We grew up with this image of Luke Skywalker as poor, good-natured farm boy, at odds with the Empire- trying to save the galaxy. And it is totally false.
First, the kid's adopted parents are rich and spoiled the heck out of him. Consider the job. They are moisture farmers on a desert planet. Essentially, they produce the most needed part of life in an environment where it just can't be found. That has got to be worth something. Probably a lot.
Don't believe me? Look at the facts. Uncle Owen's father, Clegg Lars purchased a slave and subsequently married her. All other moral issues aside, that isn't cheap. Of course, I consider droids in Star Wars to be a slave race as well. Uncle Owen was purchasing a couple of those (R2 and 3PO) the day before he died. Also fairly expensive for a "in the moment" purchase. What was he going to do with an astromech droid anyway?
Luke has a landspeeder. His own flying car. Nice, right... and we can be sure it is his. He was absolutely going out "to Tosche Station to pick up power converters." Never did he have to ask to borrow the car. Droids are lost in the desert? No biggie, I'll just hop in my flying car and go looking.
So a teen with a car and likely very rich parents doesn't convince you? "I used to bulls-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home." Luke owned a jetfighter, namely a T-16 Skyhopper. A high end model with a LASER CANNON. Sure it was lightly armed, and was best for shooting six foot rats. Oh, and it could go about Mach 1 and fly out of the atmosphere. That's like buying your kid an armed helicopter. Maybe just a Cobra, but still.
Also, who goes out killing two meter womp rats for fun? That would be like driving around shooting cows and leaving them to rot.
Wait, if he had a chopper, why was he driving to find R2? Well, like a lot of spoiled rich kids, he wrecked the sports car. He was screwing around and wrecked it during a race. You see it parked in the garage in the background at the beginning of Episode IV.
So we have to admit he was spoiled. But at least he was always the good guy, right? Nope. Like dear old Daddy he was trying to join the Empire, not the Rebellion. He talks about joining the Academy and running away from the farm. The Rebellion doesn't have an Academy and he doesn't mean Hogwarts. He means the Imperial Academy. To become a pilot- because that's what his friends did.
He really goes with the flow, not really standing up for anything other than hanging out with his friends. (The kind of attachment not allowed a Jedi) They join the Imperial Academy, he wants to as well. Ben wants to save Leia, sure he will go. Blow up a moon-sized space station? If that's what you guys are doing. Sorry Yoda, I have to be done learning to be a Jedi now. My friends are calling.
I doubt he lost a minute of sleep after blowing up the Death Star. Imagine, you blow up one MILLION people. Even if 99% of them are bad people. Then you still killed ten thousand innocents. And really, it wasn't filled with Darth Vaders- just career military, contractors, janitors, hot dog vendors. No, Luke killed tens of thousands of innocent bystanders. To impress a girl.
That is a spoiled rich kid without a moral compass over-compensating if I ever heard it.
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