ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) in Episode VII

I'm starting to wonder if the people in a tizzy as "Luke fans" are really "Luke fans, not Star Wars fans". I'm a Luke fan and a Star Wars fan.

 

The point of TFA appears to me to create Rey, Finn, BB8, Kylo Ren and Poe fans. That seems to be lost on some.

 

I think I'm more of a Jedi fan first. That's probably why I like Luke so much. The rest of Star Wars, the battles, the ships, the aliens, aren't really so important to me. They could be part of lots of universes, but the Jedi are Star Wars only.

 

Yes, the whole Jedi thing, the Force, the struggle between light & dark. Those are the things that draw me to the Star Wars Universe (and all those cool creatures and droids that have that certain SW vibe)

 

That's an important point, his story ended when he just became a Jedi. Now we enter the story with again no Jedi and everything that Luke has accomplished in the meantime is taken from him. So this doesn't sound as if his story is complete.

And I agree with arjank and ChildOfWinds and I'm also mainly a Jedi fan. Everything else can be seen in Star Trek as well.

 

So what does that tell you about Luke's role over the ST?

 

See, I think that's telling. I think humour--genuine humour--is a big part of SW despite it being found in countless films. You're to welcome to like anything you want, but of course you can tell that Abrams and co. see things more holistically than how you see it.

 

Nothing, because we have no clue what the writers have in mind. We can only hope.

 

It should tell you that his story is not yet finished and that there will be more to come (if there isn't more in the film anyway).

 

Yes please

A few of us are big Luke fans, I can remember that when I was 12 years old my mom made me this ROTJ Luke costume for "carnaval" (a fest mostly celebrated in the south of the Netherlands and some parts of Germany) and I made a green lightsaber myself with pvc tubing .
Edit: I also had a black glove on my right hand

 

Whether in TFA or 8 or beyond, Luke will absolutely get his moment. There is really no point worrying seriously about this.

 

Which could and can be accomplished by giving Luke some sized active role instead of flashback and end cameo. You want to make Han the mentor because he's being killed off and Ford was a big star, fine, but to give Akbar and Numb and the droids and Maz and potentially Sydow bigger roles in a sequel to Return of the Jedi than Luke Skywalker is flat out crazy.

Having Luke on screen would in no way hinder Rey, Finn, BB8, Kylo, and Poe.

 

New Theory:

Luke is on the Starkiller Base planet the entire time. The First Order is hunting for him, but he is right under their collective noses, cloaking himself and keeping a close watch on what the First Order is doing with this super weapon. The Force has told him to be there to wait for his opportunity to help his long lost daughter. He's less of a hermit and more of a secret agent!

At the end, when the weapon is fired at full blast, it heats the planet up so much that the ice caps melt, vast landscapes of snow turn into lakes, rivers and oceans...Complete climate change. Suddenly Luke's hideout on a mountaintop is a hideout on a small island. So when Han is cut down, Luke feels the tremor in the Force, and springs into action, turning up surprisingly to duel Kylo long enough for Rey and Finn to escape with Chewie in the Falcon, and after Rey talks to Leia and R2 tells her where to find Luke, she is surprised that she is to return to the Starkiller planet, now home to a destroyed FO base to find her father and mentor Luke, still safely hidden away on the Skellig "island" and ready to train her.

 

Not necessarily no, but that doesn't seem to take into account the kind of story they might possibly be trying to tell. Ackbar and NN are going to be featured extras basically. Luke is the crux of the story. He is (confirmed) the McGuffin. There are a variety of factors that I think may have been involved in such a decision if that is what is happening - one is to make the Jedi, sabers and the force special again, another is as you say, juggle the cast of old and new. I suspect the other factor who the prominence of Han and the absence of Luke will be revealed when we know who is related to who.

 

Same for me and I started collecting all magazines and reports about it when I first saw ROTJ. I was really sad that at first there was no new movie announced and then so happy when I saw this small note at around 1987/88 in Bravo that they plan more movies. At that time I had no clue that the prequels would come first. But to be serious I always wanted to see Luke again and the new characters still have to convince me in the movie itself to get a new favorite character. If we have a Rey Skywalker, she would be a good candidate for it.

 

Not necessarily no, but that doesn't seem to take into account the kind of story they might possibly be trying to tell. Ackbar and NN are going to be featured extras basically. Luke is the crux of the story. He is (and this was essentially confirmed in the EW article) the McGuffin.

 

Akbar and Numb seem to just be featured extras.

As for Max von Sydow... are you seriously complaining that one of the absolute greatest actors of all time might have a slightly more prominent role in the film than Luke? For all we know, he's just in the opening sequence of the film and promptly killed off, though he could hypothetically also appear in some flashback scenes that we don't know about. If that's the case, it sounds to me like his role in the film is roughly the same as Luke's, at least in regards to screentime, as Luke is clearly the more "relevant" character in the story.

