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- "Leia trusted me with her son. I took him, and a dozen students, and began a training temple. By the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising in him, it was too late."
- ―Luke Skywalker, to Rey
The Jedi Temple of Luke Skywalker, also known as Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy, Skywalker's Jedi academy, or simply the Jedi Academy, was a Jedi temple located on Ossus that was used by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to train a new generation of Jedi during the New Republic Era. Skywalker trained Grogu, Ben Solo, and many other students in and around the temple grounds. Following a confrontation between Skywalker and Solo, his apprentice and nephew, the temple was destroyed by Solo with a powerful lightning storm.
Description[]
- "There is no place in the galaxy more safe than here with Luke."
- ―Ahsoka Tano
Jedi Master Luke Skywalker's training temple consisted of a jar-shaped structure and several wooden huts. It was built on Ossus,[7] a location that was a secret known only among the Jedi Order.[11] These structures were destroyed by Ben Solo when he raged over his confrontation with Skywalker, causing a lightning storm to burn the temple and kill many of Skywalker's Jedi apprentices. The temple also had a designated area where starships, such as the Verity and the Grimtaash, could be stored.[6]
History[]
A Jedi's quest[]
- "And why exactly are we doing this?"
"Because in the lab in the heart of that base is something the Emperor stole a long time ago. We're taking it back." - ―Shara Bey and Luke Skywalker
After the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker was the last remaining Jedi Knight in the galaxy. Skywalker wished for his twin sister, Leia Organa, to become his first student in the ways of the Force.[11] He began training his sister on the moon of Ajan Kloss.[13] Organa proceeded to build her own lightsaber and even bested Luke in some of her sparring sessions. During her last training session, Organa had a vision of her unborn son, Ben Solo, dying at the end of her Jedi path. This vision sparked her choice to end her training,[14] though she also desired to continue serving the galaxy in ways she could not pursue while isolated in training.[11]
Skywalker discovers the entrance to Jocasta Nu's cache.
During the New Republic Era, Luke Skywalker traveled throughout the galaxy to research the original Jedi Order. Before Skywalker began a new era of Jedi, he wished to understand the Jedi Order's fragmented history and find answers to his questions. He spent years collecting and studying their ancient relics and texts, a quest made more difficult by the Galactic Empire's purge of the Jedi Order and its history.[11]
In an observatory on Pillio where Darth Sidious had hoarded such relics, Skywalker found a compass which contained a supraluminite lodestone attuned to hyperspace vectors.[11] He took it with him rather than let Inferno Squad agent Del Meeko destroy it along with the observatory as part of the Emperor's contingency plan, Operation: Cinder.[15] Lieutenant Shara Bey of the Rebel Alliance assisted Skywalker in recovering from Vetine two small uneti trees, the only remains of the Great Tree that once grew within the training ground of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.[12] Following the Battle of Jakku, Skywalker was committed to his long quest. He was assisted in his endeavors by the scholar and explorer Lor San Tekka. With San Tekka's help, along with key findings from his own studies of the spread of uneti saplings, Skywalker pieced together the location of the First Jedi Temple on Ahch-To. He did not, however, reveal this discovery.[11]
Building the temple[]
- "What is this place?"
"There's nothing now, but will someday be a great school. Grogu will be its first student." - ―Din Djarin and Ahsoka Tano
Ahsoka Tano and Din Djarin observe the early stages of the temple's construction.
Around 9 ABY,[1] Luke Skywalker took Grogu to[10] Ossus,[7] where he trained the foundling in the ways of the Force, and used many ant droids to begin construction on a round, stone building. During the construction, Din Djarin arrived to drop off a set of Beskar chainmail armor he'd had made for Grogu, and was lead to the temple's build site by R2-D2. After witnessing the ant droids at work, the Mandalorian fell asleep on a bench built for him by the droids. Djarin woke and found Ahsoka Tano watching over him. Reacquainted, Djarin asked Tano what was being built, she said it would be "a great school", with Grogu as its first student. Djarin then asked if he could see Grogu, and she led him to see the foundling training with Master Skywalker under a tree on a hill, but explained how seeing him would cause difficulties in Grogu's training. Djarin ultimately decided not to visit the the child, but passed off his gift for Tano to give to him instead.[10]
In his temple, Luke Skywalker ignites Yoda's former lightsaber, offering it to Grogu.
