Without the heroics of Rogue One, Luke Skywalker’s famous trench run in A New Hope would not have been possible.
Long before the Rebel Alliance blindsided Darth Vader and the Empire, Jyn Erso staged a mini-rebellion of her own, as she led a tight-knit crew of fighters toward Scarif, the tropical planet tucked away under the looming shadow of the original Death Star.
Their mission was a resounding success, too, as Leia Organa was handed blueprints that would later be used to identify a chip in the Death Star’s armor – the thermal exhaust port, to be specific, which circles back to our original reference to Luke’s daring trench run.
Drawing attention to that connective tissue is a new Star Wars comic. Drawn up by Kieron Gillen, Salvador Larocca and Guru-eFX, its story unfolds shortly after A New Hope, where Luke, Han and Leia begin to sense a resurgent Empire. Not only that, it also reveals the moment when Luke caught wind of the doomed Rogue One mission:
Meanwhile, as The Last Jedi continues to receive a staggering amount of flak and criticism, frequent Rian Johnson collaborator Joesph Gordon-Levitt, who actually held a small cameo role in the sequel, has published a long-form piece defending Luke’s characterization, and it’s a pretty interesting read:
A flawed main character is one of the main distinctions between a story with substance and a gratuitous spectacle. It’s often through a character overcoming their flaws that a movie can really say something. Yes, when the movie begins, Luke has grown cynical. He’s lost faith in what it means to be a Jedi. He’s let fear of the Dark Side of the Force corner him into isolation and inaction. But he needs to start there, so that he can overcome this grave deficit.
Now at $1.26 billion and counting, The Last Jedi continues to fly the flag for Lucasfilm’s beloved franchise, and it’ll take some time before its hold on the global box office begins to wane. Meanwhile, up next for that far-away galaxy is the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, and it’s reportedly faring pretty well in test screenings. Expect the finished product to arrive on May 25th.