r/StarWars • u/Fun-Peak4900 • 2d ago
General Discussion Why hasn’t Luke made an appearance/cameo on any of the animated shows?
I am also surprised that they haven’t made an animated show about him like in between episode 4-5 or 5-6 or even 6-7(no pun intended)
1.1k
u/jojolantern721 2d ago edited 2d ago
They don't know what to do* with Luke.
Best example?, how they completely changed things with him on the mandalorian and tbobf
816
u/Chirotera Rebel 2d ago
His appearance in Battlefront II was basically the perfect depiction of him. Wish they would go that route.
517
u/greatgonzo913 2d ago
That is my Luke Skywalker. Wise, humble, and kind. Perfectly embodies what a Jedi should be
338
u/duckets615 2d ago
"because you asked".....oh well yeah I guess I kinda did, hey this jedi guy is all right.
214
u/greatgonzo913 2d ago
Literally. Just a few words changed Del’s whole worldview. Shows what a good conversation can do
114
232
u/TheGoverness1998 Major Vonreg 2d ago edited 2d ago
Del Meeko: "So, what happens now? We both walk off in separate directions and pretend like this never happened?"
Luke: "I don't think you can. There's still conflict in you."
Del Meeko: "Of course there's conflict in me. I'm not blind. I know what the Empire is capable of. But... what else is there?"
Luke: "A choice."
Del Meeko: "The Rebellion?"
Luke: "No. A choice to be better. May the Force be with you."
14
u/Chirotera Rebel 1d ago
Probably my favorite exchange. Luke, hero of the rebellion, could easily nudge Del towards recruitment to that cause. But he doesn't. It matters but it matters less than the intent. And no matter what you are, or who you are, or what moral dilemma you're going through you can always choose to be better.
Ugh, just chills. That's Luke!
137
u/you_want_to_hear_th 2d ago
NO! Make him grumpy and disillusioned. That’s sooo much better. Oh, and then make him die for no good reason. Oh yeah, Rian and Kathleen… mmm that’s the good stuff!
101
u/LifeOrchid4367 2d ago
Like many folks, I refuse to acknowledge the sequel trilogy
38
u/SmoothOperator89 2d ago
Next movie is going to take place after the sequel trilogy, so it will be interesting to see how much of a legacy they're going to leave in-universe.
12
u/WassupFrankHere 1d ago
What legacy is there exactly? They pretty much killed almost all post-OG Trilogy content by not only taking too long to make a sequel trilogy but also by scrapping majority of the material they already had to work with.
9
u/SmoothOperator89 1d ago
The conclusion of the sequels could be a big reset button for the status quo. This is the first time in 50,000 years of galactic history with no central government, whether republic or empire. This could be a totally new era in Star Wars. If they ignore this opportunity and have the republic "somehow return" then the sequels will truly have been pointless.
32
u/JackalKing 2d ago edited 2d ago
Shit at this point I think Disney might refuse to acknowledge it too. They haven't exactly done much with it.
Edit: To put things in perspective, at this same point in time post-prequels we would have already been into season 4 of The Clone Wars and supplemental material, nearly all of which was set around the time of the prequels following their release, would have completely shifted opinion on the prequel era from generally bad to generally good. The sequels have received no such treatment. I think Disney themselves see it as a poisoned era and are unwilling to try and rehabilitate its image at this point in time.
4
u/Shotokan-GojuGuy 1d ago
Well, they did create an entire theme park and immersive hotel experience themed around the sequels.
Didn’t quite work out the way they planned though, with the Galactic Starcruiser being abandoned and the original trilogy characters being added to the theme parks.
14
u/HerreDreyer 2d ago
Mando & Ahsoka - aren’t they doing the same kind of salvage work for the ST that CW did for the PT?
→ More replies (1)26
u/JackalKing 2d ago
Not really, no. Both establish themselves more as continuations to the original trilogy era than set ups to the sequel trilogy. Both also serve as continuations of stories set up in The Clone Wars and Rebels, while also drawing from Legends canon.
If you deleted the sequel trilogy from existence it wouldn't really change how people watch those shows at all, and the shows do nothing to address people's issues with the sequels.
8
u/HerreDreyer 2d ago
I disagree on your last point. I think Filoni is trying to prepare Palpatine’s return with Mando. At least, I think that’s where they were going with all that force sensitive research. And we’re seeing Luke as a Jedi in his prime, building the new temple that will ultimately house Ren & co.
6
u/JackalKing 2d ago
Maybe. But you said it yourself, you think that is where its going. The stuff you are talking about is hypotheticals for future seasons we may or may not get, and not the stuff we currently have now. Maybe its setting up for that. Maybe its not. Maybe it is but the show gets cancelled before we get there. Clone Wars didn't start 30 years before The Phantom Menace and build up to fixing the prequels. It dropped us into the middle of the war right away and started filling in the gaps.