It's not like Sydow is going to repeatedly upstage Luke's prominence in the rest of the trilogy or anything like that.

 

Well, it was probably around the late 80's or early 90's that I read the news about George Lucas that he didn't want to film episode I - III and VII-IX. I was sad about that, I really wanted to know what was going to happen after ROTJ, especially Luke and also Anakin. I only read this story about that Obi Wan "killed" Anakin and that he fell into a lava pit, we didn't know more back then, no internet just magazines and an occasional interview.

 

I think this post deserves a 'hmmnnn...."

Probably not very likely but certainly an interesting idea.

Actually I'd go as far as to say I quite like the idea.

 

Or he is a prisoner there and his force powers are powering the Starkiller weapon. They can decode Luke's location after the Starkiller weapon is destroyed, maybe they found some information at the base. We always imagined that the FO is searching for Luke, but what if they already have him captured and want to avoid that anyone finds and free him?

 

Think about it. If the Starkiller weapon is built into the core of the planet as is rumored, surely it could be powerful enough to affect the core or perhaps something goes wrong when it is fired and the core overheats, changing the climate of the planet after earthquakes and avalanches break up the Kylo VS Rey/Finn fight. Thematically, it works that this massive weapon destroys its host planet. It raises the stakes, too, making it so that the Starkiller can really only fire at full power to destroy a sun ONCE. Otherwise, why not just start blowing up suns left and right wherever think think the Resistance might be??? Got a hunch? Blow it up! But no, they can't do that.

At times it could be used more precisely like the Maz Castle attack with a smaller, less powerful laser, but the big STARKILLER blast can only be done once because it uses all the energy from the host planet core and destroys the host planet. IDK, just spitballing.

There could be other reasons that Luke must be close to Starkiller....But wasn't there an early rumor that Luke was "sort of" a prisoner on a planet where the "planet is the weapon"??? Well now we have confirmation that the "planet is the weapon" based on the look of Starkiller from the poster. So couldn't the first part of the rumor also be true? Luke is on the same planet as the weapon...for some reason that remains a mystery till we see the movie.

 

These for me are the crucial quotes from the EW article, which are about as official as you can get right now. There are others but in terms of how much importance they place on Luke and the hints that he really does not have a major role in terms of screen time, it's worth reminding oneself ( I added in 3 relevant quotes from the August EW special) Emphasis mine - I think the underlined part is the detail free version of why Luke is absent:

Luke Skywalker has gone from hero to McGuffin.

Filmmaking aficionados know the term {…} as being an object or {the} mystery that drives the story. It’s the thing the heroes are trying to find, or understand. It’s the puzzle they’re trying to unlock.

Luke is definitely in The Force Awakens…

Where is the man is the man once heralded as the last Jedi.

“No one forgot about him” - JJ

“Certainly Luke is a very important aspect of the story” - JJ

That question - Where is Luke? - is one the movie is going to answer. So it can’t very well tell you up front.

A similar question is actually the thing that made Abrams say yes to directing the film… “who is Luke Skywalker?”

Then Breznican goes on to outline various possibilities but while I think they will be mooted by other characters as possibilities, I believe this one will be the answer:

What if Luke was more noble than {Yoda} gave him credit for?

It’s possible Luke is engaged in an act of dedication and self-sacrifice that has estranged him from his friends and loved ones, however much they miss him.

{the lightsaber that once belonged to Luke, and to Luke’s father before him} is an important piece of the puzzle that will reveal Luke’s fate and whereabouts.

Only the film itself will answer those questions.

“Any good story has conflict,” Abrams says. “And if all were rosy 30-some years post-Jedi, we would be hard-pressed to find an interesting story to tell.”

The amount of screentime the Skywalker twins may get is still unclear, although Luke’s fate is obviously a key factor.


It’s a brand new fresh approach at a franchise that we’ve known all our lives - MH

 

I'm skeptical. I mean we know that they filmed for TFA on Skellig. I don't think the ending would really make much sense if Luke was on Starkiller, intervened in some massive battle, then grabbed Rey and the two of them flew to a distant planet just to watch the sunset as the credits roll. But would you think that the Skellig scenes would then have to be part of the flashback sequence if Luke is in fact on Starkiller? Certainly possible, but again, I don't think it is likely.

 

Could it be that Luke is preventing the Starkiller weapon to use its full potential since it seems to be a force based weapon? The FO doesn't know his exact location and therefore they hunt down the lightsaber to find his position and kill him? After the weapon is destroyed, Luke can leave the place from where he limited the Starkiller's potential?

 

Well I think the point of this theory is that Skellig is in fact the Starkiller planet post molten ice.

I have to say that while I like the theory I think it's in danger of winding up in one of Furiousfanboys.com's smug articles about how stupid any speculation that doesn't directly match MSW's version is