Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker revealed that Leia spent some time training to become a Jedi, but a vision of her son's death meant she gave that up (it's hard not to wonder whether that's something Emperor Palpatine was responsible for).
Now, an officially released excerpt from the movie's novelization sheds some light on the time she spent being trained by her brother, Luke.
It notes that Luke was disappointed with his sister's decision to stop training, but understood her thinking and, as Leia tells Rey, "held out hope that I’d return to it someday."
"Leia had trained right here, in this very spot. She reached out and touched the tree trunk reverently. A large bole of bark had formed around an old wound. It was almost sealed shut.
Leia had been the one to damage the tree. She’d swung for Luke with her lightsaber and missed, slashing into the tree trunk instead. This tree had been healing itself for more than two decades.
Oh, Luke, I hope I’m doing this right, she thought. Leia was no Jedi Master, but she had learned from the best. And not just from Luke; over the years she’d occasionally heard the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi through the Force, and even more rarely, that of Yoda. Some days it had felt as though she’d learned from the Force itself. She was first and foremost a politician and a general, but she had accepted her Jedi legacy and embraced it as best she could."
It sounds like Luke enjoyed putting Leia through her paces too, as he utilised many of the same tricks that Yoda did when he travelled to Degobah and was trained by the ancient Jedi Master.
"Many years ago, not long after the Battle of Endor, she’d discovered the meditative power of sound. She and Luke had stolen away for some training, and somehow she’d ended up standing on her hands while Luke slung good-natured taunts her way. Even with help from the Force, her shoulders had started to burn, her arms wobble. They’d already spent the last hour sparring with their lightsabers, and her body was exhausted.
'You know,' Luke had said, his voice smug, 'when I did this on Dagobah, Yoda was sitting on my feet.'
He said that a lot back then. When I did this on Dagobah...It was obnoxious and completely unhelpful. So Leia reminded him, 'You’re being obnoxious and completely unhelpful.'
'I also did it one-handed,' he added
He was trying to provoke her, to teach her a lesson about anger and impatience, and all that nonsense. Luke had forgotten that his student was a superb strategist who’d already benefited from a royal education. Leia would not be provoked."
How great would this have been to see on screen?
Later, Leia recalls how Luke told her she would help him become a better teacher, and it sounds like the time they spent together prepared him to open the Jedi Academy ultimately destroyed by Emperor Palpatine/Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren. Luke told his sister that her footwork was "terrible," but her skills with a lightsaber were impressive and she had strong connections to the Force.
There's a lot of time between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens which still hasn't been explored, so we can only hope that a future series, comic book, or novel does so.
What do you guys think about these latest reveals?
Hit the "Next" button below to check out some amazing new
behind the scenes images from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker!
The Rise of Skywalker's final act was pretty murky from a visual standpoint, so we never really got a proper look at Emperor Palpatine. Well, thanks to this behind the scenes photo, we finally get to see the black and red robe the villain donned.
Honestly, it's a real shame he never saw action because watching him take on Rey and Ben Solo in a lightsaber battle definitely would have served as a far more epic finale in this film.
The new trilogy made good use of flashbacks to fill in some gaps, and this awesome (albeit brief) sequence showed Luke training Leia with a lightsaber.
She ultimately managed to get the best of her brother, but Luke revealed to Rey that she only gave up her training because she had a vision that her becoming a Jedi would result in her son's death...the son who died, anyway!
In the final few minutes of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey revealed her brand new yellow bladed lightsaber. Created from the remnants of her staff, it made for a cool visual.
We don't know where that Kyber crystal came from, so that's a story that could be told somewhere down the line, but the novelisation revealed that Rey was considering turning her new lightsaber into a double-bladed one.
While Rey and Ben Solo were battling Emperor Palpatine, Finn and the Rest of the Resistance were taking the fight to the Final Order atop one of the villain's new Star Destroyers.
This set photo shows just how much of that was built for real, and it definitely makes for an impressive sight. It also proves that J.J. Abrams still wanted to do as much as he could in
The Rise of Skywalker with practical effects and sets.
Ian McDiarmid may be quite a bit older now than when he first played Emperor Palpatine, but a lot of make-up effects were still needed to transform him into the iconic villain.
According to the novelisation of the film, this version of Palpatine was indeed a clone inhabited by the spirit of the Emperor who was thrown into the heart of the Death Star II by Darth Vader.
We're betting you would have never guessed this massive creature was brought to life with practical effects, right? That's definitely impressive, but this scene wasn't really that great.
It was shoehorned into the movie to show that Rey had the ability to use the Force to heal others, something which we'd later see her do in order to save Kylo Ren. In the fact act, the redeemed Ben Solo did the same thing to bring her back from the dead.
Fans were hoping that Luke Skywalker would have a larger role in the proceedings than he actually did, but his return as a Force Ghost at least went some way towards redeeming him in the eyes of fans.
Sure, it didn't really make sense that his attitude had completely changed since the events of
The Last Jedi, but at least we got to see more of Mark Hamill back as the beloved Jedi Knight.
Emperor Palpatine's throne was definitely impressive, but his return to this Galaxy Far, Far Away has divided fans on the franchise (mostly because of the way it was handled).
Recent reveals from the aforementioned novelisation haven't helped, especially as we've since learned that Rey's father was actually just a failed, powerless clone, thereby making Palpatine her father and grandfather.
Seeing how Kylo Ren's entire TIE Fighter was built for this scene (and then set on fire) is impressive, and it can't have been an easy practical effect to pull off, especially with the actors so close.
Of course, a highlight of this sequence was seeing the Porgs return. Sadly, we still don't know what became of the one that decided to call the Millennium Falcon its new home!
At the end of
The Rise of Skywalker, Rey arrived on Tatooine to bury the lightsabers that once belonged to Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa. While she used the Force to push them deep underground, will they one day return?
That would certainly make for an interesting story, but now there are no Skywalkers left in the Galaxy, perhaps it will be a Palpatine who ends up retrieving them?