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- "Owen is strong like his father: pragmatic and certain of his ways, grateful for simple joys and for his life on the moisture farm."
- ―Shmi Skywalker Lars
Owen Lars was the son of moisture farmer Cliegg Lars and the stepbrother of Anakin Skywalker. He married Beru Whitesun, and after his father's death, inherited his moisture farm. In 19 BBY, Beru convinced Owen to adopt Anakin's son, Luke Skywalker, as Anakin had turned to the dark side and become the infamous Darth Vader.
Owen and Beru raised their nephew as well as they could, and Owen instilled into Luke the values of his own childhood. Fearful of Luke's potential, and distrustful of the outside galaxy, Owen attempted to keep Luke isolated and ignorant of his true parentage.
Biography[]
Youth[]
Owen was born on the Core World Ator, the homeworld of his birth mother, Aika Lars. Aika died when Owen was very young, so he and his father returned to his father's homeworld of Tatooine. Owen lived with his father Cliegg on their moisture farm. He helped his father buy Shmi Skywalker from Watto. Shortly after freeing her and her son Anakin's protocol droid, C-3PO, Shmi and Cliegg married, making her Owen's stepmother. Shmi often told her new family how much she missed her son Anakin, who had been freed by a Jedi to join the Jedi Order years before.
Over the next few years, Owen met a beautiful girl named Beru Whitesun, and the two fell in love. Beru moved in with Owen and his family and they lived contentedly together. However, tragedy would soon strike when Shmi was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders about a month before the start of the Clone Wars. Organizing a group of thirty other local settlers, Owen and Cliegg set out to find Shmi; however, their attempt was inherently doomed as the Tuskens set a trap. Only four of the settlers made it through, and Cliegg lost one of his legs. Owen built a hover chair for his father to maneuver following this injury.
Clone Wars[]
- "I guess I'm your stepbrother. I had a feeling you might show up someday."
- ―Owen Lars to Anakin Skywalker
Owen Lars, in his early twenties, just before the outbreak of the Clone Wars
One month after Shmi's kidnapping, her Jedi son (now Owen's stepbrother), Anakin Skywalker, came to the Lars' moisture farm looking for his mother. Accompanying him was Padmé Amidala. Owen introduced himself and Beru to the guests and Cliegg explained of the Tusken Raider's taking of Shmi. He told Anakin he would do anything to help out the young Jedi, but his injury was too far from healed, and could not have been much of a help. That night Anakin set out to look for Shmi on his own. The next morning, he brought back Shmi's lifeless body, quietly blaming the Larses for being too weak to protect her. A small funeral was organized and soon afterward, Anakin and Padmé left and were allowed to take C-3PO with them.[11]
Owen and Beru married in 21 BBY and took over the moisture farm the next year when Cliegg succumbed to his injuries and passed away.[2][12] Shortly after the end of the Clone Wars and after Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader, Owen and Beru were contacted by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin's former mentor. Kenobi informed them that Anakin fathered two children (a pair of twins), and his son Luke needed a family. Beru convinced Owen to adopt him, and Kenobi delivered the baby to them shortly afterward. Owen stubbornly kept his distance and his back turned to Kenobi as he handed baby Luke to Beru.[13]
Raising Luke[]
- "Nobody could love their boy more."
- ―Owen Lars
Fearful of having Luke follow Anakin's path, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru protected their nephew from his past by telling him that his father, rather than being a Jedi Knight, "was a navigator on a spice freighter". Owen also tried to keep him away from the "crazy old hermit," "Ben" Kenobi.
A few years later, Kenobi had found Luke and his friend Windy Marstrap alone in the Jundland Wastes. The two youths had tried to ease their boredom by riding Windy's pet dewback around in the Wastes. They had been thrown in one of the canyons and had gotten bruised up. By dusk, Luke and Windy still hadn't found their way out of the canyon until they were discovered by Ben Kenobi. After Kenobi guided them back to the Lars farm, Luke expected Owen to "skin his hide". Instead, Owen confronted and berated Kenobi.[15]
Owen and Luke
The reason for Owen's anger was that Kenobi had attempted to give Anakin's lightsaber to Luke, since he felt that Luke was old enough and should be allowed to have it. Owen refused to allow it because he believed the Jedi path was a destructive one. He told Kenobi he didn't want Luke to make the same mistakes his father did, stating how he felt Anakin should have never left his mother in slavery and gotten involved with the "damned foolish idealistic Jedi crusaders" in the first place. He vehemently told Kenobi to leave and to stay away.
