Anakin and Luke Skywalker have a certain amount in common, particularly their beginnings, but they ultimately became totally different people as they followed divergent paths in life. A new Star Wars comic has revealed another contrast between the father and son, though, that we weren’t expecting to discover. In fact, it’s something about Luke that his dad would probably never be able to forgive. Get ready for it: Luke loves sand.
Anakin’s hatred of sand was revealed in Attack of the Clones, when the Jedi Padawan confesses to his future wife Padme Amidala, “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.” It’s gone down in history as one of the most widely-mocked scenes in the Prequel Trilogy and, for that reason, it isn’t a sequence we expected to see referenced in a modern day piece of Star Wars media.
But the recently released Star Wars #5, from Charles Soule, Jesus Saiz, Arif Prianto, Dan Brown and Clayton Cowles, does just that, flipping the sentiment of the scene in a hilarious and eye-opening way. Luke is pursuing a Jedi fugitive when he crashes into the sea of Serelia. As he and R2-D2 make it out of the water and discover some desert terrain, a relieved Luke remarks, “Whoa, good old sand. I ever tell you how much I like sand.”
Somewhere out there in the galaxy, Vader must’ve felt a shiver down his spine at this moment.
As well as being a fun wink to the fans, this is also indicative of a bigger difference between the two Skywalkers. As CBR points out, there’s a very good reason why one loves sand and the other hates it. Anakin faces his lowest moments in the sands of Tatooine, while Luke – who actually had a relatively happy childhood on the planet – always faces adversity when surrounded by the various forms of water (the iceworld of Hoth, the swamps of Dagobah, Cloud City, even Ahch-To).
Thanks to this revelation in Star Wars #5, on sale now, we finally know why Luke’s Force ghost is so approving when Rey buries his lightsaber on Tatooine in The Rise of Skywalker. He just loves sand!
