'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Almost Included Sith Ghosts

Now that Star Wars: The Last Jedi is in theaters, we're starting to hear more and more about what almost happened in the film, along with the discussion of what did happen. We've already heard a breakdown of some deleted scenes that were cut, and now we're hearing about one in particular that would've thrilled fans.

The Art of TLJ - Luke Sith Ghost 01(Alzmann) from StarWarsLeaks

The Reddit thread above is focusing in on a particular piece of concept art from The Last Jedi artwork book. It depicts Luke in his hut on Ahch-To, being haunted by a dark apparition: a Sith ghost.

An accompanying caption attributed to the book reads, "We've seen dead Jedi come back as blue ghosts. Maybe Sith can come back. And maybe there's some all powerful Sith that's controlling whatever the dark side is. We did talk a lot about how the final battle frontier for Jedi might be in the spirit realm. So you have to have a bad-guy ghost."

While some fans (like me) think this would've been a richly dark horror element in The Last Jedi, other fans are not so welcoming. The same Reddit thread is filled with Star Wars fans dropping comments like, "I really don't ever want to see this in canon," or pointing out that it logically wouldn't make any sense.

As it is pointed out, Sith are technically considered disturbances in The Force, elements of and therefore, it wouldn't necessarily make sense to have The Force still giving them "life" as Force ghosts, which is a power reserved for those who achieve great tranquility and peace in their studies of The Force. The Sith often try to steal immortality for themselves out of feelings of greed and sefishness, which is why it would be contradictory for their folly to be rewarded with that same immortality. Rian Johnson himself said as much, in a recent interview:

"We haven't seen them in the movies as far as I can remember. But that would be really interesting considering the dark side is about self-preservation, trying to find immortality, and the notion that the light side actually got to it through selflessness — what would the dark side version of that look like? There's so much cool [stuff] to think about if you're willing to open your head a little bit!"

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now in theaters.