I see a lot of people asking about Galen Marek, also known as Starkiller, from the Force Unleashed
video games.
Will we see Starkiller in Rogue One?
Is Starkiller going to be on Rebels?
In my opinion, we’ve already seen Starkiller in the Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and in
The Force Awakens.
Hey YouTube, this is Urban Acolyte TV, and my name is Prince.
At the end of the summer in 2008, LucasArts introduced us to The Force Unleashed video
game, and a few months later, Lucas Films released “The Clone Wars” animated movie.
Both the Clone Wars movie and the series that followed along with the Force Unleashed video
game introduced this new idea—that Anakin Skywalker had a student that we did not know
about who would play a key part in Anakin’s story.
When Ahsoka Tano was introduced, the first question we all had was “what will happen
to her during the Clone Wars?
How does she die before Revenge of the Sith, or where will she be during Order 66?”
As Ahsoka’s character developed, the audience’s attachment to Ahsoka grew, and it suddenly
became all about how we don’t want Ahsoka to be taken out by the Jedi purge, but we
also don’t want to see her perish during the Clone Wars.
This is a point I am going to return to in a moment—so hold that thought.
Let’s look at Galen Marek in The Force Unleashed.
Galen is introduced to us as “Starkiller,” the secret apprentice of Darth Vader.
Starkiller is the proto-Inquisitor who is tasked with hunting down the Jedi who survived
the purge for Darth Vader.
Now whether Vader was being honest or not is a debate for a different time, but Vader
tells Starkiller that he wants to make him his apprentice so that they can defeat the
Emperor.
Of course, Emperor Palpatine, being several steps ahead of Vader,at all times, realizes
what Vader is doing, so he orders him to kill Starkiller.
It turns out that even though Vader impaled Starkiller and spaced him, this is supposed
to be a ruse as part of a bigger plan where Vader instructs Starkiller to find allies
to help lead a Rebellion in order to defeat the Emperor.
Galen seeks out General Rahm Kota who he’d blinded as a result of their earlier fight
when Vader ordered Galen to kill Kota.
Galen’s partnership with Kota eventually led to an alliance of several Imperial senators
who were in opposition to the Empire—Bail Organa, Garm Bel Iblis, and Mon Mothma.
Vader appeared during the meeting where he captured the Imperial senators along with
General Kota.
At this point, it is revealed that the entire thing was a ruse to round up and eliminate
the enemies of the Empire.
Every good video game deserves a good boss fight—so our hero, Galen Marek, travels
to an incomplete Death Star to face Vader and the Emperor and to save General Kota and
the senators.
Now the canon ending for the game is that Starkiller defeats Vader, rescues the senators,
but dies by the hand of the Emperor.
The senators go on to formally start the Rebellion, and they use Galen Marek’s family crest
as the official symbol for the Rebellion.
Now the thing that stands out about the story of Galen Marek, or Starkiller, is that this
was initially the canon story of how the Rebellion was founded.
As a matter of fact, the Star Wars character encyclopedia lists Shaak Ti as being the same
species as Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice, Ahsoka Tano.
It goes on to say that she escaped Vader’s massacre at the Jedi Temple and organized
a resistance against the Empire until Vader’s apprentice, Starkiller, defeated her.
I would imagine that this will be retconned so that Master Shaak Ti will have either died
during Order 66 or she was later executed during the Jedi Purge by Vader or the Inquisitors.
Since we’re on the topic of things being retconned—what happens with Starkiller now
that his story is no longer canon?
Will we see Starkiller again?
As I’ve already stated— I think that we have already seen Starkiller.
I think the idea of Starkiller, what that character represented was spread across several
characters.
Let’s think this out— After the Clone Wars ended prematurely, we never saw what
happened with Ahsoka.
Our last shot of her was leaving the Jedi Order as a 16 year old girl who was primed
and ready to step into her rank and title as Jedi Knight.
When we see Ahsoka at the end of season one on Rebels, about 15 years have passed.
She’s now a grown woman in her early 30s and a Master in her own right.
Now what she has mastered is up for debate.
Think of her as a Master in the same way we would consider the Legend’s character, Jolee
Bindo to be a Master—who also walked away from the Jedi Order during the Old Republic
era.
