Star Wars: The Force Awakens Concept Art Sees Luke With Darth Vader’s Helmet

Some new Star Wars: The Force Awakens concept art shows a moment that fans would’ve loved: Luke Skywalker’s reunion with the helmet of Darth Vader! The image was posted by concept artist and Lucasfilm art director, Christian Alzmann, with the caption that it was, “Very early concept for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Trying different ideas.” No mention of where, exactly, this scene would’ve fit into The Force Awakens’ story; however, it’s not hard to speculate. Given the very limited presence Luke Skywalker had in the first of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy films, it’s not too hard to surmise…

“Very early concept for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Trying different ideas.” —@Calzmann

The best (and most probable) guess is that this scene could’ve been part of the now infamous vision sequence that Rey (Daisy Ridley) experiences at Maz Kanata’s (Lupita Nyong’o) place. That sequence featured a scene of a similarly hooded Luke Skywalker giving those crucial coordinates to R2-D2 for his hideaway on Ahch-To – you know, those coordinates that turned out not to be crucial at all, since The Last Jedi revealed that Luke really didn’t want to be found, and basically did not give AF about the dark threat that the galaxy was facing. The dark threat that turned out to be a clone of a the threat Luke thought he stopped (this continuity really is a mess now, no?).

That’s all to say: an image like Luke cradling Darth Vader’s helmet while looking all dark, hooded, and part metal himself might’ve gone a long way to helping set the stage for the character’s arc in The Last Jedi. At least there would’ve been some foreshadow of Luke being tempted by the dark forces that corrupted his father, thereby helping to explain why his fear led him to turn on Ben Solo, and cause the dark destiny of Kylo Ren’s rise.

However, this has all become a consistent trend in the Star Wars franchise since The Rise of Skywalker ended that Skywalker Saga. Comic books, concept art, leaked alternate scripts – this seems to be where the fandom’s admiration and attention now lies, rather than celebration of the actual films we got. Thankfully, the next wave of Star Wars, The High Republic, will be entirely in book and comic form, to start, which could turn out to be a timely and refreshing start, given the quickly changing nature of social interaction and content consumption.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now streaming on Disney+.