The worst Star Wars mistake fixed by one character
Pa Chris Snellgrove
| Published
If you were to ask the average jaded Star Wars fan what’s wrong with the Sequel trilogy, they’d likely respond with a text longer than all of the franchise’s opening films combined. If you asked them what to the worst But the fact is that they most likely indicate that Luke Skywalker has turned into a grumpy old man who has given up on his life and on protecting the galaxy from evil. It’s hard to explain how and why Luke could fall so far from the heights of heroism, but Disney can provide a simple explanation and retroactively correct their mistake with one bold step: officially adding Mara Jade to the canon.
Mara Jade is the key to all of this
Of course, Mara Jade was the Emperor’s Hand, a person trained from a very young age to do Palpatine’s bidding. She lost her cushy imperial job and became a smuggler after the emperor’s death, which she blamed Luke Skywalker for. She eventually learns the truth, becoming Luke’s ally and later wife, and the two have a child before she is tragically killed by Jacen Solo, a fallen Jedi son Han Solo and Leia Argan.
Now, all of these details about Mara Jade come from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Disney ruled that all such stories (now reprinted under the Legends banner) are no longer canon. However, Jade was featured in prolific author Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy Grand Admiral Thrawn himself was re-introduced into the canon thanks to Star Wars Rebels and Ahsoka. Jade’s dream could also be re-introduced, but how the hell is that going to solve the problem with Luke Skywalker’s portrayal in The Last Jedi?
As Mara Jade fixes Luke
In the old EU stories, Mara Jade was the love of Luke Skywalker’s life, and he was understandably traumatized by her death… so traumatized that he went on a quest for revenge and ended up killing the wrong person. Like Luke Skywalker’s The Last Jedithese actions (basically the whole hunting and brutally murdering someone as revenge) seemed out of character for the Luke we know and love, but they were motivated by grief and loss. And if Disney wanted to bring Mara Jade into the modern canon and basically mirror her storyline in the EU, her eventual death would help explain why Luke became a grumpy sad sack later on.
This will require some finesse. Jade’s dream should be entered into the post-Return of the Jedi era of Mandalorian and other shows to reasonably explain how she would meet Luke, fall in love, and die before the events The Last Jedi. Disney would have to either recast the younger actor as Luke for the live-action show or create an animated series to Mark Hamill just Luke’s voice. Finally, they will have to (like the EU writers before them) accept that the Jedi of this new era can fall in love and marry without falling to the Dark Side.
It’s clear that Disney has a lot going for it to do justice to Marie Jade’s story, but at this point, the studio giant has almost nothing to lose. A Mara Jade-centric show will appeal to old-school fans who don’t like those kinds of shows Acolyte even if it softens the much-hated image of Luke Skywalker in the Sequel Trilogy. And with Disney canceling projects right and left and abandoning projects that will finally see the light of day, the return of Marie Jade might be the one thing that can bring back something else: our shared passion for Star Wars
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