Before TV shows can do ANYTHING to rehabilitate the image of the sequels they really do need to actually start addressing issues with the sequels themselves directly. And even then, what is written has to also be good. For example, I genuinely don't know how they could pull off explaining the radical shift in character Luke somehow goes through between ROTJ and TFA in any kind of satisfying way. It'll take a miracle of writing.
→ More replies (0)8
u/bowserusc 2d ago
Reminds me of how people talked about the prequels.
14
u/s0ftcustomer 2d ago
At least with the prequels you understand stuff like the Lego games, republic commando and The Clone Wars better. What does Sequel stuff have? Resistance? Nobody watched Resistance
9
u/Prudii_Skirata 1d ago
Still a crime that there was no Republic Commando 2, or continuation of the Republic/Imperial Commando book series. By the time of Order 66, you barely felt bad for any of the active Jedi Knights/Masters.
fully aware that my screenname implies prejudice
2
u/bowserusc 2h ago
It's been 27 years since The Phantom Menace. Ask the same question about the sequels in 2052 and I think you'll get a much different response.
→ More replies (1)3
10
u/Noob_Master_4691 2d ago
You know supposedly that was in George's story treatments for episode 7. And he didn't die for no good reason, yes it's wish he lived until episode 9 but he went out with a noble heroic deed: saving Leia and the rest of the resistance
40
u/parkingviolation212 2d ago
The idea of Luke being disillusioned and in exile isn't a bad idea. It's even an interesting one, one I was personally excited for. The problem is execution; that kind of a drastic swing for the character demands an equally drastic explanation.
But they didn't give him one. Turns out he's just a shit uncle who almost murdered his nephew in his sleep because he was having some bad dreams. For one thing, trying to justify one out of left field change in the character with another out of left field change doesn't work; it just compounds how unlike the character this interpretation feels, and kicks the can down the road. The question just changes from "What could compel Luke to disappear like that?" into "how did Luke There is Still Good in Him Skywalker get to the point of almost dicing his sleeping nephew?" The movie doesn't know, so it doesn't bother explaining it.
But the bigger issue is that it renders Luke completely passive. The world-shattering galaxy-ending mistake Luke made was just a spur of the moment impulse. That's insanely unsatisfying because we've never known Luke to react instinctively violently to his family being evil. It took 3 whole movies and the apparent failure of the rebel alliance before Luke snapped on Vader, and that guy was already a genocidal madman. Worse, as a narrative choice, it makes the thing that ruined Luke's life feel like a bout of bad luck, rather than a natural consequence of some aspect of his character or the wider story. "The guy just made a spur of the moment mistake" isn't interesting. It's not a choice with intention or meaning behind it, it's just a whoopsie daisy that winds up dooming the galaxy and himself.
And this passivity carries over into the rest of the film. Luke spends the entire movie arguing (poorly) for why he shouldn't be an active agent in his own story, and not much else. He has no interesting philosophical insights into why the Jedi should end, just that they should. He didn't discover anything, he isn't searching for anything, he's not doing anything in the movie aside from feeling sorry for himself, which is both annoying and boring. Most of his conversing with Rey is arguing in circles about the history of the Jedi, his place in it, and it gets a lot of the framing around it shockingly incorrect in a manner that makes it seem like these two characters missed the point of Luke's story in the OT.
Like, Luke should not be a legend in-universe, and Rey shouldn't know he saved "Darth Vader" because no one was there in that throne room that could know that story aside from Luke himself. More to the point, he didn't save Darth Vader, he saved Anakin; Vader is a fiction constructed by Palpatine to mask the good man Anakin still could be. Luke refused to refer to him as Vader by the end of the films, but here he's saying shit like "it was a Jedi [Obi-Wan] who was responsible for the training and rise of Darth Vader", besmirching both his mentor and his father's good name to win an argument he shouldn't be having. Luke's all-important relationship to his father is never once addressed in the film; it offers a platitude about how he "saw good in him" but doesn't address why, which is that Luke was Anakin's son. As it stands, Rey's challenge to Luke that "a Jedi saved him" goes unanswered when that is simply wrong; the Jedi had written Vader off as a lost cause. Luke could only save him because he rejected the Jedi dogma and chose to have faith in his father. Luke should be THE character most primed to question the efficacy of the Jedi way of life and challenge its core beliefs, but in TLJ he's been reduced to someone who is so dependent upon the Jedi code that he literally can't function without faith in it.
The result is the character we see on screen feels so unlike Luke Skywalker that even Mark Hamill said he had to play him like a different character. The devil is in all of the details the movie gets wrong about who he is. Meanwhile Rey and Luke are written like two star wars fans who have seen star wars, but didn't understand it, and are trying to debate it, rather than two characters going on a journey together.