Luke, however, being Anakin's son, had wild dreams for a different and adventurous future. Despite Owen's vague promises that he would sometime be free to live his own life, he always prevented Luke from leaving the isolation and anonymity of life on the planet Tatooine, claiming his importance to the farm. This stance sometimes brought turmoil between their relations as Luke's hopes were never satisfied. When talking about his Aunt and Uncle with Akanah, Luke remembered his Uncle as always seeming annoyed. He regarded him as a hardworking man, but also one who was hard to talk to and know.[16]
Kenobi continued to watch Luke from a distance, sometimes seeing Luke pilot his T-16 skyhopper, although Luke would frequently crash.[17]
Death[]
- "Have you seen Luke this morning?"
"He said he had some things to do before he started today, so he left early."
"Uh? Did he take those two new droids with him?"
"I think so."
"Well, he'd better have those units in the South Range repaired by mid-day or there'll be hell to pay." - ―Owen and Beru
Darth Vader giving the execution orders
By the time of the Galactic Civil War, extensive exposure to Tatooine's twin suns had prematurely aged his body.[18]
Shortly before the Battle of Yavin, Owen and Luke met with the local Jawa traders, looking for a droid that could speak Bocce. Unknown to Owen, one of the droids was in fact C-3PO—now in gold plating—and his counterpart, astromech droid R2-D2. When Luke found Leia's hidden message inside of R2-D2, he told Owen and Beru that the astromech claimed to belong to an "Obi-Wan" Kenobi. Trying to keep Luke from learning about his father, Owen ordered him to give the droid a memory wipe.[8]
The next morning, Luke left early to find R2-D2, who had run off the night before to find his former "master." Owen and Beru never saw Luke again, for they were killed by Imperial stormtroopers who were looking for R2-D2 on behalf of Owen's stepbrother, Darth Vader, after the droid escaped with the stolen plans for the first Death Star.[8] According to the recollection of stormtrooper Davin Felth, the farmers were killed after Owen spat in the face of the squad's commanding officer, Mod Terrik, they were then each shot with a blaster before their bodies were semi-cremated with a flamethrower.[19] Their execution was ordered by Darth Vader, who watched it via hololink, feeling it was "revenge" for their supposed weakness, and "failure" to defend his mother.[20] It was carried out by the unit under the command of DSS-0956, in order to cover the evidence of their actions.[21]
Legacy[]
The charred corpses
Laze Loneozner and his wife Camie looked after the Lars farm for the first few months after Owen's death, until Luke returned to Tatooine and gave his inheritance to the alien named Throgg. The farm eventually came under the ownership of the parents of Gavin Darklighter sometime around the Battle of Hoth.
When Luke traveled to Nam Chorios in the year 13 ABY, he called himself Owen Lars, to hide his true identity from the local population.[22]
Well over a century following Owen Lars' death, the Lars homestead was used as a shelter during a sandstorm by Luke's descendant, the former Jedi Cade Skywalker. Owen appeared in a vision to Cade along with Beru and Luke, which later showed the aftermath of the Empire's attack on the farm. Luke, having since become a Force ghost, would then warn Cade that he wasn't the only one to lose loved ones, and that he was well on his way to becoming a Sith if he didn't change the course of his life.
