This is one of those things where you have to imagine events from the perspective of the character, and not the guy writing the movies. And when you do that, it’s not the dumbest twist on established Star Wars canon you’ve ever read.
Yesterday, wondering the kind of things you’re prone to wonder about in the workday wasteland that is early January, TheCrazyMonk asked if Obi-Wan would ever have confronted Luke about his “destiny” if Leia and the Alliance hadn’t crashed on his front doorstep and a couple of droids ended up in the hands of a kid.
It’s a fair question. s3c10n8’s answer (via Super Punch), though, is a little bit mindblown.gif.
“I don’t think Obi-Wan ever meant to confront Luke”, they write. “I subscribe to the notion that the whole thing was an elaborate trap to lure Darth Vader there for a final battle to the death.”
“He takes Luke there as a child, doesn’t even change his last name to anything other than Skywalker, and leaves him with Vader’s mum’s family on a sparsly [sic] populated planet so there’s no over abundance of life to hide the kids force talent which is sure to manifest. Then he just sits there in the desert, waiting for Vader to show up so they can throw down.”
It’s a convincing argument! It goes off the rails a little bit with some of its grander ponderings (like Luke becoming some kind of “guided missile”), but its premise of Obi-Wan setting an obvious, patient trap is a cool one. You can read the whole thing here.
Of course, it all goes wrong for Obi-Wan since it takes forever for Vader to show, but hey, as the blue ghosts show at the conclusion of Return of the Jedi, he got what he was after in the end.
Comments
31 responses to “Wild Theory: Luke Skywalker Wasn’t Meant To Be A Jedi, He Was Bait”
That’s not new…
It was suggested in the Stackpole novel: I, Jedi.
…an excellent read by the way.
+1
I, Jedi is a fantastic read – Corran Horn is awesome
+1 as well. Many awesome reads in the EU. They can be non cannon but I still love em! (meh on the Vong though)
It kinda gets debunked when you take into account the second trilogy and that force users cant detect others strong in the force until their abilities have developed (needing to scan Anakin even though his readings were off the charts and not just flat out being able to sense his affinity with the force) so if Obi Wan never intended to train Luke in the force it’s unlikely Vader would have ever found him and more likely putting him on Tatooine was to keep him under the radar of imperial forces. But then again the second trilogy is a pile of crap, but has to be taken as canon no matter how you feel about it.
The second trilogy debunks even the canon of the first trilogy, though. Like seriously, we’re meant to believe that this empire only lasted a little under two decades and that in that time the entire galactic populace was somehow able to conveniently forget about the existence of superhuman space wizards whose legendary space magic was not just ‘hokey religion’ which should still be fresh in living memory, but was actually relied upon in interplanetary diplomacy and peace-keeping?
It might’ve been prettier and told an OK story in its own right, but the second trilogy takes a giant, steaming turd on the history of of the first one. I think we’re all better off assuming that any critique of the first should be taken without much heed paid to the second.
You really think it takes longer than that to totally discredit any sort of religion? Take a look at the real world and how the world perceives the Muslim religion between 9/11 and now. From most accounts their “space magic” was kept very close to the chest in the time preceding the empire and they portrayed themselves as just religious men in the style of medieval times, when religious men were figures of authority in charge of dispute resolution and such.
With the exception that apparently even hicks out in the boondocks knew to call them ‘master jedi’ or were aware of their mind tricks, the lightsaber well-recognized…
And yeah, I really think it does take longer to discredit a religion, especially when looking at the real world. Though maybe if you want to think about the reverse… After all, we’re talking major force to ‘kooky superstition’ in the reach of less than one lifetime. Remember: 9/11 was only 14yrs ago. You think anyone’s going to have forgotten what happened then, six years from now?
(Although, to be fair… a better example for your point might be the declaration of fatwah against Salman Rushdie back 25 years ago, with parallels to the threats made and now carried out against cartoonists recently. In that particular space of time, we’ve successfully forgotten – in our sympathy against blanket suspicion-by-association – that highly-ranked, major powers with massive influence in that religion are batshit fucking insane. And have been, for thirty years. Still. It may not be that it was forgotten, so much as no-one ever thought it would amount to anything.)
Not to mention, even educated, imperial officials of middle age were bold enough to call vader’s beliefs sourcerous and that he adhered to an “ancient religion”. Cocky enough to boast about the death star before vader proved his power and *shocked* everyone in the conference room.
These were men of rank, rank enough to be trusted with constructing and overseeing the empires greatest secret and weapon, so they are almost definitely people who served palpatine faithfully during the clone wars in the prequels.
Put simply, these are people who should have reguarly brushed shoulders with jedi, who suddenly knew so little about the force they’d jest at VADER to his face.
So yeah, the prequels kinda dump on the history of the originals.
I think people give George Lucas too much credit.
I Actually think people give him too little.
You’ll find endless nerd rants online how everything good in Star Wars was always due to someone else.
