Poor Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru... Oh Well!

[Albertese]

So, I'm writing a novel right now. It starts out with the main character's home city being destroyed in a war and he and the old man who knew his father go off on a mission...

Okay, so, really there's much more to it than that, but I don't want to give it away... the point is that I'm finding myself writing a lot about how the loss of his home and family are affecting him.

It occurred to me that this isn't so dissimilar from Luke Skywalker finding Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru skeletonized by Imperial troops and going off on a mission with Obi-Wan...

But this got me thinking.... Does Luke give a damn? He looks off to the side in a moment of angst when he finds the bodies at the homestead, but does he ever talk about them again? He's a pretty happy go-lucky guy, casually arranging to sell his car to buy tickets with a pirate, asking about red flashing lights, playing with lightsaber drones, chatting about womp rats back home. I could go on...

But his freakin' parents just died! I mean, not by blood, but this couple raised Luke and loved him and he loved them and they were in all respects his proxy parents. Beru was the mother he knew, even if he always called her "aunt" and not "mom."

Shouldn't he be a bit more, I dunno, grieved? I don't know how many times I've seen this movie since I was a tiny little boy, probably hundreds, but somehow this occurred to me only recently. I can't be the only one who noticed this.

--Alex

 

[wissaboo]

yeah, good point.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Luke's on a quest to follow in his father's footsteps, one which he had been blocked from pursuing by his uncle.

Even so, he rushed home into danger to try to save his aunt and uncle. Instead of curling up into a ball upon finding their remains, Luke was filled with determination to set out on the quest he had always dreamed of. Keep in mind, Luke also realizes that he is now marked for death by the Empire, like his aunt and uncle.

Luke's choices seem to follow plausibly from clear motivations of his character, not only on their own merits but especially in the context of the fantasy genre.

 

[Albertese]

Luke's on a quest to follow in his father's footsteps, one which he had been blocked from pursuing by his uncle.

I get the impression that, while Uncle Owen is indeed blocking such a quest, he's doing such a good job of blocking it that Luke has no idea that his old man was anything but a navigator on a spice freighter.

Even so, he rushed home into danger to try to save his aunt and uncle. Instead of curling up into a ball upon finding their remains, Luke was filled with determination to set out on the quest he had always dreamed of. Keep in mind, Luke also realizes that he is now marked for death by the Empire, like his aunt and uncle.

True to a point. This isn't the quest he always dreamed of, though. In the next episode, Yoda basically brands him as an irresponsible daydreamer, so we can assume he was imagining very exciting adventures, no doubt because he sees his own existence as dull and useless. He whines to C-3PO about how remote Tatooine is and then gets really excited about hearing about the rebellion. His fantasy is to fight against the evil Empire but he has no real hope of actually doing so, as the reality of the harvest (!?) always seems to be in the way. He doesn't at first even believe Ben about his father having been a Jedi. He is only convinced by the fact that the kooky but kindly old man seems to know stuff and gives him an old lightsaber which allegedly belonged to his father, and then his family turns up extra crispy after he realizes that something might be up with the droids. Yes, he has to escape the Imperial deathmark so running to Alderaan with Ben seems as good an idea as any, and he's certainly swept up by the possibility that his father was a Jedi, and an important General in the Clone Wars. But this is all news to him revealed during the movie, not some long held intrinsic belief that he's always had.

Luke's choices seem to follow plausibly from clear motivations of his character, not only on their own merits but especially in the context of the fantasy genre.

I don't disagree with this, really. I just think he ought to be a little more torn up about Owen and Beru.

I'm just saying!

--Alex

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yes, absolutely right.

 

[Anwar]

He was more upset over what happened to Ben, a guy he barely knew, than the folks who raised him!

Then again, Leia didn't seem too shaken up by her world being blown up either.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

You could say that Luke should me torn up, but it's rare to see as much character development in today's films...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

After his initial shock he was thinking, "I never have to farm moisture again!!"

And that's why he was such an excitable boy in everything that followed.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Star Wars is not exactly known for its depth of characterization-- nor is George Lucas known for his depth or insight. The death of the aunt and uncle free Luke up to go off on a big adventure where things blow up; they are never mentioned or thought of again. Leia is both tortured and forced to watch her entire planet of billions of people incinerated, and it has no long-term effect on her. In the prequels, her mother is actually turned on when Darth Skywalker commits genocide.

Thinking about the SW characters as if they were real people is just creepy. It's best to just sit back and watch the explosions.

 

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, the deaths of people seems to be no big deal in SW universe. Luke could also just be a sociopath.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Well look at his father..

Though really Anakin was very upset about his mom.

 

[JoeZhang]

Uncle Owen had a deathwish anyway, he was wandering around wearing the paraphernalia of an illegal outlawed paramilitary organisation connected with terrorism - I suspect they shot him on sight because of that and it had nothing to do with the Droid search.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Obviously the Force confers something akin to the British stiff-upper-lip (as lampooned in Carry on up the Khyber).

 

[Dream]

If you guys watched the SW film "TROOPS", you'll see that Owen and Beru were trash!

 

[lurok]

Didn't Family Guy cover this?

First time I saw SW, I did find the charred bodies a bit: woah there, George!

 

[Icemizer]

You make a pretty big assumption that Luke actually liked these people. Maybe he hated them. Maybe he was glad they were dead and that he could get off that ball of dust.

 

[Sephiroth]

just cause Luke wasn't a whiny bitch the whole trilogy (given his father it could have been genetic) about their deaths doesn't mean he wasn't affected by them. More than likely their deaths just strengthened his resolve. And as for Leia and Alderan, One death may be a tragedy, but a billion are just a statistic.

 

[RoJoHen]

And as for Leia and Alderan, One death may be a tragedy, but a billion are just a statistic.

Maybe, but you'd think she might have had some friends or family down on the planet.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Yeah, the deaths of people seems to be no big deal in SW universe. Luke could also just be a sociopath.

He is at least a mass murderer and war criminal. The deaths of the people on the Death Star are on his hands.

 

[Kelthaz]

Shouldn't he be a bit more, I dunno, grieved? I don't know how many times I've seen this movie since I was a tiny little boy, probably hundreds, but somehow this occurred to me only recently. I can't be the only one who noticed this.

In reality? Yes. However, having him grieve and be all mopey would have ruined the film. Nobody wants to watch some guy we don't know grieve over two people we know even less. Luke grieved more over Ben because we, as in the audience, knew Ben.