Dear Johnny Fanboy,

I recently read the Star Wars: Empire - Volume 5: Allies and Adversaries graphic novel and I have a problem with the final tale in the collection, "General" Skywalker.

In this, a band of rebels land on an unnamed planet that is at the arse-end of nowhere. We learn that the planet is unnamed as it is soooo remote that no one has ever visited it. Nor are there any indigenous (animal) life forms (which seems odd given that it has a lush forest-like landscape).

After landing, Luke is surprised to find some graves - and so he should be. The graves are from a ship that crashed there years before. What are the chances of Luke and co landing right on top of the same place that a ship came down years ago? It's not like a planet is the size of a postage stamp!

Yours,

E. Woolf

Johnny Fanboy replies:

As Luke himself admits, the planet resembles Yavin Four, but with more jungle. It is therefore possible that there are very few clearings on this world and that the rebels landed in one of them, as did the ship that came down all those years ago. It is also possible that the clearing was kept clear or was even widened by the very fact that the previous ship crashed there. This makes the more recent landing site less of a coincidence.

Alternatively, maybe the Force itself led the pilot of the vessel to that part of the planet and then led Luke to the precise location of the grave, without them consciously realising it. Obi-Wan once described the Force as: "an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together." Therefore, it could potentially draw Force-sensitive individuals to the graves of the deceased, especially if the deceased were denied proper closure (because they died on a remote and unnamed planet, for instance).

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