Just when you think another Star Wars book would be great, especially with the title Secrets of the Jedi, Kevin Burwick of MovieWeb had to add in the part that the author will be taking the Luke Skywalker from The Last Jedi and penning it from his perspective. In other words instead of hearing from the wise and hopeful master of the Force the book will likely take on the doomsayer notes of the Skywalker that was a broken down old hermit in TLJ. As a Star Wars fan I won’t ever say anything other than “I liked it” when describing a Star Wars movie that was below par, but thinking that a book bent on telling about the vaunted Jedi Order and its many secrets would be told by someone that was broken down simply because of a certain director’s vision for how things should have been is kind of depressing in a way. It’s likely we’ll still read the book out of curiosity and because being a Star Wars fan means you put up with the bad as well as the good, but there’s still a reckoning to be had eventually since the last two movies, and even the books to an extent, have been headed down a very steep slope since Disney took over Lucasfilm.
Just to be fair, Luke has almost always been a deep and thoughtful individual since the ending of Return of the Jedi, as a lot of the bright and hopeful farmboy attitude had been beaten out of him by the life he had to live as part of the Rebel Alliance. He lost his mentor, he lost his hand, and he had to come to terms with the fact that his father was evil incarnate for a while, and served someone even worse. Following that he tried to bring back and Order that had been made almost extinct before he was born. If one goes by the books (hint, hint, Disney) he was always a serious character and knew more about responsibility than many people could begin to understand. But given that he came to understand the history of the Jedi and the Sith, as much as he possibly could from the texts he gathered, Luke had every right to be a little morose at times. The burden of so many generations of Jedi and what they’d gone through wasn’t a burden that many people could take.
But the moment that Disney flipped the script and threw out the old canon in favor of their own things changed. Luke became a ghost for the first movie, someone that was spoken of and never seen until the final scene. Then, when TLJ came around we were all hoping to see a man that had walked away from the war and would at least come to realize that he was needed, that he was still considered to be a vital part of the Resistance. And then….he threw his lightsaber away when it was handed to him, he dismissed Rey out of hand, and he drank what looked like green milk from some sort of strange sea cow. Yeah, that wasn’t really expected, nor was it fully appreciated. And now the Secrets of the Jedi, which will feature pop-up sections and supplementary items as well within the book, is going to be delivered in the same voice of the man that seemed so horribly broken in the second movie of the final trilogy to feature the Skywalker line. Is anyone else wondering what Disney is doing at this point, or are people simply falling into line since the House of Mouse has enough clout to do what it wants and disregard anyone’s input? The book might actually be interesting so long as it doesn’t go into the same whining, puling voice that Luke was given in TLJ. The history of the Jedi after all is a long and interesting tale, going back to a time when the first Force users had no idea what they were doing and actually fought with metal blades instead of blazing columns of light. One has to wonder at this time just whether or not Disney will seek to create an origin for the Jedi that will disregard the books entirely, or if they might finally wise up and start using more of the original source material.
It sounds cynical for certain, but Disney has gone a long way towards destroying a classic story that, like it or not, has been one of the most epic tales of all time. While the prequels are still a point of contention among many fans the newest trilogy has gained far more ire than any Star Wars movie in history. Hopefully the book will be a good read, otherwise one might start to think that the downward slope that Star Wars appears to be on might have ways to go until a rough and brutal ending appears.
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