10 Star Wars Theories That Make Appalling Sense

At the beginning of Star Wars, Obi-Wan knows that Luke Skywalker is the son of the galaxy’s most powerful Jedi and has the potential to bring down Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire. But Luke has spent his whole life on a moisture farm on the backwater planet of Tatooine. There is no way the teenage Luke would join the mad old hermit Ben Kenobi on a jaunt into space, especially with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru denying him permission to even speak to Kenobi.

According to this theory, Owen and Beru are the biggest obstacles to getting Luke to leave Tatooine and take his place as the forger of the galaxy’s destiny. After all, Owen has been specifically tasked with keeping Luke safe from Darth Vader, which means keeping him from leaving the planet. When the arrival of Leia’s droids provide a reason to take Luke on his adventure, Obi-Wan first needs to remove those obstacles.

Kenobi uses a stormtrooper blaster rifle (which must be common on the Mos Eisley black market), assassinates Beru and Owen, and burns the corpses. As a soldier in the Clone Wars he’s easily a good enough marksman to produce the accurate shot grouping he later uses as evidence that stormtroopers committed the murders.

Now Luke has nothing to keep him on Tatooine, he eagerly joins Obi-Wan on his journey to Alderaan. Owen and Beru were just collateral damage, a worthwhile sacrifice for the greater good of the galaxy. And so it is that the New Republic is born as the old one fell, in deceit and bloodshed.