Star Wars has had destiny and prophecy baked into it from the very beginning, with the Force invisibly guiding our characters towards their intended destinations. But sometimes, you have to sit back and wonder about the crazy chain of coincidences that kick off A New Hope.
The plot begins with C-3PO and R2-D2 escaping to Tatooine to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, only to be captured by Jawas. In a massive bit of luck for the future of the galaxy, they’re then sold to a young Luke Skywalker (the son of the guy that built C-3PO in the first place!) and they only buy them because their first choice of droid blows up.
If that red astromech droid hadn’t malfunctioned, Luke might never have seen the message, never found Obi-Wan, never left Tatooine and never become a Jedi and saved the galaxy. So, what would this alternate Luke have ended up doing with his life? Well, the question was put to Mark Hamill by a fan on Twitter, who asked what his profession might have been if destiny hadn’t come knocking, and here’s what the actor said:
“I’d like to think he would have been a teacher.”
Thing is, Luke did become a teacher in the Sequel Trilogy and it didn’t go particularly well. In the wake of Return of the Jedi, he set up a training academy for young Padawans, only for him to fail to prevent Ben Solo from being seduced to the Dark Side by Snoke. After Ben awoke to find Luke hovering over him with a lit lightsaber, his rage brought down a lightning storm on the school, destroying it and killing many of the students.
Clearly scarred by the experience, Luke became a hermit and only very reluctantly trained Rey in the Force in The Last Jedi. Still, this at least proves that he always had the instincts to teach, even if he considered himself to have failed Kylo Ren. So, in the end, Luke turned out to be a decent teacher – leaving aside that one time he attempted to murder one of his pupils. Hey, we all have off days.