Luke Skywalker
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Luke Skywalker (born 19 BBY), is a fictional character of the Star Wars universe, a Jedi Knight, who plays a major role in the series of films.
Just as George Lucas took the name "Anakin" from his friend and fellow film director, Ken Annakin, the name "Luke" is naturally derived from Lucas' own name.
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History
Early years
He is the son of Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, the elder twin brother of Princess Leia, and Yoda's final Jedi Padawan learner.
In Revenge of the Sith, a Force-choked Padmé Amidala gives birth to the twins at the Polis Massa asteroid before she dies, where she is comforted by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bail Organa, the viceroy of Alderaan, adopts Luke's sister Leia in order to hide her on Alderaan and Obi-wan provides sanctuary for Luke at the Lars Homestead on Tatooine so as to protect both of them from their corrupted biological father and the evil Sith. Despite being in hiding, and unlike his sister, for some unexplained reason Luke is still brought up with his father's surname "Skywalker".
As an orphan, he is raised on the planet Tatooine for the first nineteen years of his life, where his uncle Owen Lars and aunt Beru Lars try unsuccessfully to discourage all tendencies towards the Jedi Order from him. He is told by his uncle that his father was "a navigator on a space freighter." Despite this lie, he is still an adventure-seeking youth. Luke possesses talents in droid repair, piloting, and the Force— he is very much his father's son. Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke that his father was killed by Darth Vader, a rogue Jedi Knight.
Involvement in the rebellion
In the seminal Star Wars movie (A New Hope), when Darth Vader intercepts Leia's spaceship carrying plans for the superweapon/battlestation, the Death Star, she sends droids R2-D2 and C-3PO to meet Kenobi. However, on their journey they end up in the service of Luke himself, who follows the droids to meet Obi-Wan. After the deaths of his aunt and uncle at the hand of the empire Luke decides to follow Obi-Wan (now known as Ben) to help Princess Leia. Joining with Kenobi, they depart from Tatooine on Han Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon. They travel towards Alderaan, only to find that the planet has been replaced by mere rock, debris, and a huge, weaponized battle station. After being captured, their ship taken in by tractor beams, they barely escape the Imperials after saving Princess Leia from being terminated by her captors. Obi-Wan Kenobi is apparently killed by Darth Vader, but in fact vanishes, ascending to a higher plane of existence and becoming one with the Force. (His cloak, as it falls to the floor, is unsinged by Vader's lightsaber.) They travel back to the Rebel base at Yavin 4, but are tracked by an Imperial tracking beacon. The Death Star follows and the Empire prepares to destroy the moon with its superweapon. The Alliance uses the stolen plans of the station to lead a final attack on the Death Star. Luke pilots an X-wing starfighter, and under the guidance of Obi-Wan's spiritual voice, uses the Force to send a proton torpedo into the narrow reactor shaft, destroying the Death Star.
Following the Rebel victory at Yavin, Luke is promoted to the rank of Commander and founds the elite Rogue Squadron starfighter unit with Wedge Antilles, another young Rebel pilot.
Desperate to find Luke, whom he recently learned is his own son, Darth Vader sends probe droids to thousands of planets across the galaxy in search of the Jedi hopeful. When a droid discovers the Rebels' new base on the icy planet Hoth, Vader brings the hammer of the Empire down on the planet. Luke plays a key role in the defense, leading Rogue Squadron in battle using Snowspeeders, and singlehandedly downing an AT-AT using his father's lightsaber, before escaping in his X-wing.
Learning the ways of the Jedi
Following advice from the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi, he travels to Dagobah to learn the Jedi arts under Jedi Master Yoda. The old Jedi Master has little confidence in the young man's potential, but is persuaded to train him. However, Luke eventually has a vision of his friends being captured by Vader, and against the warnings of Kenobi and Yoda about confronting the Sith Lord prematurely, he travels to Bespin to save them, only to be trapped by Vader. In an intense lightsaber duel that follows, Luke learns that Vader is his father, and loses his right hand in combat with the Dark Lord of the Sith. (Ironically, Vader (Anakin) had lost his right arm in combat with Count Dooku when he was younger. Vader also lost his left arm and both legs in his battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar.) Faced with this horrifying claim and the even more fearsome temptation to join Vader, Luke finds the moral courage to choose death instead by throwing himself down a long shaft. However, fate allows him to survive, and he escapes aboard the Millennium Falcon. Thus, Luke himself ends up being rescued by the friends he had intended to save while R2-D2 proves more helpful when he repairs the Falcon's hyperdrive's just in time to escape.
After Luke was defeated at Bespin, and losing his father's lightsaber in the process, his affinity with the Jedi traditions grows more serious. One of the significant events between the end of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi was that Luke managed to construct his very own lightsaber, exactly in the tradition of Jedi training. The ability to construct a lightsaber is one of the most important and unique skills of a Jedi, and Luke managed to do just that. Arriving on Tatooine, and going to the hut of his former master Obi-Wan. Luke found materials Kenobi had kept and constructed a new lightsaber. However, Yoda made it clear that Luke still will not be a Jedi until he successfully confronts Darth Vader.
