Where In The World Is Luke Skywalker At The Beginning Of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'?

The season has finally descended upon us, and I, for one, hardly know where to begin. It's hard to believe an entire year has come and gone since last season, which my sons and I celebrated with Big Macs and movie theater overpriced candy. That's right; Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now in theaters, almost exactly one year after Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrived last year. To prepare yourself for the new movie, it's probably a good idea to reacquaint yourself with some key plot points. Like where Luke is at the beginning of The Last Jedi, and what fans might expect to see... hopefully a heck of a lot more of him than we saw in The Force Awakens.

Warning: spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (although to be fair, guys, I feel like you had loads of time to see it already). As Star Wars fans remember from The Force Awakens, the new trilogy opens up with an ominous warning about Luke Skywalker, the one-handed Jedi master who basically saved the universe in Return Of The Jedi. Not quite singlehandedly, of course, he was aided by his sister, Leia Organa, his best friend Han Solo, and perhaps most importantly, his trusty droid R2-D2.

It seemed like it would be a pretty great life for him after he saved the universe, despite the whole thing about his dad dying, of course. But, as The Force Awakens opened, it seemed "Luke Skywalker has vanished.... "

This becomes the premise for the entire movie; both rebel and Republic fighters are on the hunt to find Skywalker. It seems he spent years trying to train Leia and Han Solo's son Ben, who I really hope was named after Ben Kenobi, but unfortunately failed in his teaching. Ben turned to the Dark Side, and became Kylo Ren, a more petulant version of his grandfather, Darth Vader, who has a tendency to throw menacing tantrums when he doesn't get his way.

So the whole world is looking for Skywalker, the very last Jedi, which was confirmed during an interview in The New York Times with The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson so we know for sure. No one can find him. Until a young, mysterious girl named Rey finds a droid, BB8, who carries one of the keys to unlocking the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker.

Sadly, Skywalker (played by the inimitable Mark Hammil) is only seen for about one minute at the very end of the film. It took a really long time to find him.

In the final scene of The Force Awakens, Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) arrives on a small, rocky island surrounded by water. She climbs to the top of a cliff via the longest staircase ever, I think, and finds a cloaked man standing alone.

It's Luke Skywalker.

This is where Skywalker is as The Last Jedi begins. Having had his dark solace interrupted by Rey, who herself is showing prominent signs of The Force, Skywalker is on his island. Along with several Porgs, adorable creatures that might remind you of the Ewoks from Return Of The Jedi. You'll probably be buying some for a kid in your life this holiday season.

Rey has returned Skywalker's iconic blue lightsaber to him, and now hopefully fans will get a few answers to questions that have been torturing them for the past year. Like who are Rey's parents? What has Skywalker been doing all this time, and how has he managed to keep his mechanical hand so shiny?

And most importantly... will he train Rey to be a Jedi? I mean, nobody likes to be the *last* of anything, do they?

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