The Jedi Returns

Once the Golden Boy of the Rebellion, Luke Skywalker Is Now a Hermit on a Far-far-away Planet. Can Plucky Padawan Rey Persuade Him to Return to the Fray? Director Rian Johnson and Star Mark Hamill Set the Scene for Star Wars: The Last Jedi
 

- James Dyer

SAN QUENTIN PRISON, STANDING room-only venue for Johnny Cash and the former residence of both Charles Manson and Danny Trejo, is the most famous landmark in Marin County, California. The second is built around a striking cream and grey house with candy-striped blue awnings on the aptly named Lucas Valley Road. If there’s a bright centre to the Star Wars universe, then this property, with its view across Lake Ewok, is most definitely it.

Skywalker Ranch has been the spiritual home of Star Wars since George Lucas bought it in 1978. Home to Lucas’ offices, Skywalker Sound and a small vineyard producing a surprisingly cheeky Pinot Noir, the ranch has nurtured almost every Star Wars project since The Empire Strikes Back. It’s rumoured to have cost Lucas $100 million, but the ranch’s true value is found in a nondescript barn, tucked behind the stables.

Within that building resides the Lucasfilm archives, home to almost every prop, costume and artefact that has gone into the Star Wars saga over the course of 40 years. Upon its endless shelves, model X-Wings lie scattered like children’s toys, jumbled among alien maquettes and several prototypes for the Millennium Falcon that resemble an android’s sex toys. Near an arsenal of blasters, lightsabers and abandoned gaffisticks gleams Raiders’ Ark Of The Covenant and, tucked behind it, the gurning likeness of Harrison Ford, still frozen in grey carbonite. Search and you’ll even find Vader’s final helmet, drooping and crispy from the Endor pyre  — a scene shot right here at the ranch during last-minute pick-ups in 1983.

If you were searching for inspiration on how to continue the Star Wars saga, there can be few more potent places in the galaxy than this.