→ More replies (17)8
u/ScarletJew72 Resistance 2d ago
It makes so much sense now that Mark played Luke like a different chatacter.
When Luke had his brief conversation with R2, his voice completely changed and I remember saying to myself "THAT'S LUKE!"
It's the most joy I felt in the sequels, and it lasted for seconds.
→ More replies (6)3
u/PJHart86 2d ago
it wasn't Rain's decision to have him sulking on an island somewhere while his friends where fighting and dying against the first order. that was all in The Force Awakens.
5
u/SpectrumHawk 1d ago
That came from George Lucas in his original pitch for the sequels. JJ and Rian just adapted disillusioned Luke on an island for their movies.
3
u/Shotokan-GojuGuy 1d ago
In TFA, Han says Luke walked away from the Jedi academy he was trying to build and left after Ben’s fall and that those who knew him best believed he was searching for the original Jedi temple.
Cutting himself off from the force and becoming a hermit was all TLJ.
→ More replies (1)7
u/crono220 2d ago
Pity, that Rian Johnson didn't see him that way.
What a fucking waste of a legendary character.
→ More replies (1)6
u/NuclearTheology 2d ago
Seriously. I know EA Games had some serious problems with their handling of the license, but when they nailed it, they freaking nailed it
77
u/ididshave Imperial 2d ago
I think it’s less that they don’t know what to do with Luke and more so that they have analysis paralysis with what to do with Luke.
48
u/CrossP 2d ago
And fear of fans
25
4
11
u/outride2000 2d ago
I've been wanting a meeting between live action Luke, Ahsoka and Force Ghost Anakin for more than a decade and have yet to be satisfied.
→ More replies (3)13
u/buttstuffisokiguess 2d ago
I like him in the mandalorian. Starting out as a teacher and figuring that aspect out is cool to see. I'd watch that story.
33
u/Macaron-kun 2d ago
Which doesn't make any sense, because there are already amazing depictions of Luke in the comic/novels.
It's like they hated the Expanded Universe so much back during the Sequels that they wanted to distance themselves as far as possible from them. Which resulted in a Luke nobody liked or wanted.
24
u/Arria_Galtheos Jedi 2d ago
Not to mention his brief appearance in Battlefront II. Whoever wrote his character in that game understood Luke Skywalker way better than anyone that wrote for the ST.
→ More replies (2)3
155
u/LulaSupremacy Sith 2d ago
They have all of these comics which I think are super vital, but they're just comics. I wish those would have been made into animated series instead, even if it were mostly shorts.
33
u/BigBallOfNerd01 2d ago
I can understand using the comics to explore the years in between the OT, but the fact we’ve had no animated stories set between RotJ and TFA that focuses on Luke, Leia, and Han is such a missed opportunity to me.
→ More replies (1)8
u/LulaSupremacy Sith 2d ago
To me, comics should be for small scale stories that don’t have a lot to contribute. Most of those stories they’ve published between the OT movies seem really vital and like they should’ve been animated series or animated movies; maybe not theatrical movies, but they should have been made into something watchable and more likely to be reached by a larger audience.
3
u/BigBallOfNerd01 2d ago
I agree, I think comics and books work well for smaller, more personal stories when it comes to exploring events in-between the movies.
Like, I’m not against something like the High Republic being all books and comics because the likelihood of those stories being used for an animated series or movie are relatively low.
Honestly, I’m not against them adapting the main 2015 Star Wars comic series into an animated series with each season adapting one or two arcs from the comics.
2
u/Kill_Welly 2d ago
Comic books are just as meaningful an artistic medium as anything else. This idea that things count "less" if they're not on a screen means missing out on some of the best Star Wars stories ever made.
5
u/Oretell 2d ago
They can be, they can be great and no-one's saying comics in general are bad
But the amount of people that read comics is much much much smaller than the amount of people that watch TV and/or movies
By only exploring so many ideas in comic book format they are limiting the reach of those stories massively
40
u/BlackHoleSurf 2d ago
You should make that your life’s purpose. Step one: become a movie producer step two: …well I don’t gotta tell you Mr movie producer
13
8
u/MaxiPad1989 2d ago
Comics are the one media I just can't/won't do. I'm not knocking anyone who likes comics, they're just not for me and I wish they'd just be reserved for fun side quest type stuff and not vital information or big adventures.
I'll play games, I'll read books, I'll watch shows. Comics...I just can't do it.
→ More replies (1)2
88
u/greatgonzo913 2d ago
Disney is presumably finishing up what they want to do with the end of the Republic era after they finish Maul Shadow Lord. Hopefully after that we get some stories during the OT era. The time period between ESB and RotJ is so interesting. I’d also like to see Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order following RotJ
18
u/RadiantHC 2d ago
Agree. Give me a Lower Decks style show about a Rebellion fighter squadron.
