This page contains unmarked spoilers about The Last Jedi. You Have Been Warned!
The Legends of Luke Skywalker is a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel by newcomer & several award-winning author Ken Liu (The Dandelion Dynasty, The Paper Menagerie). It was released as a part of the multimedia promotional project, Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
As a cargo ship rockets across the galaxy to Canto Bight, the deckhands on board trade stories about legendary Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. But are the stories of iconic and mysterious Luke Skywalker true, or merely tall tales passed from one corner of the galaxy to another? Is Skywalker really a famous Jedi hero, an elaborate charlatan, or even part droid? The deckhands will have to decide for themselves when they hear the Legends of Luke Skywalker.
It was released on October 31st, 2017.
Tropes in this book include:
- Affectionate Parody: Redy, with her persistent "scientific" analysis of major plot points and constantly poking holes in Rebel Alliance stories, seems to be a light-hearted jab at Star Wars fans who critique the plot holes and science of the movies.
- Agent Scully: Lugubrius Mote, the Mole Flea of Kowak who aids Leia and Luke against Jabba, is an ardent skeptic of anything mystical, and possesses a "seeing is believing" mentality that leads her to dismiss The Force outright.
- All There in the Manual: The book explains how the legend of Luke spread in the Galaxy after his Heroic Sacrifice at the end of The Last Jedi, when the kids of Canto Bight's fathier stables are reenacting his exploits with makeshift toys.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: Downplayed in "The Myth Buster". Luke, in disguise as just another patron, doesn't actually contradict anything Redy says, just mentions that she's being a bit unfair on points.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Redy, the first story's titular "Myth Buster". Before launching into her version of the origin of Luke Skywalker (a.k.a. Luke Clodplodder) she warms them up with her discovery that Admiral Ackbar is a remote-operated droid.
- Doing In the Wizard: Downplayed in that the Force is very much real, but Luke's legend has grown far beyond what he is actually capable of, and so some of the wildest stories were much more mundane. The story about his shooting down Star Destroyers with Force lightning was just an Imperial technician hallucinating, and him leading the Church Of The Force across a lake of fire (actually molten glass) was done by jury-rigged insulated boats.
- Everyone Has Standards: Redy might be a dyed in the wool Conspiracy Theorist, but even she refuses to deny the genocide of Alderaan. She doesn't believe that the Death Star did it, rather that it was a less flashy bombing, but she also doesn't deny that it happened and that it was one of the worst crimes the Empire committed.
- Foreshadowing: In the third story, an elder Lew'elan quips to Luke: "I can only wish that someday you'll also be pestered by a student as persistent to learn what you do not wish to teach". Years later, Luke would meet such a student, Rey.
- Living Legend: Luke Skywalker, as you'd expect. He actually makes use of it in "The Starship Graveyard", when he convinces a bunch of scavengers to follow him to safety by revealing who he is.
- Meme Acknowledgement: Redy recounting the events of A New Hope from her perspective makes mention of several memes, such as her finding it a plot hole that the Death Star had a weakness, or claiming that Han was the sort of rogue who would shoot first and the Rebel Alliance retconned him into a Lovable Rogue.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Hutts are mostly known throughout the galaxy for being gang leaders, criminals, and slavers. Teal escaped her own slavers because a kindly Hutt mechanic helped her stow away on a mining transport.
- Precocious Crush: Aya develops one for Luke.
- Self-Deprecation: Redy's story says that the narrative the Rebel Alliance cooked up (i.e. the plot of A New Hope) sounds too hackneyed and cliched to have actually happened, and names actual examples of dated special effects (Alderaan's destruction changing between editions, Ackbar's mouth not fitting his speech, the Death Star being a model) as "proof" those videos were faked. Luke finds it hilarious.
- Unreliable Narrator: The entire premise of the book is that, except for the framing story, everything you're about to read is second-hand rumors at best.
