Was Luke Skywalker planning to leave Ahch-To?

The planet Ach-To is where Rey finds Luke at the end of Episode 7 The Force Awakens. The planet is remote and apparently far away from the main hub of the galaxy in the Star Wars Universe. It might be the location of the first Jedi Temple and it is apparently where Luke has been hiding since Ben Solo fell to the dark side and became Kylo Ren. The major question and mystery is why Luke decided to go into seclusion. Having your nephew fall to the dark side and more than likely murder all of the current trainees would be devastating, but would it be enough to drive him away indefinitely? Is Luke on the island because he feels he failed the galaxy and can’t help anymore? Was he looking for a way to fight Snoke and Kylo? Episode Eight The Last Jedi will answer these questions, but why not speculate, because that’s fun too.

Let’s first discuss if Luke knows what is going on in the rest of the galaxy. If Snoke felt an awakening in the force with Rey, I am assuming Luke felt the same thing. I know J.J Abrams gave an excuse about how BB-8 coxed R2-D2 out of dormant status, but I still think Luke had something to do with it. It just makes sense in the story for Luke to have felt the awakening of a powerful Jedi and know he would need to be found. He wanted to ensure he could be found, and left a portion with Lor San Tekka and the other with R2. The other question would be as to why Lor San Tekka was on Jakku. It could either be because he knew Jakku was important and discovered Rey or knew she was there and wanted to protect her. Luke could also have been in contact with Lor San Tekka since he had the map. Luke may have wanted to keep up to date on some of the issues which were happening in the galaxy.

The question if Luke was going to leave the planet is in regards to the destruction of Hosnian Prime. He would have felt the massive loss of life on the planet, and this might have forced his hand. This is one reason I was expecting Luke to show up on Starkiller Base during the final confrontation. He felt the loss of life and might have wanted to come back to the galaxy to protect it. This only makes sense for the type of character Luke is, unless the loss of all of his trainees affected him to an extreme. The other reason why he may have not left is he felt the Awakening of Rey. While he felt the destruction of Hosnian Prime he also felt her awaken within the force and knew she would be coming to him. Luke with the force can also see into the future and may have foreseen much of what happened. Luke could have learned from his past mistakes from rushing off to help, and instead practiced patience because he knew his interference would in the end not help. If this were not the case I think we will find Luke would have been on his way back to protect the galaxy.

 

The Last Jedi will show Luke knew Rey would awaken at some point and have to seek him out. I still think Luke is related to her in some fashion, but it doesn’t have to be the case for the story to work. The tweet from the official Star War account revealing the name of the film was phrased in a telling way. The tweet has the phrase: The next chapter in the Skywalker saga, which makes me think Rey is in some fashion a Skywalker. True the film is going to focus more on Luke, and Kylo is a Skywalker, but I still expect Rey to be related as well. Again for the story to work she doesn’t have to be, but I think they are setting it up for her to be related. If this is the case it opens up many questions as to why Luke abandoned Rey on Jakku, but I have faith enough in the story group for this to be addressed. Luke knew Rey was powerful, and did something to her to suppress her powers.  Then when she was old enough the Force would awaken in her and she would be forced to seek him out.  

The big question the The Last Jedi should answer is if Luke is hiding on Ahch-To because he feels he has let down the Galaxy, or because he knew he couldn’t fight Snoke when Kylo went to the dark side. This forced him to go into into hiding to bide his time. The conflict Luke should feel in the movie should be a focus point. He should question his actions and decisions and if they were right for the galaxy at large. This is one reason I still loved The Force Awakens, it opened up so many questions for the story going forward. It can be argued to many things were left unanswered in episode seven, but we knew there were going to be three movies to tell this particular story. Luke should have felt the pull to leave Ahch-To when the Hosnian system was blown up, the question is why didn’t he? There must be a reason and probably multiple ones as to why the Jedi Master went into hiding, and getting the answers to these questions is one of many reasons why I’m extremely excited for The Last Jedi.

Comment and let me know why you think Luke is hiding out on a remote planet and if you think he should have been planning to go back to the galaxy at large.