Star Wars creator George Lucas was going to kill Luke in Episode 8. This had been hinted at a few times, but we now have official confirmation. In Lucas’ original sequel trilogy outline, Luke was supposed to die in Episode 8. The information comes from the new book Star Wars Fascinating Facts. Check out an excerpt shared by Twitter user Andrew below.
The new book "Star Wars Fascinating Facts" delivers on that title with this one: in George Lucas' 2012 treatment for the sequel trilogy, Luke died in Episode VIII. #StarWars pic.twitter.com/jcwhyGi967
— Andrew (@Oozer) October 13, 2020
There is more in the book.
“Although Luke Skywalker only barely appears in The Force Awakens, the concept artists had a lot to imagine based on the fragments of the story they were hearing as it developed,” the excerpt reads. “Rey was on a mission to seek out Luke Skywalker, who had disappeared. As described by George Lucas, Rey is like Willard going up river seeking out Colonel Kurtz, an allusion to Apocalypse Now. The story had Rey find Luke on a Jedi temple planet, but he is a recluse, withdrawn into a very dark space and needs to be drawn back from despair.”
Does It Matter?
As you’d guess this revelation has fans of The Last Jedi, claiming everyone was wrong to criticize that movie. However, does it really matter that Luke was always going to die in Episode 8? Was the sum total of all that was wrong with The Last Jedi the death of Luke Skywalker? Or even the fact Luke had veered from his path?
Not in my opinion. There was a lot of problems I had with The Last Jedi and hardly any of them were related to Luke’s death. If anything I simply felt that the movie needed to explore what had caused Luke to lose faith so badly. I am also a firm believer that Luke coming with Rey and having a heroic ‘in the flesh’ death would have been more appropriate. But hey ho, as said, there were worse things going on in The Last Jedi for me.
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Also, does it really matter what Lucas would have done? I mean, have you seen the prequel trilogy? I would not want Lucas anywhere near Star Wars as a writer or director. As an overall idea man though, I still think Lucas had some value and i would pay good money to see what he had as an outline. We know not much remained of Lucas original outline. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger is quoted as saying that Lucas was not happy they threw all his ideas out during The Force Awakens. After watching in horror as this ill judged sequel trilogy played out, I can’t help but wonder? If Lucas outline had been kept, but with new script writers and better directors, would the sequel trilogy be better?
I have a few answers, for one, The Force Awakens would not be a remake of A New Hope, secondly, who knows where Episode 8 would have gone had it not had to follow that movie? Third, there’s no way Lucas would have undermined everything that happened in Return of the Jedi. To me, that’s what The Rise of Skywalker did. Skywalker is an awful movie, and right up there with the prequels which had better ideas but poorer execution.
Does it matter that George Lucas was going to kill Luke in Episode 8? No, at this point none of it matters because we still have six out of nine Star Wars movies that were pretty crap. Leave your thoughts below as always.
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SOURCE: Star Wars Fascinating Facts (via Twitter)
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