Personality and traits[]
Life on Tatooine[]
The simple life was all Owen wanted, with some might considering him unadventurous. When he was barely out of his teens, few things had altered in his life, those that did generally changed for the worse. He had grown increasingly worried about the threat Tusken Raiders' posed as about some 70 years earlier, they had wiped out the inhabitants of Fort Tusken. Both Cliegg and the nonviolent Owen knew that their farm would be easily overran if the nomads' decided to attack.[23]
An improvement on Owen's life came with the arrival of Shmi Skywalker, he was pleased with the happiness Shmi brought his father. The farmer felt the loss of his mother and grew to love Cliegg's new wife almost as much as his birth mother, calling her "mum." With Owen's loss of his mother and Shmi's loss of her own son, the presence of the other helped provide something they had lost. The two grew very close and Shmi would often talk to Owen about his stepbrother and her feelings for Anakin, until he had almost felt like he knew him. Another improvement in Owen's life came with the arrival of his girlfriend Beru Whitesun. Though just when he had a lot to look forward too, his fears about the farm's security with the Tusken Raiders' grew.[23]
Owen, Beru, and Luke[]
Owen fell in love with Beru after meeting her in Anchorhead.[9] The farmer could be single-minded in the pursuit of what he wanted, and he knew Beru was the right girl for him when they first met. Both Beru and Owen had little desire to travel beyond what was nearby. Her characteristics made her ideally suited for becoming a wife of a moisture farmer. However, Owen had seen past that and saw the compassionate and playful woman. He privately enjoyed Beru's good-natured spats with his father, even if he felt the need to publicly disapprove.[23]
Beru convinced the reluctant farmer to adopt Luke Skywalker.[9] Never shirking a duty in his life, Owen worked hard to raise Luke, with Beru tempering Owen's bitterness with warmth and love.[7] The strict and gruff demeanor of the caring guardian led to tension between him and his nephew, causing Beru to iron out the differences.[1] The pair brought up Luke to do chores and taught him the value of hard work, loyalty, commitment, and compassion.[24]
Luke was given the surname Skywalker as a tribute to the beloved Shmi, though Owen, attempting to raise him as a normal youth, would not tell Luke anything about his father, other than he was an[24] undistinguished[7] navigator on a space freighter.[24] The farmer tried to prevent Luke from following the Jedi path that had led to his father's fall above all.[7] Owen indulged Luke's passion for speed, helping him buy a land speeder and a beat-up T-16 skyhopper.[7] Despite Luke's dreams,[24] the farmer forbade Luke to leave Tatooine and join the Imperial Academy,[1] refusing repeated requests[7] and reminding him that he was needed on the farm. Owen, however, could not reign in his nephew's drive for adventure, with Luke feeling like his uncle was stagnating his growth.[1] When Luke was a teenager, Lars found it hard to shrug off his gruff, as his protective attitude became a habit over the years.[9]
Appearance[]
When Owen was barely out of his teens, he was stocky and strong, looking like the farmer he had become. He had an open and honest face with short hair on his chin.[23] Lars had light skin,[9] blue eyes, and brown hair[7] that eventually greyed.[8]
Skills and abilities[]
Owen Lars was known to be good with blasters. Biggs Darklighter claimed Owen could hold off a whole tribe of Tusken Raiders with only one blaster.[25]
Equipment[]
Lars wore loose homespun clothing that protected against the sun and sand like all moisture farmers. When Anakin Skywalker visited the Lars homestead in[11] 22 BBY,[26] Lars wore a rough gray tunic made in Anchorhead, loose gray pants suited for a desert climate, sturdy brown boots, a brown belt with a tool pouch, and a simple overcoat that provided warmth in cold desert evenings.[9] He used a blaster carbine[1] and a black rifle.[27]
Behind the scenes[]
Portrayal[]
Owen Lars was first portrayed by American actor Phil Brown in A New Hope.[8] The young Owen Lars was portrayed by Australian actor Joel Edgerton in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.[11][13] Voice actor Pat Fraley portrayed Owen for Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike.[28]
Conceptual history[]
Owen Lars and his wife Beru appear in the rough draft to Episode IV as anthropologists working on Yavin. They are established as Luke's uncle and aunt in the second draft. In the later draft, Owen is a Jedi, and Luke is studying to be an archaeologist. Owen becomes a non-Force user in the third draft.[29]
Before enrolling to study cinematography at the University of Southern California, George Lucas intended to study anthropology at San Francisco State University. By making Owen an anthropologist in the rough draft, and Luke an archaeologist (considered a field within anthropology) he is referencing his own non-filmic interests. It is also interesting to note that Luke's plans to be an archaeologist in the second draft are sidelined by the need to become a Jedi (as in Episode IV, where he abandons his first plan, to become an Imperial pilot), much as Lucas' own calling as a director took unexpected center stage over his earlier academic interests.[30]
Relationship to Luke Skywalker[]
Owen Lars and Luke Skywalker
Before it was revealed in Attack of the Clones that Owen and Anakin become stepbrothers, it was intended to be that they were never brothers, and in fact Luke only falsely believed that Owen was his uncle. This was stated in most sources preceding Attack of the Clones, most notably in the Return of the Jedi novel, where Obi-Wan Kenobi refers to Owen as his brother. This managed to enter profiles of both characters in The Essential Guide to Characters and the second edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe. By the time of the publication of the third edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe in 2000, Owen and Obi-Wan were no longer brothers. However, in the book Jedi Apprentice: The Hidden Past, Obi-Wan says he remembers a brother named Owen, though this is not likely intended to be Owen Lars, but perhaps a reference to the inconsistency.
