It was one of the biggest clues that Luke wasn’t really there.
Eagle-eyed fans quickly noticed the Jedi master was holding a blade that had supposedly been destroyed. That, combined with his darker youthful beard and the fact that he never scuffed up the planet’s salt surface to reveal red clay below, tipped many off that he wasn’t actually on Crait.
The rest of us were so dazzled by the anticipation of the big showdown we had all been waiting for, we didn’t click until the rather disappointing big reveal.
It’s just one of the moments that have divided fans and gives The Last Jedi a shockingly low audience rating on some sites.
At least Rian Johnson has finally explained what he was up to…
The director gave an exclusive interview to IGN.
He said: “[Luke] is basically tailoring this projection to have maximum effect on Kylo. He knows that Kylo’s Achilles heel is his rage, and so that’s why he kind of makes himself look younger, the way Kylo would’ve last seen him in their confrontation at the temple, and that’s why he decided to bring Kylo’s grandfather’s lightsaber down there – the lightsaber that Kylo screamed at Rey, ‘that’s mine, that belongs to me.’”
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It’s basically like the moment Ob-Wan Kenobi famously taunted Anakin about the “higher ground” during the duel on Mustafar.
And it wasn’t just Kylo’s rage that stopped him from realising Luke was using a lightsaber that had been apparently destroyed in front of his eyes just hours earlier. Fans have been frustrated that Kylo didn’t question why Luke was waving around a blade that had been shattered during the explosive battle with Rey and the Praetorian Guard.
Whether you like Johnson’s film making decisions or not, it is clear he has thought through each of his controversial scenes.
Johnson added: “We as an audience saw that. The truth is, we see the lightsaber split in half, Kylo sees a blinding flash of light and is knocked unconscious, and then Rey takes the lightsaber away before he wakes up.
“So if you really want to dig into it and get an explanation, you can say that he doesn’t 100 percent know what happened to the lightsaber.”
Will this be enough to win fans over to Johnson’s vision for Episode 8 and the trilogy beyond?