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Various Star Wars books and the dialogue of the sequel trilogy have provided a broad outline of Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) journeys after Return of the Jedi: He researched the fallen Jedi Order and started a school that was destined to fail. Luke’s appearance on The Book of Boba Fett, however, provides the first detailed look at what he built. Episode 6, “From the Desert Comes a Stranger,” spent a great deal of time at the secret location of Luke’s new temple showing his approach to Grogu’s training.
Plenty of mysteries remain about the Jedi Order between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, and hopefully, Disney plans to tell more stories about it. But this Jedi-focused episode of The Book of Boba Fett offers a great first look at Luke’s approach to training Padawans and how it compares to the old Jedi Order
Luke Has Made Significant Progress In Recovering Jedi History
After the death of the Emperor and a brief period of mopping up Imperial remnants, Luke took his sister, Leia (Carrie Fisher), as his first apprentice. At the end of her training, she decided to follow another path, shaking Luke’s confidence in his teaching abilities. So, he began exploring sacred Jedi locations and recovering texts and artifacts in order to make sure he was staying true to the essence of the Jedi.
In Chapter 6 of The Book of Boba Fett, construction has begun on what Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) says will one day be a great school. Luke’s confidence in starting the new Jedi Academy demonstrates his success at recovering Jedi history. He even managed to collect one of Master Yoda’s lightsabers, an artifact that was thought to be lost.
The New Jedi Order Has An Excellent Teacher At The Helm
Only a short time passes between Luke Skywalker’s rescue of Grogu in The Mandalorian and the training scenes in The Book of Boba Fett. In that short time, though, Grogu has made great progress. His abilities were always powerful, but he lacked control and endurance when wielding the Force. Luke was up to guiding the powerful Padawan, demonstrating a mastery of the Force on par with Jedi from the High Republic era. He quickly becomes proficient, leaping around and dodging attacks from a training remote. He’s already beginning to move like Master Yoda.
Luke expresses doubt to Ahsoka about how much of Grogu’s progress results from his teaching and how much is simply remembering his days in the Temple, but he gives himself too little credit. The episode shows Luke pushing Grogu past his limits when he knows the Padawan is capable of more, while also offering compassion and gentleness when Grogu needs it. Grogu’s rapid progress from barely walking to leaping across a stream and destroying a training remote with telekinesis isn’t the product of mere memory; It’s the result of a gifted teacher bringing the best out of his student. Future Padawans will certainly benefit from Luke’s abilities.
The New Jedi Order Includes The Best Of What Luke Learned From Obi-Wan And Yoda
Luke’s training sessions with Grogu look nearly identical to the time he spent on Dagobah with Master Yoda (Frank Oz). His daily run, lifting objects with the Force, meditating and teaching Grogu to balance physically and spiritually all hearken back to Luke’s own training. He directly shares Yoda’s teachings in some instances and in others, the echoes of Yoda’s words can be heard in Luke’s own phrasing.
Yoda and Obi-Wan (Alec Guinness) did an excellent job shaping Luke. In a moment when all hope was lost, they were able to equip the brash kid to face down the greatest enemy any of them had ever known. Luke certainly clashed with his Masters at times, but in spite of their flaws, they shaped him into a good person and a great Jedi. Luke may have a low view of his own abilities as a teacher, but it’s good to see that he has great confidence in the teachings that made him who he is.
The New Jedi Order Also Includes More Rigid Aspects From Jedi History
For better or for worse, Luke’s recovery of Jedi teaching has also reintroduced some of the more rigid approaches to training Padawans. The clearest example of this is opposition to attachment. Luke considers Grogu’s connection to the Mandalorian a threat to his ability to become a successful Jedi. In the end, he forces Grogu to choose between the Jedi Way and his relationship with Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), resulting in Grogu’s exit from the school. At first glance, this seems out of character for Luke. He never forsook his friends in order to train in the ways of the Jedi, so why does he ask this of Grogu?
It’s the result of events that shook his confidence and events that taught him, for better or for worse, that attachments are dangerous. Leia chose not to move into full Jedi Knighthood because of her attachment to her future child, and Luke considered her decision a failure on his part. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke’s worry about his friends led him to abandon training in order to stage a rescue that resulted in his defeat, a lost friend, and a lost limb. In Return of the Jedi, Sidious (Ian McDiarmid) used Luke’s friends to provoke him to attempt to kill the Emperor, and just a few minutes later, Vader used his attachment to his sister to drive him into a murderous rage. It’s easy to view all of this optimistically because everything worked out and Luke reigned himself in. But Luke viewed these things as failures, and his return to the no attachment rule is an attempt to protect his students from those failures.
In spite of Luke’s own attachment saving his father, he reintroduces some of the old Jedi dogma, clamping down out of fear for his students. This ultimately plays a role in the fall of his school as Ben Solo’s (Adam Driver) isolation renders him susceptible to Snoke’s (Andy Serkis) manipulation. As Yoda later admonishes him, it was good that he passed on the great elements of his training, but he should also have taught from the failure of the Jedi Order. Grogu is simply the first Padawan to pay the price for this return to rigidity.
Luke Is Stretched Too Thin
It’s a big galaxy and rebuilding the Jedi Order is a big job. Sidious nearly succeeded in erasing the entirety of their existence from the cosmos. Luke has been traveling all over the galaxy, exploring, studying ancient texts, and compiling those texts into his own teachings, to make no mention of the time spent intervening as a Jedi Knight to help those in need. On top of that, the scenes from The Book of Boba Fett make it look like his tutelage of Grogu is a nearly constant job. When Din Djarin comes to visit, he has to wait for hours before he can even get an audience with someone.
Perhaps Luke wasn’t ready for this step yet, but when would he be? The task of restoring the Jedi can only come through initiating others into the Way of the Jedi. That’s a job that only Luke is equipped to do, and it is also a job too big for one person. Ahsoka lends a helping hand, but she only visits, still unwilling to recommit to the Order that deeply wounded her. Luke’s decision to send Grogu, a young creature who has already been hunted, back to Tatooine with only a droid to watch over him seems deeply irresponsible. But it also seems like Luke doesn’t have the time to do everything right. Unless this changes, the new Jedi Order will suffer.