An observation made by one eagle-eyed Twitter user has “Star Wars” fans taking note of a heartbreaking connection between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia.
Luke’s story in “Episode IV: A New Hope” kicks off with a projection of Leia desperately asking for help. He embarks on a mission to do so with Obi-Wan Kenobi, setting in motion the sci-fi saga as know it today.
(Warning: “Last Jedi” spoilers ahead.)
Forty years later, “Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” ends with Luke using a force projection to help Leia and ultimately sacrifice his life.
Talk about full circle.
For more context, those who haven’t seen “A New Hope” in a while might not remember that Leia sends a projection of herself to Obi-Wan Kenobi begging him to take the Death Star plans, which she’s stolen, and bring them back to her home planet of Alderaan for her father to analyze. The projection and the stolen plans were stored in R2-D2, an astromech droid, who then fled and ended up on the planet of Tatooine.
While on Tatooine, he is found by Luke. When R2-D2 goes missing, Luke looks for him and finds Obi-Wan.
In “The Last Jedi”, Luke uses an astral projection in an effort to fool Kylo Ren into thinking he’s actually on Crait instead of the planet Ach-To. When Ren and Skywalker engage in a lightsaber duel, Skywalker’s projection is struck. An exhausted Skywalker, actually on Ach-To, then dies ― all in an effort to help Leia and the Resistance.
The tweet from user @jmmcnabagain pointing out this comparison has gone viral, with many remarking on how good of a catch it was:
If this observation wasn’t emotional enough (because R.I.P., Luke Skywalker), then it only gets worse when you consider that Carrie Fisher’s Leia will never get to come back and rise up with the Resistance as she planned.
Fisher passed away in December 2016 after suffering a heart attack, just after finishing principal photography on “The Last Jedi.”
Had she lived, Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy said, the next part of the saga ― “Episode IX” ― would have been “her movie.”
“She was having a blast,” said Kennedy in an interview with Vanity Fair last year.
“The minute she finished, she grabbed me and said, ‘I’d better be at the forefront of “IX”!’ Because Harrison [Ford] was front and center on ‘VII,’ and Mark [Hamill] is front and center on ‘VIII.’ She thought ‘IX’ would be her movie. And it would have been.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated that “The Last Jedi” was Episode VII of Star Wars instead of Episode VIII.
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