I didn't used to like Luke Skywalker. In A New Hope he was portrayed as very whiney and he had an annoying voice.
In Empire Strikes Back he was much cooler, but he ruined it with the "that's impossible!" line when Vader reveals he is Luke's father. He sounded so whiney and pathetic in that scene. To this day it is still hard for me to watch. My brothers and I still spout out the line in our most Hamillesque screech whenever we don't believe something.
In Return of the Jedi Luke pretty much redeems himself. He is calm and cool throughout the movie. No whining, no screeching. I liked him a little more, but I couldn't get past that awful hairdo he was sporting. Luke just wasn't that cool in the movies. Han was the cool character.

Then in 1999 I was introduced to the EU. Luke is cool in the EU. Very cool. His confidence has grown, and he learns fast. Luke can throw his saber to take out multiple enemies at once. He can mask his presence so he is virtually invisible. He can take on whatever is thrown at him, including a clone of himself and a reborn Emperor. He goes to the Dark Side and back and looks cool doing it.

He doesn't kiss his sister in the EU. Instead he hooks up with such hotties as Gaeriel Captison, Callista, and Mara Jade.

Luke singlehandedly brings the Jedi Order from one to hundreds. He is truly the Master and proves it on more than one occasion. The EU took Luke Skywalker and made him everything I wanted him to be in the movies. It also made me appreciate the movie version of Luke that much more, appreciate what he came from to become what he is in the New Republic and New Jedi Order. He was just a farmboy who had the weight of the entire galaxy placed on his shoulders. He became a Rebel when being a Rebel was a death sentence. He became a Jedi and a new hope. So he was a little whiney, so what. How would you react if that pressure was put on you, if you found out your dad wasn't the hero Obi-wan said he was, but a traitor that exterminated the Jedi and was the second most evil man in the galaxy?

I now love Luke. In the movies we get a Jedi in training. In the EU we get the Jedi Master.



Aa-Ron Jinn
JediDirectory.com