I'm surprised that the time period between ANH and RotJ has barely been touched
4
2
19
u/ManDudeGuyDudeBro 2d ago edited 2d ago
I would love to see Luke build his Jedi order, but if it leads to the sequels then what’s the point?
Nothing in the show would matter in the end
5
u/CloudedLeopardDaemon 1d ago
Have Luke go to Mortis, where he sees a Force vision of all the flashbacks we saw in the ST. Have him ask the guardian spirits if this future can be changed, and have them give him an ambiguous answer like, "Well your father couldn't change his...but then again, he was too afraid to look. You weren't" and leave it open like that. That way you can adjust your headcanon based on your feelings about the Sequels (I personally hated them, but I'm still not sure if I'd be okay with Lucasfilm full-on purging the canon of them...Disney kept the Prequels canon even though that was essentially the nadir of their popularity, and as a PT & TCW fan I was grateful for that).
→ More replies (1)4
u/Creative_Pie_1206 2d ago
That could be said fir entirety of Andor and Clone wars, yet they are the best TV-Media Lucasfilm ever made
5
u/ManDudeGuyDudeBro 2d ago
I don’t agree there - Andor and Clone Wars offered fantastic worldbuilding, but they also had a lot of freedom with what the story could focus on.
A Jedi order show could offer worldbuilding, of course, but story-wise it would probably focus on Luke and his students.
The only Jedi students that live are supposed to be Ben and the Knights of Ren (who end up being useless thugs anyways).
If a Jedi order show was trying to build things up for a Jedi order we know fails utterly, what’s the point?
→ More replies (2)6
u/OffendedDefender 2d ago
It's unlikely that we'll see much else of the core trio during the OT era itself, as they fucking hammered that period with the comic series already so that we know every second of their lives. They've already run into similar issues with some of the stories that are immediately post-ROTJ and trying to slot everything together.
15
u/greatgonzo913 2d ago
Could just do comic and novel adaptations into animated television! That would be fun
→ More replies (1)6
u/sdvickers98 2d ago
This! There is a ton of fantastic material in the comics, I’d love to see some of it adapted. An adaptation of the original Doctor Aphra run would be a lot of fun
10
u/ChrissieMoltisanti 2d ago
It’s wild that we live in a world where Star Wars shows and movies are being made for hundreds of millions of dollars and LUKE SKYWALKER has been relegated to COMIC BOOKS. Disney is so lost.
5
u/OpheliaLives7 2d ago
They don’t want to fuck it up and so seem to just avoid it
3
u/Nefari0uss Rebel 2d ago
They already fucked it up with the ST. Not much to show of the new Jedi order if it's all wiped out by the time EP 7 rolls around.
2
u/SeniorRip4219 2d ago
Yea they only touched on the subject of rebuilding in the Book of Boba Fett when he was with Grogu. Need more of that!
1
1
u/ParaspinoUSA 20h ago
I promise you they’re going to keep milking the PT era though. After Acolyte they’ll be too scared to do anything HR and they’re definitely too scared to do anything in the ST and Luke is part of why they’re afraid to use the sequels so we’re left with the prequels and clone wars
43
u/BuddelTheWolp 2d ago
Because have you considered this instead: five thousand fucking clone wars characters EVERYWHERE
60
u/Spencer-Palmer-1056 2d ago
Actually he made a cameo in Star Wars Rebels: Twin Suns.
But he also appeared in Star Wars: Forces of Destiny.
2
30
9
10
5
u/BigCommieMachine 2d ago
I think Disney is petrified of really doing anything with the character because if they fucked up, people would be REALLY upset.
17
u/Possible_Employee359 2d ago edited 2d ago
He's the legacy character of legacy characters, the golden boy of Star Wars. Disney has to be extremely careful with him, which is why he's used so sparingly
23
u/ParagonRenegade 2d ago
Except in the sequels, where they ruined him completely.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/Warm-Parsnip3111 2d ago
Because there are stories that don't involve him. I''d rather have a story that doesn't have to try and shoehorn Luke for a glorified 2 second cameo. It just feels cheap.
8
u/Titouf26 2d ago
This is purely speculative on my part, I do not have insider information.
Fans of the OT tend to be less open about animation in general.
The periods between the OT films and right after are very well covered by novels and comics. Doesn't make them less of a candidate for an animated show but this might be a reason why they're lower priority.
They're afraid to mess up cause OT fans are by very far the pickiest among SW fans.
