It happens about 25 minutes into A New Hope. Luke—now just a scrappy farmhand on a dusty sand planet—begs his Uncle Owen to let him leave Tatooine and join his friends at the Rebel flight academy. Owen refuses, and Luke stomps out of the hut, defeated, resigning to a scraggly hump in the sand. Up on that isolated dune, we see this misty-eyed peasant kid, who seems at once so goodhearted and so tortured, peering up toward a purple sky. A dewey french horn plays a melody in the upper register. And when Luke gazes out at that sunset, we see that there are two suns looking back at him. Mysterious as it may be, it’s an image that has established itself as among the most recognizable in all of film history. But what does it mean, really? Today on May 4th–the pop culture holiday that’s come to be known as Star Wars Day–I keep thinking, after all these years, why do we keep seeing this Binary Sunset in Star Wars? The image is so significant to the series, appearing in Episodes III, IV, VIII, and IX, but it’s always understated. Unlike a lot of the recurring motifs of Star Wars, which… Click below to read the full story from Esquire
Read More
The Binary Sunset Has Always Held the True Meaning of Star Wars
