Through the events of the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Lucasfilm completely changes how one views Luke Skywalkers’ origins story in Star Wars.
Warning! SPOILERS for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Luke’s (Mark Hamill) Star Wars origins story have been completely changed from a certain point of view after the events of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucasfilm’s third Disney+ series just wrapped up, revealing new details of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s (McGregor) life after the fall of the Galactic Republic. While Obi-Wan Kenobi mainly focused on the titular Jedi Master’s struggles to survive and keep his faith during the darkest period of his life, the show also featured 10-year-olds Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa.
Before Obi-Wan Kenobi, there was barely anything known about this particular point in Star Wars’ story, allowing Lucasfilm to craft a story that largely sticks to the space opera’s known canon. A decade after Order 66, Obi-Wan is disconnected from the Force as he grows increasingly hopeless about the galactic situation. He is forced to risk his life after young Princess Leia is kidnapped. His attempt to rescue her leads to a series of near-death encounters, including two duels with Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen). Luke was also part of Obi-Wan Kenobi‘s storytelling as he was almost killed by Reva (Tatooine).
For years, there’s been debate that Leia got lucky because she was adopted by Bail (Jimmy Smits) and Breha Organa (Simone Kessell), eventually becoming the princess of Alderaan while Luke was left to Owen (Joel Edgerton) and Beru Lars (Bonnie Piesse) in Tatooine to be a moisture farmer. Lucasfilm offers the public an entirely new perspective in this regard on the heels of the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale, as it makes it look like, between the twins, Luke got the better deal. As a public figure, Leia was forced to take on many responsibilities at a young age; she couldn’t simply be a child. That’s on top of being in constant danger, hence why she was kidnapped a couple of times in Star Wars. Meanwhile, Luke was able to live far from the public’s eye. Granted that he had to work hard with the Lars for money, his life was relatively drama- and danger-free.
Aside from her personal brush with the Empire following Reva’s interrogation in Obi-Wan Kenobi, Leia’s run with Obi-Wan also opened her eyes to what the situation really is on the ground with Darth Sidious at the helm. Spending time with the likes of Roken (O’Shea Jackson), Haja (Kumail Nanjiani), and Tala (Indira Varma), whom she grew close with only to die for the cause made Leia realize at a young age that she cannot sit on the sidelines. Given her empathetic nature, she used her prominent position to secretly help smaller pockets of the Rebellion until it was ready to show itself in the original Star Wars film. Luke, on the other hand, was mostly oblivious to all of this growing up. When he was introduced in A New Hope, he barely had any clue about how bad the Empire was. His main concern was just to get out of Tatooine for himself. Despite meeting Obi-Wan in the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale, Luke Skywalker was spared the gory details that would have ruined his childhood.
While the Skywalker twins had vastly different upbringings as seen in Obi-Wan Kenobi, both eventually committed themselves fully to destroying the Galactic Empire and then the First Order. Luke’s traumatic experience in rebuilding the Jedi Order caused him to retreat and isolate himself for several years, but he showed up at the end of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and sacrificed himself for the Resistance to survive. Leia, on the other hand, gave up her life in the hopes of reaching out to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to bring back Ben Solo.
Obi-Wan Kenobi season 1 is now available to stream on Disney+.
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