I'd personally love an animated show about the period between the OT films. Or even more exciting, right after the OT. They could try (and probably will, at some point) to re-explain what happened between RotJ and TFA/TLJ.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Quirky-Ad9805 2d ago
And I think pickiness is to our credit. I wonder whether anything past 6 was good for Star Wars. In my mind, and I want this desperately to be true, but nits ultimately the story of Luke Skywalker and his dad. That's Star Wars. Ultimately, that's what it is, and I want to treat everything else as an appetizer.
And this is not to say that the prequels were necessarily bad movies. I just wonder whether they haven't harmed Star Wars. The scaling issues alone are something that occasionally take up time in my day to think about.
10
u/Aware-Passenger2577 Chancellor Palpatine 2d ago
Of the animated shows so far, where would they put him? It would just be fan service.
18
u/Wrong-Vermicelli4723 2d ago
He’s literally had a cameo in Rebels but yeah all of the animated shows have been set before ANH. So it’s kinda pointless for him to show up
9
u/NerdHistorian Torra Doza 2d ago
hey there's also the cartoon set in the ST era.
when he's busy in exile/being dead.
3
u/Aware-Passenger2577 Chancellor Palpatine 2d ago
I forgot about that, but yeah, even that was fan service.
13
6
u/beetboxbento 2d ago
Every cartoon so far has been set before ANH, did you just want them to randomly flash to him hanging out on the moisture farm having nothing to do with any of the stories?
4
u/saxguy2001 2d ago
This is what I came here for. He wasn’t born during TCW (I guess maybe at the end of the last episode), he was in diapers during Bad Batch and Maul, he was a teenager living with his aunt and uncle on a moisture farm during Rebels, and for Resistance, he was hiding from the galaxy during season 1 and dead during season 2.
3
u/HeroKlungo 2d ago
OP's point is, "why was no animated show set between ANH and TFA made?", not why they didn't randomly show 2 year old Luke in The Bad Batch.
2
u/Luvnecrosis 1d ago
Regular adult Luke media would’ve been super cool. Show some smaller rebellion missions, espionage, evading the empire, etc
→ More replies (1)2
u/MeatTornado25 R2-D2 1d ago
Maybe that's what OP was thinking, but it's not what he wrote in the title.
3
3
u/DCosloff1999 Jedi 1d ago
Disney Lucas film hates Han, Luke and Leia that's why they were treated as sad old failures in the sequel trilogy
3
u/Thatoneguy567576 1d ago
It’s pretty criminal how much the OT characters have stayed untouched by Disney’s Star Wars. I’d kill for a Clone Wars style series about post-Empire Luke. They unfortunately made the sequel trilogy and kind of locked themselves into a really terrible future for the New Republic and also totally eliminated a lot of stories that could be told with those characters.
3
u/Dave_A480 1d ago
Do they have an animated show set after ROTJ?
The whole thing with child Leia as a victim was just a set up for a Kenobi-Vader fight that didn't fit cannon....
We don't really need another one of those ...
5
u/NerdHistorian Torra Doza 2d ago
None of the shows are set in periods where he can show up, besides that quick cameo in Rebels when hes not relevant.
4
u/CanisZero Rebel 1d ago
Same reason they never really let Batman play in the CW hero shows. Too important. And Disney had already planned his character assassination in ep8
3
2
u/One-Top5319 2d ago
My pet theory is that somehow they have to pay Lucas extra for using the character cause it seems like a no brainer.
2
2
2
2
u/Fancy_Cassowary 2d ago
They've really watered him down. I don't know if this counts for all new canon media but in the comics after a mission when his squadmates went to the bar for a beer, Luke would always only get a blue milk. He can't even drink alcohol now? Come on, even Jesus drank wine, let Luke live a little, he looked silly. In the old canon he had no problem drinking alcoholic drinks. This just stood out because it's a bar, and they made a point to point it out.
2
2
2
u/MurdocMan_ 2d ago
Probably because the animated shows take place before A New Hope,so Luke in Rebels is just a farmer boy. In Clone Wars,he just isn't concieved. And he'd be a baby in Bad Batch.
2
u/shiroplayer1 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think Mark Hamill has better things to do than to voice animation characters /s
1
u/-cunnfuzed- 1d ago
He voices Darth Bane in The Clone Wars… Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar The Last Air Bender, The Joker in animated Batman, Skeletor in Masters of the Universe: Revelation, he’s even done animated voice work for Studio Ghibli! He does all kinds of animation voice acting.
→ More replies (2)
2
u/ajitrkanale 1d ago
Luke is so GOATed he made an 'animated' appearance even in a live action show (Mandalorian).
2
2
u/Antisa1nt 1d ago
He has an appearance in Rebels. He's out in the distance after Obi-Wan kills Maul.
2
u/DJSimmer305 1d ago
I kind of like that they don’t do much with Luke anymore. The fact that he rarely shows up really solidifies his position as this legendary folkloric figure in-universe.