Skywalker continued to train Grogu in the forested areas near the temple, and the child made great progress in his abilities. Sometime later, inside the now completed temple structure, after pondering whether or not the foundling was truly interested in becoming a Jedi, Skywalker offered Grogu a choice. He could take the chainmail armor that Djarin brought for him and forfeit his training, returning to the Mandalorian, or he could take Jedi Master Yoda's former lightsaber, staying on the path of the Jedi with Skywalker and leaving behind his attachment to Djarin.[10] Grogu would decide to take the chain mail armor, leave Ossus, and return to Djarin as a Mandalorian foundling once more.[16]
A new generation[]
- "Although I had been able to train with two of the greatest Jedi Masters who ever lived, my lessons were learned in unorthodox ways while in the heat of battle against the Empire. When I began my own temple, I hoped to offer a more traditional path into the Jedi Order for my students."
- ―Luke Skywalker
Luke Skywalker founded the training temple for a new generation of Jedi.
Leia Organa, who had become a senator of the New Republic, realized her son was in danger from the mysterious dark side wielder Snoke.[18] Ben Solo was strong in the Force, but untrained, and his destructive outbursts led to many hushed conversations between Organa and his father, Han Solo.[19] In 15 ABY,[2] when Solo was ten years old,[13] Organa entrusted her son to his uncle in the hopes of keeping him in the light side as a Jedi.[8]
Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo journeyed together to collect Jedi history and artifacts,[11] with Solo taking a particular interest in ancient weaponry and dismissing other items as old junk. The items that Skywalker found were locked up at his temple, a decision that Solo privately disagreed with in his secret telepathic conversations with Snoke. On one particular expedition, Lor San Tekka led them to the former Jedi outpost on Elphrona, where they found a treasure trove of Jedi relics and encountered the Knights of Ren for the first time.[20] Items that Skywalker found on his quest included eight books and scrolls forming a collection of sacred texts,[13] a Jedi Crusader pendant,[11] Jedi holocrons,[20] and the contents of a cache hidden by Jocasta Nu,[21] former Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives.[22]
Skywalker's students learned the ways of the Jedi Order during their time at the temple, such as using the Force to open a holocron.
During his travels, Skywalker gathered disciples who would become his students alongside Solo when he began his training temple.[9][11] At the temple, Skywalker passed on his teachings to Solo and several other apprentices,[9] including Hennix, Tai and Voe.[6] In his lessons on the nature of the Force, he described how the Force flowed everywhere and all things were equal in the Force. Though some like Solo would find it easier to let the Force flow through them, that did not make any being stronger than another. Skywalker taught them Jedi techniques and traditions such as telekinesis, meditation, and the use and construction of lightsabers.[9]
As Solo[7] and his initial classmates[6] grew older and became Padawans, younger children continued to be brought into Skywalker's temple to become new younglings. A Twi'lek named Enyo was tasked with helping their training. At one point, after a series of visions and an aiding visit from Lor San Tekka, Skywalker left the young Solo in charge of the temple while he departed to begin his Quest for Exegol.[7] At times during Solo's training, Skywalker sensed darkness growing within his nephew, but believed that he could contain it and keep Solo on the path of the light. Solo, however, suspected his uncle was jealous of his power,[8] and expressed that he was more powerful than his uncle thought after Skywalker returned from the Quest for Exegol.[7] He kept secrets from his uncle and from his fellow Padawans until it was too late.[9]
Destruction[]
- "When I came to, the temple was burning. He had vanished with a handful of my students. And slaughtered the rest."
- ―Luke Skywalker, to Rey
Ben Solo was thrown back by the explosion of the temple.
One night in 28 ABY,[2] Skywalker's concerns for Solo had reached the point where he decided he must go to his nephew's room and confront him. While peering into the mind of his sleeping nephew, Skywalker sensed a growing darkness and the machinations of Snoke. Instinctively, Skywalker ignited his lightsaber. However, it was a fleeting moment and Skywalker was soon overcome by shame and regret. Waking to find his uncle standing over him with lightsaber drawn, Solo believed he meant to kill him and fought Skywalker, destroying his own dwelling with the Force in the process.[8]
Believing his uncle dead, Solo left the ruins of his room, confused and consumed with despair and rage at the betrayal.[6] Led by his fear and anger, Solo destroyed the temple and many of its students[23] with a powerful lightning storm from the sky that set the temple ablaze and killed the Jedi inside.[6] Although he had caused the destruction,[13] he was shocked by the outcome. Hennix, Tai, and Voe returned in their starship Verity while the temple still burned. Sensing only Solo's presence, they confronted their fellow pupil, who told them that Skywalker had tried to kill him. Skeptical of Solo's account and wary of his perceived arrogance, they tried to detain him, but he escaped in his starship and sought Snoke on a space station. Hennix, Tai, and Voe resolved to find Solo in order to find out what happened.[6] In the resulting confrontations, Solo inadvertently killed Hennix,[9] the leader of the Knights of Ren known as "Ren" killed Tai, and Solo killed Voe.[24]
A defeated Skywalker and R2-D2 watch the temple burn.