There are indications that characters within the Star Wars universe itself thought that Obi-Wan and Owen Lars were brothers, as seen in Voren Na'al's description of Owen in Galaxy Guide 1: A New Hope.
Ewan McGregor's stunt double in the prequels was Nash Edgerton, the real-life brother of Joel Edgerton.
Non-canon appearances[]
"Old Wounds"[]
- "I told you I'd keep him safe, and I will. Even if that means from you. You don't come back here. Understand?"
- ―Owen to Obi-Wan, after enduring Maul's attack
Maul attacks Owen with his own blaster.
Owen appears in the 2005[31] non-canon[32] comic "Old Wounds," written and illustrated by Aaron McBride and published in the anthology Star Wars: Visionaries. In 16 BBY[33] Owen and Luke looked out at the sunset at the Lars homestead while he taught Luke to say the word "vaporator." Owen told Luke to be quiet so that the twin suns could rest for the next day, realizing that Luke was growing tired and ready for bed. Hearing a noise in the distance, Owen pulled out his electrobinoculars, and saw a figure with metallic legs, unbeknownst to him, as the Sith Lord Darth Maul, who had tracked down Kenobi to Tatooine and sought vengeance on him for taking his legs decades earlier. Owen called for Beru to bring his rifle, as she did she questioned if a Tusken Raider was approaching, which Owen doubted given that the figure was alone. Owen ordered Beru to take Luke inside and attempted to dissuade Maul from approaching, but he kept running forward.[31]
Owen counted down from three and fired at Maul, but the Sith leapt in the air and telekinetically pulled the weapon away and struck the farmer down with it. As Owen lay injured, Beru begged Maul not to harm them. The Zabrak changed focus as he sensed Kenobi's presence and recounted his journey to find him through Luke while Owen continued coughing on the ground. After Kenobi burst out from the ground, the two Force-wielders dueled while Beru crawled towards Owen to check on him. At the end of the duel, Kenobi had his deactivated lightsaber aimed at Maul's head, but was unable to deliver the killing blow. Instead, Owen picked up his damaged blaster and shot Maul in the head.[31]
Owen after killing Darth Maul.
Kenobi told Owen that he would take Maul's body to the Dune Sea to bury it, to which Owen assented. Kenobi then asked if Luke was okay, to which Owen responded that he promised he would keep the boy safe, even if it meant from the Jedi. Owen then ordered Kenobi not to return to his farm. The Jedi carried Maul's body away while telepathically communicating with Luke that he would always be around.[31] McBride intended the title of "Old Wounds" to have a double meaning by referring to both Maul's previous injuries as well as the rift between Kenobi and Lars.[34] In 2010, an action figure based on Owen's appearance from the comic was released as part of Hasbro's Shadows of the Dark Side toy line. The figure was part of a pack that included a figure of Maul and a reprint of "Old Wounds" and the comic story "Marked."[35]
Appearances[]
Non-canon appearances[]
Owen Lars
- Choose Your Own Star Wars Adventure: A New Hope (Mentioned only)
"Skippy the Jedi Droid" — Star Wars Tales 1- "Sandstorm" — Star Wars Tales 15
- "The Rebel Club" — Star Wars Tales 19 (Mentioned only)
- "Luke Skywalker: Detective" — Star Wars Tales 20 (Indirect mention only)
- LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (GBA version only)
- "Old Wounds" — Star Wars: Visionaries
- LEGO Star Wars: Save the Galaxy!
- William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope (and audiobook)