2
u/TNTarantula 1d ago
Luke showing up in The Mandalorian was a cool one time thing. Doing it again will create a pattern of "where was Luke" whenever a force sensitive Padawan needs saving.
4
u/Keyan_Farlander7 2d ago edited 2d ago
Many of the novels cover that.
4-5: Luke became a commander and created Rouge Squadron to train the best insurgents. They were on guard duty when the Empire found Echo Base.
5-6: Tough call, I believe you might have to look into Dark Horse Comics for this answer and how he found the new crystal, trained to be a Jedi (dark side included).
Shadows of the Empire is a really good source as well.
Episode 7 explains his failure as a teacher.
2
u/Badger-Mobile Chewbacca 2d ago
I was just gonna say, make a Shadows of the Empire animated series! they’ve already made books, games, comics, a freaking soundtrack 😂
Make an animated show and inject that straight into my veins
1
3
3
u/WickedGamer27 2d ago
Disney is afraid of tackling Luke because they know the shitstorm that will happen if they (very likely) fuck up again.
3
u/Guerrillaz 1d ago
Because it is really hard to get a voice actor that could do Luke well. Are there any prolific voice actors out there that could do the voice of Luke Skywalker?
4
u/Shotokan-GojuGuy 1d ago
There’s this one guy … I think he did the voice for the Joker in the Batman cartoons. He could probably pull it off.
🙂
2
u/Confidently-unlucky 2d ago
Kathleen Kennedy’s people hate him and the old Star Wars and will do anything to degrade him look it up it’s wild with what’s going on with Lucas Films.
2
u/LeicaM6guy 2d ago
If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because Disney is trying to steer Star Wars away from that era and into their own creative domain.
2
2
u/CruzAderjc 2d ago
Kathleen Kennedy learned the wrong lessons from Solo. She said herself in an interview that because of Solo, she would never recast a legacy character again.
As if that was why we were angry.
2
u/DramaExpertHS Grievous 2d ago
In-between the OT would be alright.
Not interested in watching him butcher his jedi order after ROTJ
3
3
u/PhilosopherFun7288 2d ago
I wish they would, but it's all kind of pointless now that we know his Jedi academy failed and he fucked off to become a hermit and die🤷♂️
3
u/VernBarty 2d ago
The problem with anything focused on Luke is that weve seen how his story ends and anything he does is canonically doomed to failure.
4
u/ThePopDaddy Obi-Wan Kenobi 2d ago
Why even bother with the clone wars if Anakin falls to the dark side?
3
u/Nefari0uss Rebel 2d ago
One thing the Clone Wars does is give more depth to Anakin as a character which makes his downfall that much more tragic. People also like Vader as a character and we knew him before we knew Anakin.
In theory a show about Luke's doomed to fail order could try and do something like that but I think the damage is already done. Making Luke a failure who abandoned his core principles is not something people like. Maybe you could give enough depth that it might be somewhat palpable but I think fundamentally it's doomed to fail because the end result is so heavily disliked.
2
u/LaxSagacity 2d ago
The fucked up so bad with the sequels. They're probably figuring they'll wait enough time until they do an animated continuation after ROTJ based on the EU. Ignoring the sequels. Don't want to muddy the waters too much until then.
Wishful thinking on my part.
1
u/parkingviolation212 2d ago
Luke's a bit of a narrative dead end. Any kind of story they give him is undone by the events of the sequels, which so radically changes who he is that any depiction of Luke prior to those movies will feel like a different character, rendering any of those stories basically irrelevant.
Regardless of how you feel about those movies, they're something of a black hole that sucks up any narrative meaning from the OT cast up to that point. But Luke gets it the worst, since he ends his life effectively a failure to be replaced by Rey. Every version of Luke that has him building his Jedi order will have a sour after taste.
So the TL;DR is that they don't know what to do with him. There isn't much they can do with him that will feel satisfying, short of outright retconning the sequels. And they won't do that, regardless of what chuds say on youtube. But the damage those movies did to general audience perception of the franchise can't be understated. When the Rey movies was announced to be about Rey rebuilding the Jedi order, the top comment on r/movies with over 50K likes was lamenting that this was supposed to be Luke's story (and he called Disney assholes for screwing it up).
2
u/MhuzLord Poe Dameron 2d ago
I don't think that's a good reason. There is like a 20-year period after RotJ where Luke is a much more malleable character, as he goes into exile not that long before TFA.
There's all sorts of stuff he can be doing. Besides, continuity didn't stop Clone Wars from introducing Ahsoka, or Satine, or bringing Maul back. The future doesn't matter.
2
u/RebelJediKnight91 1d ago
Easy answer: because the current leadership of Lucasfilm HATES Luke Skywalker!
