Read the Full StoryLuke Skywalker has gone from hero to MacGuffin.
Filmmaking aficionados know the term, popularized by Alfred Hitchcock, as being an object or mystery that drives the story – more Maltese Falcon than Millennium Falcon. It’s the thing the heroes are trying to find, or understand. It’s the puzzle they’re trying to unlock.
For any Luke Truthers out there, I can assure you: Mark Hamill is definitely in The Force Awakens. But the absence of his face in the trailers and the poster has vexed fans who are wondering: Where is the man once heralded as the last Jedi?
“No one forgot about him!” director J.J. Abrams promises. “We were hoping people would care, but there are a lot of things that are not on the poster, as busy as the poster is. Certainly Luke is a very important aspect of the story.”
That question, Where is Luke?, is one the movie is going to answer. So it can’t very well tell you up front.
