'Last Jedi' Novelization Reboots Luke Skywalker's First Girlfriend

If you’re wondering how different The Last Jedi novelization is from the film, all you have to do is read the first line: “Luke Skywalker stood in the cooling sands of Tatooine, his wife by his side.” WHAAAAT??

Spoilers ahead for The Last Jedi novelization.

On Tuesday, Jason Fry’s novelization of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was published by Del Rey Books. And, as promised by Rian Johnson, there are significant additions and alterations to the plot of the film which it adapts. And the first big one is Luke Skywalker’s dream of an alternate universe, one in which he never left Tatooine. In this vision, Luke imagines himself married to a woman named Camie. But who is Camie?

In several deleted scenes from the original Star Wars film — retroactively called Episode IV: A New Hope — George Lucas created a subtle second love interest for Luke Skywalker; Camie. Remember the Toche Station where Luke wanted to go pick up some power converters? Yep, turns out that’s where Camie hung out, a lot.

Camie was played by actress Koo Stark and the character popped-up in a fair amount of non-canonical Star Wars stuff prior to the big Disney takeover. Notably, the NPR radio adaption of Star Wars features Luke bursting into the Toche Station, and telling Biggs, Camie and a guy named “Fixer” that he’s seen a huge space battle in orbit of Tatooine on his macrobinoculars. This detail also makes it into the prologue of The Last Jedi, insofar as Luke dreams of the events going differently. In Luke’s dream, no one believes him, and he doesn’t get jazzed about going to fight the Empire.

It’s fairly common knowledge these scenes were filmed for A New Hope, but because they were deleted it’s been unclear for a while if Camie’s existence “counts.” And other than a passing mention in the 2015 YA novel The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy, Camie hasn’t been actually seen in “real” Star Wars canon, well, pretty much ever. Ironically, this is still the case. Because Luke’s dream is of an alternate life, one in which he married Camie and stayed on Tatooine, the dream-Camie on these pages is similarly just as vaporous as Koo Stark’s deleted scenes.

The prologue also adds another tragic layer on to the isolation of Luke Skywalker. This guy is so depressed about how things turned out in his life, that he’s sleeping alone on Ahch-to, dreaming about a life where he stayed a farm boy forever, and married someone who was forgotten to the sands of time.

The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition is out now from bookseller everywhere in hardcover and e-book formats.