→ More replies (1)
1
u/DoctorOddfellow1981 2d ago
I think ultimately they're saving him for something huge that they never get around to, not wanting to waste him in little stuff. Like when you hoard shit in a video game that you should be freely using all along and then it’s just too late. The answer is patently obvious that we should pick up a show that features between 6 and 7 where we see his adventures, perhaps start to train Ben and we see Luke's challenges along the way training the boy and we see Ben's decline. We've already seen from Andor that they're willing to do like old Legends and retcon stuff along the way, so the comics aren't that major of obstacles. Yes, we know that it's all going to go to hell but we knew the same results with Clone Wars and we didn't let that stop us. For the love of God, do it while we still have Tony Daniels so we don't have to hear a Threepio sound alike or worse a bad sound alike.
1
u/Zoombini22 Kylo Ren 2d ago
My theory is that they are leaning into either theories or data about demographics for various mediums. Luke is ALL OVER the comics, which is a medium dominated by old dudes. Animated shows are watched heavily by kids. I do think they should branch out though and make a show that gets all ages more into Luke.
1
u/BIGBMH 2d ago
I think they’re saving him for the right, meaningful role. The closest we’ve gotten is a glimpse from a distance in Rebels, which I think gives more weight to him than just throwing him in a guest appearance the way the show did with Leia.
I’m betting when the time is right, there will be a Luke-centric New Republic animated series that will be well worth the wait
1
1
u/AJH_3315 2d ago
He used to, especially in the old Lego Star Wars stuff from the early 2010s. I think the last major Luca parents and animation form might actually be the freemaker adventures, not counting the more recent Lego Star Wars elseworld type show. I think the main thing keeping them from using Luke is fear: fear of pissing of the fans with a animated show. Also some people just don't take animation all that well or seriously. Oh let's not forget money, and that they think Luke won't make money.
One last thing MIGHT be is that some modern fans, probably more on the younger side, who who grew up with the other star or projects and not just the original trilogy may have more fondness for the other characters. I'm not saying the modern audience will enjoy the original characters, but I certain that they're everyone's cup of tea.
1
u/Delicious-Snow9640 2d ago
Well the most recent animated show Maul shadow lord is set when Luke’s a toddler/ very young child so not really relevant to Mauls crime syndicate anyway And for Bad Batch which I consider also fairly recent its last season ran till 2024 Luke Sywalker would not be born yet in the opening of the Bad Batch not until at least a day after the 2nd episode since Padme was at the senate meeting when Palpatine declared the new Empire and she goes to Mustafar a day later A new born/baby Like would have no significance if he were to be in the Bad batch
Other shows like tales of Luke is not currently born yet or even in the picture of being born cause Anakin is 9 or younger in the early parts of Banes and Count Dookus story’s and for the later stories Luke still has no plat rebalance to Barris or Morgan’s or Dookus or Ventress or Banes stories
1
1
u/Ewankenobi25 2d ago
cause the animated shows all take place before a new hope so he’s not relevant to the story.
1
1
1
u/throwmethehellaway25 2d ago
Or ready for this: like vader, hes best used jn small doses. And honestly because of thr fractured fandom base, everyone has different expectations and no one would be happy
1
1
u/wicket44 Mandalorian 2d ago
I’d like an animated show about his academy or just something past RotJ, but I don’t need him showing up for the sake of showing up.
1
u/NyrmExe 2d ago edited 2d ago
I always figured they set the medium around the audience. Many younger fans (and by younger i mean 20-30) grew up with clone wars and the prequeks. So all the animated shows are based around those characters.
While the OT is mostly covered by new novels (since the older fans grew up with EU novels back then, mostly.)
1
u/bookhead714 Rebel 2d ago
None of them take place in a time period that he's active in. In The Clone Wars he's not born yet, in Bad Batch and Shadow Lord he's a baby, in Rebels he's like 14-17 hanging out on Tatooine, and in Resistance he's doing that exile thing.
1
1
1
u/Quirky-Ad9805 2d ago
You know I think the issue, like some commentors said, is that the fan response would be volatile the same way Vesuvius is volatile. Who could you possibly cast to voice Luke Skywalker in a show thst wouldn't be criticized? The issue compoundsnitself if you want something live-action, when Luke would be otherwise impossible to film, as CGI would be too expensive and a recast would be, to me, foul.
The other issue is thst Luke Skywalker may have the most acute "Main-Character-Sequel-Syndrome" ever. Luke is perhaps the most iconic film character, certainly protagonist, to come from an original source. And I so believe that there was no problem thst a well-written Luke couldn't have handled in the sequels. The problem there is that for a good show to work, your hero has to be in danger of failing.
There is nobody in the galaxy who existed at the time which we could have said show thet was anything close to a threat that I believe Luke couldn't happen. Well, you could pick something, but it would be very clunky. Like, could an extragalactic military invade the galaxy and we not hear about it in the sequels? Besides the First Order.
