The Last Jedi: 15 things we know about the new Star Wars movie

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer (Official). Image courtesy of Disney/Lucasfilm.

7. Luke Skywalker isn’t going to the Dark Side

Luke Skywalker’s role in The Last Jedi is a perplexing one. What is clear from the trailers is that he will at least begin to mentor Rey, though Johnson has warned that their relationship won’t be like those we’ve seen before between student and master.

“There’s definitely an element of mentorship and training that happens between the two of them but it’s not an exact mirror of the training we’ve seen before,” Johnson told ABC News at Star Wars Celebration.

Well, Yoda lived and died by the Jedi Order, which Luke seems to want to end, for one. Luke’s past in the art of mentoring is also rather checkered with his last mentee, Kylo Ren, making a suitably dramatic turn to the Dark Side for reasons not yet known.

Luke has said in the trailers that he underestimated Kylo’s strength and he won’t make the same mistake again with Rey. Perhaps he’s taking a different approach in The Last Jedi.

As we mentioned earlier, there have also been rumors that Luke might go dark, particularly after Lucasfilm released IMAX posters with Luke on both the Light and Dark Side versions. 

However, whilst Mark Hamill said that he “fundamentally” disagreed with everything Johnson planned for him when he first read the script, he has assured us that Luke isn’t going dark.

“In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Luke has lost confidence in his ability to make good choices. It haunts him to the core,” Hamill explained to Disney Insider (as noted by Star Wars News Net and us right here on Culturess). “But he hasn’t gone to the dark side. This isn’t an evil version of him. But it’s still an incarnation of the character I never expected. It has pulled me out of my comfort zone. It’s a real challenge”

Luckily for Hamill, at this point we’re mostly just excited to hear him speak. We’ve waited long enough.