In 2015 Luke Skywalker was a huge hero. But in 2017, he became a giant asshole. So what happens when you blend the ending of The Force Awakens with the beginning of The Last Jedi? Last week, one Star Wars fan made both scenes look totally ridiculous. And now, you’ll never watch either of these iconic scenes the same way.
On March 14, Jacob Martin posted his clever Star Wars fan edit to Twitter. In it, the dramatic and mysterious ending of The Force Awakens is seamlessly blended with the rest of that same scene in The Last Jedi. Instead of a two-year gap, only two seconds pass before we watch as Luke casually tosses his old family lightsaber over his shoulder. It’s a jarring mash-up, mostly because it kind of invalidates the drama of The Force Awakens and the twist of The Last Jedi scene simultaneously. In other words, both the cliff-hanger and its resolution are now rendered silly.
The mash-up video also plainly shows the radical tonal differences between the Rey and Luke we saw in The Force Awakens and how they act in The Last Jedi. In the former, Rey was standing far away, hopeful, on the verge of tears. In the revised scene, she’s standing closer, smiling slightly. It’s like Force Awakens Rey thinks Luke is her father, and Last Jedi Rey is waiting for the punchline she knows is coming.
Martin’s video also demonstrates something hardcore Star Wars fans have realized since 2015: nothing about the new films was even remotely planned out ahead of time. Rian Johnson told Inverse that Luke’s lightsaber toss was an “honest moment”, but does it match up? Regardless of your love or hate of The Last Jedi, these two scenes feel like they’re from totally different stories. Or at the very least that they are parodies of each other.
Future Star Wars fans will debate the merits of The Last Jedi long after we’ve all transformed into the Force. But, because J.J. Abrams is returning to complete the story he started with Force Awakens, could he be poised to “fix” all the story elements Johnson tossed over his shoulder?
J.J. Abrams has said he plans to unite the whole saga with Episode IX. If this fan video proves anything, that will be tough, at least tonally. Luke may be gone, but this flippant moment will always be with us.