During his return trip to Dagobah (Luke kept his promise to return back to Dagobah in Return of the Jedi), Luke confirms from the dying Yoda and the spirit form of Ben Kenobi that Vader is indeed his father, Anakin, a former Jedi Knight who turned to the Dark Side of the Force. Furthermore, Luke realizes that Leia is his twin sister and in terrible peril from their father should he find out as well.
Luke and Vader
Arriving on Endor as part of a Rebel commando squad, Luke surrenders to Vader in an attempt to bring the Dark Lord back to the Light Side of the Force, but he ultimately becomes a prisoner of the Emperor on the half-completed second Death Star in orbit around Endor.
Once there, the Emperor and Vader attempt to corrupt Luke with promises to save his friends from their trap if he joins the Dark Side. As a backup idea, the Emperor goads Luke to strike him down to save the Rebels who were losing the Battle of Endor. Luke, in a moment of weakness, momementarily lashes out but Vader stops his strike, and father and son duel each other one final time. Despite the clash, Luke manages to keep emotional control, much to the frustration of his enemies. However, that control is lost when Vader telepathically senses the existence of Luke's sister and threatens to concentrate on corrupting her instead. Enraged at this threat, Luke attacks Vader with full fury, and just manages to regain control while at the verge of slaying Vader outright. At the realization that he was able to control himself in the face of the most profound provocation, Luke turns his lightsaber off, throws it into the ground, and proudly declares his allegiance to the Jedi Code.
- Luke: "You've failed, your highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
- Emperor (Realizing his failure): "So be it, Jedi..."
In retaliation, the Emperor unleashes Force lightning against Luke in an attempt to kill the young Jedi. It is not revealed whether or not Yoda had specifically trained Luke to defend against force lightning or if Yoda had even mentioned its existence to Luke, although Yoda had experienced it first-hand in both Episodes II & III. The novelization of Return of the Jedi implies that Luke knew how to deal with force lightning, but was simply overwhelmed by the power of the Emperor's attack.
Seeing his son dying, and perhaps remembering the mercy shown him, compassion finally breaks Vader's stony heart. In an act of self-sacrifice, Anakin Skywalker re-emerges to destroy the Emperor once and for all. On the deteriorating Death Star, at the foot of Vader's shuttle, Luke removes the former Vader's mask and looked upon his father's eyes for the first and only time before Anakin becomes one with the Force. The prophecy of the Chosen One is finally fulfilled as Anakin had brought balance to the Force and destroyed the Sith. Luke escapes the Death Star's destruction with his father's body. Back on Endor, in the manner of a Jedi's funeral, Luke burns the last vestiges of the father that had been Darth Vader, and joins in the celebration of the apparent defeat of the Empire; thus Luke comes full circle both as a Jedi and as a person.
After the Battle of Endor
In the Star Wars the Expanded Universe, Luke meets Mara Jade. They fought against his clone, Luuke Skywalker, the apprentice of Joruus C'Baoth and killed him. He falls in love with her, and eventually they marry. They have a son whom they name Ben (after Obi-Wan Kenobi, who used Ben as a pseudonym).
He resigns his commission in the New Republic's starfighter corps to pursue his Jedi studies and rebuild the Jedi Order in the Massassi Temple on Yavin 4, a decision some anti-Jedi politicians use against him. Understandably, Luke finds himself the de facto head of this new Jedi Order.
A more force-conscious and wiser Luke Skywalker also appeared in the Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast Computer Game, with Luke Skywalker at the rank of Jedi Master.
He later spearheads the mission into the Unknown Regions during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion to find the mysterious planet of Zonama Sekot, a planet that creates living starships. After the invasion is defeated with the help of the new Mandalorian Warriors, a Sekotian fleet and a Galactic Alliance-Imperial Remnant fleet, Luke leads the New Jedi Order on Denon, the new capital of the Galactic Alliance.
Luke would be thought dead after he went on a diplomatic mission to an enslaved planet in the unknown regions. He escaped though, but lost his lightsaber and C-3PO. C-3PO would tell the enslaved natives of Luke's adventures, and one of them took up the helm of the lightsaber and would lead a new rebellion.
Casting
Luke Skywalker was portrayed by an unknown child in:
And by actor Mark Hamill in:
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (May 25, 1977)
- The Star Wars Holiday Special (November 17, 1978)
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (May 21, 1980)
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (May 25, 1983)
Mark Hamill reprised his role as Luke Skywalker for a speaking role in a commercial for a Star Wars novel in 2000. The novel was the first in "The New Jedi Order" series of books, known as Vector Prime, by famous Sci-Fi author R.A. Salvatore. In the commercial, he briefly recalled his past experiences as a Jedi and with the Rebel Alliance and told of some new threat that he was unsure he could win, unlike the threat of The Empire. This threat would be revealed in the book as an alien species from another galaxy known as the "Yuuzhan Vong."ca:Luke Skywalker da:Luke Skywalker fr:Luke Skywalker pl:Luke Skywalker pt:Luke Skywalker ja:ルーク・スカイウォーカー