This Star Wars Force Ghost Cosplay Is Brilliant

With the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker earlier this month, the saga’s “sequel trilogy” has officially come to a close. Over the course of three films, the Star Wars world has gotten some major revelations and updates, particularly when it comes to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Months before The Rise of Skywalker made its debut, one clever fan summed up Luke’s current status in the universe in a pretty epic way. A cosplay from this year’s Star Wars Celebration Chicago recently resurfaced online, which places Luke Skywalker under blue netting, making him look like a Force ghost.

Given how things fared for Luke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, it was safe to assume that any appearance of him in The Rise of Skywalker would be as a Force ghost. Still, Luke’s main scene in the film – in which he offers a piece of advice to Rey (Daisy Ridley) – is certainly an impactful one. And while the “original trilogy” characters might not have played the overall role that some fans had expected, some behind the franchise have tried to justify that.

“It certainly could have been their story,” The Rise of Skywalker director JJ Abrams said in an interview last month. “But it felt like the way to use them was to be in support of a new story. The great thing about Star Wars fans is they care so much. And even those who are the most cynical or the most negative are still people who, for the most part, embrace what’s being done, even just as fodder for debate. All I can say is that the main characters in this trilogy felt naturally connected to those characters that came before.”

“The idea was to continue the story and to begin with this young woman who felt like Luke Skywalker was a myth,” Abrams continued. “And to tell a story that was not just history repeating itself, but a story that embraced the movies that we know as the actual history of this galaxy. So that they are still living in a place where there is good versus evil, they’re still living in the shadow of what has come before, still grappling with the sins of the father and the people who have preceded them. This was not about a nostalgia play. It felt, to me, like a way of saying, ‘Let’s go back to a Star Wars that we know, so we can tell another story.’”

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in theaters now.