You know that’s basically true right? His original draft of “The Star Wars” would have been utter b-movie rubbish, and it took a lot of pressure from his colleagues to get him to make changes.
It was still his idea to cross Foundation with The Hidden Fortress.
What’s that saying? Good artists borrow, great artist steal?
So many times I’ve seen that quote used to justify stuff. The quote is not pretending to say that anyone who dares steal others’ ideas will become automatically a great artist, but rather that someone who IS already a great artist will steal, adding their own interpretation so the end result is something that is beautiful, superficially unique, but ultimately just adapting one of the very few underlying themes that we humans relate to and express as art.
In other words, anyone can steal, but it takes a real artist to find what’s valuable among the loot and to make it into something of merit on it’s own. Lucas doesn’t belong to that category but did well surrounding himself with people that did belong.
Lucas successfully achieved this, no?
Achieved what? Surrounding himself with real artists that carried his idea stealing far, far beyond his own limited vision? Sure. Becoming a great artist himself on virtue of such stealing? Hell no.
But that’s the job of a director, to direct others.
I’m not claiming he’s the worlds greatest film maker or anything. But he still deserves credit. Heck, I hate Michael Bay films, but I couldn’t do what he does.
Get some perspective, there’s a lot more to directing a movie than just sitting back while everyone else does the work.
But the final script in the hands of most film makers would have been utter B rubbish.
My wild belief is that this is true. Watching Ep 1-3 with my kids, I can’t help but cheer for the idea that the Jedi got what they deserved in the end, since they acted like some untouchable secret police force with unknowable motivations.
My dyslexia kicked in and I read this article title as “Wild Theory: Luke Skywalker Was Meant To Be Jailbait”.
Well, I’ll say he was. *whistle* rawr rawr *eee-eee* rrrrrr *pant* *pant* ruff ruff awoooooooo bibibibibibi hubba hubba.
Upvote simply for having typed out that chain of syllables at the end there.
Have an upvote for Simpsons reference
I always assumed that Vader knew he was there but left him alone because as long as he wasn’t getting Jedi training he wasn’t a threat. I think the ending of Episode III ruined that possibility, though it’s entirely possible that Vader found out that Luke was still alive and hanging out in the arse end of nowhere in the years between III and IV.
not the guy writing the movies? you do realise the movies are based on the books? did you even read the books? this article is idiocy at its finest. and the author is just plain stupid.
Stuff like this pops up when almost any human being talks about a created world they like.
“Hey, y’know in Star Wars; what if Luke was bait?”
“STOP THE MOTHER%&^*IN’ PRESSES!!!”
Seems a little weak, the whole Luke “bait” thing.
1) Darth knows his wife is dead, presumably along with unborn kids. Reinforced by the Emperor (whether he knew or not is another story).
2) Darth did not know the kids names, he was not present at the naming. And Skywalker maybe like Smith or Jones, a common name.
3) Obi-Wan may have had no intention of telling or even training Luke to protect him.
4) There is no “on-screen” proof that this was their (The Rebellion) or Ben’s intention to lure Darth to a sparsely populated, waaaaay out of the way, backwater planet to kill him. Old Ben was there to hide from the Jedi hunting that was taking place and to keep tabs on Luke, and after 19 years and nothing happening to the kid decided nothing was going to happen, well until the events of EpIV happened.
Still, we can have fun with what ifs
Skywalker may be a common name, Vader isn’t aware of if his kids lived or not and Tatooine may be a backwater world, but bear in mind that Tatooine is Vader’s Homeworld, an incredibly sparse world upon which a Skywalker is being raised by Vader’s Brother and Sister in Law (so clearly adopted) and the kid’s age is right.
They even get Luke to call them Aunt and Uncle and tell him about his dad Anakin.
Lets not forget that Vader isn’t in the least bit surprised or anything when he discovers Luke is alive, so (fan theory obliging) it would almost be as if Vader was aware of the bait, but never bothered to follow it up.
I think if the droids had never crashed on tatooine, Luke would have continued his aspirations to join the imperial navy, perhaps Vader simply planned to wait for this and confront Luke after entering the navy (he’d DEFINITELY notice that) then train him as his apprentice from there.
TLDR: R2 and 3P0 saved the galaxy by preventing Luke from being trained as a sith.
Playing the waiting game, interesting.
Why is Tatooine, the planet that Darth Vader grew up on, a good place to be “waaay” out of the way?
Let’s just all face it and admit that the episodes 1-3 don’t exist 🙂
While we’re at it, lets get rid of the whole “Han shot first” rubbish. There was no “First” there.
Maybe Tatooine is good place to ambush Darth because it’s in Hutt controlled space and the Empire don’t like going there?? But I don’t buy the whole “It’s a trap” scenario anyway.
Disagree with the Han Shot first – My old VHS tape of STAR WARS clearly shows Han shooting Greedo in cold blood.
You didn’t read my comment. Han shot like the kick ass mofo he is. Greedo never got a chance. There’s no “First” because there’s no “second”
Ahhhh I’m with ya mow