping the empire meant stopping Vader.
-Luke takes the path to become that symbol to give the rebellion renewed focus.
-Vader's helmet = Yorick's skull
-flushes out Sith apprentice in the process
-redeems himself as good at the end like his father before him.
I don't like it at all, because it'd mean that Luke used deceit in order to prolong war. That kinda takes a dump all over everything that the Jedi stood for.
I'm sticking with the idea that it's a red herring, and may in fact be a twist in the movie (i.e. we're led to believe that the guy in the mask is Luke, but it's not). I don't think Abrams is going to break as many eggs as some think.
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Hordini wrote: If the Ewoks had been Wookiees, as originally intended, RotJ would have been much more awesome.
Well, it also would have taken a better script, better direction, and performances that weren't mailed in to get all the way to awesome, but it certainly would have been a major improvement.
Paradigm wrote: Looking at that picture, he looks to be sitting on the bridge of a Star Destroyer... Make of that what you will.
The new republic could be using captured star destroyers. If I remember the lore correctly, weren't the star destroyers superior to the rebel capital ships?
Just remember that Warwick Davis has played other characters than Wicket (the ewok) and he's a well-known Star Wars guy that does lots of appearances and the sort, so he's pretty engrained in the fandom.
There is no guarantee that he'll be playing an ewok.
Paradigm wrote: Looking at that picture, he looks to be sitting on the bridge of a Star Destroyer... Make of that what you will.
The new republic could be using captured star destroyers. If I remember the lore correctly, weren't the star destroyers superior to the rebel capital ships?
It depends what you mean by "superior"
The MC-80 had slightly worse weapon loadouts in terms of pure firepower, but the shielding was far superior.
But the MC-80 had another problem in that every ship was unique. No two were exactly alike. Thats not a good thing if you're looking towards having standardization and cross compatibility(which in the EU led to some rather frustrating problems for the Rebels)
I think the New Republic would use former Imperial ships(both captured and of their own construction) because they had the manufacturing facilities which were already configured to make them. While only the Mon Calamari could make MC-80s.
So its partly a combo of we need ships yesterday, we have access to captured ships, and we have the facilities to make said ships ourselves.
The New Republic had its own line of starships that were distinct from the Mon Cal designs and Imperial designs, however all three sets of designs were in use concurrently throughout the New Republics existence, although towards the end the Republic had phased out a lot of the Imperial designs as they were deemed symbols of tyranny, and the Mon Cal designs as they were deemed subpar and most of the better aspects of their designs were integrated into the Republic designs anyway.
In any case, I think the implication from this art and what we have seen so far is that the Rebellion has either failed (or is still ongoing), or the Republic has 'lived long enough to see itself become the enemy'. The artwork shows imperial designs continued to survive and evolve (both in the background of the image of cyborg vader mask dude as well as the new stormtrooper helmets and types) meaning they were kicking around for a while.
Beyond that, a lot of the artwork features wreckage, the toppled AT-AT for instance (there are actually 2 AT-ATs there as well as an AT-ST), and it looks like in some of the other artwork there are crashed starships, etc. All of this implies the remnants of a war either ongoing or now over (and from the looks of it a pretty brutal one at that).
The one definitive picture we have of the 'good guys', which we can judge from the presence of the Falcon and X-wings (or new versions thereof) shows them housed in underground/camouflaged hangars, which implies to me that they are still a resistance movement trying to remain relatively hidden.
I wouldn't be surprised if they made the back story that, Yes, the emperor and vader died, but the empire isn't just going to fizzle out, its galaxy spanning and still massively in the superior stakes in terms of war materiel.
The best idea would be the death of the emperor and the second death star is that a lot of imp commanders may have jumped ship to the rebels but just as many stayed and the war became a LOT more equal, and has now become a war of attrition and has just rolled on for 30 years.
remember star wars (original 3) takes place over some 8 years or so, its not a short time period.
Or the Empire took stock, elected a new emperor\power struggle and the rebels only won some semblance of freedom, but the empire stayed on?
Would explain all the imp stuff seen in the art and the possibility of a new big bad (hopefully not luke) I want him to be the new obi wan, this robot handed hooded guy could be all new bad guy who was wronged by Luke? and is now heading up some of the empire.