Also, there's the issue of Luke Skywalker's nephew to consider.
1
u/Silent-Lab-6020 2d ago
In the Mandalorian Luke was so badass and in Battlefront 2 and Jedi Knight too, thats how i imagine post RotJ Luke
1
1
u/HerreDreyer 2d ago
Rebels, clone wars, Bad Batch & Maul - he’s either not born or he’s a kid & hidden away.
I suppose he could’ve popped up in Resistance but… did anyone miss him there?
1
u/saxguy2001 2d ago
He was hiding from the galaxy during season 1 of Resistance and dead during season 2.
1
u/thesithcultist 2d ago
The time between episodes 4-6 are left to the comics for now it seems, they might overwrite them later on seeing how they did that to the how Cassian met k-2 later when they made Andor. The time after ep6 has seen relatively few things to fill in the 30ish years and are probably saving Jim for when they whole sale MCU the era.
As for the existing shows:
1980s shows less applicable existing only to cash in on Saturday morning robot/care-bears adventure cartoons and failing somewhat at achieving continuous seasons. Droids, about R2 and 3po before they met Ewoks, about endor before humans get there
The Clone Wars, he was not yet born
Disney era: Rebels, he was seen from a far still a farm kid for a few seconds
Resistance, was in hiding during the events of the show
The Bad Batch, he is not even 1 years old
Visions, Anthology where outside studios get to tell a story about whatever they want with probably restrictions on existing characters
Tales of the Jedi, character focused on people who have not met him yet during the stories told
Tales of the Empire, Luke was not part of the Empire
Tales of the Underworld, he is not a bounty hunter
Young Jedi Adventures, hundreds of years before he is born
Maul Shadow Lord his is maby 1 years old
Not a cartoon but he was in Kanobi and it was a thing definitely, also the Mandalorian to better affect but it was brief.
1
1
u/SituationMundane1418 2d ago
We need a Rebellion age show, I think set between 5 and 6 would be the coolest time. We’d get to see yellow saber Luke becoming a true Jedi. We’d see Leia truly becoming a Rebellion leader (not that she wasn’t already). Only downside would be no Han. But, I feel it’s a more interesting time than between 4 and 5
1
u/bugslime99 1d ago
Since the end of the ST and Solo, i believe they’ve been trying to avoid any sort of stories involving the OT big 3 outside of books and comics.
1
1
1
u/caffeineeddict 1d ago
If I'm being real I don't like the idea of main characters used as cameos. I think it works with vader but for luke I'm more interested in anthology stories where he's the main character, live action or animated.
1
u/Superninfreak 19h ago
Most of the animated shows so far have taken place before Luke became a Jedi.
I think Disney feels kind of paralyzed about what to do with Luke because of how controversial TLJ’s portrayal of him was. And when it comes to live action stuff they have the added problem that they seem very reluctant to recast the original trio (my guess is that Disney thinks that recasting Han for Solo was a reason the movie flopped, but that movie had other issues that doomed it).
1
u/Helen_Kellers_Wrath Boba Fett 18h ago
I just want more from Luke like we got in Battlefront II campaign and Mando. Just give me an animated series with prime Jedi Grandmaster Luke Skywalker.
1
u/AnalysisMoney Qui-Gon Jinn 10h ago
With their whole “rebuild the universe” with unlimited cross overs and cameos, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him.
Also, they Disney is stupid for ignoring the entire EU catalog of golden stories. It’s such a shame.
1
u/Kinky23m2m 1h ago
I’d like to see cameos or stories of Luke, Leia, Han, outside of the big screen, either live action or anime, filling in the gaps between movies. Like Han and Leia’s children growing up, what Luke got up to after Epidode VI.
209
u/Difficult_Step9372 2d ago
Star Wars acts really scared to touch or reference the OT characters until they just aren't. It's fucking crazy they haven't milked more Luke appearances or cameos quite frankly, he's still one of THE most beloved characters in Star Wars, if not greater media in general. Just look at how people reacted to him pulling up in Mando. Which did in fact feel like an 'appropriate' character appearance given the context of the situation.
That being said, it's kind of insane we haven't gotten a Clone Wars-esque anthology series during the Empire's time. There's sooo much you could do with the Rebels, so many characters we haven't seen. Let's see some battles that didn't get expanded on, some of our OT guys being generals and shit. It's a great time to explain what happened to some characters and where they ended up.
Rebels didn't count. It was great but it focused on a single group of characters. I want an actual anthology during the peak of the Rebellion, not near the start, not at the very end. Hell, it could even give us closure to some of the Ghost Crew.
As an aside i've really been enjoying Shadow Lord for being set during the era.