WARNING: Major SPOILERS For Star Wars: The Force Awakens Follow!
At the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mark Hamill returns as Luke Skywalker in a scene with Rey which provides few answers about what's next for the character now that his self imposed exile has been interuppted by someone who needs and wants to be taught the ways of the Force by him. However, it turns out that Michael Arndt's earlier drafts of the script gave the Jedi Knight a much more significant role in the new trilogy's opening chapter. "Early on I tried to write versions of the story where [Rey] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke," he explained following a screening of the movie. "And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass. It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012." Why then was the decision made to cut down Luke's role so significantly? "It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over. Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.’"
If that was a concern in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it's hard not to wonder how Episode VIII will handle Luke's involvement. Han Solo certainly didn't outshine Finn and Rey in this movie though, so providing Luke is given a supporting role, this shouldn't be too much of an issue. It was also revealed during this Q&A that before this instalment of the franchise became all about the hunt for Luke, other ideas thrown around to drive the plot forward were a search for the remains of Darth Vader and a quest to the underwater wreckage of the second Death Star to find a key piece of history about sacred Jed sites scattered throughout the Galaxy. As interesting as those ideas sound, I'd say they went in the right direction, wouldn't you? As always, share your thoughts below.
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