At some point after its destruction, a distraught Skywalker emerged from the ruins of Solo's hut, approached R2-D2, and fell to his knees, watching the temple he'd built burn, knowing that Solo had destroyed the Temple and caused the deaths of his fellow pupils.[3][8]
Legacy[]
- "Leia blamed Snoke, but it was me. I failed. Because I was Luke Skywalker. Jedi Master. A legend."
- ―Luke Skywalker, to Rey
The destruction of Luke Skywalker's Jedi temple would have substantial repercussions for both Skywalker and Ben Solo.[8] Skywalker incorrectly believed Solo had slaughtered those who wouldn't turn to the dark side and recruited the others to leave with him.[17] Overcome by grief and despair at his failure to rebuild the Jedi Order, Skywalker retreated to the planet Ahch-To in the Unknown Regions, the site of the first Jedi Temple, and brought the remaining Jedi relics with him. Skywalker believed that the Jedi legacy was one of failure and cut himself off from the Force.[8]
Skywalker's hope of restoring the Jedi Order was all but lost with the burning of his temple and the deaths of his students. The Jedi thus retreated into exile on Ahch-To.
Having turned to the dark side, Solo adopted the persona of Kylo Ren and became Supreme Leader Snoke's apprentice[25] as well as a First Order warlord and master of the Knights of Ren. Prior to the Battle of Takodana, the young Force-sensitive scavenger named Rey had a vision that included glimpses of Skywalker and his astromech droid R2-D2 watching the burning temple in the background.[3]
Ren and Rey shared a unique connection through the Force. As their connection manifested into a powerful bond capable of bridging their minds across the galaxy,[13] Ren shared his account of the night he destroyed the temple, revealing to Rey his belief that Skywalker attempted to murder him and contradicting Skywalker's earlier description to Rey.[26] When Rey confronted Skywalker, he revealed further details of the encounter that preceded the temple's destruction, along with his beliefs about what occurred in the aftermath. This led Rey to hope Ren could be turned back to the light side.[8]
The remains of the academy after Skywalker's death
After the Battle of Crait, the newly christened Supreme Leader Kylo Ren briefly returned to the remains of the temple, attempting to find the ghost of his uncle and former master. Finding nothing but ruins, he ordered General Hux to destroy the remains with an orbital bombardment.[5]
Behind the scenes[]
Development[]
Luke Skywalker in front of the Jedi Praxeum, as depicted in the Star Wars Legends continuity
The burning ruins of Luke Skywalker's Jedi temple were briefly shown in the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, during Rey's vision.[3] Although the location was not identified in the movie itself, the novelization by Alan Dean Foster[18] and junior novelization by Michael Kogge both described that building as a temple.[27] In the 2017 film Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, Skywalker called it a training temple.[8]
Although it is most often referred to as a temple out-of-universe and most of the times as such in-universe, several out-of-universe sources refer to it as an "academy," such as the Star Wars: Card Trader card "The Fall of Luke's Jedi Academy",[28] a 2020 reference book Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection,[29] and one in-universe source "Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger," directed by Dave Filoni.[10]
During the early development of The Force Awakens, one of the many ideas that George Lucas envisioned for the Star Wars sequel trilogy involved Luke training his new disciple Kira (renamed Rey in the finished version of the film) at a Jedi temple located at the planet which ultimately became Ahch-To. Artwork from this period is included in The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.[30] Skywalker's Jedi temple and the Luke/Rey storyline ultimately made it into the flashback sequences of The Last Jedi.[3]
In Star Wars Legends, Luke Skywalker trained his new generation of Jedi at a Jedi academy known as the Jedi Praxeum[31] on Yavin 4.[32] After its destruction by the Yuuzhan Vong[33] Skywalker reestablished the academy on Ossus,[34] the same location it was initially established in canon.[7]
Non-canon[]
On October 1, 2021 on Disney+[35] the non-canon LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales depicted the temple in the segment titled "The Lost Boy." The LEGO depiction placed the temple near a populated town that was close enough for Ben Solo to reach by walking, rather than having a secret location. The segment also portrayed the Knights of Ren at the temple during Solo's initiation into their speeder bike gang, and Solo preventing Trudgen from burning the temple with a torch.[36]
Appearances[]
Non-canon appearances[]
- LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Mentioned only)
- LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales (In flashback(s))
- LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (In flashback(s))
- LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation (In flashback(s))
