Star Wars: The Forces Awakens – Why Luke Left A Map To His Location

If Luke Skywalker didn’t want to be found then why did Star Wars: The Force Awakens reveal he’d left a map leading to his location? The main plot point of Star Wars: The Force Awakens revolves around Resistance fighter Poe Dameron and his droid BB-8 being entrusted with a map given to them by Lor San Tekka which tells of the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker, who has been missing for some time. With the help of a newly rebooted R2-D2, a missing portion of the map is revealed that points young Jedi-in-the-making Rey in the direction of an island on the planet Ahch-To.

That leads to the much-anticipated appearance of Luke Skywalker in the closing scenes of The Force Awakens, but flash forward to Star Wars: The Last Jedi and he’s none too happy about being found. Despite Rey’s desperate pleas for him to join the Resistance and take down the First Order, Luke is adamant – at least at first – he won’t leave Ahch-To and wants nothing to do with the Jedi or the Force. Which is odd coming from a guy who left a trail of crumbs that led the Resistance straight to his door.

Well, technically Luke didn’t leave a map to his location. Although the map in question is referred to as the “map to Luke Skywalker” throughout Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it’s a common misconception that Luke directly led Rey and the Resistance to him. According to the Star Wars Databank, Luke and Lor San Tekka colluded in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor to recover secret Jedi lore the Galactic Empire tried to destroy.

The book Star Wars: The Last Jedi – The Visual Dictionary expanded on their research, stating Luke Skywalker managed to pinpoint the location of the first Jedi temple to a remote island on Ahch-To but didn’t tell anyone what he’d found. However, his friends had an inkling as to where Luke might’ve disappeared to. As Han Solo says in The Force Awakens, “The people who knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple.”

Lor San Tekka came into possession of a fragment of the map Luke was using and when that was combined with the missing portion stored in R2-D2’s database, it revealed the location of the first Jedi temple on Ahch-To which was where Luke was most likely to be. So, the map in Star Wars: The Force Awakens wasn’t really pinpointing Luke’s whereabouts but rather the location of Ahch-To and the original Jedi temple – which makes Luke’s dramatic reaction at being found a little more understandable.