What we know of Ahsoka is that she was working in the background as Fulcrum for a period
unknown to us, at this time.
Dave Filoni stated that Ahsoka actually does have a full backstory that he would like to
tell.
I’m guessing Ashley Eckstein knows it, since she basically IS Ahsoka.
Fulcrum is working closely with Bail Organa, dishing out orders to these pocket cells of
resistance fighters.
It is possible that Fulcrum became involved with Cham Syndulla, Hera’s father, shortly
after the events on Ryloth in “Lords of the Sith.”
This means that Ahsoka, as Fulcrum, played a part in forming the Resistance.
She was obviously working with Bail Organa and possibly Mon Mothma.
She probably recruited the Ghost crew on Rebels, but she also recruited people seen in the
movies, like Wedge Antilles.
Even though we have no idea where Ahsoka is during the Original Trilogy, her impact is
present in the Original trilogy all the way up to the Force Awakens.
Whether intentional or not—Ahsoka has come to represent everything that Starkiller did
when he turned to the light and acted under his true name, Galen Marek.
As for the Starkiller dark persona—we have the Inquisitors.
The Inquisitors are literally force sensitive soldiers trained to be completely loyal to
the Empire and to carry out Vaders orders.
They are tasked with hunting down Jedi and other Force sensitive people.
If someone enters an Imperial Academy and their performance is greatly superior to their
classmates—they are taken to a secret facility to be trained as an Inquisitor.
That’s what happens with Zare Leonis’ sister, Dhara.
The same thing would have happened to Jai Kell if Ezra had not broken him out of the
Academy on Lothal.
The connection between Starkiller and the Inquisitors is pretty obvious, but I would
actually like to look at the connection between Starkiller and another character who is not
alive during the time period when Starkiller would have been active.
Let’s look at the connection between Starkiller and Kylo Ren.
Starkiller’s name is literally taken from the original name of the Skywalker family.
If you really think about Vader taking in this toddler and attempting to raise him—it’s
almost as if Vader discovered Luke on Tatooine and attempted to raise him in secret.
So think of Vader as like this twisted, abusive, surrogate father to Starkiller.
In Kylo Ren—well, Ben Solo—we have the actual blood descendent of Anakin Skywalker.
Kylo Ren’s nickname among the First Order officers is “Jedi Killer.”
As it happens—the original concept for Kylo Ren was the Jedi Killer.
The Jedi Killer was an Imperial officer in armor much like Vader’s.
His job was to hunt for Luke’s new Jedi.
Think of the Jedi Killer as the Grand Inquisitor with a coolness factor times 10.
In Kylo Ren, you have this interesting series of similarities to Galen Marek as Starkiller.
There’s the relationship to Vader—one as a surrogate son, the other as grandson
by blood.
There is this blind devotion to Vader and the Dark Side of the Force.
There is also the similar role of being the apprentice, the one who carries out the orders
of the Master to go hunt down and eliminate the Jedi and those connected to the Jedi.
I know some of you came looking for me to tease that Starkiller will show up in a later
season of Rebels or possibly in Rogue One.
I won’t rule out the possibility that Dave Filoni and his crew toss out something to
appease the fans, but the truth is that everything storywise, that Starkiller accomplished—someone
who is already canon has already done.
The Inquisitors have been hunting the Jedi who survived the Purge, and Ashoka is the
one, along with Kanan and Ezra, bringing hope to the Resistance as representatives of the
old Jedi ways.
I’d like to hear from you, though—Are you buying that Ahsoka has taken on the role
that Starkiller once had before Disney took over Star Wars?
Would you still like to see Starkiller?
If you do—what role would he serve?
Let me know what you think down in the comment section.
In case you have not seen it already, check out this video I posted yesterday about Ahsoka
and the Rebels crew in the season finale of Star Wars Rebels.
The leaked title is supposed to be “Twilight of the Apprentice.”
Do you think it could be Ahsoka’s last swan song?
You can also check out this playlist if you want to see all of my videos that I have so
far about Star Wars Rebels.
The links for those will be in the cards, so Just click the little “i” in the top
right corner.
That’s all I’ve got for now, thank you for watching, and remember that I love telling
you all about Star Wars so that it might change your life the same way it’s changed mine.
Y’all keep on breathing, and May the Force Be With You.