Luke Skywalker is one of the Star Wars franchise’s most powerful characters, with incredible Force-powered feats in both the canon and Legends continuities. In both timelines, Luke has astounding aptitude in the Force, but his brief training under Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, combined with his many adventures as a Rebel pilot, helped him hone his skills as he established a new generation of Jedi in canon and a New Jedi Order in Legends. Although Luke’s greatest strength will always be his humanity and comion for others, his incredible power in the Force has allowed him to perform amazing feats after the events of the original trilogy.
The Legends iteration of Luke Skywalker is often dismissed as “overpowered” which, sadly, oversimplifies his characterization in the once-canonical timeline. The Legends-era Luke is indeed powerful to almost absurd degrees, but he achieved this through countless defeats and learning experiences, which never came at the cost of his most down-to-Earth traits. The current canon’s Luke is, unfortunately, characterized controversially among Star Wars viewers, though not at the cost of some of Luke’s most impressive moments in the franchise. While Luke has a plethora of Force-powered feats in both the canon and Legends timelines, here are his greatest moments in the two Star Wars continuities.
Luke Interacted With The Physical World As A Force Ghost
Luke Skywalker’s brief appearance in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a breath of fresh air for viewers who left the previous film with a bad taste in their mouths. Appearing on Ahch-To to inspire Rey to continue the fight against the reborn Palpatine, Luke, now a Force ghost, catches his father’s lightsaber and later lifts his X-Wing out of the ocean, an homage to The Empire Strikes Back. Although Ahch-To is a planet particularly rich in the Force, it is still extremely impressive that Luke, even after his death, could interact with the physical world, a feat also demonstrated by the spirits of Yoda and Anakin Skywalker.
Luke Remotely Flew The Millennium Falcon
There are numerous impressive moments of Luke using the Force for telekinesis in the Legends continuity, but one of the greatest instances is found in Dave Wolverton’s 1994 novel The Courtship of Princess Leia. On the planet Dathomir, Han Solo is held captive by the Nightsister leader, Gethzerion, but Luke Skywalker rescues him from his torture by taking control of the Millennium Falcon without physically flying the famous vessel. Luke uses the Force to remotely pilot the freighter and operate its quad-turrets, firing blaster bolts with pinpoint accuracy that impresses even Han. According to Solo, neither he nor Chewbacca had ever flown the Falcon quite the way Luke did.
Absorbing Turbolaser Fire From An AT-AT
Throughout the Star Wars canon and Legends continuities, Jedi, Sith, and other powerful Force s block physical attacks such as blaster bolts and even lightsaber blades through the Force. In Tom Veitch’s Dark Empire comics, however, Luke Skywalker raises the bar for how much damage a Force- can shrug off by absorbing the cannon fire of an Imperial AT-AT walker. AT-ATs are among the Imperial army’s deadliest ground units, with heavy blaster canons capable of reducing a massive shield generator to rubble with a single, maximum-power blast. Luke’s Force barrier protects him from the walker’s blasters, allowing him to respond by collapsing the war machine with telekinesis.
Luke Became Immune To Ysalamiri Force-Blindness
Introduced in the Legends-era Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, the lizards known as ysalamiri have the distinct ability to render Force sensitives “blind” to the Force within a certain proximity. Clever non-Force-sensitives, such as the brilliant, yet sinister Grand iral Thrawn, use ysalamiri to protect themselves from offensive Force abilities. While ysalamiri are a devastating check on most Force-s, James Luceno’s 2000 novel, The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial, reveals that Luke Skywalker managed to resist their Force-dampening abilities. Through years of study and practice, Luke learned how to use his Force abilities even when in close proximity to ysalamiri.
Manipulating A Black Hole
Another one of Luke Skywalker’s most astounding feats of Force-based telekinesis is found in Michael A. Stackpole’s The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide I: Onslaught. During the Battle of Dantooine in the Yuuzhan Vong War, Luke took control of an artificially-created black hole, turning it against the Yuuzhan Vong before extinguishing it. In reality and the Star Wars franchise, black holes are superlatively dangerous astrophysical objects, with The Maw (a cluster of black holes in the Outer Rim) having been created to imprison the deadly Force-being known as Abeloth.
Creating Physical Decoys Of Starships
Luke Skywalker notably creates Force-based illusions in both the Legends-era Dark Empire comics and the current continuity’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but in later Legends works, he takes this ability a step further by creating intricate, physical duplicates of starships with the Force. This astounding ability first appears in Troy Denning’s novel Dark Nest I: The er King, in which Luke recreates Mara Jade’s vessel, the Jade Shadow, though the effort is extremely physically debilitating to him. Luke uses the power again in Denning’s Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen, however, with far more ease and without the same side effects.
Reaching Out To Every Jedi In The Galaxy Simultaneously
Luke famously reaches out to Leia through the Force in The Empire Strikes Back, helping her find him on Bespin, but as the leader of the New Jedi Order, he has become far more skilled in telepathy. In Denning’s Dark Nest III: The Swarm War, Luke sends a message to every member of the New Jedi Order simultaneously. Jedi across the galaxy hear Luke’s message, whether or not they are able to pause what they are doing, making the sheer scale of Luke’s telepathic powers unrivaled.
Luke Became Immoveable
Another astounding Force-powered feat found in The Swarm War is Luke’s method of deflecting a Force-based attack from Raynar Thul. During the Battle of Tenupe, Thul attempts to blast Luke back with the Force, but Skywalker uses the Force to root himself, becoming completely immovable. Skywalker is described as being so unyielding that even the black hole at the center of the Star Wars galaxy would not have been able to affect him.
Luke Combined His Greatest Abilities To Defeat Abeloth
Among Luke’s greatest Force powers are his ability to achieve a state of oneness with the Force (akin to becoming a Force ghost without dying) and separating his mind from his physical body (traversing “beyond shadows”). Against the cosmic being Abeloth, Luke combined these abilities, becoming a conduit of the Force itself, which allowed him to temporarily destroy her while fending off a treacherous Darth Krayt. Of all Luke Skywalker’s Force-powered feats in both the Star Wars canon and Legends continuities, combining his abilities to defeat Abeloth is his greatest.
